LITMIR.BIZ

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heart—no way!

      ‘Sir Marcus is more himself now?’ Madge asked, motioning Sebastian to the old armchair at the side of the vast kitchen range as she busied herself with the coffee things. ‘I was shocked, but not surprised, when he collapsed just before Christmas. He’d been working himself to a standstill since Lady Troone passed away, poor thing.’

      ‘Much better,’ Sebastian conceded as he accepted the coffee she handed him; strong, black and un-sweetened, just the way he liked it. ‘A few weeks on the warm shoreline below Jerez with my mother to cluck over him, and me, as his partner since my father’s death, to report back on both the London and Cadiz ends of the business, and he’s fighting fit again.’

      ‘Must be, if he’s gone and got himself engaged.’

      He noted the questioning tone, the undercurrent of anxiety, understood exactly where she was coming from, but decided to ignore it. Faithful and loyal though the good soul was, there was nothing the housekeeper could do. It would be unkind to tell her of his own deep misgivings and add to her worries. It was his problem and, utterly distasteful though it was, he knew how he had to handle it. But, for the time being at least, he would comply with his godfather’s request.

      ‘The decorators have finished?’ He deliberately changed the subject.

      ‘Yesterday.’ She sat at the central scrubbed pine table and ladled sugar into her milky coffee. ‘Sir’s instructions were just a plain, freshening-up job. No doubt his new wife will have her own ideas of how she wants to redecorate the house.’

      Visions of expensive designer chic—stark, shiny and completely soulless—flooded his brain again. He quickly ousted them and asked, ‘And the temporary staff?’

      ‘Ah.’ Madge’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Only two responded to the advertisement so it was Hobson’s choice. Sharon Hodges from the village—you might have seen her around? Big, bulgy, mouthy lass. Knowing that feckless, lie-abed family, I insisted she live in for the full six weeks; that way I can make sure she gets out of bed and starts work on time. And the other girl comes from Wolverhampton. A little bit of a thing, she is. Looks as though a puff of wind would blow her over—I did explain there was a good deal of hard physical work involved, but if that bothered her she didn’t say so. Come to think of it, she didn’t say much, just that her mother had died a few months ago and she wanted a stop-gap job while she decided what she wanted to do. Name of Rosie Lambert. She’ll be twenty the day after tomorrow, blushes if you so much as look at her and hangs her head as if she’s got something to be ashamed of.

      ‘Still.’ Madge Partridge heaved a resigned sigh. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. They both moved in yesterday and they’ve started on the bedrooms, getting rid of the paint splodges the decorators left. Quite frankly, I don’t think either of them will be what I’d call satisfactory.’

      ‘Leave them to me.’ Sebastian gave her the benefit of his warmly confident smile. If anyone knew how to get the best out of hired staff, he did. Madge had enough on her plate and for the time being, until he worked out exactly how and when and with the least hurt he could wipe the scales from his beloved godfather’s eyes, he would go along with his instructions.

      ‘The whole place has been run down for years,’ Marcus had confided. ‘Madge can’t cope with a place that size on her own and what help she has been getting from a village daily doesn’t make much difference. My fault. I should have had a firm of cleaners come in regularly, but Lucia, bless her, was dead against it. She couldn’t stand the upheaval and hated the thought of strangers touching her things. So hire a gang of live-in temporary domestics to get the place spotless before I bring Terrina back to organise the engagement party she’s set her heart on. After we’re married she can decide what she wants to do about staffing the place.’ His smile had broadened into what Sebastian had described to himself as a grin besotted enough to earn the title of imbecilic. ‘The first on her list of priorities will be a nanny!’

      In the way of manipulative, greedy women the world over—and Sebastian had had enough experience of the breed to recognise one when he saw one—Terrina had quickly found her prey’s Achilles’ heel. Marcus’s abiding regret was that his marriage had been childless. Armed with that knowledge, Terrina had allowed her sweetly confided desire to have a large family to become sickeningly repetitive.

      Making a conscious effort to stop himself from scowling, Sebastian announced, ‘Don’t worry about it, Madge, I’ll stick around long enough to make sure the show’s well on the road,’ before taking himself off to the room he’d always occupied on his visits there.

      Rosie Lambert sat back on her heels and pushed a descending strand of long pale blonde hair out of her eyes with a rubber-gloved hand. It left a trail of scrubbing water down the side of her face. Two tears slid down her cheeks, adding to the mess. She could feel a huge sob building up inside her narrow ribcage as she fumblingly tried to mop her face on the sleeve of the giant brown overall Mrs Partridge had given her to wear.

      She truly wished she had never come here, wished she’d never found the letter that had told her who her father was, wished she’d never listened to her friend and erstwhile employer, Jean Edwards.

      It had been a quiet Monday morning in the street corner mini-market owned by Jean and Jeff Edwards. Rosie had been working there full-time since her mother’s death and had gratefully accepted the invitation to move into the spare room in the living premises above until she found her feet. Anything to escape the flat in the high-rise block on the sink estate where she and Mum had lived for the past nineteen years.

      ‘You won’t want to work as a check-out girl and shelf-stacker all your life—not a bright girl like you,’ Jean had stated unequivocally. ‘You could even try to take the place at university you gave up when your poor mother became so ill.’

      Rosie had had no idea about the direction her life would take. She’d been angry, saddened and confused since absorbing what her mother had told her a few days before her death, since finding that letter afterwards. Not a state of mind conducive to clear forward thinking. And, because her mother had refused to let her have anything to do with the other children who roamed the estate like packs of half-wild little animals, Rosie hadn’t a friend in the world except Jean and her husband Jeff.

      She’d needed to confide in someone and Jean had listened. Two months later, on that quiet Monday morning, the older woman had produced the local paper she’d taken from her sister-in-law’s house in Bridgnorth when they’d been visiting the day before.

      ‘I was just glancing through it and saw this. It’s fate. Got to be. Read it.’

      And there, in the Situations Vacant column, something that had made Rosie’s heart emulate a steam hammer:

      Temporary live-in domestic staff required for six weeks from the beginning of March. Excellent pay and conditions. Apply Troone Manor, Hope Baggot.

      Followed by a phone number.

      ‘Apply,’ Jean had advised when Rosie had got over her shock sufficiently to stop shaking. ‘You needn’t actually take the job, but getting interviewed would give you the chance to at least get a look at the village where your grandparents lived and where your mother was born and grew up. You could get a look at your father, too—there’s obviously no doubt about Marcus Troone being the selfish wretch who got your poor mum pregnant, not from what you’ve told me—and decide whether you take to him enough to want to take it further. And, even if you loathe him on sight, he owes you big time. Stands to reason.’

      Like the clown that she obviously was, Rosie had truly expected to be interviewed by Sir Marcus Troone himself and had steeled herself to decide whether she wanted to explain who she was, or whether she’d hit him with her handbag for treating her poor mother so badly and risk being charged with criminal assault.

      Of course he wouldn’t lower himself to interview a humble cleaner, she’d chided herself, when she’d faced Mrs Partridge over the kitchen table. And had gone on to remind herself bitterly that Sir Marcus would only notice an employee if she happened to be young, pretty and a likely pushover.

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