Kitabı oku: «His Pretend Mistress»

CHAPTER ONE

SHE was panicking so wildly she could barely manage to turn the knob of the stout front door.

Her employer—soon to be her ex-employer—coming into the hall after her gave her extra strength. ‘Don’t be so…’ he slurred, but Mallon was not waiting to hear the rest of it. With shaking hands she yanked the door open and, heedless of the torrential rain deluging down, she went haring down the drive.

She did not stop running until her umpteenth glance behind confirmed that she was not being followed.

Some five minutes later Mallon had slowed to a fast walking pace when the sound of a motor engine alerted her to the fact that Roland Phillips might have decided to pursue her by car. When no car went past, panic started to rise in her again.

There was no one else about, nothing but acres and acres of unbuilt-on countryside so far as she knew. As the car drew level she cast a jerky look to her left, but was only a modicum relieved to see that it was not Roland Phillips.

Had she been hoping that the driver would be a female of the species, however, she was to be disappointed. The window of the car slid down, and she found herself staring through the downpour into a pair of hostile grey eyes.

‘Get in!’ he clipped.

Like blazes she’d get in! She’d had it with good-looking men. ‘No, thank you,’ she snappily refused the unwanted offer.

The grey eyes studied her for about two seconds. ‘Suit yourself!’ the mid-thirties man said curtly, and the window slid up and the car purred on its way again.

Though not at any great speed, Mallon noticed as, shock from Roland Phillips’s assault on her starting to recede a little, she also noticed that, with a veritable monsoon raging, only an idiot would drive fast in these conditions.

She trudged on with no idea of where she was making for, her only aim to put as much distance as possible between her and Roland Phillips at Almora Lodge. So far as she could recall there was not another house around for miles.

Her sandals had started to squelch, which didn’t surprise her—the rain wasn’t stopping; the sky was just emptying about her head.

That she was soaked to her skin was the least of her worries. She hardly cared about being drenched. Though she did begin to hope that another car might come by. If its driver was female Mallon hoped she would stop and give her a lift.

More of her shock receded and, feeling cold, wet, and decidedly miserable, Mallon half wished she had accepted a lift with the grey-eyed stranger.

A moment later and she was scoffing at any such nonsense. She’d had it with men; lechers, the lot of them! She had known some prime examples in her ex-stepfather, her ex-stepbrother, her ex-boyfriend, without the most recent example of that ilk, her ex-employer.

The rain pelted down, and, since she couldn’t possibly become any more sodden, Mallon stopped walking and tried to assess her situation. She supposed she must have put a distance of about a mile or so between her and Almora Lodge. She had sprinted out of there dressed just as she was, in a cotton dress—too het up then to consider that this was probably the wettest summer on record—and without a thought in her head about nipping upstairs to collect her handbag. Her only thought then had been to put some space between her and the drunken Roland—call me Roly—Phillips.

Mallon resumed walking, her pace more of a dejected amble now as she accepted that, new to the area, she had no idea where she was going. Her only hope was that someone, foolhardy enough to motor out in such foul weather, would stop and offer her a lift.

Surely no one with so much as a single spark of decency would leave a dog out in such conditions, much less drive on by without offering her a lift?

Perhaps that was why the grey-eyed man had stopped? He hadn’t sounded too thrilled at the notion of inviting her drenched person to mess up his leather upholstery. If, that was, his sharp-sounding ‘Get in!’ had been what you could call an invitation.

Well, he knew what he could…Her thoughts broke off as her ears picked up the purring sound of a car engine. She halted—the rain had slackened off a little—and she turned and watched as the car came into view.

She eyed the vehicle warily as it drew level, and then stopped. The window slid down—and at the same time the heavens opened again. Solemn, deeply blue eyes stared into cool grey eyes. He must have driven in a circle, she realised.

The man did not smile, nor did he invite her into his car, exactly. What he did say, was, ‘Had enough?’

Mallon supposed that, with her blonde hair plastered darkly to her head, her dress clinging past saturation to her body and legs, she must look not dissimilar to the proverbial drowned rat.

She gave a shaky sigh. It looked as though she had two choices. Tell him to clear off, when heaven alone knew when another car would come along, or get into that car with him. He looked all right—but that didn’t mean a thing.

‘Are you offering?’ she questioned jerkily.

His answer was to turn from her and to lean and open the passenger door. Then, as cool as you please, he pressed a button and the driver’s window began to close.

Feeling more like creeping into some dark corner and having a jolly good howl, Mallon hesitated for only a moment or two longer. She still felt wary, but she also felt defeated.

She crossed in front of the vehicle and got in beside the stranger. When he stretched out his hand nearest her she jumped nervously. The man gave her a sharp glance, her wariness of him not missed, she gathered. Then he completed his intention of turning on the heater and directing the warmth on to her.

Instinctively she wanted to say she was sorry—but for what? She roused herself—all men were pigs; he would be no exception, and she would be a fool to think otherwise.

They had driven about half a mile when he asked, ‘Where are you going?’

The car had a good heater and she supposed she could have thanked him for his thoughtfulness. But she didn’t want to get into conversation with him. ‘Nowhere,’ she answered tiredly.

He gave a small snort of exasperation. ‘Let me put it another way. Where would you like me to drop you?’

He was exasperated? Tough! ‘Anywhere,’ she replied. She hadn’t a clue where she was going, where she was, even—none of the area was familiar territory.

He turned his head, grey eyes raking her. ‘Where have you come from?’ he questioned tersely.

She was feeling warmer than she had been, and while she was still wary, she felt a shade more relaxed. To her ears this man was sounding a touch fed up because he had bothered to act as any decent human being would to a fellow person and had bothered to pick her up at all. But she had a feeling that if she didn’t soon answer he would open the door and tip her out. It was warm in the car. Somehow she felt too beaten to want to squelch out in the rain again.

‘Almora Lodge,’ she said. ‘I’ve come from Almora Lodge.’

She wondered if he knew where Almora Lodge was, but realised he probably did when he asked, ‘Do you want me to take you back there?’

‘No, I don’t!’ she answered sharply, tartly. She drew a very shaky breath, and was a degree more in control when she added. ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to go back there—ever.’

Again she felt grey eyes on her, but was suddenly too tired and too emotionally exhausted to care. He said nothing, however, but motored on for a couple of miles, and then started to slow the car down.

Alarm rocketed through her. Apart from a large derelict-looking building to the right, which stood in what looked like the middle of a field, there seemed to be no other dwelling for miles.

He slowed the car right down and steered it to what appeared to be the only respectable part of the derelict property—mainly the stone pillars either side of a gateless entrance that declared ‘Harcourt House’.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she cried fearfully, her imagination working overtime. She could lie buried for years in the rubble hereabouts, or in one of those about-to-fall-down-looking outbuildings, and no one would be any the wiser!

In sharp contrast to her panicking tones, however, his tone was calm and even—if a shade irritated. ‘Like Sinbad, I appear to be lumbered,’ he answered, which—recalling the tale of the old man of the sea who refused to get off Sinbad’s back—she didn’t think was very complimentary. ‘You don’t know where you want to go, and I’m not in the mood to play guessing games. I’m stopping off here to pick up some of my gear and…

‘You live here!’ she exclaimed in disbelief.

‘I live in London. I’m having this place rebuilt,’ he said heavily, going on, ‘I hadn’t intended to come down this weekend, but with this rain forecast I came down last night to check if a bad part of the roof had been made sound.’ That, it appeared, was all the explanation he had any intention of making. Because he was soon going on, ‘I’ve a couple of things to do inside that may take some while—you can either stay in the car incubating pneumonia until I can drop you off at the first shelter for homeless persons I come to, or you can come inside and dry off what’s left of your frock while you wait for me in a heated kitchen.’ So saying, he drove round to the rear of the house and braked.

Mallon stared at him for several stunned seconds, the homeless persons bit passing her by as her glance went from him and down over her dress.

With horrified eyes she saw that her dress was torn in several places. The worst tear was where the material had been ripped away in her struggle, and her bra, now transparent from her soaking, was clearly revealing the fullness of her left breast—the pink tip just as clearly on view.

‘Oh!’ she cried chokily, her cheeks flushing red, tears of humiliation not far away.

‘Don’t you dare cry on me!’ he threatened bracingly, about the best tone he could have used in the circumstances, she realised. ‘Come on, let’s get you inside,’ he said authoritatively and, taking charge, was out of the car and coming round to open the passenger door.

She did not immediately get out of the car. She’d had one tremendous fright—she was not going to trust again in a hurry. Thankfully the rain had, for the moment, abated. The stranger was tall and he bent down to look at her as stubbornly, a hand hiding her left breast, she stayed where she was, refusing to budge.

‘You won’t…?’ she questioned, and discovered she had no need to complete the sentence.

Steady grey eyes stared back at her and every bit as though she had asked, did he fancy her enough to try and take advantage? his glance skimmed over the wreck she knew she must look, and ‘Not in a million years,’ he said succinctly. Which, while not being in the least flattering, was the most reassuring answer he could have given her.

He left her to trail after him when she was ready, opening up the rear door and entering what she could now see was a property that was in the process of undergoing major rebuilding.

Mallon stepped from the car and, careful where she walked, picked her way over builders’ paraphernalia. The rear hall was dark and littered with various lengths of new timber. It was a dull afternoon. Up ahead of her an electric light had been switched on. From this she knew that, electricians having been at work, Harcourt House was no longer as derelict as it had once been and, if the front of the house was anything to go by, it appeared still to be.

Holding her dress to her, she followed the light and found the grey-eyed man in the act of switching on an electric kettle in what, to her amazement, was a superbly fitted-out kitchen.

‘Your wife obviously has her priorities sorted out,’ Mallon commented, hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

‘My sister,’ he replied, opening one of the many drawers and placing a couple of kitchen hand towels on a table near Mallon. ‘I’m not married,’ he added. ‘According to Faye…’ he paused as if expecting the name might be familiar to her—it wasn’t— ‘…the heart of the home is the kitchen. With small input from me, I left her to arrange what she tells me is essential.’

As he spoke, so Mallon began to feel fractionally more at ease with the man, though whether this was his intention she had no idea. She found she had wandered a few more steps into the room, but her eyes were watchful on him while he made a pot of tea.

‘There’s an electric radiator over there,’ he thought to mention. ‘Why not go and stand by it? Though, on second thoughts, since you can’t stand there nursing your wet frock to you the whole time, why don’t I go and find you a shirt to change into while you drink your tea?’

Mallon didn’t answer him but, discovering a certain decisiveness in him, she moved out of the way when he came near her on his way out. She was still in the same spot when he returned, carrying a shirt and some trousers, and even a pair of socks.

‘There’s a drying machine through there—that will eventually be a utility room,’ he informed her, and added, ‘There’s a lock on the kitchen door. Why not change while I go and check on a few matters?’

Mallon was in no hurry to change. She felt this man was being as kind as he knew how to be, but she wasn’t ready any longer to take anyone at face value. Eventually she went over to the kitchen door and locked it, presuming that, since the place was uninhabited apart from work hours Monday to Friday when the builders must traipse in and out of the place, it had been a good idea to be able to lock in the valuable kitchen equipment.

Quickly, then, Mallon made use of the towels. She was past caring what she looked like when, not long afterwards, her dress tumbling around in the dryer, she was warm and dry in the garments the man had brought her. She was five feet nine inches tall, but he was about six inches taller. She rolled up the shirt sleeves and to prevent the trousers dragging on the floor she rolled the legs of those up too—but she was stumped for a while as to how to keep them up. That matter was soon resolved when, her brain starting to function again, she vaguely recalled that some of the timber in the hall had been kept together by a band of coarse twine.

By the time she heard the stranger coming back, she had the largest of the hand towels wound around her now only damp hair, and was feeling a great deal better than she had.

She found a couple of cups and saucers, discovering in the process of opening various cupboards until she came to the right one that his sister, Faye, had not only organised the kitchen but had stocked it with plenty of tinned and packet foods as well.

Mallon had unlocked the kitchen door, and as the man came in she informed him, half apologetically for taking the liberty, ‘I thought I’d pour some tea before it became stewed.’

‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked by way of an answer, taking up the two cups and saucers and carrying them over to the large table. He pulled out a chair for her, but went round to a chair at the other side of the table and waited for her to take a seat.

‘Warmer, dryer,’ she replied, trusting him enough to take the chair he had pulled out for her.

‘Care to tell me your name?’ he asked when they were both seated. She didn’t particularly—and owned up to herself that she had been so thoroughly shaken by the afternoon’s happenings she didn’t feel at her sunniest. ‘I’m Harris Quillian,’ he said, as if by introducing himself it might prompt her to tell him with whom he was sharing a pot of tea.

‘Mallon Braithwaite,’ she felt obliged to answer, but had nothing she wanted to add as the silence in the room stretched.

He drained his cup and set it down. ‘Anything else you’d like to tell me?’ he enquired mildly.

Not a thing! Mallon stared at him, her deep blue eyes as bright as ever and some of her colour restored to her lovely complexion. She drew a shaky breath as she began to realise that she owed this man more than a terse No. He need not have stopped and picked her up. He need not have given her some dry clothes to change into. She acknowledged that it was only because of the kindness of Harris Quillian that she now felt warm and dry and, she had to admit, on her way to having a little of her faith in human nature restored.

‘Wh-what do you want to know?’ she asked.

He shrugged, as though he wasn’t all that much interested anyway, but summed up, ‘You’re a young woman obviously in some distress. Apparently uncaring where you go, apart from a distinct aversion to return to your last port of call. It would appear, too, that you have nowhere that you can go.’ He broke off to suggest, ‘Perhaps you’d like to start by telling me what happened at Almora Lodge to frighten you so badly.’

She had no intention of telling him anything of the sort. ‘Are you a detective?’ she questioned shortly.

He shook his head. ‘I work in the city. I’m in finance.’

From the look of him she guessed he was high up in the world of finance. Must be. To have this place rebuilt would cost a fortune. She still wasn’t going to answer his question, though.

He rephrased it. ‘What reason did you have for visiting Almora Lodge in the first place?’ Stubbornly she refused to answer. Then discovered that he was equally stubborn. He seemed set on getting some kind of an answer from her anyhow, as he persisted, ‘Almora Lodge is almost as out of the way as this place. You wouldn’t have been able to get there without some form of transport.’

‘You should have been a detective!’ She was starting to feel peeved enough not to find Mr Harris-financier-Quillian remotely kind at all!

‘What panicked you so, Mallon, that you shot out of there without time to pick up your car keys?’

‘I didn’t have time to pick up my car keys because I don’t have a car!’ she flared.

He smiled—he could afford to—he had got her talking. ‘So how did you get there?’

She was beginning to hate this man. ‘Roland Phillips picked me up from the station—three and a half weeks ago!’ she snapped.

‘Three…’ Harris Quillian broke off, his expression darkening. ‘You lived there?’ he challenged. ‘You lived with Phillips at Almora Lodge? You’re his mistress!’ he rapped.

‘No, I am not!’ Mallon almost shouted. ‘Nor was I ever!’ Enraged by the hostile suggestion, she was on her feet glaring at the odious Harris Quillian. ‘It was precisely because I wouldn’t go to bed with him that I had a fight with him today!’ A dry sob shook her and at the instant Harris Quillian was on his feet. He looked about to come a step closer, perhaps to offer some sort of comfort. But Mallon didn’t want any sort of comfort from any man, and she took a hasty step back. He halted.

The next time he spoke his tone had changed to be calm, to be soothing. ‘You fought with him?’ he asked.

‘Well, in truth, I don’t think he actually hit me.’ Her tone had quieted too. ‘Though I shouldn’t be surprised if I’m not nursing a few bruises in a day or two from the rough way he grabbed me,’ she admitted. ‘It was more me fighting him off, fighting to get free of him. He’d been drinking but he’d lost none of his physical strength.’

‘You managed to get free before…?’

‘Y-yes.’ Her voice was reduced to a whisper—she felt quite ill from just remembering. Then realised she must have lost some of her colour when her interrogator said, ‘It might be an idea if you sat down again, Mallon. I promise I won’t harm you.’

Whether he would or whether he wouldn’t, to sit down again suddenly seemed a good idea. Some of her strength returned then, sufficient anyway for her to declare firmly, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Harris Quillian resumed his seat at the other side of the table, then evenly stated, ‘You’ve had a shock. Quite an appalling shock. It will be better if you talk it out.’

What did he know? ‘It’s none of your business!’ she retorted.

‘I’m making it my business!’ he answered toughly. Just because he’d picked her up in a monsoon and given her shelter! He could go and take a running jump! ‘Either you tell me, Mallon,’ he went on firmly, ‘or…’ Mallon looked across at him, she didn’t care very much for that ‘or’. ‘Or I shall have to give serious consideration…’ he continued when he could see he had her full attention ‘…to driving you to the police station where you will report Roland Phillips’s assault…’

‘I’ll do nothing of the sort!’ Mallon erupted, cutting him off. While it would serve Roland Phillips right if the police charged him with assault, there were other considerations to be thought of. A charge of assault, and its attendant publicity, was something Mallon knew, even if she was brave enough to do it for herself, would cause her mother grave disquiet. But her mother, after many years of deep unhappiness, was only now starting to be happy again. Mallon wasn’t having a blight put on that happiness.

Obstinately she glared at Harris Quillian. Equally set, he looked back. ‘The choice,’ he remarked, ‘is yours.’

Mallon continued to glare at him. He was unmoved. What was it with him? she fumed. So he’d given her a lift, given her dry clothes to put on—she took her eyes from him. Her dress—albeit torn—would be dry by now. Her glance went to the kitchen windows, despair entering her heart—the rain was pelting down again with a vengeance!

‘I worked for him,’ she said woodenly.

‘Roland Phillips?’

‘He advertised for a live-in housekeeper, clerical background an advantage,’ she answered. ‘I needed somewhere to live—a live-in job seemed a good idea. So I wrote to apply.’

‘And he wrote back?’

‘He phoned. He works as a European co-ordinator for a food chain. He said he was seldom home, but…’

‘You agreed to go and live with him, without first checking him out?’ Harris Quillian questioned harshly.

‘Hindsight’s a brilliant tool!’ she exploded sniffily, and started to feel better again—it was almost as if this determined man was recharging her flattened batteries. ‘He said he needed someone to start pretty much straight away. Which suited me very well. He said he was married and…’

‘You met his wife?’ Quillian clipped.

‘She was abroad. She works for a children’s charity and had just left to visit some of their overseas branches. I didn’t know that until I’d arrived at Almora Lodge, but it didn’t bother me particularly. Roland Phillips works away a lot too. In fact I’d barely seen anything of him until this weekend.’

‘Is this the first full weekend he’s been home?’

Mallon nodded. ‘He arrived late on Friday. He…’

‘He?’ Quillian prompted when her voice tailed off.

‘He—well, he was all right on Friday, and yesterday too,’ she added. ‘Though I did start to feel a bit uncomfortable—not so much by what he said, but the innuendo behind it.’

‘Not uncomfortable enough for you to leave, then, apparently!’ Quillian inserted, and Mallon started to actively dislike him.

‘Where would I go?’ she retorted. ‘My mother remarried recently—it wouldn’t be fair to move in with them. Besides which I hadn’t worked for Roland Phillips a full month yet. Without a salary cheque I can’t afford to go anywhere.’

‘You’re broke?’ Quillian demanded shortly, and Mallon decided that she definitely didn’t like him. It was embarrassing enough to have to admit to what had happened to her, without the added embarrassment of admitting that, since she couldn’t afford alternative accommodation, she had nowhere to rest her head that night. ‘He forgot to leave any housekeeping. I used what money I had getting in supplies from the village shop a mile away.’

‘You never thought to ask him for some housekeeping expenses?’

‘What is this?’ she objected, not liking his interrogation one little bit. But when he merely looked coldly back at her, she found she was confessing, ‘It seemed a bit petty. I thought I’d leave it until he paid me my salary cheque and mention it then. Anyhow,’ she went on abruptly, ‘Roland Phillips had too much to drink at lunchtime and—and…’ she mentally steadied herself ‘…and seemed to think I was only playing hard to get when I told him to keep his loathsome hands to himself. It was all I could do to fight him off. It didn’t occur to me when I managed to get free to hang around to chat about money he owed me! I was through the door as fast as I could go.’ Mallon reckoned she had ‘talked out’ all she was going to talk out. ‘There!’ she challenged hostilely. ‘Satisfied?’

Whether he was she never got to know, for suddenly there was such a tremendous crash from above that they both had something else momentarily to think about.

A split second later and Harris Quillian was out in the hall and going up the stairs two and a time. Mallon followed. There was water everywhere. He had one of the bedroom doors open and Mallon, not stopping to think, went to help. Clearly the roof was still in bad shape somewhere, and with all that rain—that crash they had heard was a bedroom ceiling coming down.

‘Where do you keep your buckets?’ she asked.

An hour later, the mopping up completed, the debris in the bedroom confined to one half of the floor space, Mallon returned to the kitchen. In the absence of abundant floor cloths, she had used the towel from around her head to help mop up the floor.

Fortunately her hair was now dry, and she was in the act of combing her fingers through her blonde tresses when Harris Quillian came to join her. Whether it was the act of actually doing something physical, she didn’t know, but she was unexpectedly feeling very much more recovered. Sufficiently, anyhow, to realise she had better assess her options more logically than she had.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Harris Quillian remarked pleasantly, his grey eyes taking in the true colour of her hair. ‘You worked like a Trojan.’

Mallon couldn’t say he had been a slouch either, tackling all the heavy lifting, fetching and carrying. ‘It was a combined effort,’ she answered. For all she knew she looked a sketch—tangled hair, any small amount of make-up she had been wearing long since washed away, not to mention she was wearing Quillan’s overlarge shirt and trousers, and, thanks to paddling about in water upstairs, was now sockless. ‘I’d better start thinking of what I’m going to do,’ she commented as lightly as she could.

‘So long as you don’t think about going back to Almora Lodge!’ Quillian rapped, at once all hostility.

Oh, did he have the knack of instantly making her angry! ‘Do I look that stupid?’ she flared. But, knowing she was going to have to ask his assistance, had to sink her pride and come down from her high horse. ‘I was—er—wondering—um—what the chances were of you giving me a lift to Warwickshire?’ she said reluctantly.

‘To your mother’s home?’ he guessed.

‘There isn’t anywhere else,’ she stated despondently.

‘But you don’t want to go there?’

‘She’s had a tough time. She’s happy now, for the first time in years. I don’t want to give her the smallest cause for anxiety. Especially in this honeymoon period,’ Mallon owned. ‘But I can’t at the moment see what else I can do.’

There was a brief pause, then, ‘I can,’ he replied.

Mallon looked at him in surprise—wary surprise. ‘You can?’

‘Smooth your hackles for a minute,’ he instructed levelly, ‘and hear my proposition.’

‘Proposition!’ she repeated, her eyes darting to the door, ready to run at the first intimation of anything untoward.

‘Relax, Mallon. What I have to suggest is perfectly above board.’ She was still there, albeit she was watching his every move, and he went quickly on. ‘You need a job, preferably a live-in job, and I, I’ve just discovered, appear to need—a caretaker.’

‘A caretaker!’ She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re offering me a caretaker’s job?’

‘It’s entirely up to you whether you want to take it or not, but, as you know, I’m having the place rebuilt. I could do with someone here to liaise with plumbers, carpenters, electricians—you know the sort of thing. Generally keep an eye on everything.’ He broke off to insert, ‘Someone to mop up when the roof leaks. I’ve just witnessed the way you’re ready to pitch in when there’s an emergency. Later on, I’ll need someone here to oversee painters and decorators, carpet fitters, furniture arrivals.’