was peaceful. Quiet. Utterly predictable. Taplow Towers wasn’t the kind of place where good-looking men knocked on the door when they ran out of coffee. She should have realised that someone who could flirt as skilfully as Graeme must have had a lot of practice. And, sooner or later, would run out of coffee again.
At Taplow Towers she could work all day, and all night when she wanted to, at her computer without the slightest risk of disturbance. She’d had all the disturbance she could take…
Not that it had been easy to get in. The Residents’ Association felt safer with ladies of ‘a certain age’ but her somewhat disingenuous statement that she had ‘lost’ her fiancé had been received with a tactful change of subject and, apparently reassured that her heart was broken beyond mending, she’d been given a probationary tenancy. It still had a month to run. One false move and she’d have twenty-four hours to vacate the premises. It was in the rules and she’d signed on the dotted line without a qualm.
A little grovelling might be wise, she decided. ‘I’m truly sorry to have disturbed you, Lady Ashton.’
‘Very well, Miss Hayes. We’ll say no more. This time.’ And she finally smiled. ‘Everyone is allowed one mistake.’ Behind her the snufflings were getting louder and Jessie’s cough took on epidemic proportions as she continued to back up the stairs. ‘You should take some honey and lemon for that cough, dear.’
‘Yes.’ Cough, cough. ‘I will.’ Cough. ‘Thank you.’
The moment that Dorothy Ashton retreated into her own apartment Jessie turned, grabbed the handles of Bertie’s buggy and wheeled him inside, shutting the door very quietly behind her.
Then she turned and leaned against it, pulling the towel from her hair, swamped by warring feelings of exasperation and longing as she looked down at her infant nephew.
His little face was screwed up into a man-sized frown as he tried to focus on her and, in an attempt to reassure him, she leaned closer. ‘Well, Bertie,’ she murmured as she stroked his downy cheek with the back of her finger. ‘This is a fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’
It was a mistake. Jessie’s height and colouring was similar to Faye’s, but Bertie knew his mother’s voice. This wasn’t his mother. He opened his mouth, determined to let not just Jessie but the entire world know exactly how he felt about that.
‘Shh!’ she said. ‘Shh! Please, Bertie!’ Jessie knew very little about babies, but enough to understand that if she couldn’t keep him happy, and quiet, her days at Taplow Towers were numbered. She picked him up, put him to her shoulder. ‘I’ll find your mummy and daddy…soon. It’ll be fine. I promise.’ Bertie, for some reason, wasn’t convinced.
Instinctively she began to walk back and forth across the thick, sound-deadening carpet, the way that Faye had done on Sunday. She had a momentary recollection of her sister-in-law’s pale and exhausted face. Kevin hadn’t looked much better and he had to go to work…
And now some other nightmare must have befallen them. As she passed her desk, she grabbed her phone. She doubted that Kevin and Faye would be at home taking calls, but she could leave a message. They’d check for messages, surely? No matter what emergency had called them away?
But she didn’t have to leave a message. They had left one for her.
‘Jessie, darling, we need sleep, I mean really need sleep, and Faye thought—we thought—since you’re not just Bertie’s aunt but his godmother, you wouldn’t mind—’
Faye interrupted him. ‘There just wasn’t anyone else we could ask—’
Ask? Ask? They hadn’t asked, because they’d known what the answer would be! They knew she couldn’t have a baby at Taplow Towers!
‘I’m taking Faye away for a few days, no phones, no babies,’ her brother concluded. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘We’ll do the same for you one day. Promise.’
‘Fat chance,’ she snorted. Then, horrified by the enormity of her problems, she stared at Bertie. Bertie stared back for a moment before gathering himself to let rip. ‘No, Bertie!’ she begged. ‘Please, darling!’ Bertie wasn’t listening.
Everyone else was.
‘This is the final call for the British Airways flight to London, calling at…’
Patrick took his boarding cards from the check-in clerk and headed for Departure. It was Carrie’s lucky day. Thanks to his client changing his plea—he’d almost certainly been paid handsomely to do so to protect people in high places—he was going home. Since there wasn’t any chance of him sharing his house with anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old girl, he would ‘lend’ her the money to join her friends in France in return for some serious promises regarding work. In twenty-four hours she would be free.
‘So? Will you take it?’
Take it? Jessie had one hour before she was, to all intents and purposes, homeless. She would have been grateful for anything with hot and cold running water and a roof that didn’t leak; this was beyond her wildest dreams. More importantly, it was available immediately. Now. This very minute. It seemed almost too good to be true.
‘I can move in right away?’ She needed to reassure herself that she wasn’t simply hallucinating. Twenty-nine hours without more than twenty minutes of consecutive sleep and absolutely no peace of mind could do that to you.
‘Absolutely!’ Carenza Finch seemed rather young to be a householder on this scale but Jessie was beyond worrying about it. ‘I can’t leave the house empty, and besides, I’ve got to have someone I can trust to feed my darling Mao while I’m away.’ The cat, the one fly in the perfection of the arrangement, blinked at Bertie, who was perched on Jessie’s hip. Bertie stopped grinding his gums into her shirt and stared back. ‘I was at my wits’ end.’
‘Really?’ Was there an epidemic? Could you get immunised? Was she losing her mind?
‘Absolutely. So if you’re happy, I just need the rent,’ she prompted, ‘and the place is yours, lock, stock and whatsit for three months.’ She held out a pen. ‘All you have to do is sign on the dotted line.’
Jessie fished her spectacles out of her pocket and, propping them on her nose, glanced at the lease with eyes gritty from lack of sleep. It appeared to be a standard form used by the agency she’d contacted. She signed it quickly and counted out the deposit and three months’ rent in advance. In cash. Neither of them had time to wait for a cheque to clear.
Carenza Finch countersigned with a flourish, then she handed over the keys. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said, as she gathered up the money and stowed it carefully in a money belt concealed beneath her sweatshirt. ‘You will take really good care of Mao, won’t you? He likes liver and fresh cod—you have to break it up with your fingers in case of bones—and minced chicken. I wrote it all down for you…’ Jessie made a determined effort not to shudder. For a roof over her head, she’d mince chicken. ‘Oh, and the drill for looking after the plants is on the notice-board.’
Oh, great. She’d try not to kill them, although anything tender was inclined to wilt if she went within ten feet of it. But she took her responsibilities seriously. Why else would Kevin and Faye leave their firstborn on her doorstep? They knew they could trust her.
Maybe she should do something
