where she was, like someone forced to appear solo on stage in front of a bank of critics.
‘I do apologise,’ she said neutrally, though from the look of amusement that crossed his face he could read the sarcasm in her voice quite easily.
‘How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Does your mother know that you’re running about applying for jobs when you should be at school?’
That really was the last straw. Mild-mannered she might be, but she suddenly saw red.
‘I am not fifteen,’ she snapped, her face crimson, ‘nor am I sixteen. And my mother is fully aware that I’m running about applying for jobs. In fact, I suspect she sincerely hopes I get one, considering I’m twenty years old and I’ve just finished at art college!’
‘In which case,’ he said smoothly, ‘why are you applying for a job as a cleaner? Are you hoping to bring something creative to the post? Perhaps redesign the dust into artistic swirls?’
Claire clenched her fists by her sides and looked away from him.
Very cool, she thought, very urbane to sit there and confuse me with lazy, sophisticated innuendoes. She hated men like that. Or at least, she thought honestly, she should do. But what she was feeling wasn’t hatred. It was far from that. She felt uncomfortable, exposed, conscious of her womanhood in a way that she never had in her life before. It was a heady, exhilarating, scary feeling, like freefalling from a plane, and in a strange way it was addictive too. She didn’t want him to stop looking at her. She had to force herself to come back down to Planet Earth.
‘I need the money,’ she said bluntly, ‘and I like this house. Manor,’ she corrected hastily. ‘I like beautiful things, and this house—sorry, manor—is full of beautiful objects. I studied art at college, you see. Did I mention that to you? I’ve always loved paintings, sculptures; they’re so much more soothing than all that grit and grime we see around us every day. Don’t you think?’
He was nodding in an abstracted sort of way and she wondered whether she was on the verge of losing his attention. He was probably finding her gauche and earnest, but she wasn’t the sort to play verbal games; she didn’t know how.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taking refuge in as cool a tone of voice as she could muster, but feeling deflated. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘Forrester. James Forrester.’ He didn’t stretch out his hand to hers. Instead he joined his fingers under his chin and continued to survey her with the sort of frank appraisal which she decided bordered on rude. ‘And your name is…?’
‘Claire Harper.’ That said, there didn’t seem much else to say and she hovered indecisively, wondering whether she could find the self-possession to smile blankly, utter a few closing pleasantries and take her leave.
He made her nervous and she wondered whether the housekeeper, Mrs Evans, had been right when she’d said that he was not around very much.
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ he said, ‘you look like a frightened animal about to turn tail and take flight. I won’t eat you.’
Ha ha, Claire thought, smiling weakly, very funny. She would have to get some lessons from her sister on how to deal with men like him. Jackie was far more adept when it came to the fine art of social interaction and savoir-faire. Staring and stammering definitely weren’t top of the league when it came to masterful social interaction.
‘I really can’t,’ she mumbled. ‘I want to get back before it’s too dark.’
‘I don’t think it’s possible to get any darker, do you? How did you get here? I assume you didn’t drive; there’s no car in the courtyard. Did you cycle?’
Claire shook her head. ‘Bus, then I walked the mile or so from the bus stop,’ she confessed, and he stared at her as though the concept of walking was very far removed from his idea of ways and means of getting from A to B.
‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll run you back in my car.’
She refused, of course, protested, backed away, which only brought a curl of amusement to his lips, but in the end he drove her back to her lodgings in his sleek burgundy convertible Mercedes, and when she hurriedly tripped out of the car, he followed her up to the house, putting her in a position whereby to stand at the door and tell him to go would have seemed impossibly childish.
‘You live here?’ he asked in amazement, looking around the kitchen, and she followed the direction of his gaze.
It was shabby. The linoleum was lifting from the floor, the appliances all looked as though they had seen better times in the Boer war and God only knew when the walls had last had a lick of paint. Judging from the accumulated layers of grime, decades ago. If you think this is bad, she wanted to tell him, you ought to see the bedrooms, but then she had a sudden, disturbing picture of him in her bedroom and launched into a confused apology for the scrappy condition of the kitchen, explaining how difficult it was to get somewhere cheap and presentable to rent when landlords seemed to adhere to the belief that there was no reason to do anything but the very basic with their accommodation when lack of choice would bring tenants anyway.
Her voice trailed off and she stared at him nervously. The other girls were not yet back from work, although they would be shortly, and in her haste to hurry him out of the house before they returned and began asking her a series of questions about him, she took him by the arm to lead him back to the side door.
The jolt of awareness that shot through her at the slight physical contact brought hectic colour to her cheeks and she sprang back, alarmed.
‘Take good care of my house,’ he drawled, watching her face and leaving her with the impression that he was well aware of the effect he had on her. ‘Sorry—manor.’
There was a little silence and she raised her eyes reluctantly to his, and for some reason her head began to spin and her mouth went completely dry. He was so overpowering, with those potent, dark good looks and that air of lazy sex appeal which she could glimpse quite easily now that some of his cold arrogance was no longer in evidence.
Only when he left did she relax, leaning heavily against the door and breathlessly telling herself that Jackie would die laughing if she could see her now.
She would have seen all that crazy self-consciousness and stammering shyness as one hundred per cent predictable. If you’d read fewer books and done more partying as a girl, if Mum and Dad hadn’t treated you like breakable china, if you’d stayed in London and allowed me to sort you out, if, if, if… Jackie would never have understood.
She didn’t understand it herself. In the car, surrounded by darkness, listening to that deep, sery voice as he chatted about Frilton Manor, she had felt as though she was drowning. Confused and nervous, but wonderfully so. As if she was truly alive for the first time in her life. Sleeping Beauty awakened by a magical kiss.
It was another fortnight before she saw him again, but after that they seemed to bump into each other on a regular basis. He was working from home. She gleaned that from Mrs Evans, who also told her that that in itself was highly unusual.
Unusual or not, Claire found that the prospect of him being in the manor made her wake up in the mornings raring to go, although she didn’t question why this should be so. She found herself listening for his footsteps, contriving to be in the same room as he was, always making sure that there was a duster and
