and she saw him breathe a sigh of satisfied relief. Had he actually contemplated the possibility of refusal? If he had, then he could be an Oscar-winning actor, because not at any point had he appeared to doubt the persuasiveness of his arguments.
‘But I shall have to discuss this with you in a great deal more depth before I commit myself.’
‘I thought you already agreed,’ he pointed out. ‘You either agree or you don’t agree.’
‘I will work for you provided you meet my terms and conditions.’
‘Don’t worry, money is no object.’
‘I wasn’t talking about money!’ she snapped, suddenly flustered at the situation she had let herself be talked into.
‘Order, please!’ Mrs Williams smiled at her sudden surge of humour. ‘I think it’s only wise that this is discussed in some depth. I’m sure you understand that Miss Ryan may have some misgivings, Mr Knight. But for the moment I need use of my office. I’m seeing the governor of the board in five minutes. Why don’t you two continue this discussion in the staffroom?’
‘Why don’t we continue this discussion,’ he said smoothly, rising to his feet, ‘in your quarters? It’ll be much more private. The open forum can be a hotbed for gossip.’ He looked at her with the smugness of a cat that had successfully managed to catch a wily little mouse. ‘We’re going to be talking about salary, despite your apparent aversion to money, and you wouldn’t want all your fellow teachers knowing what sort of pay packet you’ll be on, do you? They might all be lining up for jobs as private tutors in London!’
‘Splendid idea!’ Mrs Williams said on Rebecca’s behalf, obviously imagining a mass exodus of her teaching staff. She walked them to the door and shook his hand, pleased with the way things had turned out. She had anticipated the worst and was relieved that a solution of sorts had been found.
‘But…’ Rebecca began. She didn’t think that she had opened so many of her sentences with ‘But’ in all her life.
‘But nothing,’ he said, steering her out of the door and smiling at the principal. ‘You heard Mrs Williams.’
As soon as they were out of earshot, she turned to him and said stiffly, ‘I take it you’re accustomed to exploiting other people?’
‘Exploiting other people?’ He gave her an innocent look that didn’t quite sit with his dark, raffish good looks. Rebecca thought he looked about as innocent as Lucifer on a bad day. ‘I take advantage of opportunities, Miss Ryan. Perhaps I should call you Rebecca. I’m a great believer in employers being on first-name terms with their employees. Puts them at their ease.’
Rebecca, vastly ill at ease, not least because of the sidelong, giggling looks she was getting from the assortment of girls drifting from one class to the other, didn’t say anything.
‘And I’m Nick.’ He grinned to himself, as though at some private joke.
‘Why does Emily not carry your surname?’ Rebecca asked, leading him along corridors, past classrooms and finally into the secluded quarters of the dormitories. With no one around, she was unnervingly aware of his presence.
‘Because by the time Emily was born Veronica and I were so disillusioned with one another that she did precisely what she knew would stick in my throat.’
They had reached her quarters, and she opened the door to the small but comfortable sitting room. There was just enough room for a small flowered sofa, two chairs and a couple of tables, and on either side of the fireplace bookshelves had been mounted which she had crammed with her books. He strolled over to them and began perusing the titles, while she stood and watched him, arms folded.
Did he think that this was some kind of social visit? she wondered.
‘Why did you choose to live in the school?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for a young woman like yourself to live in the town and travel in?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? Mind if I sit?’ He sat down.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ She had a very small and very basic kitchen. Generally, she ate the school meals, although on her free nights she always went into the town to see her friends. It was one of the good things about working in the place she had grown up in. She had kept in touch with all her own schoolfriends and they met regularly to catch up on gossip. ‘I’m fine.’ His dark eyes raked over her. ‘Why don’t you sit down? You look very awkward towering over there.’
Thanks for the flattering description, she thought sourly. Yes, I do tend to tower, but there’s no need to bring it to my notice.
She removed her jacket and primly sat on the chair facing him. At least she wasn’t hot and stuffy now, but the blouse was still a ridiculous fit. She could feel her breasts pushing against the white material. She was also acutely aware of his eyes on her, and it seemed to her that out of the principal’s office there was something rather more assessing to his gaze.
‘There are a few things I want to make perfectly clear before I take up the position with you,’ she began before he could launch into any more personal asides. ‘Firstly, I want you to know from the start that if I am to tutor your daughter I must be given free rein to do so however I see fit. These are unusual circumstances, and sitting Emily down for formal classes as she would do in a school environment just isn’t going to work.’
‘And what are you suggesting here?’
‘I’m suggesting that she has to feel comfortable with me if I’m to succeed in teaching her anything at all. She will have an awful lot on her mind and she will need fairly gentle handling.’ He looked at her as though he disagreed with every word she had just spoken, but after a while he nodded.
‘Naturally, you will want to be informed of her progress, so I suggest we arrange a time at the beginning of each week, when we can get together for a short meeting, so that I can tell you how Emily is getting along.’
‘And in between these arranged…meetings…? Should we conscientiously ignore one another? Speak, but keep it to the minimum? Pretend that we’re total strangers?’
‘This isn’t a joke, Mr Knight!’
‘Nick.’
Rebecca ignored that. ‘I’m sure Emily will keep you up to date with what we’re doing.’
‘Oh, I doubt that very much. She’s managed to make herself very scarce on the occasion when she’s been forced to be under the same roof as me.’ His voice was bland, but she could sense emotion underlying it, and she felt a pang of sympathy. As a father, it must be difficult to realise that your only offspring would rather ignore you than include you.
‘That must be very difficult for you,’ Rebecca said sympathetically. ‘Being denied contact with your daughter, and then, when she’s a teenager, finding yourself confronted with a young woman you have never really known.’
‘Thanks for the vote of sympathy.’ He gave her a long, cool look and she immediately understood that private utterances along those lines were not welcome. She wondered whether his girlfriend had more access to his emotions, whether he showed her the sides of himself that he kept carefully concealed from the public gaze.
‘Fine,’
