got the feeling she didn’t do it very often. ‘And you’ve worked since when?’
‘Since I was sixteen.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Secretarial work, mainly—although I like to think I’m flexible enough to turn my hand to pretty much most things. My last job was in a boarding school. Before that I was in a hotel.’
‘But always live-in jobs?’
‘That’s right. I’m hoping to save up for a deposit on my own place one day.’ When she’d cleared the massive debt which hung like a heavy weight dangled over her head.
‘And you had no desire to go to university?’
Ashley sighed, wondering why people always leapt to such predictable conclusions. Of course she’d wanted to go to university—but desire and feasibility were two entirely different things. Moving innumerable times in your formative years and attending some of the worst schools in the country did not tend to provide you with the kind of academic qualifications you needed to go to college.
‘It just didn’t work out that way,’ she said quietly.
He heard the quiet defensiveness in her voice and something made him want to pursue it. ‘No pushy parents?’
She swallowed. ‘I have no parents.’
‘No, I thought not,’ he said softly.
Ashley stared at him. Was he some sort of mind-reader—or did she just carry an invisible aura about her which proclaimed ‘orphan’? Her lips trembled. ‘H-how?’
‘Because there is something oddly self-contained about you,’ he answered cryptically, thinking how innocent she looked when her lips shivered like that. ‘Something which tells me you have been looking after yourself for a long time.’
‘You are very perceptive,’ she said slowly, almost to herself, and she saw his eyes narrow.
‘I’m a writer,’ he said mockingly. ‘It goes with the territory. We may not be the best people at engaging in social niceties—but our observational skills are highly honed. Which is why I’d also hazard that you’re a city girl?’
‘Because I walk in lanes and scare the horses?’
‘There’s that of course. And by your pale face, which looks as if it has never seen sunshine,’ he observed, finding his gaze drawn once more to her features. She was no beauty, that was for sure—and yet she had something which set her apart. Was it her eyes, which looked like a paintbox swirl of different greens? Or something about her quietness and watchful air? You didn’t meet very many women with that rare air of containment, not these days. ‘Very pale,’ he finished slowly as an odd kind of lump rose in his throat.
And once again, Ashley felt a sudden sense of awareness begin to sizzle at her skin as his black eyes captured her in their gaze. The intimate flicker of the firelight seemed to have marooned them in their own private world where none of the usual rules seemed to apply. One where her new boss could study her as if she were beneath a microscope—and she would accept it as perfectly normal. She cleared her throat as she scrabbled round for something to break this oddly hypnotic and mesmerising mood.
‘Did…’ she hesitated ‘… did the hospital give you the all-clear?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why, do you think I have taken leave of my senses? That I’m speaking in a deranged way?’
‘Since this is only the second time I’ve met you, it’s far too early for me to make a judgement like that.’
At this Jack gave a low laugh and leaned further back into the cushions of the chair. So behind that demure, pale face she was capable of sarcasm, was she? Just as it seemed she was capable of answering his questions with an honesty which was as rare as it was disarming. Which would suggest she wasn’t quite as mouselike as her appearance suggested. ‘You’ll have to let me know when you come to a verdict about my sanity,’ he mocked softly.
Ashley bit back a smile. ‘I don’t actually think that’s in my job specification.’
‘Perhaps not.’ He bent to toss another log into the smouldering fire. ‘So what did the agency tell you about the job?’
He rested his hands against his chest as he waited for her answer—his fingers steepled together against the dark shadow of his jaw. The pose was faintly brooding—so that for a moment Ashley thought it looked as if he were holding an imaginary gun and the stark and unexpected metaphor unsettled her. She guessed that with his army experience, he was no stranger to guns and violence.
But more than anything, in that moment, Jack Marchant looked all dark and rampant sexuality. Like every woman’s fantasy come to life. Suddenly, she understood why middle-aged Julia at the agency had become hot and flustered when she’d described Jack Marchant as ‘formidable’. And maybe his effect on women didn’t have an age barrier—because suddenly she was feeling a little hot and flustered herself.
‘I… they said you’d written several biographies of great men. Mainly military men.’
‘How very dry that sounds.’
‘And that I would be typing up your latest manuscript—’
‘From longhand? I hope they specified that? I’ve tried typing it myself but tapping out on a keyboard distracts my thoughts. I prefer to write it out—and I don’t think I’m alone in that.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘Many authors still do, I believe?’
Ashley nodded. She found herself wondering what his handwriting was like. As torturous and as twisted as the thought processes which seemed to be firing up behind those ebony eyes? ‘So I believe.’
‘And they told you it’s a novel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever typed a novel before?’
She nodded. ‘I did one by Hannah Minnock early last year—she was a teacher at the school where I was working and it was her first book, called Ringing TheChanges. It was a chick-lit book.’ His face remained blank. ‘You know—funny, frothy stuff aimed at professional women. About divorce.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘And that’s considered funny, is it?’
‘I just type the story,’ she said stiffly. ‘I don’t sit there in judgement of it.’
‘Well, you’ll find that my novel is as far removed from your frothy, fluffy “chick-lit” book as it is possible to be.’
‘I rather thought it might be,’ she answered quietly. ‘What exactly is it about?’
There was a pause and, briefly, she saw his knuckles tightening and the flicker of the flames casting bloodlike shadows over them. ‘My time in the army.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Really?’ He raised his dark brows in mocking question. ‘And what exactly do you know about army life?’
‘Well, only what I’ve
