held out his right hand, and automatically her right hand met his warm, firm clasp. ‘I should like you to start on Monday, Chesnie,’ he confirmed, and for the first time he smiled.
Chesnie managed to keep her face straight while she was in the Yeatman Trading building, but once she had left the building so too did she leave her cool, sophisticated image, her lovely face splitting into an equally lovely grin. She’d got it! She’d jolly well got it! Only then did she acknowledge how very much she had wanted this job as PA to Joel Davenport.
It sounded hard work—she thrived on hard work. To be constantly busy had been her lifeline. She hadn’t been sure what sort of work she wanted to do when she had left school, but with her studies finished and no need to spend time at her desk in her room she had spent more time with her parents. Their constant sniping at each other had driven her to take various courses at evening classes, all to do with business management.
It seemed to her she had been brought up in a house full of strife. The youngest of four sisters, with a two-year gap separating each of them, she had been twelve when her eldest sister, Nerissa, had married—for the first time. Nerissa was now on her second marriage, but that didn’t appear to be any happier than her first. Chesnie’s second sister, Robina, had married next—she was always leaving her husband and returning for weeks on end to the home she had confided she had only married young to get away from.
When her sister Tonia married, Chesnie had thought surely it must be third time lucky for one of her sisters. But, no. Tonia had produced two babies in quick succession and seemed to have quickly developed the same love-hate relationship with her husband that her parents shared.
With one or other of her sisters forever returning in tears to the family home, to rail against the man she had married, Chesnie had soon known that she wanted no part in marriage. She had attended college most evenings, doing most of her studying at the weekends. She had not lacked for potential boyfriends, however, and occasionally had gone out on a date with either someone she had known previously or had met at college. On occasions, too, she had experimented with a little kissing, but as soon as things had looked like getting serious she’d put up barriers.
She’d become aware she had started to get a reputation for being aloof. It had not bothered her—nor had it seemed to stop men asking her for a date.
Chesnie had been working in an office for two years when her studies came to an end. She’d taken more courses, and done more study, and two years later had been ready to take a better-paid job. She’d changed firms and begun work as a secretary and she’d been good at it.
What she had not been so good at was handling the traumatic friction that seemed to be a constant feature in her family home. She’d told herself she was being over-sensitive and that everyone had their ups and downs. The only trouble was that in her fraught home, the animosity was permanent.
Having been brought up to be self-sufficient, she had thought often of leaving and had soon felt she could just about afford a bedsit somewhere. Only the knowledge that her mother would be furious should she leave her commodious and graceful home for some lowly bedsit had stopped her.
Matters had come to a head one weekend, however, when all three weeping sisters, and crying babies, had descended. From where Chesnie had viewed it, each sister had been trying to outdo the other with reports of what a rotten husband her spouse was.
When Chesnie had felt her sympathy for the trio turning into a feeling of weariness with all three of them, she’d gone out into the garden and found her father inspecting his roses.
‘You came to escape the bedlam too?’ he asked wryly.
‘Dad, I’m thinking of moving out.’ The words she hadn’t rehearsed came blurting from her.
‘I think I’ll come with you,’ he replied. But, glancing at her to see if she was smiling at his quip, he saw that she wasn’t. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he asked.
The words were out; she couldn’t retract them. ‘I’ve been thinking of it for some while. I’m sure I could manage a small bedsit, and…’
‘You’d better make that a small flat, and in a good area, if you want me to have any peace.’
Two days later her mother sought her out. ‘Your father tells me your home isn’t good enough for you any more.’
Chesnie knew that she loved her mother—just as she knew the futility of arguing with her. ‘I’d like to be—more—independent,’ she replied quietly.
Ten days after that, and much to her astonishment, her mother told her she had found somewhere for her. Chesnie was so overjoyed that her mother, having slept on it, had decided to aid her rather than make life difficult, that she closed her eyes to the fact that the rent of the flat was far more than she could afford.
Furnishing the flat was no problem. What with bits and pieces from her parents and her grandparents, and with her restless sister Nerissa always changing her home around and getting rid of some item of furniture or other, Chesnie soon made her small flat very comfortable.
She had been resident for two months, though, when she had to face up to the reality that she just couldn’t afford to be that independent. Her mother would be horrified if she went downmarket and found herself a bedsit. And from Chesnie’s point of view she would be horrified herself if she had to give up the peace and quiet she had found to return to her old home.
When Browning Enterprises advertised for a senior secretary she applied for the job, and got it. It paid more, and she earned it when she started taking on more and more responsibility. The only fly in the ointment was Lionel Browning’s son. But Hector Browing had his own business, and apart from visits to his father, usually when Hector’s finances needed a cash injection, Chesnie saw little of him. She was aware that he resented her, but could think of no reason for his dislike other than the fact that he knew that she knew he was as near broke as made no difference.
She was happy living in a place of her own, but since she lived in the same town as her parents she popped in to see them every two or three weeks—and always came away glad she had made the decision to leave.
Then, a year later, her paternal grandmother died, and after months of living in a kind of vacuum her grandfather sold his home in Herefordshire and, with her parents having ample room, moved in with them.
Chesnie adored her grandfather. She seemed to have a special affinity with him, and had feared from the beginning that life with her bickering parents would not suit her peace-loving Gramps. She took to ‘popping in’ to her old home more frequently.
She knew he looked forward to her visits, and knew when he suggested he teach her to drive that he was looking for excuses to get out of the house.
She and her grandfather spent many pleasant Saturday afternoons together, and when she passed her driving test she took to taking him for a drive somewhere. Three months ago she had driven him across country to Herefordshire, and to the village where he had lived prior to moving in with her parents.
Six days later she had arrived home from her office to find her grandfather sitting outside her flat in his car. ‘I’m not such a good cook as my mother, but you’re welcome to come to dinner,’ she invited lightly, watching him, knowing from the fact of him being there as much from the excited light in his eyes that something a touch monumental was going on.
Over macaroni cheese and salad he told her he had noticed a ‘To Let’ sign in the garden of a small
