a few minutes. If she’s away you’re in big trouble—’
‘Away? In January?’ Jilly was incredulous.
Max followed her glance to the window, to the overcast greyness of a winter day in London. ‘Unbelievable as it may seem, there are places where the sun is still shining.’
‘Expensive places.’
‘Not these days.’ He could see that she considered his idea of expensive and hers were unlikely to coincide. ‘There’s always skiing—’ The word was out before he could stop it. Max had known it was a mistake to get involved. It was always a mistake to get involved.
‘Gemma’s not the athletic type.’
‘Not everyone goes for the exercise,’ he snapped. Then, more gently, because it was hardly this girl’s fault that she’d reminded him of things he longed to forget. ‘Some people are more interested in après-ski.’
And Jilly’s head was suddenly filled with a travel-brochure image of glamorous girls and beefy blond ski instructors sipping glühwein around a roaring log fire in some snowbound mountain chalet. That was much more like Gemma’s idea of fun. ‘But if she’s away I’ll have nowhere to stay,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go straight back home. I promised—’
‘Not before you’ve typed up that report, I hope—’
It had been an unforgivable thing to say—Max regretted the words before they were out of his mouth—but instead of throwing the notepad at him and telling him to type the damned thing himself, which was what any self-respecting Garland Girl would do, Jilly Prescott tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and said, ‘No, no, of course not. I’ll get right onto it.’
Max stared after her for a moment. Was she being sarcastic? The question was redundant, of course she wasn’ t…This wasn’t one of Amanda’s usual hard-boiled temps. The girl had just arrived in London, was on her own, vulnerable. And that made him even more irritable. He didn’t need this. How dared Amanda send him a waif from somewhere no one had ever heard of?
He wasn’t interested in her problems. He didn’t want to know. And yet something propelled him after her, urging him to apologise.
But she was already sitting at the computer, her fingers moving swiftly over the keys, wasting no time in starting work. Not even to make her telephone call. He wanted to tell her to do that first, but her back was stiff with pride, as great a barrier to communication as a brick wall.
It wouldn’t have stopped him once, but it seemed that he had lost the gift of kindness, along with everything else…
‘Are you ready for your lunch now, Max?’
He turned to Harriet, waiting in the doorway, watching them both. ‘I’ve been ready for ten minutes,’ he replied coldly. Then, ‘You’d better organise something for Jilly as well.’ Jilly! How could anyone be formal with someone called Jilly? He should have stuck to Miss Prescott. ‘And show her around, make sure she knows where everything is.’
Jilly heard the inner door close and leaned back in her chair, easing her shoulders. She’d slept on the train—she could sleep anywhere—it was tension knotting her muscles, making her feel suddenly weepy. She sniffed, found a handkerchief and blew her nose. Weepy! How ridiculous. She never wept.
It was just that yesterday everything had seemed so simple. Too simple. If only her mother hadn’t made her promise. If only she hadn’t been stupid enough to believe that nothing could go wrong!
She blinked, straightened, tucked her hankie out of sight and forced a smile to her lips as Harriet reappeared with a tray, jumping to her feet to open the inner door for her.
‘Thank you, Miss Prescott.’
‘Oh, please, call me Jilly.’ Harriet nodded and reappeared a moment later. ‘I’ll show you where the cloakroom is, shall I? I expect you’d like to wash your hands before you have something to eat.’
‘I’m sorry to be such a bother. I’d go out but Mr Fleming is in a hurry for this—’
‘Max is always in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Always was. Some men never learn.’ Then, collecting herself, ‘It’s not a bit of trouble, I promise. What would you like?’
‘Oh, anything. What did Mr Fleming have?’ she said, trying to be helpful, make as little work as possible.
‘Smoked salmon. Will that suit you?’
Jilly blinked. Smoked salmon? She’d tried it once, on a cracker, at a retirement party for the solicitor she had worked for since college, and hadn’t been able to quite make up her mind whether she liked it or not. She could scarcely credit that anyone would put it in sandwiches for lunch. ‘Cheese and pickle will do just fine,’ she said firmly.
Harriet’s face creased into a warm smile. ‘I’ll see what I can do. The cloakroom’s this way. Come through to the kitchen when you’re ready—you’ll be more comfortable in there.’
The walls of the cloakroom were lined with creamy marble, there was a thick carpet on the floor, an antique gilded mirror and a pile of matching towels beside a sunken basin. It was a far cry from the lino and cracked mirror of the cloakroom in the office where she had been temping before Christmas. The kind of office she’d be going straight back to unless she got hold of Gemma soon.
Afterwards, when she had dried her hands on one of the soft towels, pinned her hair back into its combs and freshened her lipstick, she went in search of the kitchen.
‘Sit down, make yourself at home,’ Harriet invited.
‘I really should make a start on that report—’
‘Just because Max never leaves his desk doesn’t mean you have to follow his example. Besides, you can’t eat and type at the same time…’ she waved towards a long pine table in a breakfast annexe, inviting her to take a seat ‘…can you?’ Harriet was tall, elegant, her steely grey hair expensively cut; she was a long way from Jilly’s idea of a housekeeper. But then Jilly had never met a housekeeper before.
‘No, I suppose not. But I have to make a couple of phone calls. Mr Fleming said I could.’
‘If they’re personal, why don’t you use my phone? That way you can be sure he won’t disturb you.’ A hint of laughter as she led the way to a door tucked away in the corner of the kitchen suggested that she knew just how disturbing Max Fleming could be. The office was tiny, not much bigger than a cupboard, but there was a desk, a chair, a telephone; everything else was tucked away on shelves that lined the walls and suggested the room might once have been a pantry. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thank you…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Mrs—?’
‘Jacobs.’ She smiled as she filled in the missing piece. ‘But, please, just call me Harriet. Everyone does.’
‘Thank you, Harriet.’ But when she got through to Gemma’s office she was told that her cousin was on holiday and wouldn’t be in the office until the end of the month. She sat and stared at the telephone for a moment. Richie was the only other person she knew in London. She hadn’t intended calling him until she was settled, until she could ring him and casually say, ‘Hi, I’m working in London, thought I’d
