Tainted Love

Alison Fraser

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS summer when Clare was released, but it might as well have been winter. The sun did not touch her. Nothing did. They’d called her cold-hearted and she’d become so.

The day of her job interview was especially hot. In Oxford, summer students paraded tanned limbs in white T-shirts and shorts. Clare wore black. Black jacket. Black skirt. Black court shoes. The only relief was a cream-coloured blouse. She’d aimed for respectability and succeeded to the point of drabness. She didn’t care.

Need alone had prompted her to go for the job. Her prison visitor, Louise Carlton, had a brother who needed a housekeeper. She believed Clare might suit the post. Clare didn’t. She didn’t think the brother would either, but Louise had badgered her into an interview.

She walked from the rail to the bus station, caught the two o’clock to Chipping Haycastle and got off at the Old Corn Mill as instructed. She walked for perhaps quarter of a mile, before she reached two iron gates set in a six-foot-high wall. ‘Woodside Hall’ was etched into the stone.

She peered beyond and saw only a tangle of woodland through which a tarred drive disappeared. She pushed at the gates. She’d been told they would be open. They weren’t. There was no chain on them and she wondered if they were electronically operated. She pushed again and they gave a little. She looked downwards to discover they’d been tied shut with string.

She bent down to untie the string and heard a sound. She glanced round her but saw no one. She started to unpick the string and heard the sound again. This time there was no doubt. It was the sound of a child’s laughter and she caught a glimpse of a head bobbing up from a clump of shrub on the far side of the gates.

‘Hello,’ she called out to tell the child he’d been spotted.

There was no response, just the rustling of bushes as the hidden figure made a getaway.

That, she assumed, would be Master Miles Marchand. A sweet boy according to his aunt Louise. Clare wondered if tying the gates together came under the category of ‘sweet’.

The string had been knotted many times and it took her about ten minutes to untie it. The next hurdle was waiting for her round a bend in the drive. She could hardly miss it—a piece of twine, a foot off the ground, running from a tree on one side of the road to a tree on the other. Presumably she was meant to trip up on it and take a flier.

Instead she stepped over it and called out, ‘Sorry. Too obvious, I’m afraid.’

This time there was no response, not even a rustle of leaves, but she was still sure he was watching her. She sensed it as she went up the winding drive to the house.

It was an early Georgian manor house of considerable size: six windows wide and three storeys high. She knew Louise was wealthy. It seemed her brother was, too.

She passed a Jaguar and a Mercedes saloon, and went up to the huge oak door. She pulled the bell at one side, and waited. And waited. And waited. Assuming it hadn’t been heard, she rang it again. By her third attempt, she decided it couldn’t be working.

She lifted the lion’s-head knocker on the door, and it came away in her hand. She was left wondering how the heavy lead object could possibly have unscrewed itself from the door. Then she heard the sound of childish laughter again.

It was clear that one member of the household definitely didn’t want a new housekeeper, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to volunteer for the post, either. It wasn’t as if she knew much about children. Just Peter, and that had been a long time ago—so long she could almost think of him without pain.

She felt this other boy’s eyes on her as she circled the house, searching for signs of life. She heard the drift of voices coming from an open French window, and came closer. She recognised Louise’s as the female voice. The other she assumed belonged to Fenwick Marchand, the eccentrically named master of the house.

Clare approached the doorway, intending to announce her presence, but got as far as lifting her hand to knock before the man’s voice arrested her on the spot.

‘Honestly, Lou, you don’t really expect me to give this woman a job,’ he declared. ‘Charity’s one thing. Ask me for a donation—fine, you’ll get one. But if you think I’m going to open up my home to some...some...whatever the hell she is.’

‘She’s a very nice girl who’s had a rough time of it,’ Louise Carlton replied in a soft, kindly tone that contrasted sharply with her brother’s. ‘If you knew what has happened to her—’

‘Well, I don’t, do I?’ Marchand jumped in again. ‘Because you refuse to tell me.’

‘Only because you’d get the wrong idea, Fen,’ his sister went on calmly, ‘and what she was convicted of is irrelevant.’

‘To you, maybe,’ the man countered. ‘But then you aren’t about to share your home with some thief or drug addict or murderer. Possibly all three, for all I know.’

‘I’ve told you. She was innocent,’ Louise said with utter conviction.

It drew a scoff of laughter in response.

Clare pursed her lips. She couldn’t see Marchand, because he was seated in a high armchair. But she saw Louise Carlton, standing before him, looking upset and flustered as she tried to appeal to her brother’s better nature.

Clare could have told her not to bother. The owner of that deep, sarcastic voice had no better side, and Clare felt no compunction about eavesdropping.

‘Clare has never discussed her case with me,’ Louise Carlton claimed in perfect truth. ‘She has never asked anything of me, either. I was the one who suggested this post to her, knowing she needs work and you need a housekeeper.’

‘Need, yes,’ he agreed, ‘am desperate for, no. And I’d have to be to employ this woman. I ask you, do you really want Miles exposed to her influence?’

‘He could do worse,’ Louise said, on the defensive.

‘He already has done,’ Fenwick reminded her. ‘I don’t think I fancy him adding lock-picking or safe-cracking to his list of other doubtful interests.’

This time Louise didn’t respond, but her face gave her away, colouring slightly at the reference to safe-cracking.

Her brother was quick to spot it. ‘So that’s what she is—a professional thief.’

‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ Louise dismissed the idea hastily, before ruining Clare’s chances with the admission, ‘Stealing may have been one of the things she was accused of, but—’

‘One of the things?’ Fenwick’s voice rose in disbelief. ‘How many more are there?’

Louise shook her head. ‘I told you. It doesn’t matter. You have my word she’s a reformed character.’

‘Really?’ His voice became a sarcastic drawl. ‘I thought you said she was innocent.’

‘She is.’

‘Then she wouldn’t need to be reformed, would she?’

‘I...’ Louise Carlton frowned over her brother’s logic. ‘Stop trying to confuse me, Fen. We both know you’re cleverer with words—and pretty much everything else. But I do know people better than you.’

‘Possibly,’ he conceded. ‘At any rate, you saw through that bitch I married.’

‘Fen!’ his sister reproved in shocked tones.

‘What? I mustn’t call her a bitch, because she’s dead,’ he scoffed. ‘Is that it?’

‘Well, yes...’ Louise admitted that that was what she meant.

‘I called her such long before she drove off a cliff with her toy-boy lover,’ he pointed out. ‘I don’t see why she should be canonised now she’s dead.’

‘Maybe not,’ his sister agreed, ‘but you have to be careful. It wouldn’t be very nice if Miles overheard you.’

‘Miles isn’t likely to,’ he dismissed. ‘Having discovered there was another candidate for housekeeper, he took himself off to his hut in the woods and is no doubt scheming on how to get rid of the lady, should I be rash enough to employ her.’

‘You told him about Clare?’ Louise said in exasperation.

‘That she was coming, yes,’ her brother confirmed, ‘that she was an arch-villain, no. If I had, knowing Miles, he would probably have wanted me to hire her.’

‘And you won’t consider it?’ Louise’s tone switched to appeal.

But Marchand was adamant, responding with dry sarcasm, ‘Not unless I go barking mad, in which case I’d want you to have me committed first.’

‘Very funny.’ Louise pulled a face at her brother’s sour humour. ‘Well, I hope you’ll at least be polite and give her an interview.’

‘If I must.’ He sighed heavily, then apparently consulted his watch as he ran on, ‘Always assuming she turns up. It’s already twenty past the hour.’

‘Yes, I wonder where she’s got...?’ Louise trailed off, her question answered as she looked from her brother to the open French windows and caught sight of Clare.

Her face mirrored her shock, then dismay, but her brother didn’t notice as he went on, ‘Well, if she doesn’t materialise soon, I won’t even interview her.’

‘Fen...’ His sister tried to alert him to Clare’s presence, while casting an apologetic glance in her direction.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ Fenwick continued regardless, ‘if your pet safe-robber can’t be bothered to show up on time—’

‘Fen!’ Louise whispered his name fiercely, at the same time nodding towards the window.

He must have finally caught on, as Clare saw a figure rise from the chair a second before she decided to cut and run herself. She didn’t literally run, but walked quickly away, believing neither would be anxious to follow.

She was wrong. Marchand not only followed but, when his shouted, ‘Hold on!’ was ignored, caught up in a few strides and grabbed at her arm.

Forced to turn, Clare came face to face with Fenwick Marchand for the first time. It was a shock.

She had expected him to be of the same age as Louise—about fifty. But he was much nearer forty. She’d also expected him to look like his voice—bloodless, pompous and self-righteous. She couldn’t believe this tall, fair, beautiful man could be a scholarly professor of politics.

He mirrored her look of disbelief. What had he expected? A woman with a number stamped across her forehead?

In some ways Clare had changed little during her three years in prison. Now twenty-six, she still had the small, gamine features that made her look young for her age. And, though her once abundant mass of red hair had been ruthlessly cropped short, the boyish cut emphasised that youthfulness. But she was too thin and too hard-eyed to be considered a beauty any more.

Marchand continued to stare at her until he felt her pulling at his grip, then he muttered, ‘I’m not going to apologise, you know.’

‘No one asked you to,’ Clare responded coldly.

‘You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,’ he went on. ‘It’s normal to come to the front door of a house.’

‘I did,’ Clare spat back. ‘Here!’

She shoved the lion door-knocker in his hand. He stared at it in puzzlement.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘From your front door, and no, I wasn’t pinching it,’ she said before he could suggest such a thing. ‘It came off in my hand.’

‘How odd,’ he commented, still frowning.

She retorted, ‘Not really. Someone had already unscrewed it from its plate.’

‘Ah.’ Enlightenment dawned on Fenwick Marchand. ‘I think I can guess who. I’ll see he’s punished.’

‘Don’t bother on my account.’ Clare shrugged. ‘He’s saved us both time.’

‘What do you mean?’ the man demanded.

‘You won’t have to go through the motions of an interview now,’ Clare explained, ‘and I won’t have to make a wasted effort to impress you. I’ll leave you to square things with Louise,’ she concluded briskly, and would have walked away if he hadn’t tightened his grip on her arm.

‘Hold on,’ he protested. ‘You can’t just walk off like this.’

‘Why not?’ Clare rallied.

‘Well...I mean to say...you have come for an interview, after all,’ he argued, somewhat inarticulately for a professor.

‘You’re not about to offer me a job, are you?’ Clare challenged point-blank, and, at his lack of response, added, ‘So, there’s not much more to say.’

Again she tried to walk away and again he stopped her, muttering, ‘You’re making me out to be very narrow-minded. I’m not.’

‘Really?’ Clare’s tone suggested she couldn’t care less what he was like.

His lips thinned slightly. ‘Look, if it were just me, I’d be willing to give you a chance, but I need someone who’ll also keep an eye on my son and, frankly—’

‘You don’t want me teaching him safe-cracking,’ Clare cut in abruptly. ‘Yes, I know. I heard.’

His lips thinned even more. ‘Actually, I was about to comment on your age. My sister led me to believe that you were in your late twenties.’

‘I’m twenty-six,’ Clare declared.

He was clearly surprised. ‘You don’t look it.’

‘I can prove it.’

‘I wasn’t saying you were lying...’ he sighed at her surliness ‘...merely that you seem much younger... Look, why don’t we go inside and discuss the matter over tea?’

Clare shrugged once more. ‘Is there any point, Mr Marchand? You’ve made your opinions clear enough. You won’t employ an ex-con and who’s to blame you? If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t employ me either,’ she admitted with dark humour.

Surprisingly it drew a smile from the man. ‘You’re honest, at any rate.’

‘That’s not what the judge thought,’ Clare said in the same flippant vein, showing the hardness that had got her through three years in prison.

‘Yes, well,’ Marchand continued, ‘my sister tells me you’re innocent... Are you?’

His directness was disconcerting but oddly it made Clare like him better. Not enough, however, to volunteer her life story.

‘Possibly,’ she replied on a cryptic note.

‘And possibly not?’ He lifted an enquiring brow, but she just stared back at him without expression. ‘You don’t give away much, Miss...what is your name?’

‘Anderson.’

‘Miss Anderson.’ He inclined his head as if they were just meeting, then, curling his fingers round her elbow, began steering her back towards the house.

A swift dig in the ribs might have secured her release but Clare had no taste for scenes. She’d already had more than enough drama for one day.

Louise Carlton was waiting for them at the front door. ‘I’m terribly sorry, dear.’ The older woman smiled in apology. ‘I’m not sure how much you heard, but you mustn’t take it to heart. It’s just Fen’s way. He doesn’t mean half of it. Do you?’ she appealed to her brother.

He contradicted her utterly. ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Miss Anderson isn’t a fool... Are you?’ he directed at Clare.

‘I try not to be,’ she answered drily, and it drew the merest flicker of a smile from him.

‘So, Lou,’ he continued to his sister, ‘if you could possibly have tea brought into the study, I’ll talk to Miss Anderson there.’

‘I...yes, fine.’ Louise’s eyes questionned Clare as to what was happening. Clare spread her hands in a gesture that said she didn’t know, before following him to the far end of the hall.

His study was a very masculine room, decorated in sombre dark colours and dominated by a large leather-bound desk covered in papers. He sat down behind it and waved Clare into the chair opposite. She sat reluctantly.

He slipped on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. They still failed to make him professorial. He had the looks of an actor, a hybrid of Robert Redford and Charles Dance. Clare thought it just as well he had neither man’s charm.

Pen in hand, he asked her point-blank, ‘Now, what experience have you of running a house?’

‘Not much,’ she admitted, then, before he could go on, said, ‘Look, I realise you’re giving me this interview because you promised Mrs Carlton, but I’d prefer not to bother. You don’t wish to hire someone with a prison record. I accept that. I’ll be able to catch an earlier train back to London.’

‘You’re very blunt, aren’t you?’ He leaned back in his chair and surveyed her, before asking, ‘Where do you live in London?’

Clare didn’t see the relevance of the question, but answered it all the same. ‘Kennington.’

‘In a flat?’

‘No, in a hostel...for ex-offenders.’

‘What’s it like?’ he enquired with passing curiosity.

‘A palace,’ she replied sardonically, resenting his interest.

He pulled a face. ‘Is there nowhere else you can go? Friends? Relatives?’

Clare shook her head.

‘How long have you lived there?’ he pursued.

‘Since I was released,’ she told him, ‘a week ago.’

‘And presumably you can stay there till you’ve arranged alternative accommodation,’ he concluded, wrongly.

Clare shook her head again. ‘There’s a three-month limit.’

‘So what happens if you haven’t found anywhere else?’ He frowned.

She shrugged. She hadn’t let herself think that far. ‘I’ll manage,’ she said on a defensive note.

But he wouldn’t let it go. ‘You won’t if you end up on the streets,’ he stated grimly. ‘No job, no home. It’s a vicious circle.’

Clare’s eyes narrowed at this little lecture. What did he know about it? ‘I’ll survive,’ she claimed with the hard confidence of someone who’d already been there.

‘I suppose you will,’ he said, giving her another measuring look that wasn’t entirely pleasant. ‘A good-looking woman never needs to starve.’

Arguably it was a compliment, but not the way he said it. Mr Fen Marchand clearly didn’t have a very high opinion of women.

Clare didn’t care enough to argue the point and remained silent. Let someone else deal with his hang-ups.

‘You certainly don’t seem too anxious to get this job, Miss Anderson.’ He switched back to his normal pomposity. ‘So far, you’ve said little to impress... You have no experience of running a house, and I don’t suppose you have any experience of handling wilful eleven-year-olds?’

Clare shook her head, then, recalling what Louise had told her, enquired, ‘Did your last housekeeper?’

‘As a matter of fact, she did,’ he announced crisply, ‘being a widowed lady with three grown-up sons.’

‘And how long was she with you?’ Clare already knew the answer.

‘I...well...I don’t think that’s relevant.’ He evaded the admission that the last incumbent had lasted a fortnight. ‘It seemed she had a weak heart and found the housework more of a strain than she’d anticipated.’

I bet, Clare muttered to herself, thinking of two reasons alone that might have hastened the woman’s departure: Marchand senior and his abrasive manner, and Marchand junior and his taste for pranks.

‘Anyway, Mrs Brown isn’t the issue,’ he said dismissively and rose from behind his desk.

Clare assumed the interview was at an end, but, when she made to stand, he waved her back in her seat. ‘I’m just going to see where Louise has got with the afternoon tea.’

Clare started to say, I think I should just go, but he’d left the room before she could get the words out. Rude man. She was left twiddling her thumbs and wondering if she shouldn’t give everybody a break and leave by the study’s French windows.

She was actually contemplating it when a figure blocked her escape route. He stood at the open window for a moment, staring at her, before deciding to enter.

‘Where’s my old man?’ he demanded in a manner so arrogant that his parentage couldn’t be doubted. The origin of his blond good looks was also fairly evident. The only difference between the two was one of accent—while Fen Marchand spoke with a perfect BBC accent, Miles had a slight American drawl.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Clare answered him offhandedly. She made no attempt to engage him in further conversation.

The young boy wasn’t discouraged. Instead he went round to sit behind his father’s desk. ‘Has he offered you the job yet?’

This time Clare didn’t answer, looking straight through him instead.

‘No? Well, I wouldn’t take it if he does,’ the boy advised. ‘The pay’s lousy, for a start, and my dad’s an even lousier boss. As for me, I can’t help it. I’m disturbed, personality-wise.’

‘You do surprise me,’ Clare said, irony in her tone.

It was lost on the boy. ‘I should have an analyst. All the kids in L.A. have an analyst, but my dad’s too mean to pay for one.’

‘Really?’ Clare sounded less than interested in this information. She didn’t have too much sympathy for poor little rich boys—not any more.

Miles Marchand frowned at her reaction. He was trying to shock, not bore his audience.

He tried again. ‘So, tell me, do you have the hots for him?’

‘What?’ Clare blinked at the leap in conversation.

‘My dad, do you have the hots for him?’ he repeated patiently. ‘That’s what they say in America. It means—’

‘I know what it means, and most certainly not!’ Clare denied, angered for the first time.

‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on.’ Miles Marchand shrugged off his suggestion. ‘I was only asking. Lots of women do. The last housekeeper but one was crazy about him.’

‘So, what did you do to her?’ Clare decided it was time to go on the offensive with this monster. ‘Frogs in the bed? Dead mice on the doorstep?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he dismissed, ‘that’s kid’s stuff. I was much more subtle.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Clare lifted a sceptical brow. ‘Don’t tell me, you just concentrated on being as rude and obnoxious as possible, and that did the trick. Well, I wouldn’t bother wasting your talents on me, kiddo.’

‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘Well, apart from the fact I’m tougher and meaner than you could ever hope to be,’ Clare claimed extravagantly, ‘it’s not likely your dad’s going to employ me.’

‘Why not?’ the boy repeated.

Clare was tempted to tell him. She was sure the boy would be thrilled to have a real live criminal in the house.

She eventually said, ‘I haven’t the right qualifications.’

‘Oh, that’s no problem,’ the boy replied airily. ‘He’s so desperate, he’ll take anyone.’

‘Thanks,’ muttered Clare and the boy grinned wickedly.

Marchand caught the grin as he returned to the study with a tray of tea things. ‘Miles, what are you doing in here?’ he asked rather sternly.

‘Nothing.’ The boy’s face changed to sullenness as he slipped from his father’s chair.

‘He hasn’t been rude to you, has he?’ Marchand directed at Clare.

Before she could answer, the boy put in, ‘I was just talking to her...wasn’t I?’

Clare nodded and volunteered, ‘About his life in America.’

The boy shot her a look, half-plea, half-threat, and a small smile played on her lips as she kept him on tenterhooks for a moment, before she gave a slight shake of her head.

The man’s eyes switched from one to the other, picking up messages but unable to interpret them.

‘Well, Miles, I haven’t finished interviewing Miss—er—yet,’ he finally said. ‘Your aunt has tea ready for you in the kitchen.’

‘OK.’ The boy shrugged, then said to Clare, ‘Catch you later, maybe,’ as he slouched from the room.

Clare wondered what he meant, what the grin on his face promised. Nothing good, she suspected.

Marchand looked bemused, saying with near wonder, ‘He seems to like you.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure.’ Clare suspected the boy liked noboby right at that moment—including himself. She didn’t know if he was disturbed, but he was certainly mixed-up and unhappy.

‘No, well...he can be a handful,’ Marchand admitted in something of an understatement, before he poured tea into two cups and left Clare to help herself to milk and sugar.

Clare did so as he went on, ‘You see, Miles has been through a difficult time. His mother...she and I parted seven years ago. Miles stayed with me for the first three years, then he went to live with her... She died in an accident six months ago.’

Marchand relayed this information reluctantly, and Clare realised there was a whole lot more he wasn’t saying. But she showed no curiosity and didn’t invite him to continue. The truth was she didn’t want to know about Miles Marchand’s problems. She had enough of her own.

‘He’s not the easiest of children in consequence,’ Marchand concluded, ‘and needs careful handling. However, I should be spending much of my time round the house until autumn term begins and I intend to organise activities for the boy. I would expect a housekeeper to supervise him occasionally, along with the normal household duties... So, any questions?’

‘No.’ Clare saw no point in asking questions. He wasn’t going to employ her. Why should he?

‘None?’ He frowned at her apparent uninterest, and, when she remained silent, added shortly, ‘In that case, if you leave your address, I’ll let you know, Miss...’

‘All right.’ She stood up, placed her half-finished tea on the tray, and surprised him by offering her hand to shake.

‘I’ll show you out,’ he said, when she started to turn and walk from the room.

‘That’s OK.’ Clare would happily have found her own way to the front door, but he followed behind her.

They’d reached the doorstep before he asked, ‘How did you get here? By car?’

‘No, train, then bus,’ Clare answered him.

‘In that case—’ he took a set of keys from his pocket ‘—I’d better run you into Oxford.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Clare had decided that, all in all, she didn’t particularly like Fenwick Marchand.

‘I know I don’t,’ he responded, ‘but nevertheless I will. Wait here till I tell Louise.’

Clare wasn’t given the chance to argue as he retreated back into the house. She was left standing on the doorstep, wondering which car was his—the Jaguar or the Mercedes. She was putting her money on the Jaguar when Marchand junior reappeared.

‘Why didn’t you tell him?’ he asked with narrowed eyes.

‘Tell him what?’

‘That I was rude to you.’

‘Were you?’ Clare gave him a look of mock-surprise. ‘I didn’t notice.’

‘You must know some incredibly rude people, then,’ he threw back at her.

‘Incredibly,’ she agreed, her smile ironic as she thought of her companions over the last few years. It was true. Manners had been in short supply in Marsh Green Prison.

The boy smiled a little, too, before saying, ‘They’re arguing about you in the kitchen. Him and Aunt Lou.’

‘Really?’ Clare said flatly. It wasn’t an invitation for him to go on.

But he didn’t need one, taking pleasure in confiding, ‘They sent me to watch TV in the lounge, but I hung around and listened at the door. Aunt Lou says you’re really desperate for this job and he has to give you a chance. But he says you don’t strike him as especially desperate and that a girl with your talents will have much more luc—luc-ar-tive prospects lined up...I guess he means you’re too smart to just be a housekeeper,’ Miles interpreted for her.

But Clare could think of an entirely different interpretation, and it was nowhere near that flattering. Inwardly seething, she muttered at the boy, ‘Something like that,’ then told him to inform his father she had chosen to walk.

She left without waiting for a response from the boy but he caught up with her on the drive and fell into step beside her.

‘Are you mad with me?’ he enquired guilelessly. ‘I thought you’d want to know what they were saying. I mean, if you told Dad you were desperate, perhaps he’d change his mind.’

‘I doubt it.’ Clare decided that, for all the worldliness he affected, Miles Marchand had a boy’s outlook on life. She wondered if she might have liked him, had she been given the chance.

‘You could try,’ he insisted as they reached the gates.

Clare shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about it, kid. It’ll save you the trouble of scaring me off,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘But you wouldn’t be,’ Miles responded. ‘You’re not scared of me, are you?’

Clare shook her head again, saying, ‘No. Should I be?’

‘The rest were,’ he claimed. ‘Mrs Brown, the last woman, she told him I needed locking up. In a loony-bin, she meant.’

Clare frowned, not sure if the boy was exaggerating, boasting or just seeking her opinion. ‘What do you think?’ she asked in return.

The boy stared at her for a moment, deciding if she could be trusted, before he confided, ‘I scare myself sometimes. I feel so angry I want to hurt people. Him especially.’

‘Your dad?’ Clare drew a nod, then found herself admitting, ‘I used to feel that way at times.’

‘So what did you do?’ Dark blue eyes looked to her for an answer.

Clare had none to give. All the people close to her had gone, out of reach of hurting, and she’d resolved her anger with the world by retreating from it. But this boy still had a chance to come out of the shadows.

‘I’m nobody to take advice from, kid,’ she finally said, and felt a twinge of guilt when his expression became hostile once more. He’d opened up to her, just for a moment, and what did she do? Turn her back on him.

She did it literally, as she slipped out through the gates and started walking back along the country road to the Old Corn Mill. However, she didn’t get very far before the Jaguar drew up beside her.

The driver’s window slid down and Marchand senior’s dark blond head appeared. ‘If you’re intending to catch a bus, there isn’t one for a couple of hours. So, I suggest you get in,’ he said with a bored air.

It put Clare’s back up. ‘I’d sooner walk, thank you,’ she replied heavily.

He arched a brow. ‘Twelve miles? You must be joking. You won’t make three. Still, if you insist...’ He turned on the engine and put the car in gear, then waited for Clare to forget her pride and be sensible.

But she remained where she was, waiting in turn, until finally he put his foot on the accelerator and shot off down the road.

Clare felt triumphant until she reached the pub at the crossroads and saw the sign that indeed said it was twelve miles to Oxford. Then she wondered if she could walk all that way on new court shoes that were already beginning to pinch.

She was tempted to hitch-hike, but didn’t. A car stopped of its own accord while she stood there.

‘Going to Oxford?’ the young man driving the open-topped Morgan enquired, and, at her nod, invited, ‘Hop in.’

Clare hesitated, but not for long. The young man had Hooray Henry written all over him and she judged him—if not his driving—to be safe.

She was right. He drove like an idiot, chatted her up like mad, but made no dangerous moves. She earned her lift by listening, more or less attentively, to his bad jokes, suffered his laughter and thanked him politely for delivering her direct to the station.

She’d no sooner waved him goodbye than a car screeched up in his place. A Jaguar, green in colour, familiar in driver.

She was so surprised, she waited while Fen Marchand jumped out of his car and, with a face like thunder, came round to her side.

‘And who was that?’ he demanded without preamble. ‘A friend of yours?’

‘Well, no...’ Clare found herself on the defensive. ‘Not a friend, exactly. He just offered me a lift.’

‘I know,’ he grated back. ‘The question is what he imagined you were offering in return.’

‘I...nothing!’ Clare spluttered back. ‘Look, Mr Marchand, I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am—’

‘The stupid kind,’ he cut in rudely. ‘Forget the fact he was driving like a bloody maniac most of the way. Do you know how many places he could have turned off on that road? Do you?’ he demanded, grasping her roughly by the arms.

Unable to free herself, Clare threw back, ‘You tell me. You’re the one that goes creeping around, following people.’

‘I was waiting in the pub car park for you,’ he countered heavily, ‘when you decided to go off with a total stranger. What do you expect me to do? Leave you to get raped on some lonely farm track?’ he said brutally.

The words made Clare flinch, then relent slightly. ‘In that case, it’s kind of you to be concerned, but I can take care of myself.’

‘I bet!’ He scoffed at the idea, before coldly informing her, ‘It wasn’t kindness, Miss Anderson, it was self-preservation. I didn’t fancy being suspect number one had your lift decided to murder you in a post-coital rage,’ he declared with angry volume.

Clare’s face flamed like an over-ripe tomato, conscious of heads turning in their direction. ‘Would you keep your voice down?’

‘Why?’ he threw back at her. ‘I imagine you like people noticing you. Young men, at any rate. In fact, I wonder if I misjudged the situation. Perhaps you were hoping for a little adventure down some country lane—’

‘Why, you—’ Clare tore her arm free and cracked a hand against his cheek.

He touched his face, shocked for an instant, then rasped, ‘You bitch!’ as he made a grab for her again.

She backed off, hissing at him, ‘You want me to scream, Professor...? Do you?’

Fenwick Marchand looked angry enough not to care. He took a step towards her and she opened her mouth as if to scream. ‘All right,’ he growled at her, ‘you win. Don’t make a fool of us both.’

‘Oh, you don’t need any help for that, Professor,’ she retorted on a contemptuous note that drew his furious scowl.

‘Then presumably you don’t need my help either, Miss Anderson,’ he countered in a voice like ice.

‘If you mean your job—stick it!’ Clare suggested less than politely, and, having burned her boats, walked off into the rush-hour crowd.

She felt good. Buoyant. Triumphant. At least until she’d caught her train. Then she had time to think, time to count the cost of another failure. True, she’d never stood a chance. He had written her off before they’d even met. But he wasn’t going to be the only one. Few people wanted to employ ex-offenders.

And that was what she was. Clare Mary Anderson. Number 67904, C Wing, H.M. Prison, Marsh Green, Sussex. Category B prisoner. Convicted of a variety of offences.

Guilty of some, too.

CHAPTER TWO

‘LOUISE!’ Clare was taken aback at the sight of the other woman standing outside her room in the hostel.

‘I did telephone,’ Louise Carlton explained, ‘but there was no answer.’

‘No, the caretaker’s hardly ever there,’ Clare answered absently, still staring in surprise at her visitor.

It had been over two weeks since the interview. She hadn’t heard from Fenwick Marchand or Louise in that time, but then she hadn’t really expected to. She’d assumed Marchand would relay their quarrel and his sister would naturally take his side.

But here was Louise, saying in her kindly manner, ‘I meant to come last week, only I had a touch of flu... May I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Clare waved her inside the room and cleared her only chair of a bag of shopping so that the older woman could sit down. ‘I was going to write to apologise, but...’

‘Apologise?’ Louise looked quizzical.

‘Well, I know I let you down.’ That had been Clare’s main concern over that fiasco of an interview. Louise had given her a chance, and she’d done her best to blow it.

‘On the contrary,’ Louise rejoined, ‘it’s I who should apologise. I hadn’t realised my brother could be so narrow-minded. I should have, though. He’s never been easy, even as a small boy.’

Clare could believe that, although she found it hard to imagine Fen Marchand as anything but fully grown and mean with it.

‘He was a late baby,’ Louise confided, ‘and tragically our mother died shortly after his birth. Fen’s upbringing was left to a series of housekeepers, before our father packed him off to prep school at the age of eight.’

Clare was struck by the similarity between Marchand senior’s childhood and Marchand junior’s. ‘Is Miles at boarding-school, too?’

Louise shook her head. ‘Fen has been educating him at home, but boarding-school is definitely on the cards. He’s at his wits’ end, you see. That’s why I’m here...’

Clare frowned, wondering what Louise was leading up to. Surely Marchand wasn’t considering employing her?

It seemed not as Louise ran on, ‘I might as well be frank. He took on another housekeeper last week when I was ill. He got her through an agency. Anyway...’ She hesitated mid-tale.

Clare misunderstood, saying, ‘It’s all right, Louise. I knew he’d never offer me the job. I don’t mind.’

‘Oh, but he is,’ Louise insisted, ‘offering you the job. Now. If you’ll take it... You haven’t got another, have you?’

‘Well, no, but...’ Clare had lost the thread of this conversation somewhere ‘...if he has someone else?’

‘Had,’ Louise corrected drily. ‘She lasted two days. I’m afraid Miles didn’t take to her and, well...I might as well tell you—he put a frog in her bed. A dead one. I know it sounds absolutely disgusting. Actually it was. But I can honestly say he’s never done anything quite like it before. Been rude, certainly, and answered back, but nothing quite like that. I don’t know where he got such an idea from.’

Clare did. She remembered giving it to him.

‘Fen was livid,’ Louise continued, ‘and duly announced that Miles was to go to boarding-school in the autumn, whether he liked it or not. Well, Miles obviously doesn’t like it because he’s been in a state of dumb misery ever since.’

‘Oh.’ Clare’s face clouded in sympathy with the boy.

‘Not that I blame Fen,’ Louise hastened to add. ‘What else can he do? He can’t work and look after Miles, and it’s too late for him to take a year’s sabbatical. He’s tried.’

‘Really?’ Clare didn’t hide her surprise. Because he was well-off and successful, she hadn’t seen Fen Marchand in the role of a single parent, struggling to do the right thing for his son.

‘He doesn’t say so, but I know he feels guilty,’ Louise confided. ‘He thinks he’s letting Miles down again, although what could he have done the first time?’

‘The first time?’ Clare echoed automatically.

‘When Diana won custody of Miles,’ Louise explained, before asking her, ‘Fen did tell you about his wife, didn’t he?’

‘Not really.’ Clare didn’t think Fen Marchand was the type for confidences. His sister, however, had no such reservations.

‘They met at Oxford. Diana was an undergraduate while Fen was working for his doctorate,’ she ran on. ‘She was very beautiful, Diana. Head-turning, you might say. Quite clever, too, I suppose. It was the first and last time Fen acted on impulse. He married her within six months of their meeting...’ Louise paused to shake her head over the fact.

Clare kept quiet, unable to visualise a Fen Marchand who acted on impulse.

‘Unfortunately Miles came along after a year,’ Louise added, ‘and motherhood was the last thing Diana was suited to. Miles was barely a month old when she disappeared on a cruise with her rich father, leaving Fen and Miles to look after themselves. That pretty much set the pattern for the next five years until she bowed out altogether.’

‘But she fought for Miles’s custody,’ Clare replied, frowning.

‘Only at her father’s insistence,’ Louise revealed. ‘A self-made man, he wanted a male heir to take over his electronics firm. He footed her legal bill, and, unbelievably, some idiot judge decided Miles would be better off with his mother. So, after spending eight years of his life at Woodside, the boy suddenly found himself living in South Kensington with his grandfather.’

‘Not his mother?’ Clare was a little lost.

‘Officially, yes—’ Louise pulled a face ‘—but, by that time, Diana was following her latest boyfriend round the polo circuit. Fen saw the boy more often on access visits. It was hell for him. He could see old man Derwent ruining Miles as he had ruined Diana, but could do little about it.

‘Then disaster really struck,’ Louise went on unhappily. ‘Derwent died and that left Diana with custody. She might have handed Miles back, only Derwent left the bulk of his fortune to the boy in trust, and where he went control of his trust went.’

‘So she kept him,’ Clare concluded, her heart going out to the boy caught in the middle.

Louise nodded. ‘Fen was disraught. He didn’t trust Diana to take care of him properly and immediately filed for custody. Diana countered by whisking Mikes away abroad.’

‘To America?’ Clare recalled Miles saying he’d lived in L.A.

‘Via Australia and South America,’ Louise recounted. ‘Diana spent six months country-hopping, with Miles as excess baggage, while Fen desperately tried to locate them long enough to get a court order implemented, forcing her to return the boy to the UK.’

Once more Clare was surprised. From their brief encounter, she’d thought Fen Marchand almost indifferent to his son.

Louise read her mind, and claimed, ‘They’d been so close, Miles and his father, but their years apart have done untold damage. Miles feel his father let him down, and, I suspect, Fen feels the same. He wants to make it up to him, but doesn’t want to spoil him in the process... Which sort of brings me to the point of my visit,’ Louise concluded finally. ‘As Miles plainly loathes the idea of boarding-school, Fen asked him what would make him happy? And you’ll never guess what he said!’

While Louise paused for effect, Clare guessed the truth. She just didn’t believe it.

‘Well...’ Louise could hardly contain her satisfaction ‘...it seems Miles took a real shine to you, Clare, and he’s promised that if you were to come and housekeep for them he’d be on his absolutely best behaviour. Can you credit it?’ The older woman smiled as if something miraculous had occurred.

Clare didn’t see it that way. If she held some appeal for the boy, it was a momentary thing and based on all the wrong reasons. He saw her as a fellow traveller, at odds with the rest of the world. She wouldn’t dispute that—but it hardly made her a candidate for the role of Mary Poppins.

‘How did the professor react?’ she asked point-blank.

‘Well...he was taken aback,’ Louise admitted carefully, and Clare’s lips spread in a thin smile as she imagined how taken aback Marchand would have been. ‘However,’ Louise added quickly, ‘he’s come round to the idea now.’

‘The idea?’

‘Of your being housekeeper.’

Clare still couldn’t take it in. Marchand was willing to give her the job to please his son?

‘He feels he may not have been very fair to you on the day of the interview,’ Louise relayed, ‘and he’s prepared to give you a month’s trial. What do you think?’

The older woman’s smile said she expected Clare to be grateful for the opportunity.

Because she liked Louise Carlton, Clare forced a smile in return. But inside she wondered how the other woman had managed to reach the age of fifty-odd and remain one of life’s innocents. Didn’t she realise that this was just a way of Marchand hiring her until the boy got over his ‘fancy’ for her? When that happened, she’d be out the door quicker than she could say ‘month’s trial’.

‘You’ll have your own little flat in the house,’ Louise went on persuasively, ‘with shower, kitchenette and television, and a salary of eight thousand pounds plus keep.’

‘Eight thousand pounds?’ Clare was shocked by the amount.

Louise misunderstood. ‘Yes, it didn’t seem much to me, either, but at least you wouldn’t have living expenses,’ she pointed out.

‘It’s fine,’ Clare assured her quickly. ‘In fact, it’s much more than I expected, with my not having any real experience.’

‘Well, don’t worry.’ Louise smiled again. ‘Fen can afford it. He has a considerable private income as well as his professor’s salary.’

‘Really?’ Clare wasn’t altogether surprised at this. Although the house was not ostentatiously large, the sheer understated elegance of Woodside Hall whispered money. Old money, if Clare wasn’t very much mistaken.

‘When does he want me to start?’ she asked Louise.

‘Oh, as soon as you can,’ Louise said with obvious relief. ‘I’m holding the fort at present, but I just have to return to London this week. There are so many things I should have done, only I was ill.’

‘You work too hard.’ Clare had some idea of Louise’s busy timetable of voluntary work from their conversations in prison.

Clare remembered how she herself had been unenthusiastic about her visits at first, but had come to like and respect Louise Carlton. She realised that it had been an act of faith for Louise to suggest her for this job.

‘I can start immediately,’ she declared resolutely, and drew a beaming smile in response. ‘I’ll just pack.’

‘Are you sure?’ Louise protested for form’s sake. ‘I’ll drive you up with your cases.’

‘It’s all right,’ Clare replied. ‘I only have the one. I can go by train.’

‘One case?’ Louise watched with concern as the younger woman packed all her worldly possessions into a single battered suitcase. ‘My dear girl, you’re going to need some more clothes. We’ll shop on the way.’

Clare shook her head, saying simply, ‘I have no money.’

‘Never mind. My treat!’ Louise announced with her usual generosity.

Clare shook her head again. ‘Thanks very much, but I’ll wait till I get my wages and buy something.’

‘Clare,’ the older woman pursued, ‘please let me get you something. I can easily afford it and I’d enjoy having someone young and pretty to dress for a change.’

‘It’s very kind of you, but I’d really prefer not. The only thing I might need is an apron or overall, for the housekeeping, and there’s probably one at the house.’

‘Possibly, but, going on Fen’s previous choices of housekeeper, any garment will go round you twice.’ Louise frowned a little as she assessed Clare’s extremely slim figure.

Clare shrugged in response. She knew how she looked—thin to the point of skinniness, shaped more like a boy than a woman. Once she would have cared. Once she’d been like any teenage girl, preening herself in the mirror, dressing to attract the boys—or at least one particular boy. And where had it led, all that wishing and hoping, believing her looks could get her anything?

Clare’s face hardened, reflecting her thoughts, and Louise added softly, ‘I wish you’d let me help...really help.’

‘You have. You’ve got me this job.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I wish you’d open up a little, tell me about yourself.’

Louise reached out a hand to touch her arm. It was plainly a gesture of compassion and understanding, but it took an effort on Clare’s part not to shrug off the gentle hand. She didn’t want to open up. She wanted to stay as she was, locked up tight, safe from thought or feeling.

‘You know why I was in prison,’ she responded evenly as she returned to her packing.

Louise Carlton dropped her hand away, recognising rejection, but persevered. ‘Yes, I know. I just find it impossible to believe you did such a thing. That’s why I haven’t told Fen yet...’ she finished in gentle warning.

‘But what if he asks me?’ Clare worried. ‘He’s bound to want to know why I was in prison.’

‘Yes, well...I did say you’d been convicted of stealing,’ Louise admitted, ‘but that was all. I feel we should wait to tell him the rest.’

‘If you think so.’ Clare left the decision to Louise, seeing no alternative. They both knew full well that, if the brother were to find out the truth, Clare would be shown the door.

As it was, she travelled up to Oxford with Louise Carlton that afternoon, almost positive that her stay at Woodside Hall would be brief and fraught enough, without the added complication of true confessions.

‘Fen is going to be surprised when he sees you,’ Louise said, when they finally drew up outside the Georgian manor house.

The big oak door opened just as they climbed out of the car. Fen Marchand stood on the threshold, ignoring Louise’s smile of greeting, looking past her to Clare.

To say he was surprised was an understatement. Shocked or, possibly, horrified was nearer the mark, Clare thought.

‘Well, brother, dear,’ Louise spoke first, ‘are you just going to stare at the poor girl or are you going to welcome her to Woodside Hall?’

For a moment longer it seemed that Fen Marchand was going to do just that—stare at her—as he continued to stand there, motionless. Then he took his sister’s hint and, leaving the doorway, approached Clare.

Dark-suited the last time they’d met, today he was dressed in a polo shirt and casual trousers. Tall and muscular, he was built more like an athlete than a college professor, but his voice and manner were those of a dry-as-dust intellectual.

‘Miss Anderson,’ he addressed her formally, ‘I assume my sister has informed you about your terms and conditions, and so forth?’

‘Yes...thank you.’ Clare kept her tone equally neutral.

‘Very well,’ he continued, ‘you may start tomorrow...if that’s acceptable?’

‘Yes, fine,’ she nodded in response.

‘Good, then I’ll show you to your room. Have you brought any luggage?’ he asked abruptly.

Clare nodded again. ‘It’s in the boot.’

Louise, keeping her distance till then, appeared with the keys. ‘Here, Fen, you fetch Clare’s case while I show her the attic you’re exiling her to. Come on.’ She smiled invitingly at Clare and led the way inside.

Clare followed with some reluctance. Although Fen Marchand had been polite and correct to her, it was just a façde. She hadn’t forgotten their last encounter at the railway station, and neither had he.

She felt his eyes boring into her back as she walked through the front door and, despite the heat of the day, shivered in the marble-tiled hall, before following Louise up the wide staircase to the galleried landing of the first floor. They passed a series of rooms, turned a corner into another corridor and went to the door at the far end. It opened out into a much narrower staircase.

Clare began to have visions of dust and darkness, with a single bed for furniture and, perhaps, if she was lucky, a candle to read by. But it seemed she’d been reading too many novels in the prison library. She was quite taken aback when they arrived at their destination.

It wasn’t so much a room as an open-plan flat, with a living area at one end and a bedroom plus shower cubicle at the other. It was furnished in genuine antique pine, with a polished wooden floor, rug-scattered, and a large old-fashioned sofa upholstered in blue velvet. Light streamed in from a series of skylights and heat was provided by a fairly modern gas heater inset in the wall.

‘A bit of a climb, I’m afraid,’ Louise apologised as Clare looked round the room.

‘I didn’t expect...anything like this.’ Clare’s uncertainty hid her delight in the place. After prison and the hostel, it seemed unreal.

‘Yes, well, the only trouble is the lack of toilet,’ Louise said, still in an apologetic vein. ‘You’ll have to go downstairs for that. A dreadful inconvenience, I know, but at least you’ll have a bit of privacy up here.’

‘It’s absolutely wonderful,’ Clare assured the older woman, her smile showing she meant it. ‘I just didn’t expect anywhere so nice.’

Louise smiled in response. ‘Well, I’m glad you like it. It used to be the servants’ quarters in bygone times—a rather dingy, depressing place—but Fen had it refurbished for my son Gerry to board in while he was up at Oxford. I don’t think it has had any use since.’

Clare frowned, wondering if she’d understood correctly. ‘What about the other housekeepers? Didn’t they stay here?’

Louise looked embarrassed for a moment as she shook her head. ‘Well, no, most of them have lived out, or occupied a couple of adjoining rooms on the first floor...but Fen thought you might prefer up here.’ Louise’s hesitancy cast doubt over her brother’s motives.

Clare was quite sure Fen Marchand couldn’t care less about her preferences. It seemed much more likely that it was his own privacy he was protecting. Having opened his house to a convicted criminal, he’d decided to isolate her as far as possible from the rest of the household.

Well, Clare didn’t object. She’d clean his house and cook his meals as efficiently as she could, and, when not working, keep to her own company. She had no wish to become a so-called ‘part of the family’. Apart from her dislike of Marchand, she believed no housekeeper was ever really such.

Her thoughts went to her own mother. She’d worked for Lord Abbotsford for over fifteen years and her ladyship had often referred to her as ‘almost one of the family’. But, even as a child, Clare had known they were just words, empty words. It had simply been a way of claiming Mary Anderson’s loyalty. When her mother had become ill with stomach cancer, the Holsteads had been conspicuous by their absence.

Clare’s mouth twisted at the memory and it was a bitter expression Fenwick Marchand caught as he walked through the attic door. His eyes narrowed; he was clearly wondering what she was thinking, scheming...

Then Louise turned and spotted him, saying, ‘This was a good idea of yours, Fen. Clare loves it. Don’t you, Clare?’

‘Yes,’ Clare answered as promised, but her tone was leaden.

Not surprisingly, Fen Marchand looked sceptical. ‘I must say you contain your enthusiasm very well, Miss Anderson,’ he muttered in dry sarcasm.

It wasn’t lost on Clare but neither was his position as her boss; she managed to contain her temper.

It was Louise who said, ‘Don’t be such a sourpuss, Fen. You don’t want to scare off Clare before she’s even started, do you?’

From his deadpan gaze, Clare suspected that was exactly what Fen Marchand wanted. When their eyes met and locked, and she refused to look away, he said, ‘I don’t think Miss Anderson scares so easily.’

‘Possibly not—’ Louise totally missed the silent exchange of hostilities ‘—but you could still try to be a little pleasanter. Clare isn’t used to your sense of humour, and, if she were to take to her heels, then where would you be?’ she asked rhetorically.

Her brother answered her all the same, with a dry, ‘Housekeeperless, I presume.’

‘Precisely.’ Louise felt she’d just made her point. ‘And you know you can’t manage on your own, Fen, so try to be nice, hmm?’ she appealed.

If Fen Marchand’s less than nice expression was anything to go by, the appeal fell on deaf ears. But Louise seemed oblivious, taking his silence as assent.

‘Good, so that’s settled,’ she announced with totally unwarranted optimism. ‘Now I must dash. I have a charity do this evening and I simply can’t miss it... Clare, any problems, just give me a call,’ she invited kindly.

‘Thank you.’ Clare smiled, knowing already what her biggest problem would be.

He chimed in, ‘I don’t suppose this advice service extends to me?’

Louise gave a brief laugh. ‘My dear Fen, the last time you took my advice on anything you were five years old. I can’t believe you’ll start wanting it now.’

‘You never know.’ He actually smiled for a moment, but it was solely at his sister and didn’t reach the eyes flicking back from her to Clare.

Once more Clare returned his stare, her eyes telling him she understood. She was here only under sufferance and it was going to be no lifelong career.

‘Well, you know the number,’ Louise replied, and, with a last smile for both of them, stopped her brother from following her by adding, ‘No, it’s all right. I want a last word with Miles, then I’ll show myself out. You stay and tell Clare what her duties are.’

So saying, she went back down the steps, leaving Clare and Fen Marchand to trade hostile stares.

It was he who broke off first, walking past her to place her suitcase on the bed. ‘If you give me the address, I’ll send for the rest.’

‘The rest of what?’ Clare was slow on the uptake.

‘Your luggage,’ he said patiently.

She shook her head. ‘There’s no more. That’s it.’

His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You believe in travelling light. Or aren’t you planning to stay long?’

‘That’s up to you, Mr Marchand,’ she replied coolly. ‘I’ve brought all my possessions and given up my room at the hostel.’

‘In that case,’ he countered, ‘we’d better try and make this work. Firstly, we need some ground rules.’

‘Yes?’ Clare waited for him to continue, assuming all the rules were going to be made by him.

‘Right.’ He slanted his head on one side, studying her for a moment. ‘You don’t smoke, I hope.’

‘No,’ she answered simply.

‘Good, I can’t abide the smell of stale tobacco... What about drink?’

‘Drink?’

‘Alcohol,’ he added with some impatience. ‘Do you drink and if so, how much?’

Clare’s brows lifted. He certainly believed in being blunt and to the point. ‘I haven’t had a drink in three years,’ she stated with absolute honesty.

He was unimpressed. ‘Well, that tells me how long you were in prison,’ he commented drily, ‘but what about before? Was your crime drink-related?’

‘No.’ Clare held in a sigh. ‘I don’t have a drink problem, if that’s what you’re asking...I don’t take drugs, either,’ she added, before he could ask any awkward questions on that line. Questions she might not be able to answer honestly.

‘You don’t smoke. You don’t drink. You don’t take drugs. So, are there any vices you’d like to admit to?’ he asked in a tone that suggested he wasn’t taking her word for anything.

Clare gave a shrug that he could read how he liked. She wasn’t about to tell him the one vice that had led her to prison—her blind, obsessive love for John Holstead, the son and heir of the fifth Earl of Abbotsford.

‘What about men?’ He got on to the subject without any help from her. ‘Is there some boyfriend in the background?’ His lips formed a curve of distaste, as if he imagined any boyfriend she’d choose would be an unsavoury character.

It was too much for Clare, trying hard to keep her temper under control. ‘If I have,’ she rallied, ‘I think that’s my business, Mr Marchand.’

His face darkened at her answer. Free speech was obviously considered his prerogative, and his alone.

‘On the contrary,’ he argued, ‘it would most definitely be my business should you intend that this boyfriend visit you here, at my home.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Clare declared abruptly, meaning to close the subject.

She felt no obligation to go further and state that there would be no boyfriend, now or later. She’d only ever loved one man. She’d worshipped him from the age of twelve, humiliated herself for him more times than she cared to remember, made love with him in beds of straw and backs of cars, and, through everything, remained blind to the point of stupidity.

‘Good.’ Fen Marchand’s chilly tones brought her back to the present. ‘Because I value my privacy and would not appreciate it being invaded by some male stranger staying overnight in my attic. I trust you take my meaning, Miss Anderson?’

Clare nodded and kept her opinion to herself. She really didn’t want to lose this job before she’d even begun. She had something to prove first.

‘Right, well, you can start tomorrow morning. Breakfast,’ he announced briskly, and had walked past her to the door before he thought of asking, ‘You can cook, can’t you?’

‘Just about.’ She gave him the answer she felt the question deserved.

His face clouded over once more, but he said nothing, as he turned on his heel and marched off downstairs.

Clare could guess what he was thinking. Here he was, giving a chance to one of his sister’s no-hopers, and getting precious little gratitude in return. He was right, too. Clare felt nothing towards him except a growing dislike.

But she had to make an effort, Clare told herself, at least try to be the polite, colourless housekeeper he wanted. If only subservience were a more natural part of her character. She grimaced as she thought of her mother. Yes, your ladyship. No, your ladyship. Of course, your ladyship. In all those years, had her mother ever wanted to say, Go to hell, your ladyship?

Possibly she had, but circumstances had made her dependent on the Holsteads. She’d been a nanny to another county family when she’d met Clare’s father, Tom Anderson. He’d been an assistant trainer at Lord Abbotsford’s racing stables. After a fairly brief courtship, they’d married and were given one of the cottages on the estate. Clare had arrived a year later and, within months of her birth, her father had been killed in a riding accident. Lord Abbotsford had made no offer of financial compensation, but, ‘out of the goodness of his heart’, had allowed Mary Anderson to remain in the cottage in return for some help in the nursery.

The Holsteads had two children, Sarah and John. Sarah had been two years older than Clare but the two had played together until Sarah had gone away to boarding-school at eleven. Johnny had been five years older and a complete tyrant to the two girls.

Eventually her mother had transferred to the position of housekeeper. At the same time, Clare had grown apart from the children of the house. On the few occasions Sarah or John had been home from school, they’d usually been accompanied by friends and had treated Clare very distantly.

Clare had been a little hurt but understood. She might have the same accent, acquired in those nursery days, and she might dress similarly, albeit in Sarah’s discards, but the social gulf between them was a chasm.

It had been different later, when Clare had flowered from an awkward, mop-headed tomboy, with sticks for legs and a chest flat as a board, to a suddenly beautiful redhead, with a swan-like neck and a slim, curving figure and the face of a model, all huge green eyes and hollow cheeks. Then one of the Holstead children had taken notice of her again, only this time he hadn’t played tyrant.

Clare caught the drift of her thoughts and stopped them dead. She wasn’t going to go up that road another time. She had cried enough for Johnny. She wasn’t going to cry any more—not for him or any man.

She bent to start her unpacking. It didn’t take long. Her clothes took up a tiny corner of the wardrobe. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the reverse side of the door and pulled a face. She still appeared young, remarkably so after three years inside, but her looks had gone. She was thin to the point of emaciation, like an anorexic schoolgirl, with a complexion of paste. She recalled how she’d looked the summer she’d turned seventeen, how she’d felt, and for a moment she mourned the loss of that beauty. Then the film rolled on and she saw how it had really been a curse, not a gift, and she called herself a fool for even minding.

She firmly closed the wardrobe door and jumped a little when she turned to discover herself no longer alone.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded of Miles Marchand, standing there, quite coolly spying on her.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. Why shouldn’t I be here?’

‘Because it’s my room,’ she said very clearly, ‘and you don’t come in without an invitation. OK?’

Clare wasn’t kidding and she gave him a look that said as much.

‘OK,’ Miles muttered back, ‘there’s no reason to get uptight. I got you the job, you know,’ he claimed in an arrogant tone, reminiscent of Marchand senior. ‘He didn’t want to employ you. He said you were too young. You don’t look particularly young to me.’

‘Thanks.’ Clare grimaced but didn’t take offence. No adult looked young to an eleven-year-old. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ She sat herself in the wicker chair.

He was slow to accept the invitation but eventually he slouched down on the velvet settee, hands stuck in his pockets. He wanted to make it clear that he was doing her the favour.

‘Can you swim?’ he asked after a minute’s silence.

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘Moderately.’

‘Can you bowl?’

‘Ten-pin?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then no.’

The boy looked disappointed. She’d failed that one.

‘I don’t suppose you can ride a horse,’ he said disdainfully.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Clare responded, ‘I can.’

He looked sceptical, much in the same way his father did. ‘A proper horse, I mean. Not a pony or anything.’

‘A proper horse,’ she echoed, picturing the beautiful animals in the Earl’s stables. She’d mucked out, washed down and brushed up, for the privilege of exercising the less important racers.

‘I had a horse once,’ the boy announced. ‘A bay mare.’

‘What was her name?’ she asked.

‘Flash,’ he replied. ‘She was called that because she was fast. I mean really fast. Her sire was a Derby winner,’ he declared proudly.

It was Clare’s turn to look sceptical. The fact did not go unnoticed.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he accused. ‘But it’s true. My grandfather bought her for me. Then she sold him.’

‘Your mother?’ Clare guessed.

He nodded. ‘After Grandpa died, she sold everything she could—houses, cars, paintings, the lot, so she could follow Ricky boy round the world.’

‘Ricky?’ Clare echoed automatically before she realised it might not be a good idea.

‘Her boyfriend Ricardo,’ he said disdainfully. ‘He was an Argentinian polo-player. When he lost a match, he used to beat his horses.’

‘Did he hurt you?’ she asked quietly.

He pulled a slight face, then shook his head. ‘He used to shout at me sometimes. I didn’t care. Mostly it was in Spanish and I only know a little... He shouldn’t have hit his horses, though.’

‘No.’ Clare agreed with this solemn judgement.

Then he added matter-of-factly, ‘Never mind. He’s dead now.’

‘What?’ Clare wondered if she’d heard properly.

‘He died in a car crash,’ Miles relayed, ‘with my mother.’

‘Oh,’ Clare murmured inadequately, then added a quietly sympathetic, ‘You must miss her.’

It drew a belligerent look and an immediate denial. ‘No, I don’t! Why should I? She didn’t care about me.’

Clare shook her head. ‘I’m sure she did, Miles. Sometimes grown-ups are too busy with their own lives, but that doesn’t mean—’

‘What do you know?’ Miles cut in abruptly and jumped to his feet. ‘You’re just a servant!’

It was intended as the ultimate insult but Clare didn’t take offence. She could tell from the colour suffusing his face that he regretted his words the moment they were out, but didn’t know how to take them back. Instead he turned and ran.

Clare heard him take the stairs two at a time, clattering noisily down the plain wooden treads, and sighed aloud. It hadn’t taken her long to upset Miles, and he had been the one to secure her the post. But did she want this job so badly that she was willing to let herself be ruled by the moods of an eleven-year-old boy?

The answer was no, but that wasn’t exactly the correct question. She might not want the job, but she needed it—at least until she found something else.

Perhaps she should put an advert in the paper:

Female ex-con, twenty-six, with drugs and theft convictions, no good with children, no good at being humble either. Anything considered. Apply Box...

Somehow she didn’t think she’d get much response, yet there seemed little point in lying about her past when it would inevitably be found out.

Plainly, this was her best chance. If the Marchands, senior and junior, would just let her get on with the cooking and cleaning, without expecting anything else from her, she could be reasonably content here. She’d work hard for them when on duty, and, when not, she’d escape to her attic sanctuary.

She looked round the room again with an appreciative eye. As bed-sits went, it was beautifully furnished, comfortable without being over-fussy, nothing too valuable to use, but nothing cheap and nasty either. Louise’s son had been lucky to have such a place to study in.

Clare stretched out on the bed and, as in prison, let her imagination wander to better things.

How different it would all be if she’d come to Oxford to study, not skivvy—to work for a degree that would be her passport to a new life. It wasn’t so fanciful. She’d been considered fairly bright at school. She’d gained eight O levels, and gone on to do A levels...only that same year Johnny Holstead had been sent down from university, and her studies had flown out the window, along with her common sense.

She couldn’t believe now that she’d been such a fool. To give up a future for a few meaningless words of love and a summer of stolen meetings. He’d never once taken her out, never shown her his world, yet she’d turned her own life upside-down for him, believing he meant his ‘forever’ promises.

Their engagement had been announced in The Times, on September the fourteenth. Clare remembered precisely, because a good part of her had died that day. Their picture had been in the tabloids, too. The Earl of Abbotsford’s son, John, was marrying the daughter of a duke, Lady Elizabeth Beaumaris.

Clare had refused to believe it at first. It was she who should have been standing at his side, a smiling, radiant bride-to-be. Not some stuffed dummy of a deb.

Johnny had agreed, even as he’d told her that he had to marry the duke’s daughter. Love was one thing, money another, and the Holsteads’ declining fortunes required him to take a rich wife. It had always been that way among the upper classes. It didn’t have to affect their relationship, he’d explained, seriously expecting Clare to accept the role of mistress.

He’d had no idea how he’d destroyed her life and she hadn’t stuck around long enough to tell him. She’d abandoned school and home, and fled to Brighton where she’d found work in a hotel. She’d lost that job five months later and been forced to seek refuge in a women’s hostel. She’d kept in touch with her mother but had been unable to return home.

Her eighteenth birthday had come and gone without celebration, unlike Johnny’s wedding which had been splashed all over the newspapers. It had finally killed off her dreams. Till then she’d hoped Johnny might break his engagement and come looking for her, his true love. But that only happened in books. In real life, he married the heiress and lived richly ever after.

She’d been twenty-two before she’d returned to Abbotsford Hall. Her mother had fallen ill, the first stage of the cancer that would kill her, and she’d come back to look after her. She’d had no other choice but it had proved a mistake. Having got over Johnny, she’d believed that he too would be happy to ignore her return. Instead it had led to a chain of events that had ended in tragedy for the Holstead family and prison for her.

Now she was starting again, and this time it was going to be different. She neither needed nor desired personal attachments. Prison had equipped her for surviving without such luxuries and she preferred it that way. She’d never love again, or have a child, or tear herself inside out—not for any man.

Nothing was worth that much pain.

CHAPTER THREE

‘OH...GOOD morning,’ Fen Marchand greeted her in surprise as they met on the gallery landing, she fully dressed, he in a towelling robe and little else besides.

‘Good morning.’ Clare looked through him, unembarrassed.

‘I’ve just woken Miles,’ he relayed. ‘We’ll be down at eight o’clock.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Clare took it as an order. ‘Do you prefer a cooked or continental breakfast?’

He frowned slightly before saying, ‘Cooked, but nothing too heavy. Scrambled eggs will do, plus coffee and toast.’

‘Very well, sir,’ Clare responded, again with leaden politeness, and left him staring after her as she descended the staircase.

Obviously he hadn’t expected her to know how to act the part of formal housekeeper, but she had a fair idea. She should do. She’d watched her mother present an inscrutable face to the Holsteads and their frequent rudeness. Now, in a similar position, she saw why. If she wanted to keep this job, being unobtrusive was probably as important as being efficient.

With her mind on being the latter, she searched for the kitchen. It was at the back of the house, a beautiful, fully modernised kitchen with built-in cupboards, cooker and every labour-saving gadget imaginable. Having not seen it on her first visit, Clare had feared a quaint, farmhouse sort, with impossible-to-keep-clean nooks and crannies and an impossible-to-cook-on range.

Her only problem was trying to fit into the overall she found hanging behind the larder door. Made of white cotton, it really did threaten to go round her twice. She had to dispense with the buttons and simply wrap herself in it and tie the belt very tightly. She ended up looking slightly ridiculous but that didn’t bother her.

Breakfast was simple to prepare and was almost ready when the Marchands, father and son, trooped into the kitchen.

Clare, however, wasn’t expecting them to sit down. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve set the table in the dining-room.’

It was Miles who awarded her a critical look, before announcing, ‘We never have breakfast there.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Clare repeated. ‘If you give me a minute or two, I’ll move everything back.’

‘I should have told you,’ Fen Marchand said, rising from the table. ‘We’ll move. Come on, Miles.’

The boy took his time in obeying and, before leaving the kitchen, he glanced smugly at her. Having fallen out of favour, Clare’s mistakes were going to be tallied.

Not having time to worry about it, she concentrated on finishing the scrambled eggs and tipping them into a salver to keep warm. She’d already taken through two jugs of fruit juice and a first batch of tea and toast, and the Marchands were busy eating when she appeared. She served up the eggs, the man taking a fair portion, but leaving the same amount for the boy.

That didn’t stop Miles from complaining, ‘Is that all there is? I’m hungry.’

‘I’ll make more,’ Clare said, resigned to the boy’s rudeness.

But his father cut in, ‘No, you won’t. Miles, apologise!’

‘What for?’ the boy immediately protested.

‘You know,’ his father retorted. ‘Either apologise or go to your room.’

The man clearly meant it. The boy’s mouth went into a resentful line while his eyes flashed angrily in Clare’s direction.

‘Apologise!’ his father insisted, a definite warning ring in his voice.

‘Look, it doesn’t matter.’ Clare didn’t want any pitch battles fought on her behalf, and, before Fen Marchand could make a bigger issue of it, she escaped to the kitchen.

She was preparing another batch of toast when Miles sidled into the room some five minutes later. He didn’t speak but hung about at the door, his face a picture of sullenness.

He was a handsome boy, with the same blond hair and well-cut features as his father. He also had the Marchand eyes, a clear, penetrating blue that seemed so honest in Louise’s case, and so chilling in the man’s. On Miles, the eyes were windows of a troubled soul, following her as she moved about the kitchen.

‘Can I get you something, Miles?’ she eventually asked.

It gave him an opening and he blurted out, ‘He says I have to apologise.’

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