A Pretend Engagement (5 page)

He gave her a nasty look and wandered away, and in between stowing the shopping Varnie cooked him bacon, eggs and beans. In the hope that his arteries were clogging up, she added a piece of fried bread.

The meal was almost ready when she went to lay a place in the dining room. Beaumont came out of the study and saw her with the tray in her hands. `I'll eat in the kitchen,' he decided, and he was sure he only said it to be difficult. Still, if he wanted to eat with what he thought was the hired help, who was she to say he couldn't?

She had thought the meal would be eaten with not a word being exchanged. But, sitting at one end of the scrubbed-top kitchen table, a cloth hastily thrown over it, he at the other end, she had barely cut into her bacon when to her surprise he enquired, `Where do you come from?'

Varnie popped a morsel of bacon in her mouth, and under cover of chewing it, and emptying her mouth before speaking, cogitated on her answer. Had Johnny, during the miles he'd driven him around the country, told him anything at all about his family? Or had Beaumont been occupied with work the whole of the time?

`Gloucestershire.' She decided to risk it. Her brother had lived in London for some years now.

`Where did you meet Metcalfe?' he wanted to know.

`He stayed at a hotel I worked at one time.' And she'd thought she hated liars!

Though of course Johnny had stayed at the hotel. But why wouldn't he? Their parents had owned it. Leon Beaumont opened his mouth to ask another question she was sure she wouldn't want to answer either, but she butted in first. It made a change.

`Talking of staying, how long were you thinking of staying on here?' she asked, and felt herself go a touch pink. She saw his glance on her delicate colouring, saw his glance go to what had once been described as a very kissable mouth, and she hated him when he ignored her question and made an observation instead.

`You're looking guilty about something?' he questioned grimly. `What have you done?"

'Nothing!' she denied hotly. `Honestly. you're the most, most...' she got stuck for a word `...most I've ever met!' Oddly then, his lips twitched, as though she amused him.

'Though his smile never made it. Abruptly she dragged her eyes from his well- shaped mouth. 'it was a quite innocent question,' she defended. 'I like to know where I am. If I have some idea of how long you intend to be here, then I'll have some idea of what to do with regard to the catering arrangements.' She was starting to feel a fool. `Just how long are you staying?' she demanded. As if she expected an answer! She didn't get one.

`I' m on holiday,' was as much as he revealed. And that annoyed her.

`It's November! Why can't you holiday abroad like everybody else?' she snapped, exasperated.

`I've done the "abroad" bit,' he answered, and while she was wondering what the penalty was for fratricide she felt like murdering her brother-Beaumont went silkily on, `You've got something against my holidaying here'

Who am I to complain? I'm only the skivvy! This was helping Johnny keep his job? `No, of course not,' she swallowed her ire. `I feel very lucky that Johnny...' Bother, she should have said John. Too late now." Er -Johnny Metcalfe thought of me when he wanted emergency-cover. It's just that I should hate to let him down should a job offer come before your-um-holiday is over. Naturally I'd honour my contract with John Metcalfe first. He was insistent that I didn't let you down...' Oh, grief, was she laying on John Metcalfe's efficient reliability too thickly? 'There's more bacon there if you'd like...'

`You sound as if you're fond of him, as if you'd do anything for him?'

Varnie had had quite enough of Beaumont' observations. `Well, I've always found him to be a man of the highest integrity.' She found she was spreading more on- grief, she was sounding like a talking reference.

`You're in love with him?' Blunt, to the point. `No, I'm not!' she denied, realizing that perhaps she had been singing Johnny's praises a little too highly. She tried for the middle ground. `He's a very nice person, that's all, and I'm very fond of him.'

`But not in love with him?'

Varnie gave him an exasperated look. `I said not!' she exploded. And, before she could stop herself, `And, contrary to your opinion that I might fancy you-I'm off men, quite severely. right now.' And, with barely veiled innuendo. `In particular men to whom the state of marriage means nothing!' There, pick the bones out on that!

He did. But to her further annoyance chose not to see her remarks as a dig at him for his disgraceful goings-on-that woman-what was her name?-Antonia King-was still living with her husband, for goodness' sake. `Some man refused to marry you?' Beaumont leaned back in his chair to enquire coolly.

Varnie sent him a filthy look for his trouble. She didn't mean her! She meant him! `It didn't get that far,' she erupted. `I found out he was married!' She looked away in disgust. Had she really openly just told Leon Beaumont that'? For goodness' sake! Okay, she accepted that to be a successful businessman probably meant having ,in investigative mind, an enquiring mind, a mind that determined to find out that which he did not know. But...

He proved it. `You dumped him`?' Honestly, this man! `Quicker than that!' she snapped. And, having had, quite sufficient of his company, thank you, she abruptly got to her feet. `If you've had enough to eat, I'll wash these dishes,' she said shortly.

He carried his own used dishes over to the sink, but wasn't yet done with his questions, apparently. `This man, the one you had coffee with-is he the married one who...?"

'I never said my friend was a man.'

Leon Beaumont looked loftily down at her. `You're saying your friend was female`?'

She felt a fool again. She did not like the feeling. `Do you give all your-your staff this - um-third degree?' she questioned hostilely.

He smiled. He actually smiled. It did wonder for the mostly severe expression she was more used to. She wasn't sure that her heartbeats did not give a little flip- utter nonsense, of course-but it did make her see, as Johnny hail told her, why women fell for him like ninepins. Not her, of course. Heaven forbid.

`Not all of them,' he drawled. `But you're so delightful to wind up.'

The pig! He was baiting her for his own amusement! While she admitted that there way not very much going on around here in the way of entertainment, she did not take kindly to the fact that he was amusing himself by getting her to rise-that she was the star turn! How she hi( l the fact that she would like to crack the plate in her hands over his head, she did not know.

`Thanks a bunch!' she told him huffily. 'I'll let you know when dinner's ready.' `Your friend knows you're here at Aldwyn house?" he stayed to enquire, ignoring her hint that she hoped not to see him again before dinner.

`I expect so,' she answered carefully.

`You didn't say what you were doing here?' Leon Beaumont's tone had hardened, as he reminded her how much he wanted his where abouts kept secret.

For about two seconds she played with the idea of saying that she had. Then thoughts of Johnny were there again. Perishing brothers! `No,' she replied. `I didn't think you'd like me to tell him.'

`Are you having coffee with him again?' he wanted to know, taking in his stride the information that her friend had been male, as he had thought.

She shook her head. `Russell is returning to its home in Caernarvon soon,' she replied.

`Good!' Leon Beaumont grunted, and, taking ul) the newspaper from the top of one of the units, where she had put it, he went casually out from the kitchen. Varnie did not mistake that that `Good!' was anything other than good because it meant there was someone less for her to blab to about his whereabouts. The man did not care a jot how many men she had coffee with, that much was certain. His privacy was all that concerned him. She wouldn't have it any other way.

SOMEHOW the weekend passed without Varnie putting rat poison in Leon Beaumont's food. They were sparky with each other...she couldn't always remember to be nice.

Well, who would?she thought mutinously on more than one occasion. He still did not seem totally convinced that she wasn't there trying to make capital of the situation of them being under the same roof alone together. Huh!

She sat in front of her dressing table mirror on Monday morning and brushed her long hlonde hair, then flipped it up into an elegant hun. She allowed her large sea- green eyes to study her dainty features and clear complexion,

Then took her eyes from the mirror to stare down at her well-kept hands and long fingers with their neat and equally well-kept nails.Then had to suppose that in all honesty she was not your general picture of an everyday `skivvy'.

Varnie left her room, never more grateful that her grandfather had thought to install a computer in his study. Not so far as she knew that he had used it for any business purpose, but she knew he had spent many a happy hour playing either bridge or chess on it. But the machine came in useful for getting Leon Beaumont out of her hair. What work he could do at weekends she had no idea, but the computer had been on when she had taken him in a cup of coffee yesterday morning. And he had been playing neither bridge nor chess, but had had a screen full of matter that was way past her comprehension. With luck the computer would keep him occupied for all of this day too.

She was always astir at six. He was downstairs before her and already in the kitchen drinking coffee. He wasn't mean, she'd give him that, when, not bothering to ask if she wanted one, he poured her a cup of coffee.

`Thanks,' she said, and, remembering her place, `Good morning,' she added pleasantly.Which turned out to be a bit of a wasted effort when he ignored her and went, carrying his coffee, out through the kitchen door. `Suityourself !' she addressed his departing back.

`Good morning!' sailed back to her-and. oddly, she had to laugh.

And so the day began. Leon Beaumont spent a great deal of his day working in the study and she barely saw him. He made several telephone calls and, when she rushed to answer the phone so that it should not disturb him, she found that he had answered the phone first and that the call was for him. It would not have been for her anyway, she belatedly realised, because no one but Russell Adams knew that she was there. And Russell was probablyback in Caernarvon by now. So Varnie got on with the job she was supposed to he there to do, and cleaned that which had to be cleaned, left fresh towels outside her `employer's' door, and cooked that which had to be cooked. She went to bed that night feeling not as satisfied with her day's work as she should have been, and somehow feeling more than a little fed-up.

She was still feeling the same when she got up the next morning and went down the stairs, musing that her only reason for coming here had been so that her parents should enjoy the trancluillity of their retirement and not be upset that she was upset.

But, and she could hardly believe it, she did not feel as emotionally broken as she had supposed she would when the numbness of Martin Walker's dreadful deceit had worn off. What she did feel was disgusted with him, and disbelieving of her own naivety. So-if there was nothing for her parents to be upset about-what in creation was she doing here? Suddenly she realised that-she could go home!

Leon was in the kitchen. He poured her a cup of coffee and, impulsively, before she could think it through, she blurted out, `Would it put you out too much if I left?'

He was standing by the draining board and studied her with cool grey eyes. `Good morning,' he replied, and took a swig of his coffee. Her lips twitched, but if he noticed he paid no heed, but told her easily, `I wouldn't be at all put out. You're quite free to go whenever you wish.'

Truly, he didn't give a light. But something, she knew not what, but something in the way he said it caused her to hesitate. And when she should have been skipping up the stairs to gather her belongings together, she stayed. Stayed to question, `You're sure you don't mind?"

'I've said so,' he answered curtly.`Though if you're in touch with your friend Metcalfe before I am you might tell him to take my name off his CV.'

Varnie's mouth fell open in shock. What broader hint than that did she need that, should she leave, then Johnny would be leaving his employ too, tout de suite! He was as good as saying that if she left him in the lurch-domestic wise-there would be no point in John Metcalfe applying to the company for a reference! What Leon Beaumont was saying was tantamount to informing her that Johnny's job was on the line here. That if she did not stay to do the job his assistant had hired her to do, then that said assistant could wave goodbye to his job too.

'But-that's-that's blackmail!' she gasped, realising then that he must have formed the opinion that she was fond enough of his assistant to not want to lose him his job. `You reckon?' he drawled.

She stared at him, dumbstruck. 'But-but you didn't want me here anyway!' she protested. `On Saturday you were in two minds about throwing me out!' How long ago Saturday seemed-she had been on the point of throwing him out. Oh, if only.

`Your housekeeping skills aren't bad, and you're a halfway decent cook,' he commented, unmoved. And while she looked at him incredulously that he was a man who so obviously enjoyed his creature comforts he was prepared to blackmail her to keep them, he sauntered, coffee in hand, to boot up the computer-presumably to check on any overnight happenings in his international company.

Rat poison was too good for him! With hate in her heart Varnie silently swore that if the chance ever came for her to do Beaumont one in the eye she would grab it with both hands.

Varnie mutinied against him for the rest of the morning. The post came-there was mail for him. She let him come and find it on the hall table himself. She was his cook and cleaner, not his secretary. Though, seeing the typed name L. Beaumont, it showed that he must have acquainted someone with where he was hiding away. On thinking about it, she rather supposed that a man in his position with a company to run could hardly disappear from the face of the earth for weeks on end.

Weeks on end! Surely not! Oh, grief, she hoped not. He couldn't possibly leave his business for that long-could he'? She had been giving serious thought about making her own career and wanted to get on with it-now. She felt defeated suddenly. Johnny planned to be away a whole month. A whole month! No! Leon Beaumont couldn't plan to be here that long? Well, she wasn't staying here all that time! For one thing her parents were expecting her home a week next Saturday. No way was she staying here any longer than that, that was for definite.

All Leon had wanted for lunch yesterday had been a sandwich. He could have the same today, she decided, still feeling extremely rebellious against the man how dared he blackmail her into staying? On the other hand-how dared she go?

It slowly began to dawn on her then that she could not go home yet anyway. How could she'? While she would be able to put her parents' minds at rest that she was not as upset as she had envisaged to have broken with Martin Walker what on earth had there been to break`? He was married, for goodness' sake-how could she tell them what Johnny had done? True, they were used to his misdemeanors Johnny had been a bit of a trial from an early age, always up to something. He had been eleven when he had sold his bicycle to fund his temporary obsession with some amusement arcade. When the dust had settled, and their parents had calmly pointed out to him that it was dishonest to do such a thing, he had replied with logic there was no arguing with that, as the bicycle was their birthday present to him, he thought it was his, and his to do with as he wished.

All other misdemeanors aside, never before had he rented out someone else's property, albeit his sister's. Varnie had covered for him countless times, but her mother seemed to have grown a special antenna where she was concerned, and had a foolproof instinct whenever her daughter tried to be evasive. From experience she seemed to nose out when Johnny had been up to something-and when Varnie was trying to protect him-and she rarely got it wrong.

While Varnie knew herself a hopeless liar, and could not lie to her parents and thereby had to accept that she could not go home just yet anyway, she had no such problems in lying to Beaumont. But then, he did not deserve any better. Womanising swine! No woman was safe from him, except maybe her, but then she was only the skivvy.

He came out from the study at lunchtime, spotted the mail on the hall table and, Varnie noted, happening to be in the hall at the same time, did not seem a happy bunny.

`How long has this been here?' he demanded.

Varnie looked at him guilelessly from her big sea-green eyes. `Is it important?' she asked sweetly. And, going to the drawing room door, `I've put your snack in here. I'll just get you some coffee.' She received a grunt by way of a reply.

She went back to the kitchen knowing full well that she was being petty in the extreme. But it was amazing how good being petty made her feel. Womanising, blackmailing toad, he did not deserve better.

He was standing staring out of one of the long drawing room windows when she returned with his coffee. Placing the tray down on a low table, she thought about asking if he would like her to pour, before deciding that he was big enough to do that for himself. Then she forgot every bit about coffee when she heard him mutter some kind of oath.

She looked over to him, and was glad to see that the oath was not aimed at her. He was still looking out of the window, she observed, only now, as she went over to see what he was swearing about, she saw that it wasn't the leaf-strewn neglected garden he was looking at, but the car that had stopped at the end of the drive. Plainly he recognised the car-and its female driver. Equally plainly, he was not thrilled. Varnie was quite impressed. Unless he had been born a grumpy old devil, and according to her brother Leon Beaumont had enough charm to have women ready to lie down and die for him, then she wasn't the only one to upset Beaumont's apple cart.

`Friend or foe?' she asked innocently.

`Bloody woman!' he snarled.

`Moi?' Varnie queried, enjoying herself.

`Short of getting a court order to get her to leave me alone, I've told her every way I know how that I'm not interested!' he rapped, as an elegant brunette got out of car and began to unto the gates at the bottom on the drive that had been closed since Varnie had returned from shopping on Saturday.

The woman got back into her car and steered it up the drive. They were standing back from the window, and where she had parked they could see her but she could not see them.

Then something clicked for Varnie. 'Antonia King!' she exclaimed.

`You know her?' He rounded on her furiously. `You told her I was here?' he accused blisteringly.

`She's very photogenic!' Varnie snapped right back. `The only time I saw her was when her picture was in the paper. Perhaps she's come to ask you to stop thumping her husband!' she commented artlessly, and was on the receiving end of a nasty look for her trouble.

`Damn you, damn her, and damn her husband!' he snarled. 'I'm sick of it.' And, in no uncertain terms, `Go and tell her to clear off!' he ordered. Varnie stared at him in amazement. `Suddenly I'm elevated from household drudge and halfway decent cook to the great and dizzying heights of your social secretary? Do your own dirty work!' Varnie erupted. `Tell her yourself!'

`I will!' he barked. `I've had it with her she's out!' With that he went striding towards the door.

Only just then Varnie recalled the press report saying that Antonia King worked for him. `Just a minute!' she called urgently.

He stopped, half turned. `What?' he barked, looking as impatient as blazes.

`She works for you, doesn't she`?"

'She did,' he agreed succinctly. `She's just about to get fired !'

`Don't do that!' Varnie exclaimed impulsively. Leon Beaumont looked at her as if demanding to know who she thought she was to tell him how to run his company, and Varnie hurried on," She must be good at her job or she wouldn't be one of your executives.'

`She wouldn't have been promoted if she wasn't up to it,' he agreed coldly, but went on angrily, `I've had enough. This has to stop now. It's bloody ridiculous! All I did was a bit of PR management, to encourage her when she was first upgraded to the top floor, and the stupid woman seems to think it's personal. I've had it with clinging women-she's out!' With that he was at the door.

`Stop!' Varnie cried, feeling certain that despite what he had said no woman would latch on to him from just a little PR. Public relations, my foot. He must have encouraged her more than that, and now the poor woman was going to lose her job, her career. 'I'll do it-tell her to go. I'll tell her to leave you alone-for ever,' Varnie said.

Leon Beaumont paused to give her a suspicious look. `Why?' he asked. `Less than a minute ago you were all for me doing my own "dirty work".'

`A minute ago I didn't know you intended to sack her,' Varnie explained. `I've been thinking just lately in terms of building some kind of career for myself, and-'

`In the hotel trade?'

He never forgot a thing, obviously. She'd have to try and remember what lies she told him. `It depends what offers I get from my job applications. I might try something differenter-if I can get fixed up with accommodation.' She started to get hot. `The thing is...' She thought Antonia King to be around thirty. `I shouldn't like to be seven or eight years into my career only to be dismissed because, with nothing wrong with my work, I had a crush on my boss.'

'Hmph!' He did not think much of her reasoning, but at least he wasn't striding off to tell Antonia King to find employment elsewhere. `The only crush she's got is on my wallet.'