Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay) (4 page)

“No, but
...”
She searched his face for a hint of
weakness. “Please do anyway,” she said softly, her eyes
wide and pleading.

He groaned and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling to avoid her blue eyes. If she'd slipped down off the bed and gone on her knees before him, she couldn't
have been more persuasive. There was something so vul
nerable, yet so determinedly courageous about her.

He wanted to help her, but how could he? Women weren't butlers. Women were maids and housekeepers.
That was the way it was—feminism be damned. The Carringtons weren't a family
that challenged tradition.

He wanted everything perfect for his grandfather's arrival. It now looked as though that would take a month or two. The old man had to recover as much as possible and be basically mobile before they would let him move into his home again. And now that his own parents had bailed on the job, it was his responsibility to see to it that the house was ready for him.
 

His grandfather meant a lot to him. Rick knew he'd been something of a disappoint
ment to Calvin in the past and he wanted to make
amends. Female butlers didn't set the proper tone for the
homecoming he had in mind.

But there was another element to consider. At this point, the one thing he needed more badly than a butler was a nanny. He looked at Terry skepti
cally, wondering if he could offer to hire her on to take care of his
children for the weekend. But no, he could see from the
determined line around her mouth, that wouldn't quite
fill her purpose.

He frowned, remembering the chaos of the last time
the children had come for a visit—a direct result of
which had been the resignation of three members of the
staff.
 

“I'm ready to do anything,” Terry prompted irrep
ressibly. “I'm a hard worker. No job too big or too
small.”

Okay, why not? He mused silently as he stared at her. Why couldn't a butler take over child control? After all, the job included providing a comfortable atmosphere in the house. If he told her that was what he wanted, she would go off like a firecracker. Obviously, she hadn’t come here to babysit. But if he put it in other terms…

“Okay, I get the picture,” he said. “You really want this job and you want to prove to me that you can handle it. Right?”

She looked suspicious, not sure where he was going with this. But she said, “Right,” and waited to see.

“You’re ready to take on just about anything?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

She flushed, mistaking his intent. “Well, almost anything
. ‘Playmate’ has never been a part of a butler's
job description.”

He couldn't resist teasing her. “Are you sure about
that?” he asked as though thoroughly disappointed. “Not
even in the fine print?”

“Not even.” She was desperate for this job, but not
quite
that
desperate. “Not ever,” she said emphatically.

He was careful not to grin. He didn’t want her to think he was making fun of her. “I see.” He pondered that for a moment. “Okay, tell you what. I’m considering giving it a try for twenty-four hours.”

“Oh.” She looked suddenly radiant. “Oh, thank you Mr. Carrington. You won’t be sorry. I promise.”

“I didn’t commit to that yet,” he warned her. “I’m considering it.”

“Twenty-four hours would be perfect. I know I can convince you.”

His mouth opened, but he closed it again. What could he say? Now he felt guilty. Twenty-four hours would get them through the awkward period of his children being here without a full staff. Once maids began to show up, he’d have plenty of babysitters to use. He could let her go easily. In the meantime…

He was about to start talking about plans, but a shout from the backyard interrupted him. With a quick look at Rick, Terry
bounced off the bed and went through the French doors
onto the balcony to see who was hailing them.

“Hey, lady, you want your chimneys swept or not? I been banging on this door for half an hour here and no
one's answering.”

Standing on the lawn below was a small man all
dressed in black, brushes and shovels over his shoulder, black smudges on his cheeks, and a tall, shiny top hat on
his head. Terry was enchanted by him at first sight.

“Just a minute,” she called down. “I'll let you in.”

Here was her chance to show the boss how well she could
manage. “I'll take care of this,” she told Rick, “and
then we can come to terms over what exactly you’ll expect from me.”

He didn't say a word but rose to follow her down the
stairs and through the kitchen to the back door, which
she unlocked quickly.

“Come on in,” she told the dusty chimney sweep,
standing back and holding the door. The man was a real work of art—a walking, talking period piece right out of
Dickens. She turned to where Rick stood, halfway
across the kitchen, to see how he liked the costumed
worker.

Their gazes met, a silent laugh, and she almost felt as though he'd spoken. A silent sense of connection rippled through the air between them. The smile froze on her lips as she looked at him, then abruptly looked away. She felt as
though she'd seen too much of him or he'd seen too much
of her, that she'd made herself somehow naked and vul
nerable. Crazy feeling. She'd best lose it.

It was the chimney sweep's voice that finally brought
her back down to earth.

“Well, I'm here, I am. Dusty Dan's the name.”

She nodded at him absently, still feeling the searing heat of Rick's gaze—still not sure if it was his intensity or her own memories of her teenaged crush that had lit that fire. “I'm sure you are,” she murmured,
then shook herself alert. “Oh, yes. I'm so glad you're
here. Some of the fireplaces are in pretty sad shape.”

Her fingers were trembling. What was wrong with her?
How could she work for a man who could do this to her
with merely a glance?

The sweep walked farther into the kitchen and coal
dust seemed to rise from his every movement. “I'm here
to fix that for you,” he said cheerfully. “I do my best
work up the chimney, making things clean for Santy Claus.” He chuckled at his own little joke, and though it was the middle of the summer and hardly time to be thinking of reindeer on the roof, the two of them smiled
with him.

“I've drawn up a list of the fireplaces and their conditions,” she said, forcing herself to be calm and searching through the stack of papers she'd piled on the table in the
kitchen.

“How many fireplaces have you got here?” the sweep
asked, adjusting his burden from one shoulder to the
other.

“Five,” she told him with efficient certainty.

“Six,” Rick corrected softly from behind.

She swung around, chagrined. “Six? I counted five. I
went through every room and I counted five.”

“Six,” he insisted quietly. “Trust me. I've lived here
more than you have.”

So much for total control. Terry flushed, but kept her cool. “All right. Six.” She found her paper. “Here's a partial list, then. I'll have to find the other one for you a
little later.”

The chimney sweep went on his way and she looked at
Rick. “A wonderful character, isn't he?” she asked, but
her heart wasn't in it. She knew the time of reckoning
was at hand. Was he going to agree to let her stay? This
meant so much to her—and to her father.

“Most of the servants are still on leave,” Rick said.
“The cook won't be back until tomorrow.”

“I know.” Did that mean that, once the sweep left,
they were going to be alone in the house until the next day? Her pulse began to quicken at the thought, but he
quickly put a damper on that.
 

“My kids are coming this evening. Charles, the chauffeur, will be picking them up at their school in Santa
Barbara.”

The children. She'd forgotten all about them until he’d mentioned them a few minutes ago. She remembered having read of Rick's marriage. It had filled the society pages for weeks. He'd married a Southern heiress and they'd had two children, a girl and a boy. But
hadn't she read something about a divorce?

How was she going to deal with children? She'd never
had much contact with kids. But then, kids were people, younger and shorter, maybe, but people just like anyone
else. She imagined she'd do just fine.

“Are they with their mother during the week?” she asked without thinking, then immediately regretted it.
She didn't want to pry into things he'd rather she stayed
out of.

“Their mother is dead,” he said shortly, and she was sorry she'd brought it up. He looked at her struggling for
words of sympathy and seemed to take pity on her. “She
died of leukemia last year . It's been hard on the
children.”

“I'm sure it has been,” she said quietly.

He was eyeing her again, looking like a man in the throes of indecision. She smiled brightly, hoping to tilt
the scales.

“Can you handle children?” he asked.

She hesitated, but not for long. “Of course.”

“And you're sure you can run a house like this?” he
asked. “How much do you know about it?”

“I'm fully qualified,” she said quickly, not really saying what she was fully qualified for. “I've run houses
before.”

Sure, her dorm room at college, the apartment she and her girlfriends had shared after school, the apartment in
Hollywood where she lived alone. And the house she’d shared with Craig Annison for the last year or so. But thinking of that one made her wince.
 

Not much experience, really, but Rick didn't need to know that. Let him think she'd been butling for years.

“You really do know what you're doing?”

Now,
that
she could answer sincerely, because she had the number one butler in the country on twenty-four-hour call. She couldn't fail! “Absolutely,” she promised.

He stared at her for another long moment, then shook his head as though amazed at his own foolishness. “Go ahead. I'll give you one day, then we'll have a conference and see how things are going. Meet me back here tomorrow at 10 am. We’ll see how it looks from there.” The touch of steel was back in his voice. “But I won't hesitate to fire you if you don't measure up. You understand that?”

“Of course!” Flushed with elation, she had an urge to throw her arms around his neck, but she stifled it. “I won't disappoint you.”

She'd never have the chance to disappoint him
, he thought grimly. He couldn't let her stay for longer than a day. It would never work out, he knew that. But she would be useful until he found someone else.

All of which wasn't very fair to her. Maybe he would think of something else for her before he had to fire her. But he doubted it.

Terry met his gaze and frowned, slightly puzzled. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Suddenly he seemed remote. Without another word, he turned and walked away, and as she watched him go she felt a quiver of unease dashing a bit of her triumph.

CHAPTER THREE:
 

A Butler’s Work Is Never Done
 

Terry's father called her three times in the next two hours. Each time she answered the phone with butler-like aplomb, and each time he launched into some new concern without any preamble.
 

“Mind you attend to the silverware before the master arrives,” he warned her on the first call. “Every piece should gleam with a new sheen on the day the family
returns to Mar Vista.”

Mar Vista was the name of the Carrington mansion. The
estate had a beautiful view of the ocean, though it was somewhat obscured these days by the huge black oaks lining the
driveway. The grounds swept out away from the house in shades of green, from the emerald-green lawns to the soft, clover green of the fields beyond, to the dark green of the forest. There was a cliff leading down to the rocky shore,
where the Pacific came calling on stormy days. Terry
was enchanted by the sea and the grounds. She’d always loved
the place.
 

But it looked like a good bet that the phone calls from her father would continue without let-up throughout her
stay. She had her phone on vibrate and her pocket was quivering at least once an hour.
 

“Make sure you put out the egg cups for breakfast,” he
told her excitedly on another call. “Mr. Carrington does love his soft-boiled egg in the morning. Exactly three minutes, not a second more.”

She agreed, even though she was sure the Mr. Carrington he was referring to was happily eating his soft-boiled eggs in the comfort of Queen Anne’s Acres in Santa Barbara right now. That was what she’d been told, at any rate.
 

“Grandfather is preparing to come to live with us here,” Rick reassured her at one point. “That’s the plan. He’s still recuperating from a bad case of the flu. Some things just don’t want to heal right. But he’s bound and determined to get here.”