Good Girl or Gold-Digger?

‘Right.’ Felix mentally readjusted his picture of Daisy. A mechanic and a bit touchy: to him, that suggested a woman with muscles, cropped hair, probably a nose ring or a tattoo, and an attitude to go with it. But the woman in the photograph hadn’t looked like that. She hadn’t been wearing a skirt, admittedly, and her hair had been pulled back from her face, but she hadn’t looked butch.

He was definitely missing something here. But what?

When they entered the building he could see feet sticking out from under an engine, wearing Doc Martens—bright purple ones. Each one had a stylised white daisy painted on it.

His mental picture took another shift. He could hear his mother sighing and saying, ‘Most unsuitable.’

Oh, for pity’s sake. He was too old to rebel against his parents. He was thirty-four, not fourteen.

But he had a feeling that, with footwear that unusual, Daisy Bell herself would turn out to be equally unusual. And she was the first woman who’d intrigued him this much in a long, long time.

A large ginger cat was curled on top of the engine. ‘Tell her she’s got visitors, lad,’ Bill said.

To Felix’s surprise, the cat leapt down from its perch. A couple of seconds later, he heard a bang, followed by ‘Ow!’ and the singing stopped.

‘Daisy. It’s half-past ten,’ Bill called.

‘Oh, blimey. Tell me he’s not here yet and I’ve still got time to tidy up?’

There was a grating sound—something rolling over concrete, Felix guessed—and then a woman emerged from under the engine.

The woman from the photograph.

She was wearing an oversized engine-driver’s cap that covered her hair completely, an extremely shapeless and unflattering—not to mention dirty—boiler suit, and her face and hands were covered in oil. Face to face, she looked younger than he’d expected, though the newspaper report hadn’t mentioned her age. She was in her very early twenties, he’d guess: too young and inexperienced for her position as Bill’s second in command.

She couldn’t be more than five feet four.

Not blonde, and not long-legged. Completely not his type. But the second that Felix met her sea-green eyes he felt as if there was some kind of connection between them. He couldn’t define it, but it was there, zinging through him.

‘Actually, love, he was early,’ Bill said. ‘Felix, this is my niece, chief mechanic and number two here, Daisy Bell. Daisy, this is Felix Gisbourne.’

Oh, no. Why hadn’t she guessed that Bill would bring the man to meet her if she wasn’t in the office on time? And why on earth hadn’t she thought to ask someone to come and fetch her at least half an hour before Felix Gisbourne was due, so she could at least have greeted him with a handshake? Daisy wiped her hands on a rag, inspected them briefly and knew they didn’t pass muster.

‘Sorry.’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t want to cover you in oil. Better take the handshake as read.’

‘Of course.’ Felix gave her a polite nod.

He was nothing like Daisy had imagined. She’d expected someone nearing his fifties, not someone who looked as if he was around her own age, almost thirty.

And he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Tall, with dark hair, fair skin, dark grey eyes and a mouth that promised sensuality—the kind of looks that made women take a second glance at an ad in a glossy magazine, even a third. He could’ve made a fortune as a model.

Maybe he had been a model at one point. He certainly knew how to dress. His suit looked as if it was made to measure; it was teamed with a white shirt, sober tie and shoes which Daisy guessed were handmade and Italian. His outfit looked as if it cost more than the salary she drew each month.

He was absolutely immaculate—flawlessly groomed, clean shaven, and those shoes were polished to a dazzle. This was a man for whom appearances really mattered. The kind of man, she thought with an inward grimace, who’d expect the women he associated with to wear designer dresses and spend hours at the hairdresser’s and beauty salon—which was so not her. She revised her earlier thought about Felix being a potential investor in the fairground. No way would a man who dressed so fastidiously muck in, in case he got his hands dirty. If he insisted on being anything more than a sleeping partner in Bell’s, it wasn’t going to work.

‘Are you all right?’ Bill asked.

‘Yes. I just hit my head when Titan smacked me in the ear.’

Felix stared at her, as if he was wondering whether he’d been transported into some strange parallel-universe. ‘The cat smacked you in the ear?’

‘It normally means he’s hungry or someone wants me,’ Daisy elaborated. ‘If I’m working on one of the engines, I don’t always hear people come in. So they tell him to fetch me. He kind of thinks he’s a dog. Or maybe a human, I’m not sure.’

A second later, the cat leapt from the engine onto her shoulder; absent-mindedly, she scratched behind his ears and he began to purr.

‘Or Captain Flint?’ Felix suggested, the corners of his mouth tilting.

Long John Silver’s parrot. Daisy’s smile was genuine for the first time. If the man had a sense of humour, it would take the edge off his pristine appearance—and it meant that maybe she could work with him. ‘I’ve been trying to teach him to talk, but I’m afraid he’s sticking with “meow” rather than “pieces of eight”.’

‘Daisy, would you show Felix round for me?’ Bill asked.

‘Course I will.’ She looked at her uncle, narrowing her eyes slightly. He really didn’t look that well. She made a mental note to have a word with Nancy and find out what Bill wasn’t telling her about his health. Maybe it was just the worry about the fairground and whether their new visitor was going to invest in them or consider a big sponsorship deal. She could identify with that; she hadn’t slept particularly well for the last few nights, either.

So she’d better put on a good show when she took Felix round the site, because she had no intention of letting her uncle down, or the part-time staff and volunteers who’d stood by them for years. If getting Felix Gisbourne to invest in them meant schmoozing, then she’d schmooze to Olympic gold medal standard.

Gently, she lifted the cat from her shoulder and set him back on the engine. ‘We’re going walkies. See you in a bit, OK?’

Titan purred.

‘I’ll bring Mr Gisbourne back to the office when I’ve shown him round, Bill.’

Bill smiled at her. ‘Thanks, love.’

When Bill had left the workshop, she turned to Felix. ‘What would you like to see first, Mr Gisbourne?’

‘Felix,’ he corrected. ‘I prefer informality.’

‘With that suit?’ She clapped a hand to her mouth in horror as soon as the words were out. So much for the promise to herself to schmooze the guy. Why had she opened her mouth? ‘Sorry. Forget I said that. Please,’ she added belatedly.

‘Whatever. Just walk me round and tell me what I’m looking at,’ Felix said.

‘OK. First off, this is a working museum, so our collection here is original rather than replica. But we believe that it’s better for them to be used than just moulder away in glass cases while people look at them and think, “So what?” We want people to enjoy them, just like they have for the last hundred or so years. To get the real experience of an old-fashioned fairground.’

‘You have rides dating from the 1800s?’ he asked, sounding surprised.

‘Yes. The gallopers date from 1895.’ She shrugged. ‘But I imagine you saw them in the paper.’

He nodded. ‘Have they found whoever did it?’

‘Not yet. Though, when they do, I’d like to have them under my command for a week,’ Daisy said.

‘So you could teach them a lesson?’

‘It depends what you mean by lesson. When I saw what they’d done, I admit I was furious. But when I’d calmed down a bit, I realised that if they’re the kind who enjoy smashing things up, it’s a fair bet they’ve grown up where nobody around them respected anything and they’ve learned to value nothing. If they worked for me, it’d give them a channel for their energy, and they might learn that they have a talent for something. It’d give them some self-respect—and that’s the first step to being able to respect others.’

‘So you’d let them off without punishment?’ Felix said.

She spread her hands. ‘Chucking kids in jail won’t solve the problem—if they’re stuck somewhere without an outlet for their energy, they’ll brood and get more resentful, and they’ll lash out as soon as they’re out again. I want to show them that there’s another way. Give them an interest and a stake in things. They’re not going to destroy something they’ve spent time building—they’ll want to protect it.’