The Spaniard's Virgin Housekeeper

‘Long enough to take you to lunch, Tio.’ Long enough to warn him of the type of creature he had taken into his home, to redouble his efforts to persuade him to move into the family country home, or at the very least to move into his luxurious apartment here in Cadiz.

Studiously ignoring the new ‘housekeeper’, Cayo extended a lean, tanned hand. ‘Shall we go?’ To his amazed annoyance he received a decisive shake of his uncle’s head. Until now Tio Miguel had always pandered to his every request or suggestion—except, of course, over the vexed question of his lifestyle.

‘We shall lunch here,’ Miguel stated with firm good humour. ‘Izzy shall cook for us. We have pilchards, I’m told. And peaches.’ He smiled down at her and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Izzy, may I introduce my workaholic nephew, Cayo?’

His nephew! Not in the least impressed now, Izzy shot the poor old gentleman’s uncaring relative a withering glance. If he could afford to dress himself in designer gear and sport a watch that must have cost thousands—and she knew about that sort of stuff because her brilliant, well-heeled big brother always dressed in the best, proclaiming that his position demanded it and that quality always counted—then surely he could alleviate his uncle’s hand-to-mouth existence and visit more often to check on his welfare? As Miguel had said, it had been a long time.

Barely registering Cayo’s response to the introduction, she drew herself up to her unspectacular height and stated, ‘I’ll start preparing lunch, Miguel.’

She headed for the kitchen, hoping the pilchards would stretch to feed three and not much caring for the idea of cooking for someone who had looked at her as if she were dirt. And how had he known her name? She should have asked—would have done if his chilling look hadn’t frozen her vocal cords. It was an omission she would rectify over lunch. Unless he refused to share a table with a mere menial.

Watching her go through narrowed eyes, Cayo recalled how Augustin del Amo had described her. Alush little package. Very apt indeed.

The top of her silvery blond head might reach the top of his chest—or almost. And the descriptive ‘lush’ perfectly suited the ripe curves, full lips and eyes like bruised pansies. She found money an aphrodisiac and despite outward appearances she would know Miguel was rolling in the stuff. After all, she was already intimate enough to call Miguel by his given name!

Reining back the fiery impulse to go after her, take her by the scruff of her neck and tip her into the gutter where she clearly belonged, he turned to his uncle. ‘I need to talk to you.’

The sight of the tiny kitchen, with its old-fashioned iron range, arrays of gleaming copper pans hanging from hooks on roughly plastered walls, earthenware platters and bowls perched on shelves, and the chunky wooden table that served as the only work surface always cheered Izzy, and today went some way to smooth her ruffled feathers.

Five weeks ago, when she’d walked in here for the first time to fetch the frail old gentleman a glass of water, she’d been horrified. Evidence of neglect had hit her from every side. Grease and dust had covered every surface, and the copper pans had been green with verdigris. Empty sherry bottles had been piled in one corner, and the heel of a mouldy loaf had rested in a bucket beneath the grimy stone sink.

‘You live alone?’ she’d asked as she’d watched him drink the water and set the mug aside, on top of a cluttered desk.

‘Since my housekeeper left two days ago,’ he supplied with a weak smile. ‘I thought I should make myself something to eat, and I got the range going, but there was nothing to cook. I was on my way to market when I became light-headed. And I thank you,’ he added with courtesy, ‘for assisting me to my home.’

Definitely not ready to bow out with a Think nothingof it, Izzy asked, ‘Do you have family I could contact for you?’

‘Just a nephew, who I think at the moment is in Britain.’ He spread his thin, fine-boned hands. ‘In any case, it is not necessary to trouble anyone. Already I am recovered from my giddiness and feel better.’

He certainly didn’t look it. Remembering that he’d been on his way to market to buy food, she asked, ‘When did you last eat?’

‘I don’t recall.’ He looked as if the question really puzzled him, and explained earnestly, with a frail hand indicating the mass of books and papers on the desk, ‘When I’m working I forget time.’

‘Then how about I save you the trouble and pop out for some food?’ Izzy was back on her tortured feet, not prepared to leave this poor old man to his own ineffectual devices—at least not until he’d been fed and persuaded to give her the name and address of his doctor.

Heading for the nearest shop, she had found her outraged thoughts kept her from dwelling on her burningly painful feet. Deserted by a housekeeper who, from what she’d seen, hadn’t been too keen on doing any work, with his only relative obviously not keeping in touch because the old gentleman wasn’t sure where he was. She was already feeling anxious and even slightly cross on his behalf.

Raiding her precious euros, she bought eggs, oil and crusty rolls and tottered back. Half an hour later, watching the colour return to his ashen cheeks as he ate the scrambled eggs and one of the rolls, she chatted away. She was concerned that he absolutely refused to see his doctor, but happy to answer his questions because his curiosity must surely mean he was feeling more himself. So she told him exactly how she’d landed up in Spain, and regaled him with her family history. She glossed over the humiliation she’d suffered at Marcus’s hands, and when she came to her present unenviable jobless and homeless situation she gave the half-truth that being a mother’s help hadn’t suited.

‘So what will you do now?’ Miguel asked.

Izzy twisted her hands together in her lap, her huge eyes clouding. Since helping the old gentleman to his feet she’d actually forgotten her own misery. Deflatedly, she confessed, ‘I don’t know. I hoped I would find something here in Cadiz to tide me over. But so far—nothing.’

‘Couldn’t your parents help?’

Izzy shuddered. And then, because his interest was obviously kindly, she admitted, ‘They could—and they would. But I can’t face telling them I’ve failed again. When I left school my dad—like I told you, he was a solicitor—sort of made a job for me in his practice. Being senior partner, he swung it. Then when he retired my parents went out to New Zealand to be with James—my brother. They wanted me to go with them but I wouldn’t,’ she confided earnestly.

She was relieved to be unburdening herself because usually her family and the people she worked with didn’t think she had anything worth listening to, and this old gentleman was hanging on every word she said.

‘James is so clever, you see. He sailed through every exam he ever took, and now he’s a highly regarded surgeon. My parents are hugely proud of him, of course. Not being anything special, I’ve always been a disappointment to them. To make it worse James married a brainy woman—a top lawyer. Being around them always makes me feel squashed. So I stayed back in England. They weren’t at all pleased when I gave up my job in the practice and came to Spain. So I want to get back on my feet by my own efforts and not go crawling to them for help.’

He nodded understandingly and asked, ‘And you left your work in England because you had a falling-out with a young man? From what you told me earlier you were very fond of him. If you returned to England do you think you could patch things up?’

Izzy went bright pink. She’d been so humiliated she didn’t like to think about it. But maybe she should get it out of her system—and it was certainly much easier to talk to a stranger.

‘It wasn’t like that.’ She sighed. ‘I feel a real fool. But I had this huge crush on him—Marcus. He’s a legal executive in Dad’s old practice, really good-looking—good at making a girl feel special. I thought we were close, you know. He asked me to do little things for him—stuff like collecting his dry cleaning in my lunch hour, doing bits of shopping. He took me out once, and bought me a glass of wine. That’s when he told me his housekeeper had thrown a wobbly and walked out and left him without a cleaner. When I volunteered to help him out he called me his treasure and held my hand. Said I was special. He made me feel valued for a change. How stupid can a girl get?’

Surreptitiously she eased her shoes off and allowed her agonised toes the freedom to curl with embarrassment. Then she took a deep breath and confided, ‘I heard him talking to Molly, one of the secretaries, obviously responding to something she’d said. “Sure, she can’t take those big googly eyes off me—but long live the crush if it means I get a free errand girl, laundry service and cleaner! All I have to do is turn on the charm, call her my treasure and she’ll walk backwards over hot coals for me!” And Molly just laughed and said, “Not in those scary high heels she wears, she won’t!” I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.’

His weary eyes on her flushed, embarrassed features, Miguel Garcia said, ‘So you need work and I, it would appear, need a housekeeper. The position’s yours if you want it—until you get back on your feet. There will be a weekly housekeeping allowance, and you will receive the same wage as Benita did.’ He named a sum that was slightly less than the pittance the del Amos had paid her, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and if she was really careful she could save enough over time to fund a transfer to another destination.

In the meantime she could sort the poor old gentleman out, make sure he ate regularly and that his home was clean, and later contact the Spanish equivalent of the British Social Services to keep an eye on him after she’d left.

‘Thanks!’ she beamed. ‘I’d love to work for you!’

And she was loving it, Izzy thought now as she reached for a heavy-bottomed copper pan and the olive oil. Already she was fond of her poor old gentleman, as she always thought of him. The owner of a soft heart, she’d always been on the side of the underdog, and seeing her employer grow stronger and sprightlier every day was, to her, better than winning the Lottery.

‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ Miguel stated with cold fury. ‘Izzy is no more an immoral gold-digger than I am! And if you mix with the type of person who would stoop to spread such a calumny then I am disappointed in you.’

‘Of necessity, Tio.’ Cayo received the reprimand with a slight upward shift of one wide shoulder. ‘Augustin del Amo is a highly respected banker. I occasionally do business with him.’ Unsurprised by his uncle’s defence of Miss Sweetness and Light—as the older man innocently claimed her to be—Cayo leaned back in the chair on the other side of the cluttered desk, the tips of his steepled fingers resting against the hard line of his mouth.

Izzy Makepeace was smart. Smart enough to know she had to tread carefully. Because the stakes were higher this time. She wasn’t angling to be a wealthy married man’s paid mistress but something else entirely. An indispensable treasure, caring for an even wealthier man as his age advanced. A wife!

The thought made his blood run cold! No way would he stand by and see his beloved, innocently naïve relative walk into that trap!

‘How much do you pay her?’ he asked with deceptive smoothness. Receiving the information that she earned the same as Benita had done, he dipped his dark head in understanding.

As long as the unlamented Benita had had enough to buy cheap sherry and didn’t have to exert herself by so much as an extra intake of breath in the non-commission of her duties she would have been happy enough to receive wages that hadn’t increased in the last twenty years. Even she would have known that her so-called services weren’t worth any more, and his uncle, unaware of the cost of living because he lived firmly in the past, in the company of long-dead saints, and rarely read a newspaper or listened to a radio, wouldn’t know he was paying what amounted to peanuts. He would have been horrified if the fact had been pointed out to him.

But no sane young working woman would accept such low payment. Not unless she had an ulterior motive. If he’d had doubts before—and he hadn’t—that would have clinched it. She had her motive!

‘Do you realise that what you’re paying her is a fraction of the going rate?’ Seeing his uncle’s brows draw together, Cayo pressed on with barely concealed exasperation. ‘Of course you don’t. You don’t live in the real world—never have done. Since leaving the university where you taught medieval history twenty years ago you’ve buried yourself in research. You have no idea what goes on in the world. So why would a young healthy woman accept such low pay? Think about it.’

Leaving the older man looking every one of his seventy-six years and more, Cayo strode from the study and flung open the door to the kitchen.

He had to admit that the room had scrubbed up well. But then it would be in her best interests to work her socks off, present herself as an angel of mercy, indispensable, when the glittering prize was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he rationalised with an ingrained cynicism born of having to fight off greedy little gold-diggers ever since he’d reached his late teens.

She had her back to him, was removing a heavy pan from the stove with both hands.

‘I’m just about to dish up, Miguel. If you and your nephew would go up to the dining room I’ll be with you in a tick.’

Her cheerful words set his teeth on edge.

She turned then, her smile fading fast when she saw him. He noted the way she banged the pan down on the tabletop and hauled her shoulders back, her eyes very bright.

‘Right, mister!’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve got something to say to you—’

He cut across her, having no interest in hearing anything from her beyond a meekly compliant goodbye.