Living With Marc

‘Of course.’ Although going over Maybelle’s appointments wasn’t going to change Marc Hammond’s mind.

Robin ran down the stairs. She would have liked to linger and look at the paintings. There was one of blue horses that made her pause for a moment but she wasn’t on a sightseeing tour. The door was ajar and this looked like a dining room, dominated by a long oval mahogany table with chairs around it—lovely antique stuff—and a big carver chair at the head.

You could have a company board meeting in here, Robin thought, and she could imagine Marc Hammond sitting in the carver chair, the other chairs filled with folk, their faces turned towards him, drinking in every word while he issued orders and laid down the law. As this was a private house it was more likely that the dining room was used for dinner parties. Although Hammond would still be at the head of the table—as the host—the company would, instead, be guests having a wonderful time. He would be smiling and friendly and that was harder to imagine.

The bureau stood against the far wall, beside one of the long windows with their midnight-blue velvet curtains. It was smooth and polished in a warm, mellow wood inlaid with marquetry. She found the redcovered book in the top drawer. Then she stroked the top flap of the desk, tracing the pattern with her fingertips. The workmanship was incredible. There was a rose, every petal in a different shade of golden wood, and she breathed deeply, almost savouring a perfume.

Then she looked up from the marquetry rose to the photograph in a silver frame on top of the bureau, and all the sensuous pleasure of stroking the rose went in a flash. Here was Marc Hammond again, his dark hair springing back from a peak, his eyebrows heavy. If he lived in this house whoe the hell would need his photograph around the place? Even if he didn’t live here it wasn’t a face you’d be likely to forget.

She took a step back and glared at it—and he was looking straight at her, demanding, ‘What are you doing in here?’

Only, of course, it wasn’t the photograph asking. The man was framed in the doorway, coming into the room, and she was desperate to get away from him, out into the hall, so that she went in a rush and he caught her by the wrist as she tried to pass. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What were you doing?’

She had the appointments book in her other hand. All she had to do was wave that at him but he was holding her and when she jerked instinctively his grip hurt, and for the second time this afternoon her blood pounded in her temples, so that she dropped the book and raised a hand and was within a hair’s breadth of hitting him across the face. For a split second his face swam in a red haze, but while she still had her hand held high her blurred vision cleared and she gritted her teeth. ‘Let...go...of...me.’

He didn’t let go. He held her wrist, but lightly now. ‘Nice bracelet,’ he said.

Of course he recognised it, and he thought she was wasting no time in cashing in on Maybelle’s generosity. She started to say, I’m not keeping it, but his voice overrode hers. ‘You didn’t know I lived here?’

So it probably was his house. ‘I did not,’ she said emphatically. ‘If I had done I wouldn’t have phoned and I certainly wouldn’t have turned up. I know you wouldn’t offer me a job after you threw me out for being a danger to junior clerks. By the way, whatever happened to what’s-his-name?’ She remembered Tony’s name but she drawled that instead, acting blase, as if the whole thing were hazy in her memory.

Marc Hammond said, ‘He’s doing nicely, thank you. You might have done him a favour. I doubt if he’s ever been in a fight over a girl since. You don’t seem to have changed much. Still very much the firecracker.’

Even if she had wanted the job she would have blown it by now, but she said, ‘You’re not going to believe this but I can’t remember the last time I lost my head, until this afternoon. It was quite a shock seeing you sitting there and realising what sort of treatment I’d let myself in for.’

He agreed, ‘It was a shock.’ He wasn’t holding her now but he hadn’t moved away. He was still too close for comfort, sending shock waves rippling up and down her spine. She picked up the book and told him, ‘Mrs Myson asked me to fetch this for her. What did you think I was doing—rifling the drawers to see what I could find?’

‘Something like that, from the speed you took off.’

She had panicked but she couldn’t say, I was trying to get away from you because you scare me. She said, ‘You grabbed me; I hate being manhandled.’

‘Sorry about that.’ He was not sorry. She could believe that he had never said sorry and meant it in his life.

‘What’s the book?’ he asked, and she held it so that he could read ‘Appointments’. ‘Now, why should she be needing that?’

‘Ask her,’ she snapped.

‘Showing you where she hopes you’ll be accompanying her?’

She gave an exaggerated shrug and he said, ‘She’s stubborn as a mule. She’s found something wrong with everybody so far, so how have you managed to get her demanding you and nobody but you?’

‘We have red hair in common,’ Robin said silkily.

‘What?’

‘She had red hair, didn’t she?’

‘Copper-coloured.’

‘Not like mine?’

‘Not in the least like yours. You could set a house on fire.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘Only to an arsonist.’

This was a crazy conversation.

‘And hair isn’t the only fiery thing about you, is it?’ he said, and she shrugged again because there wasn’t much else she could do. There was no point in saying again that today she had been at her fieriest and most stupid. But she had something serious to say before she went.

‘You should make her have a driver because she shouldn’t be driving herself. I was in a car just behind her a couple of weeks ago, coming out of the old airfield from the market, and you know how busy that road is at weekends, and she shot straight out into the traffic like a bat out of hell. I’ve seen her have near-misses more than once; she’s heading for a serious pile-up.’

She thought his skin whitened under the tan as if she had struck a nerve, or a memory. Then he said, ‘You’ve got a licence, of course?’

‘Of course.’ Was he considering her?

‘I’d want to see it.’

‘Of course.’ It was a clean licence and that would surprise him.

‘At least there’d be somebody around who could use a phone if she needed help.’

‘I think I could manage that,’ she drawled. She had forgotten she didn’t want the job. Maybelle was a danger on the roads and Robin would never forgive herself if the old lady had an accident that she might have prevented. And she liked Maybelle; being her companion-driver could be fun.

Being around Marc Hammond would be far from funny, but when he said, ‘Come on,’ and led the way upstairs she followed.

Maybelle was still sitting on the sofa with her feet up. She seemed pleased when Robin and Marc walked in together, as if this had to mean they were getting along. Robin wondered what would happen if she told Maybelle, We nearly came to blows just now. My wrist could be bruised and I was halfway through a swing to sock him across the face.

If she had hit him Marc Hammond would probably have thrown her out of the house bodily, as he had chucked out Jack the biker three years ago. He might look like the well-bred gentleman—expensively dressed, impeccably groomed—but Robin was convinced that he could turn in a flash into the toughest street fighter she had ever encountered.

‘Thank you, dear.’ Maybelle took the appointments book from her as Marc Hammond seated himself in a winged easy chair, his long body stretched out, strong hands resting on the arms. Robin sat down again on the little stool. He was relaxed and she tried to give the impression that she was too.

‘Did Robin tell you why I wanted this?’ Maybelle asked him.

‘You tell me,’ he said.

But he had guessed right and as she explained, ‘To show you how useful Robin could be—I’ll be doing a lot of driving,’ he nodded. ‘I think it was meant to be,’ said Maybelle, encouraged. ‘What were the odds against Robin arriving here just when I needed her?’

‘It’s a small town,’ Marc Hammond said drily. ‘The odds against somebody local seeing the “Situations Vacant” in local papers can’t be that high. It’s a slight coincidence that you’ve met before, but hardly fate taking a hand.’

Robin said nothing. Sitting low, fingers linked over her knees, the bracelet gleaming on her wrist, she waited for what Marc Hammond. was going to say next, because now he was looking at her. ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘I would prefer this to be a living-in arrangement; how would you feel about that?’

‘That would suit me perfectly.’ She had expected to go from here to call on a friend and ask her for a bed for the night. A living-in job would solve that problem. Even with the prospect of Marc Hammond being under the same roof.

‘When could you start?’ Maybelle was taking this conversation as Marc’s grudging consent and was anxious to get everything settled.

‘Right away,’ said Robin.