His Pretend Mistress

‘Smooth your hackles for a minute,’ he instructed levelly, ‘and hear my proposition.’

‘Proposition!’ she repeated, her eyes darting to the door, ready to run at the first intimation of anything untoward.

‘Relax, Mallon. What I have to suggest is perfectly above board.’ She was still there, albeit she was watching his every move, and he went quickly on. ‘You need a job, preferably a live-in job, and I, I’ve just discovered, appear to need—a caretaker.’

‘A caretaker!’ She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re offering me a caretaker’s job?’

‘It’s entirely up to you whether you want to take it or not, but, as you know, I’m having the place rebuilt. I could do with someone here to liaise with plumbers, carpenters, electricians—you know the sort of thing. Generally keep an eye on everything.’ He broke off to insert, ‘Someone to mop up when the roof leaks. I’ve just witnessed the way you’re ready to pitch in when there’s an emergency. Later on, I’ll need someone here to oversee painters and decorators, carpet fitters, furniture arrivals.’

He had no need to go on; she had the picture. But she had just had one very big fright with one employer and, while it would suit her very well to caretake for a short time—it would give her the chance to have a roof of sorts over her head while she looked for another job—she had been gullible before.

‘Where’s the catch?’ she questioned, trying not to think in terms of this being a wonderful answer to her problems. If she accepted this caretaking job it would mean that she wouldn’t have to go and intrude on her mother and John Frost at this start of their married life together. She…

‘Apart from the fact that this kitchen is about the most comfortable room in the house, there is no catch,’ Harris Quillian replied. ‘You and I have a mutual need…’

‘Where would I sleep?’ Mallon interrupted him suspiciously.

Grey eyes studied her for a second or two. ‘You don’t trust men, do you?’ he said quietly.

‘Let’s say I’ve had my fill of men who seem to think that I just can’t wait to get into bed with them!’

‘You’ve had bad experiences apart from Phillips?’

Mallon ignored the question. Her experience with Roland Phillips was the worst, but she had no intention of telling Quillian of her ex-stepfather, ex-stepbrother nor her fickle-hearted ex-boyfriend.

‘Where would I sleep?’ she repeated stubbornly, vaguely aware that she must be seriously considering the job offer.

‘At the moment there are only two bedrooms habitable—and they’re not yet decorated. One should be sufficient for you,’ Quillian stated. ‘Though at present only one of the bedrooms has much furniture. Obviously it’s my bedroom for when I stay weekends.’ Again she darted a quick look to the door. ‘But I’ll be returning to London this evening, so it would be all yours until I can get another bed sent down—probably tomorrow or Tuesday.’ She relaxed slightly, and he asked, ‘You wouldn’t mind being here on your own?’

‘I’d welcome it!’ she answered bluntly, truthfully, hardly able to believe this sudden turn of events.

‘Good,’ he said, and she warmed to him a little that he appeared not in the slightest offended that she had just as good as said that she wouldn’t mind if he left her on her own right now—that she’d rather have his space too, than his company. ‘Should you accept, I’ll get my PA to arrange some furniture first thing in the morning. By the end of the week you would be comfortably set up in your own bedroom.’

‘You’ll be—here again next weekend?’ she questioned stiltedly, and found herself on the receiving end of his steady grey-eyed look.

‘Are you always this cagey?’

‘Apparently not—or I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now!’

He took that on board, then documented, ‘So you’re worried about me staying overnight in the same house with you?’ Mallon made no answer, and after a moment he informed her, ‘The reason I bought this place was so that, eventually, I’d have somewhere away from London to unwind at the weekends. Harcourt House is obviously far from finished, but if you’d agree to stay on, ready to contact me or my PA with any problems—more ceilings coming down, builders needing chasing, that sort of thing—then, should I come down on a Friday evening, or on a Saturday, I’d undertake to drive you to a hotel and come and collect you shortly before I go back to London again. How does that sound?’

‘How long would it be for?’ she enquired, realising she should be snatching at his offer, but traces of shock from the terrible fright she’d had were still lingering. ‘When I get my head back together I shall want to look around for something more permanent,’ she explained.

‘I can’t see the builders being finished in under three months. Though I wouldn’t hold you to that length of time if you find the right job sooner.’

Mallon took a deep breath. ‘I’d like to accept,’ she said, before she could change her mind. And, the die cast, she suddenly again became aware of the way she was dressed. ‘My clothes!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t go around wearing your shirt and trousers for the next three months!’

‘Then I suggest I drive you to Almora Lodge to collect your belongings,’ Harris Quillian said coolly.

‘You’d come with me to…?’ she began fearfully.

His jaw jutted. ‘I wouldn’t contemplate letting you go on your own,’ he grated positively, and took his eyes from her to glance at his watch. When he looked at her again, Mallon could not help noticing that there was a steel-hard glint in his eyes all at once. Then, to her absolute amazement, he icily announced, ‘Apart from anything else, I think it’s more than high time I went and had a word with my brother-in-law.’

Mallon stared at him speechlessly, her brain refusing to take in what it was he was saying. ‘Brother-in-law?’

Harris Quillian moved to the kitchen door, all too obviously keen to be on their way. ‘Roland Phillips,’ he stated quite clearly, ‘happens to be married to my sister Faye.’

Mallon looked at him open-mouthed. She could not remember just then all that she had said to Harris Quillian. But what she did know was that she had told him, exceedingly plainly, that his sister’s husband had assaulted her with violating, adulterous intent!

Anger started to surge up in her—anger against Quillian. How dared he allow her to tell him all she had? He must have known that she would never have said a word to him about Roland Phillips had she know he was Roland Phillips’s brother-in-law!

More, she realised, Harris Quillian had deliberately kept that information to himself to get her talking. Must have! He’d purposely…He…How dared he?

CHAPTER TWO

MALLON felt angry enough to bite nails in half. ‘You should have said!’ she erupted furiously. ‘You let me tell you everything I did, while all the time…’

‘It wasn’t the truth?’ he cut in sharply, entirely unmoved by her anger. ‘You’re saying now that you were lying?’

‘I wasn’t lying. You know full well I wasn’t lying!’ she retorted—did he think she went out walking in a cloudburst wearing only a cotton dress just for the fun of it?

‘Then what the blazes are you getting so stewed up about?’ Quillian demanded.

‘Because, because…’ She faltered. Then she rallied. ‘I wouldn’t have told you anything of what I had if I’d known you were related to him!’

‘Only by marriage!’ he gritted, the idea of being related by blood to that worm plainly offensive to him.

‘You won’t say anything to your sister?’

‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’

Mallon stared at him angrily. ‘If you can’t see that to tell her might do irreparable harm to her marriage…’

‘Harm has already been done. My sister and that apology for a man separated three months ago.’

Mallon’s anger went as swiftly as it had arrived. ‘Oh,’ she murmured. ‘H-he never said. He let me think she, his wife, had only recently left on an overseas trip to do with her work.’

‘Did you see any evidence of Faye being around?’

‘We’re back to hindsight again,’ Mallon muttered wearily. ‘Now, now that I know, I can see that there hadn’t been a female hand about the Lodge for some while.’

‘It was in need of a clean and tidy-up when you arrived?’

Understatement. ‘Let’s say it was fairly obvious he hadn’t advertised for a housekeeper a minute too soon. Are he and your sister legally separated?’

Harris Quillian shook his head. ‘It’s a trial separation as far as Faye is concerned. She’s hoping that, once they’re through what she terms a cooling-off period, they’ll get back together again.’

‘Oh, grief!’ It amazed Mallon that anyone with a grain of intelligence should fall for, let alone want to marry and stay married to, a man like Roland Phillips. ‘It won’t help if you tell her about me,’ Mallon said.