Life With Riley

“Whereabouts in the pantry?”

“I’ll show you.” She led the way, stood in front of the shelf where she’d seen the tins, and pointed. “There.”

“One tin?” He reached past her to lift it down.

Riley felt him brush her shoulder, and moved aside. “Thanks.” Taking the tin, she glanced up to find him smiling slightly, a disconcerting gleam in his eyes. “What?”

“You wouldn’t want to know,” he said mysteriously. “Do you need any more help?”

He found, fetched, grated and chopped at her behest. When savory aromas began to seep into the room from the wall oven, and Riley was piling used bowls and saucepans into the sink, he glanced at his watch and said, “Anything else? And by the way, there’s a dishwasher for those.”

She looked at the white machine under the counter. “These things will take up a lot of room, and I can wash them in five minutes.”

“As you like. I should go and change before my guests arrive. The downstairs bathroom is all yours. Next to the laundry.”

“I’ll clean up and change when I’ve done the washing up. Do you want me to answer the door?”

“No, just look after the food.”

When he’d gone upstairs Riley inspected the table setting, straightening some knives and adding condiments, then ran an iron over her blouse and skirt and had a quick shower in the small but elegant marble bathroom, using one of the fluffy peach-colored towels she found on a brass shelf. She combed her hair and wove the strands into a braid before winding her hair tie round the end. It looked neat and efficient, she hoped.

She put out fresh hand towels for the guests and hurried back to the kitchen. Finding a full-length apron hanging on the back of the pantry door, she dropped it about her neck, and tied the strings firmly at her waist. Also behind the door was a folded step stool. She wondered if Benedict Falkner even knew it was there.

The apron fell below her skirt, and the broad band around her neck was far too big, making the top flop into a pouch, but it was also too wide to knot.

She found a short, sturdy knife and began shucking oysters, laying them in their half shells around the edge of a large serving platter.

Benedict returned in a cream shirt and a dark-red figured waistcoat with black trousers. He looked stunning.

Carefully Riley laid the lemon wedge in her hand onto a nest of green fennel between the last two oysters, and picked up a tiny carrot rosette from the dozen or so she’d made.

“Very impressive,” Benedict said. “You said you’d worked in restaurants—where?”

“New York, a couple of places in England, and here.”

Deftly she was placing more rosettes.

“How long were you in America? I thought I detected an accent.”

“I went to high school there, and college.” She moved the completed dish out of the way and pulled another toward her. “I was born in New Zealand while Dad was working in agricultural research here, but my parents are American. Hand me that bowl of chives?”

Passing it, Benedict looked down at her, and the skin around his eyes crinkled. “You look like a kid wearing her mother’s apron.”

So much for the hairstyle. Riley yanked up the top of the apron, but it immediately flopped again. “Do me a favor,” she said, pulling apart the bow at her waist. “If you can loop one of the strings through the neck bit and tie it again…”

She turned her back to allow him to do it. It took him a while, and she could feel his breath stirring her hair as he fumbled with the bow, even hear him breathing, but finally he said, “Okay?”

“Thank you.” The bib of the apron came to the base of her neck but it was more comfortable, and she no longer resembled a kangaroo. “I’ve made a platter of hors d’oeuvres—shall I bring it into the lounge when your guests arrive?”

“I’ll take it through now. They should be here any minute.”

Over the next thirty minutes the bell rang three times, and Riley heard voices in the hall, becoming muted as the guests moved into the lounge.

It was some time before Benedict pushed through the swing doors. “When can we eat?”

“Is fifteen minutes okay?”

“Yep.” He crossed to the fridge to take out a couple of bottles of wine before he left again.

Exactly fifteen minutes later Riley pulled off the apron and carried the oysters, now surrounding a glass bowl of coconut-cream-drenched fish salad, into the dining room, along with two silver baskets of breads cut into wedges.

Everyone was already seated around the long table. Benedict poured wine into a glass set in front of a young woman seated to his right, who inclined her head in order to catch something he was saying, her sky-blue eyes fixed on him. Thick, loose blond curls fell about an exquisite face without a freckle or a blemish, and her mouth was the kind that men were supposed to find irresistible—pouting and lush and painted a bright poppy pink.

Her neck was smooth and graceful and she had real cleavage, not too blatantly shown off by a shoestring-strapped dress that matched her lipstick and played up a faint, glowing tan. That simple-looking little dress had probably cost more than a month of Riley’s wages.

Riley hated her on sight. The woman wasn’t an inch below five-six, she suspected, and utterly gorgeous. In high heels she’d be about as tall as Benedict—maybe taller, Riley guessed hopefully as she leaned over the table between two other guests, just stopping herself from plonking down the platter with a thud. Instead she slid it gently onto the cloth, placed the bread baskets on either side of it and stepped back.

Benedict looked up. “Thank you, Riley.” He gave her the glimmer of a conspiratorial smile.

As she left, a light, feminine voice said, “Where’s Mrs. Hardy, Benedict?”

That voice had been trained at one of Auckland’s best private schools—Riley would have taken a bet on it—and she just knew who it belonged to.

Already on her way back to the kitchen, she couldn’t hear Benedict’s reply.

Taking in the next dishes, she deliberately refrained from looking at either Benedict or the blonde.

The other guests were a middle-aged pair and two thirtyish couples. Riley gathered from the conversation as she went in and out, clearing and serving, that the older people were the blonde young woman’s parents, that her name was Tiffany, and that Benedict had some sort of business connection with the family. The thirty-somethings were obviously friends of his, and they too had that air of sleek well-being and sophistication that came with money.

When Riley had served dessert—a quickly made chilled specialty of her own involving fruit and whipped cream and topped with freshly toasted slivered almonds—she stopped by Benedict’s chair. “Would you like your coffee served here?”

Tiffany interjected, “Oh, let’s have it on the terrace! It’s lovely out there. And it isn’t too cold, is it?”

Everyone agreed that it wasn’t too cold, and Benedict nodded to Riley. “On the terrace, then.” He indicated the broad tiled area outside the dining room, where several canvas chairs and a couple of loungers were grouped. A palette-shaped swimming pool gleamed and glittered under outdoor lighting set among glossy shrubs.

Riley was placing cups on a tray when she looked up to see Tiffany’s face above the center curve of the saloon doors before they parted and the young woman carried in a pile of emptied dessert plates. “Can I help?” she asked. “It was a magnificent meal. That wonderful dessert is going to be awfully bad for my figure though!”

“Thank you,” Riley said. Darn, the woman was nice! In addition to the hair and the face and the cleavage, and the long legs that Riley would have killed for. And she wouldn’t be taller than Benedict. Just about on a level, in her heels.

Tiffany crossed to the dishwashing machine and opened it. “Benedict had two helpings. I suppose you wouldn’t give me the recipe?” she asked, loading in spoons and plates.

Riley swallowed. “Yes, of course. Do you want to write it down?” She looked toward the telephone where a grocery pad and pen hung.

“Thank you!” Tiffany grabbed the pen, tore off a blank page and sat down at the table.

Riley dictated the simple recipe while she waited for the coffee machine to finish doing its thing.