An Unforgettable Man

She said quietly, ‘I’m sure you’re wrong. After all, if Gideon wanted a title with his wealth I’m sure he could find a way of buying himself one.’

‘Oh, no doubt. A charity peerage. But you see those are ten a penny, and that would not open the kind of doors he wants to have opened, no matter how much it might impress the peasantry. Why do you think he bought this place? Not just because it will make a con venient showplace for his clients. Oh, no, it’s what they all do, you see… First the millions, then the stately pile and the aristocratic wife, then the mongrel brats who’ll have their names put down for all the best schools. Of course, once they are there they’ll soon end up despising their father and—’

‘Since you obviously dislike him so much I’m surprised you go on working for him,’ Courage interrupted him. She was beginning to get angry now, her eyes flashing her feelings.

‘I don’t have any option—you see my father wasn’t rich. Do you know what old Gideon was before he became a millionaire? He was a labourer, paid by the day.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ Courage told him fiercely. She could remember her stepfather voicing very much the same views, his voice soft with cruel contempt.

‘My dear Courage, you should be grateful to me for providing you with such a beautiful home,’ he had told her. ‘Unlike your late father. He, I understand, was never very good with money. However, it seems you are not grateful. In fact, you are becoming extremely disruptive, upsetting my daughter and your mother. I’ve been having a word with your mother and we both feel that a year or so at boarding-school will probably help you to be more appreciative.’

Courage had said nothing, simply standing there, white-faced and sick with misery.

‘You’ll be sorry,’ Laney had warned her viciously after their quarrel. ‘I’m going to get my father to send you away—to boarding-school.’

‘You can’t… My mother won’t let you,’ Courage had protested. But she had been wrong.

In the end, though, as she had discovered, there were far worse things in life than boarding-school, and in fact, once she had got over missing her mother, she had actually begun to enjoy the relative peace and quiet of a life with no Laney in it.

‘No? Oh, I see, you’re the type who gets turned on by the thought of a bit of rough trade, are you? You like the idea of being mauled about by some beefy labourer with grimy hands and broken nails, the kind who—’

Anger flashed fiercely in Courage’s eyes as she interrupted Chris again.

‘Your prejudices and your views on our mutual employer are your own affair, and nothing to do with me. I’m here to work—we both are—so if you’ll excuse me, that is exactly what I am going to do.’

She would have liked to say more, but there was no point in deliberately antagonising the man. What she couldn’t understand was why on earth Gideon Reynolds employed him. Surely he must be aware of what kind of person he was, or of what kind of views he held—he was far, far too intelligent not to be. Still, that was Gideon’s problem and not hers—thankfully.

So Gideon would only marry a society woman, Courage mused half an hour later as she searched through her personal organiser for the telephone number she wanted—a London-based employment agency which specialised in supplying catering staff.

Over the years Courage had built up her own private store of such numbers—contacts she could rely on, agencies all over the world who she knew from personal experience were the best in their field. It was part of her job to have that kind of knowledge, those kinds of contacts at her fingertips; it was one of the things which had made her into the professional that she now was. She had known, without vanity, that when her Swiss employers had protested that they did not want to lose her they had been speaking the truth.

She knew they had valued her professionalism and her loyalty, just as she valued the training and support they had given her. But, as she had explained to them, when it came to making a choice between her career and her grandmother, there really was no contest.

Her frown deepened, her hand hovering over the telephone. Why should the talk about Gideon Reynolds getting married, becoming the property of another woman, disturb her so much? It ought to make her feel just the opposite. Previously she had always preferred to work for and with men who were obviously and openly happily married. So much so in fact, that the other girls she had worked with had often teased her about it. There had been, after all, no point in her trying to explain that she felt happier that way…safer…

By the end of the afternoon she had managed to solve one of her problems. The agency had managed to find her a replacement chef—a woman who had trained under the Roux brothers and who was currently between jobs. Courage arranged to travel to London to interview her.

The other major problem, which had been on her mind for most of the day, would not be quite so easily solved, she acknowledged as she replaced the telephone receiver.

Her grandmother, far from passively accepting her announcement that Courage wanted to use her ‘savings’ to pay for her grandmother to have her operation done privately, had instantly and suspiciously demanded to know why Courage was so anxious to bundle her into hospital for an operation which would cost the earth when, if she waited a couple of years, she could have it done anyway.

‘Two years is the minimum waiting time,’ Courage had argued craftily. ‘It could be longer, and you know that Dr Howard says you’ve got to take things easy until you’ve had it done.’

Both Courage and Dr Howard were agreed that her grandmother should not be worried or frightened by being told how very serious her condition was.

‘You mean, if I haven’t had it done by the time I’m seventy then I could be judged too old to have it done at all?’ her grandmother had suggested.

‘Well, it does happen,’ Courage had pointed out, but she had had to bite her lip and turn away so that her grandmother couldn’t see the look in her eyes and guess how very real was the possibility of her not being able to live long enough to have her operation.

‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ her grandmother had countered, changing tack, ‘but I am not having you wasting your savings on me… And besides—’ she had started to frown ‘—I do know how much this operation will cost, you know. You haven’t got that kind of money, Courage.’

‘Yes, I have,’ Courage had told her, willing the betraying colour not to run up under her skin as she fibbed. ‘I… There was some money after… after mother died. I… I never mentioned it at the time…’

‘Some money… Whose money?’ her grandmother had demanded suspiciously. ‘Your mother didn’t have any money, and if you think I’m going to let you pay for that operation with that man’s money, then…’

She had looked gravely at her grandmother. ‘Do you think I could ever bring myself to touch a penny of his?’ Tears had filled Courage’s eyes and her grandmother had reached out and patted her hand.

‘I’m sorry, love… It’s just… Well, it’s just my silly pride, I suppose. It seems all wrong, somehow, you having to spend your money on me.’

‘Who better to spend it on? You’re all I’ve got, Gran.’

‘Well, yes. And that’s another thing—you should be married, Courage… You should have children of your own to worry about…’

‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m on the shelf and past it?’ Courage had teased, trying to lighten the emotional atmosphere.

‘What I’m trying to tell you is that life can be lonely without someone of your own to share it with. I loved your grandfather very much. When he was killed during the war… Well, I had your father to think of, and then you, but we all need someone to love, Courage, and someone to be loved by.’

Courage fully agreed. The problem for her was finding that special someone—and they would have to be special. Her mother’s second marriage had left Courage wary. She liked men as friends, enjoyed their company and their conversation, but when it came to anything more intimate, Courage recognised uncomfortably now, as she dipped her head and started to twiddle with her hair, how very betraying her body language was.

She wasn’t just unhappy about the reality of total and emotional intimacy with a man, she was ill at ease even thinking about it. Not because she found the thought of sex unappealing, or frightening in any way. No, it wasn’t that that made her want to close her mind against her own thoughts, to shut them out and ignore them—in the same way that she had been fiercely trying to ignore the effect which Gideon’s touch had had on her ever since that small incident in his study—it was…

It was guilt that made her feel this way, she admitted. The guilt of knowing she had done something wrong, had experienced feelings and emotions she had had no right to feel… Had felt things… a need… a desire… A sense of excitement and pleasure it had been completely wrong for her to feel, and for a young man for whom she’d had no right to feel them. A young man who, in effect, had been a complete stranger to her. At sixteen she might have been naive, physically innocent and unawakened, but she had known immediately just what her feelings were when she had felt those strong, youthful male hands touch her body.

She could still remember how it had felt to open her eyes, to be wrenched from the sensual bliss of a kiss which had literally made her untutored body tremble on the brink of orgasm, and then to hear the sound of her stepsister’s malevolent voice.

‘Look at her, Daddy… Look at her. She’s nothing but a little whore… I did try to tell you.’

Shakily Courage abandoned her attempt to pick up the telephone receiver, her hands curling into two small protesting fists as she willed herself to ignore the torment of her memories, to push them away from her. It had been years now since she had last experienced anything like this, and she had actually begun to hope that she was finally beginning to get over what had happened.

She knew why this had happened, of course. It was Gideon Reynolds. Or rather it was her body’s sexual reaction to his touch. She trembled under the shudder of self-revulsion she could not control.

It had never happened like this before—no real-life man had ever caused her to relive that hot, acid outpouring of guilt and shame combined with an equally searing, aching need.

‘No.’

She said the word out loud, getting up and walking quickly over to the window. Hadn’t she already got enough problems, enough things to worry about without adding this?

She had been sixteen… Naive… Innocent… Never really intending to do anything wrong. But she had done wrong. Even though Gran had told her later, when she had finally coaxed her to unburden herself, that she was not really the one who was to blame.

Thank God for Gran. If she had not been there…had not realised that something was wrong… had not been concerned enough about her to persuade her mother to allow her to take her away… Courage shuddered again to think what fate might have ultimately befallen her if she had remained under her stepfather’s roof.

But she was not under his roof any longer, she was under Gideon Reynolds’, and she was supposed to be here to work. Determinedly she went back to the desk and reached again for the telephone.

She had already made herself known to all the other staff: the team of professional cleaners who came in daily to clean the house, the young mother who helped out in the kitchen, the gardeners and the men in charge of the golf course. From her conversations with them she had been able to build up a fairly clear picture of Gideon Reynolds’ mode of life, although that, no doubt, would change slightly once his business activities were based full-time here rather than in London, as he apparently intended.

She had also discovered that his PA was not very popular with the rest of the staff, either the men or the women.

His presence among them was, she was pleased to learn, only a temporary one, since once Gideon had transferred his business to the house Chris would return permanently to London, where he would be in charge of the office Gideon wished to retain there.