Beaumont Brides Collection (90 page)

‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

‘Do you expect me to?’

‘If I can’t do it, what have you got to lose?’ she enquired, in a parody of her much vaunted sweetness.

‘A hundred pounds, then,’ he said, reluctantly.

She gave him a look that suggested he was the closest thing Scrooge had to kin. ‘Five hundred pounds, Richard. For my sister’s charity.’

‘That’s a lot of money.’

‘According to you it should be yours within days.’

He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘All right. How long will you work for?’

‘A month? Is that long enough to prove I can stick it?’

‘A month should certainly be long enough. If you’re serious?’ By way of answer she held out her hand and after a moment he took it. ‘Very well. Five hundred. But you have to work a full calendar month.’

‘From Monday. There’s just one problem. She’ll want my address. If I tell her where I live, she’ll smell at rat. Can I could use yours?’

‘Sure, help yourself.’ He grinned. ‘Move in if you like. I’ve got a double bed.’

‘Thanks, Richard, but I think we’ve already covered that. You had your chance to make me an offer and you blew it.’

‘You weren’t serious,’ he pointed out.

‘Wasn’t I? Well, now you’ll never know. Besides, I like it where I am.’

‘Tell me about Jack Wolfe’s apartment.’

‘Austere. Uncluttered. Beautiful,’ she said, without thinking.

‘Oooh…’ he said, camping it up.

‘What?’

‘You’ve been thinking about it. You’ve been thinking about him. He won’t look at you twice dressed like that, you know. He likes his women like his apartment. Like his office come to that. Pared to the bone, uncluttered to point of austerity.’

‘Clearly the man has style.’ And he’d want a partner to match.

‘Personally I prefer a bit more comfort,’ Richard said.

‘Maybe you just don’t have any taste.’

‘Definitely smitten.’

‘With Jack Wolfe?’ She laughed. ‘Get real. I cleaned his apartment once, that’s all. You said it. Why would he look at me twice?’

Actually he had looked. He just hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Well, she wasn’t blind. She’d seen her reflection in the mirror and on the whole she sympathised with him.

Richard wasn’t convinced. ‘Have a care, Mel. I promise you he’s a strictly and bed-and-breakfast lover. There’s a whole string of lovely women who thought they could change his mind and have found themselves crying into their pillow.’

‘More fool them.’

‘More fool you if you fall into the same trap.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m wasting my breath of course. He’s only got to lift a little finger and women drop into his bed. I can’t see the attraction myself. He’s got a calculator for a brain and ice where his heart should be.’ He leaned forward, touched her cheek in a possessive little gesture. ‘When I suggested an affair with someone unsuitable -’

‘We’re not having an affair! I’ve only met the man once.’ Several people turned around to look at her. ‘Well twice I suppose, but I can promise you we’re never going to have an affair,’ she hissed. ‘Can we please stop talking about him?’

Richard took no notice. ‘He’s way off the scale dangerous for an innocent like you.’

‘Well, I thought you prescribed dangerous,’ she said, crossly.

‘There’s danger. And then there’s Jack Wolfe.’

‘Well you can rest assured, Richard. I have no intention of getting involved with the man. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see him again.’ She paused and Richard instantly picked up on her uncertainty.

‘Except?’

‘Well, I have to return some clothes I borrowed. Something got spilled on mine.’

‘And you had to take them off? You have been having an interesting time.’

‘You wouldn’t believe how interesting.’

‘Well, have a care it doesn’t get too entertaining. Richard leaned forward and stroked one finger down the length of her throat. ‘I’d really hate to see a tender little lamb like you served up with a sprig of mint for Mr Wolfe’s Sunday lunch.’

Melanie grasped his hand and removed it from her neck. ‘You’re just trying to frighten me off, Richard. You’re scared you’re going to lose your bet.’

*****

Melanie presented herself at the offices of the Busy Bees Domestic Agency promptly at seven on Monday morning.

‘I’ve changed my mind. If you still want me.’

Apparently, having admitted she wanted the job, Janet Graham no longer felt obliged to be unnecessarily polite. She did not invite Mel to sit and wasted no time in getting to the point.

‘I’m taking a chance on you, Melanie. Don’t let me down. Auditions are strictly on your own time and if you leave a job unfinished you will not be paid for it.’ Janet Graham had the manner of a headmistress lecturing a tiresome pupil; from her own experience of such occasions Melanie knew the woman would not expect an answer. ‘And you’ll have to take whatever comes along, the bad jobs along with the good.’ Good jobs? What could possibly be good about cleaning? ‘Is that quite clear?’

‘Quite clear.’ And it was clear that Mrs Graham didn’t know who she was. She would have been nicer. She wouldn’t have been able to help herself. Melanie was learning quickly about how things were out in the big wide world. ‘I don’t expect any special favours, Miss Graham.’

‘Then you won’t be disappointed. Sit down.’ The lecture was over. ‘Now tell me how you got on with Mr Wolfe?’

‘Mr Wolfe appeared satisfied.’ Well he had appreciated her work, if nothing else. He’d telephoned and said so, hadn’t he?

‘Young men left on their own are a menace, but extremely good for business,’ Mrs Graham said, with a glint of satisfaction. ‘Was it a terrible mess?’

Young men? She had all but forgotten Tom Wolfe, but of course he was the Mr Wolfe referred to. ‘I’ve seen worse, although I don’t think I’d have managed by myself in the time available,’ Mel admitted. ‘But after I’d made him one of my hangover cures Tom - Mr Wolfe - recovered sufficiently to give me a hand.’

Janet Graham’s shocked expression told its own story. She really would have to keep a rein on her tongue.

‘I trust you won’t expect the rest of my clients to pitch in and give you a hand?’

‘Of course not. But he wanted the job done by the time his brother got home. I simply used my initiative.’

‘I discourage initiative, Melanie. In my experience it causes nothing but trouble. Remember that.’ She’d try. But she wasn’t making any promises. ‘In this instance, however,’ Mrs Graham continued, ‘your quick thinking has had the most satisfactory results.’ She picked up a work sheet from the desk. ‘As I told you, I had a call from Mr Jack Wolfe, the owner of the apartment. He requested that you be assigned to clean his apartment three times a week until further notice.’

‘Oh!’ She sat back in her chair. ‘How - unexpected.’ But it made Mrs Graham’s eagerness to employ her rather more understandable.

Mrs Graham looked at her sharply. ‘Is it? Why?’

‘Oh, well.’ She floundered momentarily. ‘I assumed I would be cleaning offices, that sort of thing. A friend of mine works for you and that’s what he does. At night.’

‘Who?’

‘Richard Latham.’

‘Richard?’ She gave Melanie a hard look. ‘Well I hope you don’t expect to work nights, too.’

‘Oh, no. No. Really.’

Mrs Graham stared at her for a moment longer before returning to her schedule. ‘You’ll be part of a team for most of the time, cleaning empty houses after lettings. But since Mr Wolfe has asked for you personally I’m happy to concede to his wishes. Unless you have any particular reason to refuse?’

For a moment Melanie dwelt on the pleasure it would give her to blacken Jack Wolfe’s character so thoroughly that for the rest of his life he would have to make his own bed and wash his own dishes. It would serve him right.

Mel, however, was bright enough to realize that Jack Wolfe wouldn’t take that sort of nonsense lying down. And she’d made a bet with Richard; more importantly, she’d promised herself that whatever happened she’d stick it out, just to prove to herself that she wasn’t the dizzy creature everyone seemed to think she was. So it was time to stop fooling around and start taking it seriously.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘No reason.’

‘Good. This is your schedule for the week. I’ve given you to Mr Wolfe for two hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between two and four o’clock in the afternoon. Starting Wednesday.’ Given you to. Mel didn’t much care for the expression. ‘He wants you to call in this afternoon so that he can explain more fully what he requires.’ She indicated that the interview was at an end. ‘You’d better go and get kitted up now. The girls will be waiting for you.’

‘Kitted up?’

Janet Graham regarded the t-shirt Mel was wearing with disapproval. The black outfit had still smelt strongly of curry even after a second wash and had been consigned to the bin. This morning she was wearing a very old sweat shirt that bore the logo of a famous fashion house and a pair of jeans. Standard, classless wear.

‘The only advertising my girls carry is the agency name. A uniform is provided, but you are responsible for keeping it clean. Oh, and you’d better let accounts have your tax form and an address when you have a moment.’

‘Yes, Mrs Graham.’

She considered asking about the procedure if another client tipped curry all over her. But she had been dismissed. It was exactly like being back at school, Mel thought and tried not to dwell on just how much she had loathed school.

Ten minutes later she was heading for her first job in a bright yellow mini van, attired in the agency’s distinctive yellow and black striped sweatshirt, black polyester trousers and a snappy yellow and black quartered baseball cap that bore the legend “Happy to Help”. Last night she had dreamed about making an impression on Jack Wolfe. Dressed like a worker bee she couldn’t fail to.

Paddy and Sharon were bright, lively and inquisitive.

‘Why are you working as a cleaner?’ Paddy asked her, realising immediately that she wasn’t the usual run of cleaning staff taken on by Mrs Graham. She told them that she was an actress. Resting. They weren’t particularly impressed.

‘What’ve you been in then?’

At something of a loss Mel invited them to guess. Before they arrived at their destination she had been placed in minor roles in two long running soaps, one of which she had actually starred in for years but not as Melanie Devlin, and as the tiresome teenage daughter in an advertisement for frozen food.

This humbling assessment of her likely talent was far from flattering and she found herself wondering whether Jack Wolfe had been kinder.

She stopped the thought.

Mr Jack Wolfe undoubtedly had more important things to do than think about the girl he employed as a cleaner. And she had more important things to think about than him.

But to divert attention from herself she asked Paddy and Sharon about their families.

Mel rang the bell promptly at two that afternoon, her heart giving an odd erratic little beat as she waited, remembering the steel grey eyes, the jolt of something indescribable that had seemed to arc right through her when he had touched her.

Then she gave herself a good mental shaking.

His eyes were nothing to do with her. He had called the agency because, looking around his flat after she had gone, he had been impressed with her work. It was a compliment to her professionalism, she thought. To how well she’d played her role. The perfect detached, professional domestic.

Right…

Jack Wolfe opened the door wearing nothing but a short towelling robe tied carelessly around his waist, his well-groomed hair now dishevelled from the shower. For a moment Mel felt anything but detached as her eyes fastened on the sprinkling of dark hair across his tanned chest where the robe hung loose. And she had stopped thinking anything coherent.

Her appearance seemed to leave him equally bereft of speech. But not for long.

‘You’d better come in, Melanie.’ Then, ‘I’m glad to see you’re more suitably costumed for the part today.’

Having to wear the wretched clothes was bad enough, but to be the butt of his mordant humour was the pits.

‘The only thing this costume is suitable for is playing a bee in Babes in the Wood,’ she said, with feeling, immediately forgetting her determination to be the perfect professional.

‘Well, maybe you’ll get lucky this Christmas.’

She smiled through gritted teeth, curling her toes in her DM’s to stop herself from slapping him with a cloth, still damp from her last job, as apparently unaware of Mel’s irritation he stepped aside to let her into his apartment.

So much for detached.

‘I’ve brought back your clothes,’ she said. She’d taken them with her that morning assuming that someone else would drop them off, either at his home or office.

He glanced at the bag she was carrying, then at her face. ‘I do still wear them occasionally,’ he assured her.

‘Do you, Mr Wolfe?’ she enquired, not bothering to disguise her disbelief.

His sharp look suggested that he was unused to having his word challenged, least of all by his cleaner. But if he chose to make personal comments about her clothes, she felt quite at liberty to return the compliment.