Beaumont Brides Collection (95 page)

‘You’re sure?’

‘Quite sure. Mr Jack Wolfe isn’t going there to sniff around for a soft target. He already owns a very sizeable stake in the place.’

‘Who owns the rest?’

‘A old friend of Wolfe’s called Angus Jameson, he’s in on the whole thing. Just listen to this: “... Everything is in place regarding the new acquisition but, as you are aware, there is always interest in my movements so I think it would be a wise move to leave the final details to Mike and take a little holiday. A few “panicky” phone calls from you to the right investment people should be coincidental enough to convince anyone interested that I have more on my mind than sunbathing ...”

‘The devious bastard. You’ve done well, Richard. I won’t forget this.’

‘The only reward I want,’ Richard Latham said, with the utmost sincerity, ‘is to use Jack Wolfe, the way he uses other people.’

‘He’ll never know,’ Greg pointed out.

‘I will,’ Richard said.

And he knew that because Greg Tamblin was greedy and assumed that everyone else was the same, he would believe that the money would be enough.

*****

Revolution? Sitting in a pub near the Busy Bees office, Mel glanced around at the unlikely recruits to her army and wondered if she were quite mad. Probably. She launched into her introduction before she could lose her nerve.

‘Right, ladies, I won’t keep you long, because I know you’ve all got more important things to do than listen to me,’ she said, handing each of them a large envelope. ‘Don’t open those now, it’ll only waste time. You can read everything when you get home.’

‘You must be joking,’ someone muttered.

‘Lock yourself in the bathroom for ten minutes,’ Mel advised, briskly.

‘With four kids?’

‘Shut up, Jo. I’ve got a bus to catch. What’s all this about, Mel?’

Melanie looked around at the weary faces of the women she worked with. All they wanted was to go home and, hopefully, find five minutes to put their feet up in front of the television. How on earth could she expect them to find the time and energy for anything more?

‘I’ve got an idea. A plan. I’ve done some research and with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work -’ she looked around them ‘- and none of you are afraid of hard work, I know it can work. I’ve written it all down so you can look at it later. But basically what I’m asking you to think about is this. Janet Graham treats you all like garbage. How long are you going to let her get away with it?’

‘What do you suggest? Strike action?’

‘No.’ The idea of organising a placard demonstration had enormous appeal and her presence would certainly have guaranteed publicity. But the minute the furore died down the system would be back to normal, except that Paddy, Sharon, and anyone else who joined in, would be out of a job and probably marked as troublemakers into the bargain. ‘I know that’s impossible -’

‘Life’s bloody impossible.’ This was greeted by laughter.

‘Difficult.’ Mel summoned another round of drinks. ‘But you don’t have to lie down and take it.’

‘What’s your solution, then?’

‘Not my solution. Yours. The answer, if you’re willing to take the risk, is to form a co-operative and work for yourselves.’

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Sharon downed her second drink in one swallow and stood up.

‘Thanks for the drink, Mel. And the laugh. See you in the morning girls.’ And that was that. Sharon was their natural leader and once she left, the others followed, the envelopes abandoned, unopened on the table. Only Paddy remained.

Mel stunned at the suddenness with which she had lost her audience turned to her. ‘What did I do wrong?’

‘You won’t get anywhere until you’ve won over Sharon, she likes to be queen bee.’

‘I don’t want to take over the hive, Paddy. I just want to help.’

Paddy’s smile was sympathetic. ‘I’m still here. Tell me about it.’

‘You don’t have to rush back to feed your family?’

‘Dave was made redundant last week, Mel. He’s no Delia Smith, but he can open a tin of beans. So, what’s it all about?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Paddy. You’ve got troubles enough, you don’t want to sit here and listen to my crackpot ideas.’

‘I might as well. Laughs are in short supply around our house just at the moment.’

‘Then I’ve got a better idea. Let’s get a pile of pizzas and take them back to your house. That way we can get Dave’s input too.’ Paddy gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘The pizza’s are on me.’

‘It’s not that, Mel. They’ll be cold by the time we get them home on the bus.’

‘Then we’ll take a cab,’ she said, grinning broadly. ‘And when you tell Sharon about it, she’ll be mad as hell she didn’t stay and join in the fun!’

CHAPTER SIX

‘MELANIE!’ Janet Graham put her head round the door and called her into the office. ‘I’ve got a special job for you today.’

‘Special?’

‘Mr Wolfe, as you may know, has a weekend cottage in Henley,’ she said, her tone proprietorial, as if because of her business connection with the owner, she had some stake in it. ‘He’s had a new bathroom installed and now the workmen have left now he wants the place cleaned through. His driver is coming to pick you up any minute. It’s straightforward enough, but since you have all day make sure that you do a thorough job.’

She smiled, rare enough to be unnerving in itself, but it wasn’t that which bothered Melanie.

‘Did Mr Wolfe ask for me especially, Mrs Graham?’

‘You? Of course he didn’t ask for you.’ The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come and Melanie could have bitten out her tongue for giving the woman the satisfaction of lying to her. ‘Why should he ask for you?’ she asked, suddenly suspicious.

‘No reason,’ she said, as carelessly as she knew how. Just that he had come close to kissing her and she had come perilously close to letting him. If he had asked for her... That foolish, betraying lift of the heart told her more about her feelings than all the hours and days of heart-searching since. ‘I just thought it might be easier to send someone else,’ she continued, her fingers crossed behind her back. ‘I should be working with Sharon and Paddy today.’

‘Leave me to worry about that. Mr Wolfe wants a cleaner for a whole day out of town and you just happen to be more expendable than anyone else.’ Janet Graham could look you straight in the eyes and lie. She was lying now, Melanie was certain of it, for no better reason than to make sure she didn’t get above herself, begin to think she was important. ‘Sharon and Paddy will manage perfectly well without you.’

In other words they’d do three jobs for the price of two while Mrs Graham would get three fees and only have to pay two wages. No wonder the woman was smiling. But Melanie knew better than to say anything.

Working for Mrs Graham was, as Richard had promised, an education and she was learning all about being treated like a nobody, about keeping her mouth shut and taking it. He had thought she would find the work difficult, but that was the easy part.

The knowledge that she could, if she chose, walk away at any time gave her a detached view of the situation. For the other women, she knew it was simply take it or leave it.

The sharp toot of a car horn outside attracted Mrs Graham’s attention.

‘There’s your driver,’ she said, sharply. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

‘Morning, miss,’ he said, taking her workbox from her and opening the door of a large, dark workmanlike estate car, so that she could climb into the front passenger seat. ‘I’m Geoff, Mr Wolfe’s driver.’

‘Good morning, Geoff.’ The man was pleasant enough, chatting about his wife and family as they drove swiftly along the M4, until once they were past Windsor he turned off and headed into the country.

The countryside was fresh and new, there were flowers in gardens and suddenly Melanie wished she wasn’t tied to London. Well, only another week and she would be able to claim victory in her bet with Richard, although she couldn’t possibly take his hard-earned money. Not now she knew just hard-earned it was.

Making him admit that he had been wrong about her would be reward enough. Of course, if her plans for the co-operative got anywhere, she would still be needed in London.

Paddy had promised to talk to Sharon. Maybe today, when they were on their own, she would have a chance.

‘Open the gate, dear, would you?’ They had stopped at a five-barred gate marked “Dove Cottage - Private” and Melanie climbed out of the car, opening and closing it behind the car. ‘Thanks. Bit of nuisance, but if it isn’t kept shut all those people with four-wheel drives just charge across the field to get down to the river.’

It was a very ordinary looking field and there were no animals to stray that she could see. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Well, it’s a site of special scientific interest. Some rare wild flowers grow there, don’t ask me what.’

‘Oh, I see. Couldn’t Mr Wolfe simply put up a sign?’

‘He could. The trouble is then they’d all be dug up over night. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

‘I’m not sure that I ever did,’ Melanie murmured, but they had already pulled up in a walled courtyard at the side of the cottage.

He swung out of the car and crossed to the back door of the cottage, unlocked it and went in, switching off the alarm system. ‘If you’re making coffee I could murder a cup,’ he called back to her, apparently in no hurry to off.

But Melanie was still outside. The sprawling red brick timbered cottage faced the river and she had walked round to the front and was staring up at the drunken angles of the pantiled roof where a couple of fantailed doves were strutting their stuff.

‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ the driver said, coming out to look for her and saw her staring up at the facade. ‘It’s lovely isn’t it?’

‘It must be really old,’ she said.

‘Seventeen something, so Mr Wolfe told me once. And the dovecote is really old.’ He pointed to a round brick building at the far side of the courtyard. ‘The river’s down there, through the trees. You should take your lunch down there if the weather holds.’

‘Maybe I will.’ She turned to him. ‘First I’ll get you that cup of coffee.’ But she was impatient for him to finish and leave, keen to have the place to herself and explore this private, unknown part of Jack Wolfe’s life.

Once alone she walked slowly through the ground floor. The cottage had been furnished for comfort, she decided, a long time ago and she didn’t think there would be a stampede of life-style editors beating a path to Jack Wolfe’s door begging to do a colour feature on his country home, no matter how enchanting the exterior.

But if the furniture was old, hard used, too well-loved to be thrown away and replaced by something smarter, the sense of peace and welcome was just as tangible.

She stroked the arm of a well-rubbed leather sofa pulled up in front of the ingle-nook fireplace, then curious, raised her fingers to her face.

Yes. She knew this scent.

The Jack Wolfe who wore that terrible old t-shirt was not just a figment of her over-heated imagination. He was real and at the end of a hard day, he stretched out in front of the fire on this sofa.

She smiled a little as she opened the French windows to let in the sweet spring air. Away at the far end of the garden a clematis, grown rampant over a wood shed stacked with logs, was flowering its heart out. And there was a saw horse to the side with an untidy heap of branches waiting to be cut.

Jack Wolfe could have paid to have some one cut his logs, but she knew that he didn’t and the knowledge warmed her. This was where he came to get rid of the smell of the City.

And she would bet a month’s wages that he didn’t bring Caroline Hickey with him.

The garden, full of secret places, called to her to come and explore, but she resisted the temptation and turned back to the living room.

In the far corner of the room there was an old piano draped in a faded chenille cloth, its surface cluttered with photographs in silver frames blackened from lack of polishing. Mostly they were old, men and women in stiff poses wearing outdated clothes and outdated hairstyles.

A few were more recent. A woman who had to be Jack’s mother wearing sixties styles, false eyelashes, holding the arm of a young man and later with a baby, who even then had that same penetrating gaze.

Melanie smiled and moved on. Jack self-important at ten with his mother and a new baby, which must be Tom.

After that Tom was the favoured subject and there was nothing more of Jack until his graduation. And then...

And then her heart stopped as she picked up a photograph, half hidden behind the others. The girl was lovely, dark haired, dark eyes luminous with happiness on her wedding day. And the man at her side was Jack. He was married. Had been married.

She suddenly felt quite sick and calling herself every kind of fool for her stupid fairy-tale daydreams, she grabbed her cleaning kit and hurried upstairs to get on with the job. Start work.

*****

‘Jack, are you busy?’

‘What is it, Mike? I was just going out.’