Under New Management (15 page)

While he fiddles about with it his mother watches him shrewdly, and he feels her eyes on him.

“What is it mother?” he asks as he turns from his task, “You’re staring.”

“I am not staring Kieran, I am merely looking at you. Where is your friend from last night?”

Kieran sighs, she doesn’t miss a trick his mother. “She is in one of the rooms upstairs, and no, I did not spend the night with her, if that is what you’re thinking.” He flicks a switch and the fire comes to life.

Marylyn raises a delicate eyebrow as Kieran turns from the now burning fire and moves back to his place on the sofa. “I didn’t ask that.”

Kieran lets out a frustrated sigh, “No, you didn’t but as you well know it is the thought that counts and that is what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

Marylyn smiles slightly at him, “Well I’m pleased, because you know that would be a very bad idea don’t you? Small town, Kieran. News spreads fast in these places and we wouldn’t want that sort of rumour to spread now, would we?”

“Mother, I am quite aware, thank you for pointing it out. I managed to restrain myself. However there is one small problem, did you put two and two together? My ‘friend’ as you refer to her, is in fact Mollie, Lord John’s protégé.”

“I had done the maths. Lord John spoke of it rather too much after the sideshow. Pretty girl and obviously clever. I looked through the books and other bits and pieces yesterday afternoon. It seems that Mollie has pretty much been in charge of the estate and I see she has a business degree. I also found out from Jack that they were at university together and were more than friends. Did you know that?” Marylyn asks meaningfully.

“Yes thank you, I did find that out.”

“So what are we going to do with her? It won’t look good. I’m assuming you are not expecting her to come down to breakfast in last night’s clothes?”

“I was thinking about taking her up some tea and toast and then asking her if she would very much mind hiding under a sheet while I escort her to the car, throw her into the boot and drive her home. What do you think?” He asks innocently.

Marylyn gazes at him steadily, “Well if you’re sure she wouldn’t mind, I do believe that would be best all round.”

Kieran laughs loudly, “Careful Mum, you were nearly funny.”

Marylyn laughs with him, “Watch it young man. You’re not too big to go over my knee you know. Seriously though, it will be rather embarrassing for the poor thing and what an awful night for her. Lord John told me the circumstances. I do think that was rather nasty of her husband and his boyfriend. Whatever were they thinking?” She shakes her head sorrowfully.

“Nasty is one word for it and of course as always you’re right. It will be embarrassing for her this morning. So I suggest that we all behave and not make it more so. I’ll go and ask if the cooks will put a tray together. I’ll take it up, and we’ll go from there, shall we?” He looks at Marylyn who merely nods at him to show her agreement.

Twenty minutes later Kieran knocks softly on Mollie’s door. Carrying the tray of tea and toast, he has no idea what he is going to say to her and shifts uncomfortably as he waits for an answer.

When nothing happens he knocks a little louder. Still nothing. Giving a nervous swallow he decides he has no choice but to enter the room anyway. As the door opens he immediately sees it is empty. The bed has been pulled straight, the curtains are fully open and Mollie has clearly taken the problem away and done a moonlight flit.

His first thoughts are of bitter disappointment; he had been looking forward to the opportunity of waking her first thing in the morning. He quickly shakes the thought away. Relieved is what he should be, but disappointment is unfortunately winning in his thought processes.

He closes the door. As he takes the tray back down stairs he wonders how on earth she got home. He hopes she didn’t stagger back in the dead of night.

His thoughts are disturbed as he hears the sound of heavy vehicles and looks out of the window at the foot of the stairs. A convoy of vans and cars make their way across the drive towards the barn. He’s glad he left it open; they know what they’re doing, no need for him to supervise for a while.

Carrying the tray to the sitting room, he joins the others. He hadn’t disclosed the identity of the tray’s recipient to the cooks, so they hopefully would think that someone in the sitting room couldn’t wait for breakfast. He would just blame Jack.

Marylyn breathes an audible sigh of relief when Kieran returns with the full tray and the news that Mollie has gone. Good girl, she thinks.

Johnny and Megan are clasping hot drinks and looking a little the worse for wear. Johnny falls on the toast gratefully, he is starving. Jack hasn’t surfaced and Marylyn tells him that the Sedgwicks are in their drawing room upstairs and will meet them for breakfast in ten minutes. The four of them sit and talk over the previous evening until Angela arrives to invite them through to the large dining room.

The Sedgwicks are seated and waiting when they walk into the room. They take their places, pleasantries are exchanged and the smell of food fills the room. The cooks have laid out breakfast along a sideboard in large silver serving dishes. Kieran feels as if he has stepped into a scene from ‘Downton Abbey’ (one of his guilty pleasures).

Florrie has slapped on an extraordinary amount of makeup in the mistaken belief that it will disguise last night’s excesses. Lady Evelyn is at her pompous best, determined to remain Lady of the Manor right up until the point of departure and Lord John looks as if all the life has been sucked out of him. Kieran feels terribly sad for the old chap and a little guilty at his part in taking his beloved home from him.
Poor bloke, would he ever recover from selling it?

Kieran is annoyed with Jack for not coming down to breakfast. It is embarrassing fielding questions about where he is, if he’s quite well, etc. Florrie is particularly interested as she had taken quite a shine to him yesterday evening and had had to compete with Lou’s attentions. She had been terribly disappointed not to have got as far as dragging him to her room and was severely pissed off when he had gone missing at the end of the night.

Kieran eventually stomps up the stairs to drag Jack from his pit. Kieran reaches the room and puts his hand on the door knob with the intention of bursting in and terrifying him. Suddenly he has the horrible thought that Mollie might actually be in there with him. This stops him in his tracks. What if she is? He wouldn’t put it past Jack. After all, he knows nothing about her, she could be in there.
Bloody fuck!
He stands with his hand on the doorknob as he tries to make up his mind whether to enter or not. Deciding that he is being a complete idiot he takes a deep breath and opens the door only to find the room empty. The bed hasn’t been slept in,
where the hell is Jack?

Chapter 14

It is now twelve forty-five. The morning at the Browns has been a disturbing one for Mollie, to say the least. She’s glad that Kevin came round and feels a weight has been lifted. Also, her father seems a bit calmer about it all now. He actually shook Kevin’s hand when he left. A hand that was a lot cleaner than when he’d arrived. Lindy had filled in Jim on the conversation and he felt that it showed balls for Kevin to come to the house and apologise like that. Jim respected that sort of behaviour. Of course he hadn’t forgiven David. As far as Jim was concerned, David was a little scrote and always would be.

Jim, Dan and Jack are now off to the pub. Jack is freshly showered, wearing new underwear and socks and a shirt of Jim’s. (Lindy shopped a lot and she liked to have a ‘just in case’ selection). Lindy had also produced a new toothbrush, razor and had ironed Jack’s crumpled suit trousers. Julie had gone home to get changed out of her scruffs and would meet them there; Lindy was faffing about deciding whether she wanted to spend the rest of the day in the pub or whether she would go shopping.

Mollie didn’t think she wanted to do anything. She had eventually opened the letter which Jeff had delivered earlier and was feeling slightly put out. Bloody cheek ordering her to an interview. Who did he think he was? He could stick his interview and the job offer where the sun didn’t shine. She wasn’t going.

She’d had the morning to think about it and the more she thought about it the less attractive the idea of being a PA became. She had a business degree for God’s sake! Why settle for something that held no interest for her? No, she was going to find herself another job, one that she wanted to do and she had the time to find an excellent one.

Jack keeps on at her to come to the pub with them and she is tempted but is dithering. When her phone rings she answers it without recognising the number.

“Hello, is that Mollie?” asks a voice that she recognises immediately. Her heart skips a beat; she wasn’t expecting a phone call from Kieran.

Taking a deep breath to steady her voice she says, “Yes, who’s that?” She lies. It wouldn’t do to let him know she recognises him. Let him work for it.

“It’s, er, Kieran McLaren. We met last night.” He mentally kicks himself for saying something so utterly stupid.

Mollie smiles, “Ah yes, Kieran. I believe the word met is a little understated, if memory serves. We were snogging in bed, weren’t we?” When in doubt go for blunt honesty and front it out.
She has nothing to lose.

Kieran is a little taken aback but is relieved that she is taking the humorous approach. He may as well go along with it. “Ah so you remember, thank God. I have been worrying myself silly all morning about whether I should remind you about it, or not.”

“Oh I remember. I also remember that you ran away. Were you scared?” she challenges him.
May as well get it over with.

“Scared? Me? Never. I just didn’t want to take advantage of an inebriated woman. What if you’d regretted it in the morning? I would much rather a woman was in full control of her faculty’s, you can’t be too careful nowadays.” He defends.

“Umm yes, I suppose you have a point. OK, I will accept that as a reasonable explanation, but I must say if you take that approach you are very likely never to have sex again.”

Kieran laughs, “I’ll bear that in mind. So how did you get home? I was very disappointed when I turned up with your breakfast this morning to find you gone.”

“Breakfast in bed? Well in that case you are forgiven. What did you bring me?” she asks him, openly flirting with him now.

“Tea, toast and jam. Are you impressed?” he asks her smugly.

Mollie is quiet for a second as she forms a suitable reply. “I wouldn’t say impressed. I’m not being funny, but anyone can knock up a bit of toast, can’t they? Now if you had gone for, let’s say, eggs or perhaps a bacon sarnie, then that would have impressed me. At least that would have demonstrated some culinary acumen.” She is quiet for a few seconds and then pipes up with, “Was there a flower on the tray? Come to think of it, did you even make it yourself?”

Kieran laughs loudly, “Guilty as charged, I’ll hold my hands up. No I didn’t make it, and also no to the flower. I’ll take notes for next time.” he says without thinking.

“Next time? Well, I wouldn’t bank on that Mr McLaren. I don’t normally go in for second chances. You’ll have to try harder.” She laughs at him now.

Bugger, fuck, fuck!
Why did he let it go down this route?
Now he needs to back track without offending her or giving false expectations. He wonders if now would be a good time for the phone signal to give out.

“You still there?” she asks him.

“Yes sorry, I am here. There are people everywhere, I got distracted, sorry.” He lies quickly.

“Distracted, ummm well that’s not what I’d call trying but a fabulous way to avoid answering. So, why am I honoured with the phone call?” Mollie is embarrassed now; clearly he was only willing to take the flirting so far. He pulled back so fast that she is surprised he didn’t put his back out.
What is it with him? Coming on to her one minute and pulling back the next?
Well she has been humiliated enough for one year, so that is quite enough. No more. The flirting stops right now. She knows the brush off when she hears it. She needs to stop making a bloody fool of herself, immediately.

He is disconcerted. She really is too intuitive. What an idiot; he needs a favour and this is not the way to get it. “Sorry Mollie, there is a lot going on at the moment, I did ring for a good reason. I need your help.”

“Help with what?” she asks him bluntly now and he winces at the complete change in her tone of voice.

“Um, err,” he stutters. Christ! He sounds like a bloody fifteen year old. He needs to get a grip. Time for some honesty, so he starts again, “OK here it is. I shouldn’t have mentioned a job last night.” Mollie sucks in her breath at those words. So he is regretting it. Her stomach plunges.

“I wasn’t thinking properly after the kiss and everything.” He pauses and then rushes on quickly, “I’m not usually one for making rash decisions, I leave that to Jack.” he laughs awkwardly, but she stays quiet so he continues. “The point is, I want to offer you something. I see that we would be daft not to, but I have no idea what that would be. We haven’t really decided what we are going to do with the Hall yet - it was, shall we say, an impulsive buy. The offer of perhaps being my PA was off the cuff, spur of the moment. I hadn’t thought it through. If I’m honest I think you would be over qualified for that. I need to give more thought to what I need. It is very difficult to offer someone a job without a proper job description, wouldn’t you agree?”

He waits nervously for her answer.
Has he been too honest?

Mollie mulls over his words. However miffed she might be she sees the sense in what he is saying. She also admires his honesty. She hates bullshitters; she would much rather have straight talking, and know where she is.

“Thanks for that Kieran. I understand exactly what you are saying and it is fine, thanks for letting me know.”