Tainted Love. Alison Fraser
for him more times than she cared to remember, made love with him in beds of straw and backs of cars, and, through everything, remained blind to the point of stupidity.
‘Good.’ Fen Marchand’s chilly tones brought her back to the present. ‘Because I value my privacy and would not appreciate it being invaded by some male stranger staying overnight in my attic. I trust you take my meaning, Miss Anderson?’
Clare nodded and kept her opinion to herself. She really didn’t want to lose this job before she’d even begun. She had something to prove first.
‘Right, well, you can start tomorrow morning. Breakfast,’ he announced briskly, and had walked past her to the door before he thought of asking, ‘You can cook, can’t you?’
‘Just about.’ She gave him the answer she felt the question deserved.
His face clouded over once more, but he said nothing, as he turned on his heel and marched off downstairs.
Clare could guess what he was thinking. Here he was, giving a chance to one of his sister’s no-hopers, and getting precious little gratitude in return. He was right, too. Clare felt nothing towards him except a growing dislike.
But she had to make an effort, Clare told herself, at least try to be the polite, colourless housekeeper he wanted. If only subservience were a more natural part of her character. She grimaced as she thought of her mother. Yes, your ladyship. No, your ladyship. Of course, your ladyship. In all those years, had her mother ever wanted to say, Go to hell, your ladyship?
Possibly she had, but circumstances had made her dependent on the Holsteads. She’d been a nanny to another county family when she’d met Clare’s father, Tom Anderson. He’d been an assistant trainer at Lord Abbotsford’s racing stables. After a fairly brief courtship, they’d married and were given one of the cottages on the estate. Clare had arrived a year later and, within months of her birth, her father had been killed in a riding accident. Lord Abbotsford had made no offer of financial compensation, but, ‘out of the goodness of his heart’, had allowed Mary Anderson to remain in the cottage in return for some help in the nursery.
The Holsteads had two children, Sarah and John. Sarah had been two years older than Clare but the two had played together until Sarah had gone away to boarding-school at eleven. Johnny had been five years older and a complete tyrant to the two girls.
Eventually her mother had transferred to the position of housekeeper. At the same time, Clare had grown apart from the children of the house. On the few occasions Sarah or John had been home from school, they’d usually been accompanied by friends and had treated Clare very distantly.
Clare had been a little hurt but understood. She might have the same accent, acquired in those nursery days, and she might dress similarly, albeit in Sarah’s discards, but the social gulf between them was a chasm.
It had been different later, when Clare had flowered from an awkward, mop-headed tomboy, with sticks for legs and a chest flat as a board, to a suddenly beautiful redhead, with a swan-like neck and a slim, curving figure and the face of a model, all huge green eyes and hollow cheeks. Then one of the Holstead children had taken notice of her again, only this time he hadn’t played tyrant.
Clare caught the drift of her thoughts and stopped them dead. She wasn’t going to go up that road another time. She had cried enough for Johnny. She wasn’t going to cry any more—not for him or any man.
She bent to start her unpacking. It didn’t take long. Her clothes took up a tiny corner of the wardrobe. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the reverse side of the door and pulled a face. She still appeared young, remarkably so after three years inside, but her looks had gone. She was thin to the point of emaciation, like an anorexic schoolgirl, with a complexion of paste. She recalled how she’d looked the summer she’d turned seventeen, how she’d felt, and for a moment she mourned the loss of that beauty. Then the film rolled on and she saw how it had really been a curse, not a gift, and she called herself a fool for even minding.
She firmly closed the wardrobe door and jumped a little when she turned to discover herself no longer alone.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded of Miles Marchand, standing there, quite coolly spying on her.
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. Why shouldn’t I be here?’
‘Because it’s my room,’ she said very clearly, ‘and you don’t come in without an invitation. OK?’
Clare wasn’t kidding and she gave him a look that said as much.
‘OK,’ Miles muttered back, ‘there’s no reason to get uptight. I got you the job, you know,’ he claimed in an arrogant tone, reminiscent of Marchand senior. ‘He didn’t want to employ you. He said you were too young. You don’t look particularly young to me.’
‘Thanks.’ Clare grimaced but didn’t take offence. No adult looked young to an eleven-year-old. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ She sat herself in the wicker chair.
He was slow to accept the invitation but eventually he slouched down on the velvet settee, hands stuck in his pockets. He wanted to make it clear that he was doing her the favour.
‘Can you swim?’ he asked after a minute’s silence.
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
‘Moderately.’
‘Can you bowl?’
‘Ten-pin?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then no.’
The boy looked disappointed. She’d failed that one.
‘I don’t suppose you can ride a horse,’ he said disdainfully.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Clare responded, ‘I can.’
He looked sceptical, much in the same way his father did. ‘A proper horse, I mean. Not a pony or anything.’
‘A proper horse,’ she echoed, picturing the beautiful animals in the Earl’s stables. She’d mucked out, washed down and brushed up, for the privilege of exercising the less important racers.
‘I had a horse once,’ the boy announced. ‘A bay mare.’
‘What was her name?’ she asked.
‘Flash,’ he replied. ‘She was called that because she was fast. I mean really fast. Her sire was a Derby winner,’ he declared proudly.
It was Clare’s turn to look sceptical. The fact did not go unnoticed.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he accused. ‘But it’s true. My grandfather bought her for me. Then she sold him.’
‘Your mother?’ Clare guessed.
He nodded. ‘After Grandpa died, she sold everything she could—houses, cars, paintings, the lot, so she could follow Ricky boy round the world.’
‘Ricky?’ Clare echoed automatically before she realised it might not be a good idea.
‘Her boyfriend Ricardo,’ he said disdainfully. ‘He was an Argentinian polo-player. When he lost a match, he used to beat his horses.’
‘Did he hurt you?’ she asked quietly.
He pulled a slight face, then shook his head. ‘He used to shout at me sometimes. I didn’t care. Mostly it was in Spanish and I only know a little... He shouldn’t have hit his horses, though.’
‘No.’ Clare agreed with this solemn judgement.
Then he added matter-of-factly, ‘Never mind. He’s dead now.’
‘What?’ Clare wondered if she’d heard properly.
‘He died in a car crash,’ Miles relayed, ‘with my mother.’
‘Oh,’ Clare murmured inadequately, then added a quietly