To Mend A Marriage. Кэрол Мортимер
to take her along with us—do you?’ he added mockingly.
The baby! She’d done it again, Gemini realised; of course, they would need a babysitter for Jessica if the two of them were to go out together!
‘Perhaps Mrs James…?’ She grimaced hopefully.
‘We can ask her.’ Nick nodded. ‘Although I don’t think that was part of her job description when I employed her ten years ago!’
Gemini was sure it wasn’t. Rachel James was a woman in her late fifties, and while she used the title of Mrs she had confided in Gemini shortly after she’d come to live here as Nick’s wife, that it was a courtesy title only, useful in the profession she had chosen for herself, but that she’d never actually been married.
Which meant she’d probably never had to deal much with children, either, and in particularly not a very young baby!
‘I’ll have a talk to her in the morning,’ Gemini assured Nick dismissively. ‘But I don’t think Mrs James will mind.’
‘No,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘I had visions of there being problems with Mrs James when you came to live here as my wife,’ he explained at Gemini’s questioning look, ‘but in fact it’s turned out to be the opposite! Mrs James always comes to you for instructions,’ he murmured ruefully. ‘Fills the house with daffodils at all times of the year because she knows they’re your favourite flower, prepares the meals she knows you like—’
‘If any of that is a problem for you, Nick, you should have said,’ Gemini put in uncomfortably; she hadn’t even realised he had noticed those slight but subtle changes in the household.
She’d only mentioned once in passing to the housekeeper that she loved daffodils, that their golden colour always made her feel in a cheerful mood—and before she knew it the house was ablaze with the beautiful blooms. Just as she had once mentioned that she preferred to eat fish and chicken to red meat—only to find that red meat all but disappeared from their dining table!
‘Oh, it isn’t a problem, Gemini,’ Nick assured her derisively. ‘I merely look on in admiration at the charm you’ve exerted over our formerly austere housekeeper.’
It wasn’t a question of charming the older woman; she merely treated Rachel James like a person. She hadn’t grown up in a household that had had employees in the house of any kind. She’d lived on her own in a flat before marrying Nick. She wasn’t accustomed to having staff in her home. Rachel had somehow sensed that in her, and had helped her all she could, forging a bond of understanding between the two women that Nick probably couldn’t understand.
Nick raised dark brows. ‘How is it you’ve never attempted to exert that charm over me…?’ he prompted huskily.
Gemini gave him a sharp look. Was he flirting with her?
For the most part, Gemini and her husband lived together quite comfortably, with a friendly politeness between them. And Nick rarely, if ever, made any sort of remark that stepped over that line of friendship, that could be taken as being in the least flirtatious. And yet this evening he’d done so more than once…
Don’t overreact, Gemini, she inwardly warned herself, her pulse beating fast, totally aware of every muscle and sinew of Nick’s near-naked body, able to smell the aftershave that was such a part of him as he stood only feet away from her.
But it was very late, that time of the night when nothing seemed quite as it usually was, and Nick probably didn’t mean anything at all by the remark he had just made. In fact, it was probably all the talk of Jemima that had prompted it!
She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Probably because I know I would be wasting my time!’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ he murmured throatily.
‘I would,’ she assured him flatly, all too aware of how he felt about her sister.
‘Why don’t you try it and see?’ he encouraged softly, seeming suddenly closer now, although Gemini hadn’t been aware of him moving.
Gemini was more sure than ever that he was confusing her with Jemima. ‘You don’t really—’ She broke off as she heard the sound of Jessica’s whimpering cry coming from upstairs.
‘Saved by the bell—or in this case the baby,’ Nick drawled. ‘I think Jessica has decided it’s time for a feed, after all,’ he muttered dryly.
And Gemini, for one, didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed at the interruption!
There was something different about Nick tonight, on his return from this business trip. He was exerting a sensuality over her that she would have to be totally uninterested not to be aware of—and she was far from being that!
‘You warm a bottle and take it up to her; I’ll turn the lights off down here when I come up,’ Nick told Gemini briskly as he turned away, and that air of intimacy that had briefly been between them was totally dispelled at the return of his usual terseness.
Gemini grabbed the bottle from the kitchen and hurried up the stairs, all the time aware that Nick was still in the sitting-room, where she’d left him.
What had happened between them just now? she wondered as she fed the baby. And had it really happened between them, or had Nick briefly allowed her similarity to Jemima in looks to deceive him…?
Somehow—sadly—she had the feeling the latter was the true explanation…!
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