The Cinderella Factor. Sophie Weston
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Jacques and his Anne Marie were breathtakingly, idyllically happy. Every time they met—in the fields, in the kitchen, even on their way to and from the barn—they touched and kissed. And smiled into each other’s eyes. Every gesture said Look at us, see how in love we are.
Jo did not wish them less in love. Of course she didn’t. But pretty Anne Marie, with her soft flying hair and tanned, perfect legs, made Jo realise just how tall and plain she was herself. How unfeminine.
There was nothing to be done about it. Some people were just born unlovable. She accepted that. But, watching Anne Marie and Jacques—well, she minded.
‘This,’ said Jo, taking herself for an early-morning walk with the goats, ‘is a bit of a shock.’
She had so focused on getting Mark away from the Greys that she had not thought about herself. Now she took stock, and it was like a douche of cold water.
She did not have to spend long in front of Anne Marie’s mirror to see what the world saw: a six-foot scruff in combat trousers. Her nails were bitten. Her hair was a brown thatch like the rag doll scarecrow she’d had as a very small child. Her tee-shirt had holes. Her shoulders were as broad as Jacques’s. No one was ever going to put their arm lovingly round shoulders like that.
‘And just as well,’ said Jo, aloud and firm. Aloud and firm usually helped. ‘Love makes you weak. You can’t afford that, Jo Almond.’
She wandered down the hillside, attended by curious goats. ‘I am happy,’ she told herself firmly.
It sounded good. And it was—nearly—true.
‘I have never been this happy before.’
And that was certainly true.
Suddenly Jo grinned, stretching her arms above her head. ‘It’s a start,’ she said gleefully. ‘It surely is a start.’
It was more than a start. Within a week she had a job, and a place to stay, too.
It came about by pure chance. She was in the local market town, trawling round the businesses to see if anyone needed a waitress, a storeroom hand, a messenger. The square had cobbles and stone arcades and a balcony that looked as if the Black Prince should be standing on it in full armour, making an arousing speech. To her amusement, she saw that a small crowd had gathered round some object of fascination.
Not the Black Prince, though. Approaching, she found they were grouped about an elderly open-topped Rolls Royce. It was shunting backwards and forwards between a medieval wall and the end of a colonnaded arcade, driven by a young Englishman getting more flustered and profane by the minute. People had even taken seats in the café opposite to enjoy the show.
Jo propped herself up against the wall and watched, too.
The driver was not much older than herself. He had a Caribbean tan which just might be natural, and expensively streaked hair which certainly wasn’t. Her lips twitched. She folded her arms and waited.
‘Look,’ he said to the assembled market-goers. ‘This isn’t helping. Do any of you know how to—? Oh, damn.’ This last as the car hiccupped forwards and grazed one of the columns.
Jo took pity on him. She strolled across and leaned on the driver’s door.
‘Drive her much, do you?’
He glared. ‘She’s my brother’s. I was bringing her down for a grease and a spray. But I took a wrong turning and ended up in the damned square.’ He looked with loathing at the medieval buildings as if they were personal enemies.
She opened the door. ‘Let me. I’ve driven big and old before.’
One of the bonuses of those long-ago car maintenance classes had been that she’d got to drive a lot. None of those cars had been an aristocratic Rolls, but they had been old and cranky—and some of them had been very big. She had no doubt that she could move the car without demolishing the picture-postcard corner.
She was right.
The Rolls came gently to rest in front of the café. The audience at the tables gave a small, polite round of applause. The rest of the crowd dispersed now the fun was over. The young man recovered his temper and thrust out a hand.
‘How did you do that?’ he said, in what appeared to be genuine awe. And, before she could answer, ‘Crispin Taylor-Harrod. Oh, boy, did you save my bacon. Can I buy you a drink?’
Jo accepted coffee. Soon she was sitting beside him in the sunshine, sipping the headily fragrant stuff that bore no relation at all to the mid-morning brew of her last employer.
‘What a bit of luck, bumping into you. I knew it was no good calling the garage to come and help. Old Brassens hates driving anything with right-hand drive. What are you doing round here?’
Jo told him. Well, not everything, obviously. Nothing that would put Mark or the Sauveterres at risk if Carol and Brian had organised pursuit. Just enough to make pleasant conversation in the sunshine before she went back to the serious business of tracking down a living wage.
Crispin frowned when she finished. ‘You want a job? Seriously?’
‘Yes,’ said Jo simply.
‘And you don’t mind what you do?’
‘No. Well,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘within reason. No gogo dancing, no brain surgery.’
He laughed, but his eyes were narrowed as if he were thinking deeply.
‘And you know about old cars?’
Jo was taken aback. ‘I know about old bangers. Nothing in the league of a Roller.’
He dismissed that with a wave of the hand. ‘Yes, but you know about gearsticks and double de-clutching and stuff. You could drive them if you had to move them in and out of a garage, say?’
Jo agreed gravely that she did and she could.
‘Do you like cars?’ He sounded as if it were virtually impossible.
Jo thought about it. ‘Yes, on the whole. They don’t make promises and they don’t let you down unless they can’t help it. They don’t spring many surprises as long as you look after them.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Would you like to?’
‘Like to what?’
‘Look after them?’
‘Look after—’ She broke off, staring at the gleaming aristocrat parked in front of the café. ‘Them? How many Rollers do you have, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Not me. My brother, Patrick. He has a collection.’
‘Well, if he’s a collector he must want to look after them himself.’
‘Inherited,’ said Crispin simply. ‘He’s going to sell them all. He told me to come here and take a look. He’s got some expert coming from Rouen to put the cars back into running order. I’m supposed to be his little helper on the spot. But—well, it’s not really my bag, and I’ve had an invitation to do some sailing up the coast of Spain. So I wondered…’ He looked at Jo speculatively. ‘I’d pay you.’
‘I’m not qualified,’ protested Jo.
Crispin laughed heartily. ‘Good Lord, neither am I. You just have to book in the experts and take notes. I’ve got all the contact details. And it would get me out of prison.’
‘Prison!’
But prison in Crispin Taylor-Harrod’s terms turned out to be a fifteenth-century château, complete with turrets and a world-famous garden, albeit run down. The trouble was…
‘It’s miles from anywhere. No girls.’
Also no transport, no nightclubs, no bands.
‘And my mate Leo has asked me on a boat which is wall-to-wall babes in bikinis,’