Free Spirit. PENNY JORDAN
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of her skin, which required little make-up. She uncapped her new lipstick, a soft red, which the salesgirl had enthused over, but which, once she had it on, seemed to draw attention to her mouth in a way she was not sure she liked, even though there was nothing vibrant or striking about the colour. She hesitated to wipe it off, frowning a little and then deciding she was being over-critical, not seeing in her reflection what a man would notice straight away—and that was that the subtle gleam of the lipstick drew attention to the unexpectedly vulnerable fullness of her mouth, throwing it into challenging contrast with her businesslike appearance.
Just a mere brush of matt dark green eyeshadow to shape her eyes, and blusher to highlight her cheekbones, and then she was ready.
She hadn’t varnished her nails, which she kept short and well-buffed, and a small, fine gold ring which had belonged to a maternal great-aunt was her only piece of jewellery apart from her watch and ear-rings.
Before leaving, she stood on her balcony and took several calming deep breaths, concentrating all her mental energies within herself, gathering herself up for the ordeal ahead. And then she was ready.
She wasn’t driving her car, not having wanted to risk being unable to find a parking spot. The taxi she had ordered arrived on time, and she saw the driver give her an appreciative male look as she stepped into it. She ignored the look and crisply gave him his directions.
The Jeffreys Group had its offices, not in one of the high modern office blocks, but in a Georgian house in an elegant terrace of such houses set round one of London’s smaller squares.
The garden in the middle was lushly green, the trees throwing welcome shadows on to the footpath. The railings that guarded the square were painted black and tipped with gold; and as the taxi stopped alongside them to allow her to alight Hannah noticed a small gothic gazebo, almost hidden by the foilage, its walls painted green, only the pewter shimmer of its bell-shaped roof betraying its presence.
The garden had a padlocked gate, and inside someone was working, tirelessly weeding.
Although there was really no similarity between them whatsoever, for some reason the small garden made Hannah think of her home, and her mother, who loved the vicarage’s rambling, overgrown garden almost as much as though it was an extra child.
The square was full of parked cars: expensive, gleaming cars with German pedigrees, almost uniformly dark in colour, apart from the occasional thrusting scarlet of a new Porsche or Ferrari.
The car parked outside the Group’s front door was a Daimler, the same colour as the one she had noticed in the car park at home, Hannah recognised in passing.
The Georgian door was painted black and decorated with traditional brass knocker and handle. Above it, the delicacy of the Adam fanlight caught Hannah’s eye, and she hesitated, uncertain as to whether to knock or simply walk in. As she waited, the door opened and she realised that someone must be watching her. The thought made her feel slightly uncomfortable. She stepped into the cool darkness of the tiled hallway and found a smiling receptionist waiting to greet her.
‘Hannah Maitland?’ she questioned, and when Hannah nodded, she said pleasantly, ‘If you would just like to wait in the library. It’s down the corridor, first door on your right. You’re a few minutes early for your appointment. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee while you’re waiting?’
Hannah shook her head. She was too nervous to need any added stimulation.
Thanking the receptionist, she followed her directions and found that the library was exactly that: a welcoming, faintly musty room with leather chairs and mahogany bookshelves, stacked with leather-bound volumes. The carpet on the floor was Persian and beautifully faded. The original Adam fireplace had been retained, and even though Hannah suspected that the discreetly mellowed panelling along one wall probably concealed all manner of up-to-date computer and visual study equipment, it did not detract from the ambience of the room at all.
It was a room that spoke of comfort and mellowness…of a need to respect the proper order of things…of tradition and timelessness. It was a room that relaxed and reassured, she recognised sensitively.
She wasn’t being interviewed by Silas Jeffreys himself, but by his deputy, which led her to suspect that this was just a weeding-out series of interviews.
She glanced surreptitiously at her watch. Three minutes to go. Her heart leapt as the door opened and then it leapt again, as she recognised the man who walked in, although for a far different reason.
To say that she was staggered to come face to face with the senior of the two tax officials from her county town, here of all places, was to grossly underestimate her feelings.
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at him in disbelief, her shock heightened by an odd feeling of fear and resentment. What was he doing here?
And then she knew. He was another contender for the job and a formidable opponent to her own chances, so her instincts told her.
He smiled at her as though coming face to face with her was an everyday occurrence, and once again she felt off balance and unnerved by his own very evident lack of reaction.
‘What do you think?’ he asked her pleasantly, and it took her several seconds to realise he was asking her opinion of their surroundings.
‘It’s…it’s very cleverly designed,’ she managed snappishly when she had recovered her composure. ‘Relaxing and reassuring. Clients coming in here would immediately feel reassured about the probity of the Group.’
He shot her a thoughtful look. Hannah would almost have described it as an assessing look, were it not for the fact that the mere thought of him daring to assess her made her stiffen with rejection and irritation.
‘You’ll be going in for your interview in a moment.’ He made the comment a statement rather than a question, and that added fuel to the fire of her resentment. ‘What is it that appeals most to you about this position?’ he questioned.
Hannah only just managed to stifle her gasp of fury.
‘I think that’s for the interviewer to ask and not you,’ she told him pointedly, and then couldn’t resist adding with a small grimace, ‘I suppose there’s no need to ask what you’re doing here? Although surely,’ she added with what she knew to be a touch of malice, ‘it’s rather dangerous for a man of your age to make such a major career move.’
She saw him start slightly, as if she had surprised him, and felt a fierce stab of pleasure, as though somehow the thought of having got the better of him, in however small a way, boosted her own self-confidence.
‘What makes you think I’m contemplating a career move?’ he asked her smoothly, eyebrows lifting in an interrogative manner.
‘The mere fact that you’re here,’ she responded crisply. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? What other purpose could there be in you, a tax official, appearing here in the offices of a private company? Unless, of course,’ she added nastily, ‘you’ve come to interview Mr Jeffreys about his personal tax affairs.’
He gave her a calm smile, which added to her growing irritation with him. His eyes crinkled a little at the corners, as though he was suppressing a desire to laugh. His whole manner towards her was so reminiscent of the lordly attitude adopted by her older brothers that she longed to react to his male arrogance in the same way as she had reacted to theirs as a little girl. Hadn’t she learnt then, though, the uselessness of pitting her own much frailer strength against that of her much bigger and stronger brothers?
This man would have as little difficulty in fending off flaying fists and angry words as they had done. As she realised what she was thinking, Hannah was furious with herself, just as furious as she had originally been with him.
What on earth was she doing, allowing this man to trick her into losing her temper and her self-control? Undermining the confidence of the other applicants for a position was surely one of the oldest tricks in the book, and she should have had more sense than to fall for it.
The door to the