His Rags-to-Riches Bride: Innocent on Her Wedding Night / Housekeeper at His Beck and Call / The Australian's Housekeeper Bride. Susan Stephens
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my secret place. You’re not meant to tell.’
Daniel bent and carefully removed a dead leaf from her hair. ‘My lips are sealed,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ He paused. ‘Are you a birdwatcher too?’
She shook her head. ‘I come here to read.’
‘What’s the book of the moment?’
She looked back longingly. ‘Treasure Island.’
‘Good God,’ he said, exchanging amused glances with Simon. ‘So, who’s your favourite character?’
She gave it some thought. ‘I don’t think any of them are very nice. They’re all greedy, and Jim spies on people.’ She paused. ‘Ben Gunn isn’t too bad, I suppose, because he only wants toasted cheese.’
‘You heard it here first, folks,’ Simon said, grinning. ‘Stevenson, eat your heart out. Come on, Dan, let’s leave her to her pirates and get some tennis in before tea.’ He ruffled her hair, dislodging more dead leaves. ‘See you later, Lainie. And clean up a bit before Ma sees you. She seems a bit agitated today.’
‘That’s because Mr Latimer was here yesterday,’ Laine informed him. ‘She’s always in a bad mood after that, because she hates him. She calls him that “bloody man”.’
There was a brief silence, then Dan turned away, apparently overcome by a coughing fit, while Simon looked down at his younger sibling, his young face suddenly weary.
He said quietly, ‘But you don’t have to do the same, Lainie. Is that understood?’
She said uncertainly ‘Are you cross too?’
‘No,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘No, of course not. It’s just that a visit from the trustee isn’t the ideal start to a vacation.’
It was good that Simon was home, Laine thought contentedly, as they departed and she went back to her book. Because it meant that Mummy would stop frowning, and smile instead.
The housekeeper, Mrs Evershott always sounded the gong for meals five minutes early, so she gauged she’d have plenty of time to wash her hands and comb her hair before tea.
But that day her mother had arranged for it to be served on the lawn, as a tribute to the good weather, and there was no way she could reach the house unobserved.
‘Elaine!’ Angela exclaimed from the shelter of her parasol. ‘What have you been doing? Rolling in mud? And where’s your hair ribbon?’ She turned to the others at the table, shrugging helplessly. ‘What a ragamuffin. A cupboard full of pretty dresses, and she insists on those old shorts.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t think her poor father would recognise his Lily Maid these days.’
‘Lily Maid?’ Daniel queried politely, while Laine stared down at the grass, shuffling her feet in their blue flip-flops, knowing what was coming next, and dreading it.
Angela sighed again. ‘My mother-in-law was a big Tennyson fan, and when she saw the baby for the first time she was folded in a white shawl—looking like a lily, apparently. So Mama persuaded Graham to christen her Elaine, after the girl in the poem—The Lily Maid of Astolat.’
There was a pause, then Dan said politely, ‘That’s a charming story.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Laine said with sudden fierceness. ‘Elaine’s a silly name, and Jamie says she was a wuss for dying just because Sir Lancelot wasn’t in love with her—and he says I’ll grow up to be a wuss, too, because I’m called after her.’
There was an odd silence, then Simon put down his plate and began to laugh, to be joined by Dan and eventually Angela.
‘It’s a bad day for literature in this house,’ Simon managed at last, wiping his eyes. ‘And we’re laughing with you, scruff, not at you. Now, come and have some tea, and I’ll have a word with Master Jamie when he shows up.’
Everyone had laughed that summer, Laine thought. It was one of the happiest she’d ever spent, and the start of many more.
And she’d had Simon and Daniel to thank for that.
Up to then, she’d been left pretty much to her own devices in the school holidays. Unlike Jamie, who’d attended a local preparatory school as a day boy prior to following Simon to their father’s old school in the autumn, Laine had made few friends locally. The other children at the village school, finding that she wasn’t interested in the latest junior fashions, and that she preferred reading to the television programmes they all seemed to watch, had tended to ignore her.
And even with her beloved books she’d found herself lonely at times.
But that holiday had been altogether different. The weather had been good, so they’d all been able to spend as much time outside as possible. And Laine had been included in all their activities. It had all been casual—no big deal. She’d just been expected to accompany them.
Until then she’d always been faintly nervous of the river that bordered the end of the Abbotsbrook grounds. She’d been learning to swim at school, but Angela had said firmly that the river was a very different proposition from the swimming baths in the nearby market town, and that Laine must keep well away from it at all times.
But Simon and Daniel had changed all that. Under their eagle-eyed supervision, her technique and confidence had surged ahead, until, as Simon had told their mother, she could swim like a fish.
‘Or an eel,’ Jamie had put in. ‘Eel-Laine.’ And he’d continued to torment her with the nickname, roaring with laughter at his own wit, until Daniel had taken him quietly to one side and stopped it.
But none of Jamie’s teasing had had the power to upset her. She’d been far too happy.
Some of the best days had been spent out on the water in the old dinghy. When the boys had fished, she’d been provided with a small rod and line to hunt for tiddlers.
If they’d played cricket she had cheerfully fielded for them, and had zealously located balls that had been hit into the shrubbery from the tennis court.
Most of all, they’d both talked to her as if they were genuinely interested in what she had to say.
But the holiday had ended far too soon for Laine. Simon had joined his school’s climbing club the year before, and had become swiftly and seriously addicted to the sport, so he’d been taking the last two weeks of his vacation in the Lake District, while Daniel had been summoned to join his father for a rare break in the South of France.
As goodbyes had been said, Laine had launched herself at Daniel, arms and legs wrapped round him, clinging like a monkey. Hugging him strenuously, she’d whispered, ‘I wish you were my brother, too.’
‘Elaine!’ Angela reproved. ‘Kindly stop making a spectacle of yourself. Daniel, do put the wretched child down. I must apologise to you for this ridiculous behaviour.’
‘It’s not a problem, Mrs Sinclair.’ He lowered Laine gently to the ground, ruffling her hair. ‘Please believe I’m very flattered.’
‘Also very tolerant.’ She offered him a limpid smile. ‘But you’re not a babysitter, you know. Perhaps on your visit at Christmas we can all do some rather more grown-up things.’
There was a brief, odd silence, then he said quietly, ‘Of course.’
Christmas, Laine thought ecstatically. He would be back at Christmas. He and Simon. And that would be the best present she could have.
Hero-worship, she told herself wearily, as she got up from the sofa to take the bag of melting ice cubes back to the kitchen. That was what it had been. The world’s most gigantic crush. A childish phase that she should have outgrown quite easily.
However, for the next five years, her entire life had seemed to take its focus from school and university vacations, and she’d waited for them with almost painful eagerness,