A Baby In His In-Tray. Michelle Douglas
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Liv glanced down at the baby and grinned. ‘Not much sleep deprivation happening here. Besides, Mr Tyrell is bound to know who Baby Jemima is and what I should do with her. We’ll sort it out.’
‘I’m so, so sorry, Liv. If I’d thought for a moment that anything like this would happen, I’d have never asked you to fill in for me.’
‘I know. But don’t fear—I’ll muddle on through. You just focus on sorting things out at your end. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’
Liv hung up from her twin and tucked her phone back into her handbag. She stared again at the sleeping baby and bit her lip. It was usual for babies to sleep a lot, right? She touched her fingers to the baby’s forehead, but the baby didn’t feel hot or feverish.
What on earth was the poor little mite going to think when she woke up and found her mother gone? ‘Poor little chick.’
Right.
She planted herself in her office chair and pulled the phone towards her, punching in the contact number that Sebastian Tyrell had left...along with the instruction Only to be used in the direst of emergencies.
The phone rang three times before it was answered. ‘Ms Gilmour.’
‘Yes.’
‘I trust this is an emergency?’
The cold, clipped tones told her it had better be or there’d be hell to pay. She took an immediate dislike to the man. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’
‘My parents...?’
His tone didn’t change and she disliked him even more. ‘To the best of my knowledge they’re in excellent health. This has nothing to do with your parents. It’s to do with—’
Baby Jemima chose that moment to let loose with a loud wail.
Heavens! Who knew something so small could produce a sound so fierce? She stood up to peer into the carrier—still perched on her desk where it’d been left—but the sight of Liv seemed to startle the baby further. Baby Jemima’s face turned red as she started crying in earnest.
Oh, heck!
Sebastian Tyrell’s voice boomed down the line at her. ‘Is there a baby in my office?’
Technically, it was her office.
Actually, it was Liz’s office.
‘Hey, there, little one, hush.’ She ran her hand across the baby blanket—over the baby’s tummy—in an effort to impart some comfort. ‘Shh, it’s OK.’ She spied the dummy pinned to the blanket and popped it into the baby’s mouth. Baby Jemima immediately stopped crying and sucked on it greedily. Oh! She must be hungry.
‘What is a baby doing in my office?’
She hated that voice—the cutting ice of it. ‘That, Se—sir...’ She quickly caught herself. Liz had told her that first names weren’t used in the office. Ever.
She closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. She had to keep her wits about her. Slip-ups were not allowed. She couldn’t let Liz down. It was Sebastian Tyrell’s reserve, his distance—both physical and emotional—that had made them believe they could pull this deception off. They could still pull it off. She and Liz were identical twins—at least on the outside. He’d never be able to tell them apart. She could do this.
‘Continue, Ms Gilmour. Stopping partway through a sentence is not only unprofessional, but irritating.’
Her chin shot up and her nostrils flared. ‘I was hoping you could shed light on this particular emergency, sir. You see, the baby is the emergency. It was left on my desk during my lunch hour...along with a letter for you.’
‘What?’
She held the phone a little further away from her ear and refrained from pointing out that deafening one’s office manager wasn’t particularly professional either. Or that having her eardrums blasted was seriously irritating.
‘You’ll have to excuse me for having read your letter, but I deemed the situation warranted it.’ She feared, though, that her tone told him she didn’t give a flying fig what he thought about her having read his letter.
Air hissed down the line at her. ‘Read it out loud.’
She did. Word for word. As few as they were.
Without being asked, she read the letter again, allowing him time to process it. She waited for him to respond. When he continued to remain silent she asked, ‘What would you like me to do?’
‘I’m thinking.’
She wanted to tell him to think faster. ‘Do you know baby Jemima?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know who her mother might be?’
‘Ms Gilmour, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop peppering me with questions.’
Jemima spat her pacifier out and set up a toothache-inducing wail. ‘Mr Tyrell, there’s a baby on my desk that is evidently hungry and probably in need of changing—a baby that has obviously been abandoned by its mother. You’ll have to excuse my impatience, I’m afraid.’ She pulled in a breath. ‘If you don’t know who this baby is or who she belongs to, then the sensible thing to do would be to contact the police and hand her over to Social Services.’
‘No!’
She blinked. So...maybe he did have a clue?
‘This child’s mother obviously thinks there’s some connection between us, between the baby and me.’
‘Or someone could be trying to take advantage of your aristocratic heritage,’ she felt honour-bound to point out. Sebastian was Lord Tyrell’s only son. The Tyrell family had that enormous estate in Lincolnshire. Not to mention a London house and a holiday villa somewhere on the Riviera.
She rubbed Jemima’s tummy again, and tried to entice her to take her dummy—unsuccessfully. If anything the volume of her cries only increased.
‘Going to the police has the potential to cause a scandal. The tabloids would have a field day.’
She rolled her eyes. What on earth was a scandal when a baby’s welfare was at stake?
‘And a scandal will affect the Tyrell Foundation. It’s on a knife-edge already. I don’t want to risk scaring away the benefactors I’ve been in negotiations with for the last few months. We’ve worked too hard for that.’
Sebastian’s charity wasn’t one of the glamorous ones featuring children or animals on their flyers. His charity assisted the recently unemployed in the over-fifties age bracket to find work.
From all that Liz had said, it was gruelling work too, and apparently Sebastian toiled like a Trojan. It wasn’t something she’d have expected from an aristocrat’s son.
We all have our peccadilloes, she reminded herself. She’d have never expected to be particularly fluent in office work, and yet here she was.
She tossed her head and gritted her teeth. She was glad she’d become skilled enough to help her sister out of a tight spot.
Baby Jemima’s continual crying scratched through her brain, making her temples throb. ‘Where on earth are you anyway?’
A heavy sigh came down the line. ‘Australia.’
‘Australia!’ She said a rude word.
‘Ms Gilmour, did you just swear?’ There was no censure in his voice, just astonishment.
‘I can’t stand this crying another second. I need to change and feed the baby. I’ll call you back.’
Without further ado, she hung up on him.
Don’t lose me my job, Livvy.
She grimaced before pouncing on the bag the