Vacancy: Wife of Convenience. Jessica Steele
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had died.
Not that the two had seen very much of each other since Joseph’s remarriage. Her father’s trips to his club had become less and less frequent. And Henry Warren seldom came to the house any more. It was because of their friendship that her father had always dealt with a different firm of solicitors, believing, as he did, that business and friendship did not mix. But Colly’s first instinct was to want to turn to Uncle Henry.
But he was out of the country, and as her initial shock began to subside she realised that there was no one she could turn to for help and advice. She had to handle this on her own. She had no father, and no Uncle Henry—and Nanette wanted her out.
Hot on the heels of that realisation came the knowledge that she barely had any money—certainly not enough to pay rent for more than a week or two on any accommodation she might be lucky enough to find. That was if prices had stayed the same in the two years since she had last looked at the rented accommodation market.
She was still trying to get her head together on the day of her father’s funeral.
She clearly recalled seeing Silas Livingstone there—his name now known to her. How Nanette managed to look the grieving widow while at the same time trying to get her hooks into Silas Livingstone was a total and embarrassing mystery to Colly. He and another tall but older man had gone to his car and had left straight after paying their respects at the crematorium anyhow, so Nanette’s invitation to ‘come back to the house’ had not been taken up.
Having applied for a job with Livingstone Developments, Colly had done a little research into the company. And, on thinking about it, she saw that it was not surprising that the firm should be represented at her father’s funeral that day. Livingstones were not the only big engineering concern to be represented.
She came out of her reverie to watch Ellen Rothwell handle whatever came her way. Secretarial work, it was fast being borne in on Colly, was more than just being able to type!
She had known that, of course. But supposed she must still be suffering shock mixed in with stress, strain and grief for her father, as well as a helping of panic thrown in, that, on seeing the advertisement for a multilingual senior secretary, and believing she could fulfil the multilingual part without too much trouble, she had applied.
She watched Ellen Rothwell for another thirty seconds, and realised more and more that she must have been crazy to apply. Colly got to her feet, ready to leave, but just then the door to Silas Livingstone’s office opened and there he was, a couple of yards away—so close, in fact, that she could see that his eyes were an unusual shade of dark blue.
‘Come through,’ he invited, standing back to allow her to precede him into his large and thickly carpeted office. She was five feet nine—and had to look up to him. She had been about to leave, but found she was going into his office. He followed her into a large room that housed not only office furniture but had one part of the room—no doubt where he conducted more relaxed business—given over to a coffee-table and several padded easy chairs. He closed the door behind them and indicated she should take a seat to the side of his desk. ‘I was sorry about your father,’ he opened.
So he knew who she was? ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘Columbine, isn’t it?’ he asked, she guessed, since he had her application form in front of him, more to get her to feel at ease before they started the interview.
‘I’m called Colly,’ she replied, and felt a fool when she did, because it caused her to want to explain. ‘I thought, since I was applying—formally applying—for the position with Mr Blake that I should use my full name—er—formal name.’ She was starting to feel hot, but did not seem able to shut up. Nerves, she suspected. ‘But Columbine Gillingham is a bit of a mouthful.’ She clamped her lips tight shut.
Silas Livingstone stared at her and seemed glad that she had at last run out of breath. But, when she was getting ready to quite dislike him, he gave her a pleasant look and agreed, ‘It is, isn’t it?’ going on, ‘I stopped by Vernon Blake’s office earlier. His present secretary said everything was running smoothly in his absence with the exception of an interviewee, Columbine Gillingham, who could not be contacted. Your father’s obituary mentioned he had a daughter Columbine—I didn’t think there would be two of you.’
It was her turn to stare at him. Was that why he had decided to interview her himself—because of her connection with her father? But there was no time to ask, and she supposed it was irrelevant anyway, because, obviously a man with little time to spare, Silas Livingstone was already in interview mode.
‘What secretarial experience have you?’ he enquired, glancing down at her application form as if trying to read where, in invisible ink, it was stated she had any office experience at all.
She felt hot again. ‘I’m a bit short of actual secretarial experience,’ she felt obliged to reply, wondering anew at her temerity in actually applying for the senior secretarial post. ‘But my languages are good. And—and I type quite fast.’
He leaned back in his chair, his expression telling her nothing. ‘How fast?’ he enquired politely.
‘How fast?’ she echoed.
‘Words per minute.’ He elucidated that which any secretary worthy of the name would know. And, clearly already having formed a picture of her secretarial expertise—or lack of it, ‘Any idea?’ he asked.
She had no idea. Could not even give him a hint. She sat up straighter. ‘Shall I leave?’ she offered proudly.
He shook his head slightly, but she was unsure whether it was at her non-statement of work experience there before him or whether he was telling her that he would decide when the interview was over.
‘Have you ever had a job?’ He looked straight into her wide green eyes and asked directly.
‘Er—no,’ she had to admit. But quickly added, ‘I kept house for my father. When I left school I took over the housekeeping duties until…’
‘Until he remarried?’ Again that direct look.
‘I…My father’s new wife preferred I should continue to look after everything.’ Heavens, how lame that sounded!
‘So you have never had an actual job outside of the home?’
Keeping house had kept her pretty busy. Though there was her interest in art. ‘I usually help out at an art gallery on a Tuesday,’ was the best she could come up with. She had visited that particular gallery often enough over the years to get to know the owner, Rupert Thomas, who at one time had asked her to ‘hold the fort’ for him when he’d had to dash out. From there it had grown and, today being Tuesday, she would normally be doing a bit of picture-dusting, a bit of invoicing, a bit of dealing with customers, not to mention making Rupert countless cups of coffee were he around.
‘Is this paid employment?’ Silas Livingstone wanted to know.
She was feeling uncomfortable again, and knew for sure that she should never have come. ‘No,’ she admitted.
‘Have you ever worked in paid employment?’
‘My father gave me an allowance,’ she mumbled. She was unused to talking about money; it embarrassed her.
‘But you’ve never earned—outside of the home?’ he documented. Then abruptly asked, ‘Tell me, Columbine, why did you apply for this job?’
He annoyed her. He clearly could not see why, with her lack of experience, she had bothered to put pen to paper. She couldn’t see either—now. But his formal use of Columbine niggled her too. So much so that she was able to overcome her embarrassment about money to tell him shortly, ‘I am not my father’s heir.’ She locked antlers with Silas Livingstone—and would not back down. But she did not miss the glint that came to his eyes.
‘Your father left you something, though? Left you provided for?’ he did not hesitate in asking.
Colly did not want to answer, but rather supposed