Husband-To-Be. Linda Miles

he said. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’ Polite, conventional words—but the brilliant blue eyes really did seem to be sparkling with delight. It occurred to Rachel that if she’d gone by his reputation she’d have expected someone hardbitten, cynical, world-weary. People had actually tried to kill him—yet he seemed to regard life as something arranged for his own amusement.

      ‘Isn’t that nice?’ said Uncle Walter. ‘Well, you’ll just have to entertain each other—Rachel’s fiance can’t be here either. I’ll just see if I can appease your aunt, dear—see if Mr Mallett would like a drink.’

      ‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Rachel politely.

      ‘Scotch and water. I didn’t know you were engaged,’ said Mallett, dropping into a chair and crossing impossibly long legs in front of him.

      ‘We’ve only just met,’ Rachel pointed out.

      ‘True enough. Who’s the lucky man?’

      ‘There’s a picture of him,’ said Rachel, handing him the drink.

      Mallett took it. He glanced at the picture, which showed Driscoll, with black-rimmed glasses and black hair neatly parted, in a graduation photo, and burst out laughing. ‘You’re not marrying him?’ he exclaimed.

      ‘Of course I am.’ Rachel glared at him.

      ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s mild-mannered Clark Kent. You can’t be serious.’

      ‘Driscoll is a first-rate researcher,’ said Rachel. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours. I applied for a job as your secretary; I did not ask for your advice on affairs of the heart.’

      Mallett raised a preposterous eyebrow; he still seemed to regard the whole thing as a joke. ‘You seem to have the most extraordinary ideas of how to run your life,’ he commented. ‘I’ve only known you a couple of hours and even I can see this Driscoll isn’t up to your weight. And, as if that isn’t enough, you have the peculiar idea that you want to be a secretary. Can’t you find an opening as a liontamer?’

      ‘If I weren’t too polite,’ countered Rachel, ‘I might ask why you were planning to spend the rest of your life with a clothes-horse.’

      He grinned. ‘But naturally you’re too polite. There’s a lot more to Olivia than meets the eye. Anyway, you’re just going by my reputation, which is highly exaggerated.’ The happy-go-lucky face was suddenly, unexpectedly serious. ‘But you’re right, of course—it is a departure. It’s time I settled down.’

      He took a sip of his drink, then gave her a rueful grin. ‘The thing is, I’ve never settled to anything—something always comes up. I was going to be a scientist, you know—went off to Brazil to do an MA on sugar cane and soil erosion, suddenly this land-rights dispute blew up. Well, naturally I couldn’t sit on the sidelines. Finally I got kicked out of the country.

      ‘So my supervisor came up with another topic, and I went off to Malaysia—same result. Finally he got fed up with pretending I was going to finish a thesis. One thing led to another—I’ve made a fair amount of money over the years, and got a few people out of hot water, but you can’t go on that way indefinitely. That’s why this science park will be so great. We can give facilities to a lot of innovative inventors, see if they can’t come up with solutions to some serious problems.’

      ‘Hmm,’ said Rachel.

      Mallett shook his head. ‘The thing I can’t get over is the way some people stay out of trouble,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s heard of me, but what does it all add up to? The man I really admire is someone you’ve probably never heard of—R. K. V. Hawkins. Amazing guy. No heroics—just an incredible record of solid research that no ecologically respectable company can afford to ignore.’ He finished his whisky and set it down. ‘Funny we never ran into each other, really—we’ve been in a lot of the same places.’

      Rachel Katherine Victoria Hawkins opened her mouth and shut it again. She knew what would happen. She would tell Grant Mallett that he’d met the man of his dreams—and, next thing she knew, it would turn out he had a swamp he wanted her to go and stand in because the mosquitoes were looking run down.

      ‘I’m afraid I haven’t heard of him,’ she said truthfully.

      Before Mallett could say any more about his hero, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Walter came in to announce dinner. The small group quickly filed into the dining room, and the discussion rapidly moved to the subject of the innovations to be introduced at the hall.

      Rachel listened with gathering interest. The science park sounded a wonderful idea—she found herself positively drooling at some of the facilities Mallett wanted to provide. And the maddening thing was that she thought she probably would be perfect to coordinate and liaise at this end while Mallett travelled back and forth to London.

      Meanwhile, Uncle Walter brought the conversation round to Mallett’s adventures. For the second time that day, Rachel had to give credit to Mallett for surprising niceness. You’d have thought he had nothing better to do in the world than repeat, for probably the five-hundredth time, a lot of stories for a middle-aged man of no influence or importance.

      Uncle Walter and Aunt Harriet punctuated the stories with admiring exclamations of, ‘You don’t say!’ and ‘Think of that!’ Even Rachel was interested to hear some of the details that hadn’t made it to the Press—though naturally she was glad she wasn’t involved with the kind of man who let this kind of thing interfere with his research. Thank goodness Driscoll was more sensible.

      ‘Of course, Rachel has had quite an eventful career,’ began Uncle Walter. For a horrible moment Rachel expected her secret to be revealed. But Mallet came to her rescue.

      ‘I’ll bet she has!’ he exclaimed. ‘She’s quite a character, isn’t she?’ He grinned. ‘It’s not every girl, after all, that carries around a genuine Mexican tarantula as a companion. I met William this afternoon.’

      There was a small silence.

      ‘William?’ said Aunt Harriet ominously.

      ‘Er...’ said Rachel.

      ‘I suppose,’ said Aunt Harriet, ‘that you were delivering him to a client?’

      ‘Er...’ said Rachel. ‘Not exactly.’

      ‘Do you mean to say,’ said Aunt Harriet, ‘that you have brought one of those frightful creatures into my house?’

      ‘I was going to ask you—’ began Rachel.

      ‘No,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘I am not having one of those things under my roof.’

      ‘But it’s just till I find him a home,’ Rachel said pathetically.

      ‘Certainly not,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘Driscoll wouldn’t like it. I can’t imagine what he’ll say when he finds out—’

      And at this there was an unexpected interruption. ‘Well, if Driscoll wouldn’t like it it’s obviously out of the question,’ said Mallett, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘Tell you what, Rachel—you can keep him over at Arrowmead.’

      ‘How do I know I can trust you to look after him?’ asked Rachel.

      ‘Oh, you’d have to come and feed him,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Unless, of course, you think Driscoll would object.’

      Rachel ground her teeth. ‘Of course he wouldn’t object!’ she exclaimed. Well, not once she’d explained, anyway. She paused, then added, ‘You know, if I’m going over there anyway, I might just as well be your secretary.’

      ‘A secretary!’ exclaimed Aunt Harriet, shocked. ‘Rachel, I don’t think Driscoll would like that at all!’

      And now a look of pure devilry came into the brilliant blue eyes. ‘Do you really think so?’ said Grant Mallett. ‘Because I’m beginning to think Rachel is just the girl for the job!’