The Feisty Fiancee. Jessica Steele

Thomson Wakefield. Suspended! He might just as well have sacked her. No way could she bring Wilf into this. No point in both of them looking for a new job.

      And that, she knew, had to be her first priority. She was still adamant that she wasn’t going to touch a penny of the allowance which her stepfather paid into her bank account. But she had to face the fact that, even with Astra refusing to allow her to pay rent, having been absolutely astounded at Yancie’s suggestion that she should, just day-to-day living was costly.

      By Monday Yancie had double-read every likely job in the situations vacant columns—there were not, she had to face, very many for women without experience in the workplace.

      Though she knew in her heart of hearts that although, as Thomson Wakefield had pointed out, she had been in the job only a short while—and freedom aside—she felt she really didn’t want to work anywhere else but at the Addison Kirk Group.

      She supposed it must have something to do with the people she worked with. Oh, not Thomson Wakefield; she didn’t care for him one tiny bit. If he was not exactly the grumpy old devil she had told him he was, then it couldn’t be said either that he was full of the joys of spring.

      But the other people she worked with—other drivers, Wilf, the executives she chauffeured around—to a man they were all unfailingly pleasant. She thought of Thomson Wakefield—she did quite often. And why shouldn’t she? She wouldn’t have said he’d been unfailingly pleasant when he’d had the nerve to suspend her. She had never driven him—the possibility that she one day might didn’t enter any equation. She’d better carry on looking for another job.

      It had been embarrassing returning to the transport section after that loathsome interview with him. Had she not left her shoulder bag in her locker Yancie felt she might have made a hasty exit without anyone being any the wiser.

      Though, on reflection, she’d owed Kevin Veasey the courtesy of telling him he was going to be a driver short, if he didn’t already know. Fortunately it had been after five when she’d made it back down to the transport section and most of the staff had left for the weekend.

      ‘All right?’ Kevin smiled as she approached, and Yancie knew then, from his manner, that apart from being extremely curious that she had been called to the top floor he had no earthly idea of why.

      ‘Not exactly,’ she replied, and, a little shamefaced, was obliged to admit, ‘I’ve been suspended.’

      ‘You’ve been…’ Kevin stared at her in total surprise. ‘Suspended!’ he exclaimed. ‘What for?’

      ‘You don’t know?’ Clearly he didn’t—Thomas Wakefield had not reported her to her department head, it seemed. But then, he didn’t have to; he was handling it himself in his own beastly authoritarian way.

      ‘I’ve no idea,’ Kevin replied. ‘I was instructed not to allow you to drive any of the vehicles today and for you to report to Mr Wakefield at four, but…’

      ‘It’s a long story,’ Yancie said quietly.

      ‘You don’t want to tell me about it?’

      Yancie shook her head. ‘I’d better go home.’

      ‘Keep in touch.’

      She said she would, but couldn’t see that she would. It was highly unlikely that Thomson Wakefield would relent and see Kevin was informed that her suspension was over.

      Tuesday dawned cold and bleak and Yancie, who normally had a very sunny temperament, owned to feeling a bit out of sorts. She made a meal of duck with a cherry sauce for herself and her cousins, and hid her low spirits as, being excellent friends as well as cousins, they chatted about all and everything until Astra, the career-minded one of the three, said she was off to her study.

      ‘And I’m off to try and make my peace with my mother,’ Fennia sighed.

      ‘That leaves me with the washing-up,’ Yancie remarked—and they all laughed.

      ‘Best of luck with your mother,’ Yancie and Astra said in unison.

      ‘I’ll need it!’

      Yancie was in the kitchen when, ten minutes later, the telephone rang. So as not to have Astra disturbed if she was in the middle of something deeply technical on her computer, Yancie went quickly to answer it. Should the call be for either her or Fennia, then there’d be no need for Astra to be interrupted.

      ‘Hello, Yancie Dawkins,’ said her cousin Greville cheerfully, instantly recognising her voice. ‘How’s the job going?’

      Oh, heck, she had pondered long and hard on whether or not to tell her super half-cousin that she’d been suspended, but was still undecided. But now—it was decision time!

      ‘Great!’ she answered enthusiastically. How could she possibly confess that she had so dreadfully let him down? ‘How are things with you? Still loving and leaving them?’ Greville had been divorced for a number of years and, having been badly hurt, now, while having women friends, was careful to steer clear of emotional entanglements.

      ‘Saucy monkey!’

      She laughed. ‘Did you want Astra? Fennia’s out.’

      ‘Any one of you,’ he answered. ‘I’m having a party on Saturday if all or any of you want to come.’

      ‘We’d love to!’ Yancie answered for the three of them. Greville threw wonderful parties.

      They chatted for a few minutes more, and Yancie, having managed to stay cheerful enough while talking to him, felt immediately guilt-ridden once she had put the phone down. She didn’t like the feeling.

      Fennia came home in low spirits too—her mother hadn’t wanted to know. Yancie did her best to cheer her, telling her of Greville’s phone call and party invite. ‘Did you tell him?’

      ‘That I’m suspended? I couldn’t.’

      Astra came out of her study and, when Fennia volunteered to make some coffee, it was Astra who insisted on making it.

      All three of them went into the kitchen.

      ‘Greville’s having a party on Saturday—we’re invited,’ Yancie told her.

      ‘Just what I could do with,’ Astra declared. ‘Thanks for taking the call—I was up to my ears in complicated calculations. Did you tell him?’

      Yancie knew her cousin didn’t mean had she accepted for the three of them. ‘I couldn’t,’ she admitted, and was plagued all night when her guilty conscience kept her awake. Greville had always been there for all three of them—she owed it to him, after all he had done, to keep her job.

      Fennia’s duty in going to try to put things right with her mother reminded Yancie the next day—not that she needed any reminding—that she had certain duties too. And, though she didn’t think of her stepfather as a duty, she went, by public transport, to see him.

      Her journey was extremely bothersome in that it involved a tube, a train and a bus. Though when her very pleased-to-see-her stepfather said he wanted her to come home and to forget about the car ‘trouble’, that he’d buy her another one, Yancie found she could not accept.

      ‘You’re a darling,’ she smiled, giving him a hug, ‘but I couldn’t.’

      ‘Not even to make me happy?’

      ‘Oh, don’t!’ she begged.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised at once. ‘I never thought I’d resort to emotional blackmail. Come and tell me how your job’s going. Your mother rang wanting to speak to you, by the way.’

      ‘You didn’t tell her I was working!’

      ‘What—and get my ears chewed off for my trouble?’ He chuckled. ‘Coward though I am, I let her think you were still living here.’ He thought for a moment, and then added, ‘Have you seen her lately?’

      ‘Not