Unguarded Moment. Sara Craven

Lester Marchant who had brought her here and introduced them had remained to ease the way for her. But of course he hadn’t, she thought, her mouth lifting in a smile of wry reminiscence. Lester had problems of his own, even then.

      ‘So you’re the new secretary.’ The other girl had surveyed her from head to toe. ‘I don’t think you’ll last long. You’re not bad looking and Bianca doesn’t brook any possible rivals, you know. That’s why I’m going. I could handle the job, but someone bothered to give me a word and a smile at one of her cocktail parties when he should have been devoting all his attention to her, and that’s fatal.’

      Hot with embarrassment, Alix said, ‘Perhaps you ought to know that Miss Layton is my aunt.’

      ‘She is?’ The other girl sounded astonished, rather than abashed. ‘Well, that’s probably the last time you’ll ever be allowed to tell anyone that. And it won’t save you from the limitations Bianca likes to put on her staff. Niece or not, you’ll submit to the image she wants, or you’ll be out. Now, I suppose I’d better show you how the filing system works.’

      Alix had been too dazed by the harshness of the words to pay much attention to the demonstration that followed. She was torn with doubts anyway, knowing how her mother would react to the news that she had accepted a post as Bianca’s secretary, however high-powered and well paid, and beyond the wildest dreams of anyone as relatively young and inexperienced as she was. Whatever the trouble was between Bianca and her mother, she had an uneasy feeling that her decision to work for Bianca, to live in her house, to devote her waking hours to her interests, would improve nothing between the sisters.

      Now, it seemed, she would have problems at work as well as at home. She had known a momentary impulse to cut and run, but now an older, wiser Alix knew that she would have regretted it bitterly if she had done so.

      Even a few weeks afterwards when Bianca, her smiling lips belying her narrowed eyes, had suggested charmingly that perhaps some of her new clothes were more suitable to her leisure hours rather than an office environment, she had learned to swallow her humiliation. Because by that time she knew that nothing—not Bianca’s moods, or Monty’s hostility, or the silences at home which disturbed her most of all—could persuade her to abandon the sheer stimulation of her new job. And if Bianca wanted her hair tied demurely back instead of flowing freely over her shoulders, and preferred her to dress in quiet drab styles, which were both businesslike and unobtrusive, then she would not argue. It might be weak-willed, but Bianca was paying the piper, and handsomely too, and Alix had no real objection to her calling the tune.

      So she dressed and behaved with the utmost discretion, and she made no men friends where she might conceivably be accused of poaching on Bianca’s preserves.

      She told herself that she didn’t really mind either that Bianca had fulfilled her predecessor’s prophecy by describing Alix airily as a young cousin, explaining later, ‘A niece sounds incredibly ageing, darling. Don’t you agree?’

      Alix was realistic enough to know that even if she had objected violently, it would really have made no difference. Bianca spent a lot of her time pampering her face and body, keeping the march of time at bay. It would have been hard at any time to guess her age, and Bianca clearly intended to keep people guessing for many years yet.

      She tried Liam Brant’s number once more for luck, and grimaced as the engaged signal came steadily to her ears.

      ‘Talkative devil, aren’t you?’ she addressed him as she put the phone down.

      As she crossed the hall, the doorbell rang, and she hesitated, wondering if she should answer it, but she could already hear Harris’s footsteps as he came up the basement stairs, and besides, Bianca wouldn’t thank her for receiving guests in her holiday gear. So she went on towards the stairs, returning a smiling greeting to Harris’ hearty, ‘Good morning, miss. A pleasure to see you, if I may say so.’

      Of course he could say so, she thought, as she put her hand on the curve of the banister rail. He was the only one who had said anything of the sort, and it was nice to be welcomed.

      She was still smiling when she turned slightly to see who was at the door. He was tall, and his shadow fell across the watery sunlight which was making a brave attempt to straggle across the hall floor.

      His voice was low-pitched, resonant and cool. ‘My name’s Brant. Miss Layton is expecting me.’

      As he spoke, he glanced across the hall and his eyes fell on Alix, standing transfixed on the stairs.

      She looked back at him blankly, registering his lean height, the darkness of his hair, the arrogant strength of nose, mouth and chin, and the cynically amused appreciation in his eyes as he surveyed her.

      Her first thought was, ‘My God, it can’t be him! He’s on the phone. He can’t be here.’ Her second was, ‘Bianca will kill me!’

      And she went on up the stairs, not looking back, but aware just the same that he was still watching her, and having hell’s own job not to break into a run and take Bianca’s elegant stairs two at a time.

      She flew into her bedroom, nearly falling over her holiday cases which Harris had put there. Holiday gear was the last thing she wanted now, she thought, kicking off her sandals and shrugging the too-revealing black top over her head. She grabbed the nearest dress, a neat shirtwaister in beige cotton, and pulled it on, forcing the buttons through the holes, and knotting the tie belt hastily, before sliding her feet into matching low-heeled pumps. There was not time to fix her hair properly, she decided, gathering it firmly into a swirl at the back of her head, and anchoring it with a few well-placed hairpins.

      And it was no use bothering Bianca at this stage. She would go downstairs and face the wretched man and see if she could persuade him to go away until she and Seb and Leon, Bianca’s agent, had had a chance to talk to her, to reason with her.

      Harris was waiting at the foot of the stairs. ‘I’ve shown the gentleman into the drawing room, Miss Alix. Shall I bring coffee? And shall I tell Miss Layton he’s here.’

      ‘Not for the time being.’ Alix’s heart was thumping in a most uncharacteristic way, and the headlong rush to change into an approximation of what Bianca expected of her had made her breathless. ‘I—I’ll ring if I want anything.’

      She paused at the drawing room door, took a deep steadying breath, then turned the handle and went in, pinning a small cool smile to her lips.

      He was standing by the fireplace, glancing through one of the magazines, usually arranged neatly on the sofa table.

      He looked at Alix, and his dark brows lifted. ‘So,’ he said. ‘The little niece.’

      It was desperately important not to appear thrown, but she was. There had never been the slightest hint of her real relationship to Bianca in any of the hundreds of thousands of words which had been written about her aunt, so how in the world did he know?

      ‘Don’t bother to deny it,’ he added, his voice drawling as it invaded her appalled silence. ‘You’re rather like her—as she was when she was younger, anyway.’

      Oh no, Alix thought. He mustn’t. He really must not meet Bianca ever, if this is a fair sample of the kind of thing he says.

      She lifted her chin and gave him back stare for stare. ‘How kind of you to say so, Mr Brant.’ She allowed her own voice to drawl slightly. ‘And you’ve done your homework well.’

      ‘I’m paid to do so, Miss Coulter—or may I call you Alix, as we seem destined to spend a considerable amount of time in each other’s company over the next few months.’

      ‘Over my dead body,’ Alix said silently. She said coolly, ‘Miss Layton prefers a certain measure of formality in her business dealings, Mr Brant. As a matter of fact, I’ve been trying to telephone you for the past hour.’

      ‘My phone’s out of order.’ He gave her a level look. ‘I hope you weren’t trying to tell me that Miss Layton would be unable to keep our appointment because she’s been laid low by some virus.’