At His Service: Cinderella Housekeeper. Fiona Harper

ignored the quiet girl on the wooden bench with her coat pulled round her. She’d been desperate to join in, but much too scared to get up and ask in case they laughed and ran away. But Sam had won her over with his gentle smile as he’d grabbed her hand and pulled her off the bench. Within minutes she’d been running after him, the wind in her hair and a smile beneath her rosy cheeks.

      It had always been like that with Sam. He had encouraged her to dare, to believe. To make life count.

      ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ she whispered, the glass misting as she talked to his face in the photo.

      She sighed and pulled her tatty robe from its hook on the back of the door. Since the incident in Mark’s car, she’d felt different. Liberated, somehow. Perhaps the whole embarrassing scenario had done some good after all. She’d been clutching on to her grief for so long, and her reaction to Mark’s driving had finally provided an outlet—the last great emotional lurch in her rollercoaster stay at Larkford so far.

      Ever since she had got here she’d been plunging into some forgotten feeling—panic, shame, anger—desire, even. She’d experienced them all in vivid richness. And somehow Mark Wilder stood in the middle of the maelstrom. Instead of making her feel safe, as Sam had, he made her feel nervous, excited and confused all at once. It was as if the universe had shifted a little when she wasn’t looking and she suddenly found herself off-balance when he was around.

      Yet he’d surprised her with his understanding and sensitivity. Not once had she felt judged for her behaviour that afternoon. It had been so nice to sink into his strong arms and know that she wasn’t alone.

      She tied the sash of her gown in a lumpy knot. With a heavy sigh she acknowledged that her relationship with Mark had changed in that moment. A boundary had been crossed as she had stood shivering against him in the lane.

      She’d also noticed a change in Mark in the couple of weeks since he’d started living at Larkford again. But the way he was treating her now made her feel uncomfortable in a completely new way. Now he came home more evenings than he stayed away, even though the hour’s drive from London could double if the motorway traffic was bad. He was always witty and entertaining, and she no longer fumed at his humour, but laughed along with it. There was even the odd quip at her expense, but it was a gentle nudge rather than sarcastic teasing.

      He obviously thought she was too fragile to be toyed with now. What a pity, because suddenly she was ready to find out if there was an upside to all these impulses and strong emotions she’d inherited from the accident, to see if love and joy and happiness might just be brighter and more multi-coloured than they had ever been before.

      Ellie was working on a salad for lunch when she heard a car pulling up outside. That was odd. She’d assumed Mark had been sleeping late, because he’d had to attend a function the night before, but that sounded like his car. She blinked in surprise when he strode into the kitchen a few moments later.

      ‘You’re up early,’ she said, inspecting a bottle of rice vinegar to see how much was left—a complete cover for the fact her insides were doing the tango. He still made her catch her breath every time he walked into the room, but it was different. It wasn’t all about hormones fizzing and pure physical reactions. Somehow those sensations had grown beyond the superficial things they were, and now she sometimes felt as if there was a dull ache inside her chest that grew stronger the closer he was to her.

      ‘I had things to do,’ he said.

      She noticed the little shopping bag he was carrying with the logo of a high-end electrical store and shook her head. ‘More gadgets?’ He was a typical man in that respect.

      Instead of giving her a boyish grin and proudly showing off his latest piece of kit, he just looked a little awkward as he nodded his answer to her question.

      ‘Actually, I bought this for you.’

      Ellie put the vinegar bottle down on the counter and stared at him. ‘For me?’

      Mark handed her the bag and she pulled a small glossy box from it. A handheld computer. She stared at it, hardly knowing what to say.

      ‘You got me a PDA?’

      He nodded again, still unusually serious and silent. ‘You can link it up to the laptop and keep all your calendars and notes with you wherever you go. It even has a voice recorder function. I thought it might be … you know … useful when you need to make a note of something in a hurry, before you forget.’

      Ellie felt like crying. She hadn’t even thought of using something like this, but it was perfect. Just what she needed.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘Why did you …? I mean, what made you think of getting me this?’

      He shuffled backwards. ‘Just something I read …’

      She frowned at him. Where was the normally cocky and devil-may-care Mark Wilder? Why was he looking so sheepish?

      Oh, great. He’d been researching her condition—probably read up on it on the Internet. While it was still an incredibly sweet gesture, it just confirmed that his view of her had changed. Now she was just the poor brain-damaged housekeeper who couldn’t keep her facts straight without the help of a bit of technology.

      She wanted to be cross with him, but she couldn’t rev up the energy. Instead she put the box back in the bag and stowed it in an empty cupboard. ‘I’ll have a look properly later.’

      ‘You like it? You think it’ll be useful?’

      He looked so hopeful, so eager, that she couldn’t help but smile and nod. ‘It’s wonderful. It’ll be a big help.’

      And it would. There was no need to be sad about a tiny computer just because it signalled what she knew already—that anything more than a professional relationship between them was a total impossibility.

      Mark grinned. Suddenly he was back to his old self: cheeky, confident … impossible. Ellie picked up a cook’s knife and went back to chopping something—anything—to keep her mind occupied and her pulse even. But after a few moments he walked over to the chopping board and looked over her shoulder. Ellie fanned her face. It was very warm. Had he closed the window? She glanced over at the French doors, but the embroidered muslin panels were still billowing gently.

      ‘What are you cooking?’

      Ellie put the knife down a little too quickly. It clattered on the worktop. Despite the fact her brain told her the crush she had on Mark was pointless, the neural pathways carrying that information to her body seemed to have gone on strike.

      ‘Vietnamese salad,’ she said, the words tumbling out.

      ‘Which is—?’ He waved his hand in a circular motion as her mouth moved soundlessly.

      ‘Chicken and noodles and a few vegetables, with a sweet chilli dressing,’ she replied, a wobbly finger pointing to each of the ingredients in turn.

      Great! Now she was babbling like a bad TV chef.

      His cheek twitched, yet his face remained a mask of cool composure. ‘Hot stuff, then?’

      Under different circumstances, Ellie would have thought he was flirting with her. Heat licked at the soles of her feet. She swallowed. ‘It depends on the size of the chilli.’

      The look her gave her was positively wicked. ‘And you girls try and tell us boys that size doesn’t matter.’

      Ellie almost choked.

      Mark picked up the half-chopped chilli from the chopping board. ‘How hot is this one?’

      Ellie tried very hard to focus on the bright red chilli and not on Mark’s warm brown eyes.

      ‘Medium, sort of. The small ones are the hottest, funnily enough.’

       Stop babbling! He already knows that. Everybody knows that!

      She bit her lip and turned to peel the outer stem off a stick of lemongrass.