Vacancy: Wife of Convenience. Jessica Steele

up, to mull it over and over, to get used to the idea before reaching the decision I have. On reflection, perhaps I’m not being fair, dropping it on you like this and expecting you to come back with the answer I want.’

      She was about to reiterate that her answer was no. And that had she had those same four days it would not have made any difference—her answer would still be no—that she just did not need to think about it, or need to get used to the idea either. But Silas was no longer beside her. He was out of the car and had come round to the passenger door.

      She stepped out and he stood with her for a moment on the gravel by the front door. He glanced down to where, in the light of the security lamps, her dark hair glowed with red lights. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘Think about it and I’ll call you. I’ll phone you Tuesday evening.’

      Colly looked up. His expression was telling her nothing. She opened her mouth to again tell him no, that she had no need to think about it, then realised that he was not in any kind of mood to take ‘no’ from her.

      ‘Goodnight,’ she said, and went indoors.

      Saturday and Sunday passed with Colly still trying to believe that the conversation that had taken place on Friday night had actually taken place and was not some figment of her imagination. Had Silas Livingstone really suggested they marry? Had he really told her to think about it and that he would call her for her answer?

      Whatever—his astonishing proposal did achieve one thing: her head was so full of it there was small room for her to take much heed of Nanette’s spiteful barbs whenever they were within speaking distance of each other.

      Though on Monday morning Nanette was at her most vicious. ‘You still here?’ she snapped when she eventually came down the stairs.

      ‘I’m making plans,’ Colly returned, without a plan in her head.

      ‘You’d better make them pretty quick, then,’ Nanette retorted, going on to inform her nastily, ‘If you’re not out of this house by the end of the week I’m having all the locks changed!’

      ‘You can’t do that!’ Colly gasped.

      ‘Who’s going to stop me? Joseph Gillingham left this house to me.’ And, with a triumphant smirk, ‘It’s mine!’

      Not for the first time Colly wished that her father’s lawyer friend Henry Warren were there to advise her. Surely she could not be barred from her home of twenty-three years? Be put out in the street—just like that! But Uncle Henry was still holidaying abroad, and to seek help from some other legal representative would take money. And money was in rather short supply just then.

      How short was again brought home to her when, a little while later, she went looking for a flat to rent. Prices were sky-high! She couldn’t so much as pay the first month’s rent in advance for even the lowliest bedsit!

      Silas Livingstone’s proposal that she stand with him in front of some registrar suddenly started to have a weakening effect on her. She stiffened her backbone. She couldn’t do it. Marry him? Take money from him? No, it was out of the question.

      She returned to her car, but had no wish to return home. It was not home any more. She began to feel all stewed up—what other options were open to her? There were none. She replayed again that morning’s spat with Nanette and could not get it out of her head. That was when Colly realised that if she dwelt on it many more times she might yet weaken completely. And she could not weaken. She could not marry Silas Livingstone.

      On impulse she took out her phone. She would tell him now. She would not wait until tomorrow for him to call her. She would tell him now—while she still had the strength of mind.

      She supposed she should have realised it would not be as simple as that to get in touch with him. He was a busy man. He had not even had any free time in which to take her to lunch last week, had he?

      Though she did get through to his PA, and it was almost as if Ellen Rothwell had been instructed to put her through to him were she to ring, because the PA was most affable and informative when she apologised and said, ‘I’m sorry, Silas isn’t in right now. All being well, he should be in the office at some time between three and four if that’s any help?’

      ‘Thank you very much. I—er—may call back,’ Colly replied, and, unable to sit still, she left her car wishing that it was all over and done with.

      As she walked aimlessly about so she started to blame him. It was all his fault that she was in this stew. If he had taken her at her word on Friday she would not now be wandering around fretting the pros and cons of his whole astonishing suggestion anyway.

      Not that she had thought too deeply about his side of things. Though it was plain that Silas must be more than a little desperate to have put the preposterous proposal to her in the first place. He, with his forward planning, could see everything he and his father before him—and his grandfather too, come to that—had worked for going down the drain if his cousin got his hands on those controlling shares.

      He knew his cousin better than she, who had never met him. But surely this Kit person was not so bad as all that? If he were, then would Grandfather Livingstone really change his will in the married Kit’s favour? She could not see it.

      But suddenly then Colly was shocked into reconsidering. It had never dawned on her that she would be made homeless when her father died—but he had changed his will, hadn’t he? And, when she might have been forgiven for not expecting to be left destitute, he had left her not a penny.

      Feeling a little stunned, Colly began to wish she had not started to think about this marriage proposal from Silas’s angle. Because now that she had she began to think of all those employees who would lose their livelihood, the shareholders who might have invested perhaps more than they could afford in the prosperous company—all of whom stood to suffer financially should Silas’s worst fears come to fruition. It was as weakening as knowing that she was about to be made homeless, and that come the weekend she could throw away her house keys for all the use they would be to her.

      By half past two, while appearing outwardly calm, Colly had become so het-up from going over and over everything in her head that she just could not take any more. Neither could she marry him, and that was that, and the sooner she told him the better. She would phone again—oh, grief, with his tight schedule he would be too busy to take phone calls.

      That was when she noticed that she was not all that far away from the Livingstone building. At five to three she was pushing through the plate glass doors.

      While she knew where Silas Livingstone’s office was, there was a way of doing these things. And, anyhow, he might have someone in his office with him, which meant that she could not just bowl in there unannounced.

      She went over to the desk. ‘I’m Columbine Gillingham,’ she told the receptionist. ‘Is it convenient to see…’ she got cold feet ‘…Ellen Rothwell?’

      Her insides started to act up, and that was before the receptionist came off the phone to pleasantly say that Mrs Rothwell was expecting her. ‘You know the way?’

      Colly hoped that by the time she reached Ellen Rothwell’s door she might have calmed down somewhat. But not a bit of it; she felt even more hot and bothered and was fast wishing that she had not come. She was recalling those steady dark blue eyes that had looked into hers—almost as if he could see into her soul.

      I’m being fanciful, she scoffed. But her insides were still rampaging when she found Ellen Rothwell’s door and went in.

      ‘Silas isn’t back yet, but if you’d like to take a seat he won’t be long,’ Ellen informed her pleasantly.

      Colly thanked her, but felt more like standing up and pacing up and down than sitting. But she went and took a seat, realising as she did so that, while it was highly unlikely Silas would have confided in his PA any of this very private business, it looked very much as if—appointments with him being like gold dust—he must have mentioned that he was prepared to take calls from Columbine Gillingham, and that if she appeared personally he