A Surprise Christmas Proposal
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Liz Fielding
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CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT kind of job are you looking for, Miss Harrington?’
‘Please, call me Sophie. Peter always does.’
And where was Peter when I needed him? I’d been bringing my untapped potential to this employment agency for the last five years. Dropping in whenever I got bored. Or when an employer decided that I wasn’t quite what he was looking for and encouraged me to widen my horizons. As far away from him as possible. Or when he decided that I was exactly what he was looking for and wouldn’t take no for an answer…
Actually, on this occasion I’d quickly realised that I was never going to be what my present employer was looking for, so, although it wasn’t a good time for me to be out of work, I’d taken pity on him and done it for him. Now, confronted by the frosty-faced female on the business side of the desk, I was beginning to wonder if I’d been a bit hasty.
‘Anything,’ I said, finally cracking in the face of her silent refusal to pick up my invitation to engage in social interaction. Get some kind of relationship going. ‘I’m not fussy. So long as it doesn’t involve heavyweight typing or computers. I’ve had computers up to here.’
I touched my forehead with the tips of my fingers to emphasise just how far ‘up to here’ with them I was.
Then I smiled to show that, computers apart, I wasn’t going to be difficult. I couldn’t afford to be difficult…
Like my expensive manicure, it was totally wasted on this woman. Unmoved, she said, ‘That’s a pity. Your experience at Mallory’s would seem to be your most promising asset. What kind of reference would they give you?’
That was a tricky one. My interview technique had involved nothing more taxing than flirting at a party with a software boffin who had, apparently, been in search of a secretary. I’d never actually been a secretary—and I’d told him that—but I’d been prepared to give it my best shot. And he, sweet man, had been prepared to let me. Now, there was a man who appreciated well applied nail-polish…
Unfortunately perfectly painted nails and good eyelash technique, even when coupled with the ability to make a perfect cup of coffee, hadn’t entirely compensated for my inability to type with more than two fingers. Especially since, attractive though he undoubtedly was, flirting had been as far as I was prepared to go.
To be brutally honest, I’d only held onto the job for so long because his boss, Richard Mallory, had been about to marry my best friend. I’d brought them together through some seriously clever matchmaking and Rich hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to invite me to take my skills elsewhere—which was why I’d made everyone promise to keep my resignation a secret until they’d left on their honeymoon.
He’d found out somehow, but I’d kept well out of his way during this last week before the wedding. Right now I needed a job—really needed a job—but not so badly that I’d watch a grown man break into a sweat as he tried to persuade me to stay. And I wouldn’t be asking him for a reference for much the same reason.
I’d given it my best shot, but I’d missed the target by a mile. I was never going to be secretary material.
‘I tend to do better in jobs where social skills are more important than the ability to type,’ I admitted, avoiding a direct answer to her question. ‘I’ve done reception work,’ I offered helpfully, indicating the thick file that lay in front of her. It was all there. Every job I’d ever had.
‘Presumably in the kind of reception area that doesn’t involve the use of a computer,’ she replied, signally unimpressed.
‘Unfortunately they’re few and far between these days,’ I said, and tried the smile again. In the face of her total lack of encouragement it wasn’t easy; this would have been so much less difficult if I were talking to a man—men, simple souls, took one look and tended to forget about tedious things like computers and typing speeds. But I wasn’t sexist. If she’d just give me a chance I was prepared to work with her on this. Really. ‘I worked in an art gallery once. I enjoyed that.’
Well, I had—until the gallery owner cornered me in the tiny kitchen and I’d had to choose between unemployment and taking my work home with me. That had come as something of a shock, actually. I’d been fooled by his fondness for velvet trousers and satin waistcoats into believing I was quite safe…
‘Lots of opportunities to meet wealthy art collectors, no doubt. We’re not running a dating agency, Miss Harrington.’
If only she knew how far she was from the truth.
‘I don’t need a dating agency,’ I said, possibly a little more sharply than was wise under the circumstances. But I was rapidly losing any desire for interaction of any kind with this woman.
I didn’t have any trouble attracting men. It was convincing them that I wasn’t in the business of making all their dreams come true that was the problem. The ones who worked it out and still wanted to know me became friends. The others became history. Dates I could manage for myself. What I needed was a job. Now.
‘I usually see Peter,’ I said, offering her a way out. ‘If he’s in? He understands what I can do.’
The look I got suggested that she understood, too. Only too well. ‘Peter is on holiday. If you want to see him you’ll have to come back next month. But I doubt if even he would be able to help you. Companies are looking for function rather than adornment in their staff these days.’ The woman indicated the file in front of her. ‘You’ve had a lot of jobs, Miss Harrington, but you don’t appear to be actually qualified for anything. Do you…did you ever…have a career plan?’
‘A career plan?’
For heaven’s sake, did this woman think I was a total fool? Of course I’d had a career plan. It had involved an excessive quantity of white lace, two rings and a large marquee in the garden of my parents’ home. I’d started working on it from the moment I first set eyes on Perry Fotheringay in a pair of skin-tight jodhpurs at some horsey charity do my mother had organised.
I was going to get engaged on my nineteenth birthday, married on my twentieth. I was going to have four children—with a Norland nanny to do all the yucky stuff—breed prize-winning Irish setters and live happily ever after in a small Elizabethan manor house in Berkshire.
Perfect.
Unfortunately Peregrine Charles Fotheringay, a man of smouldering good looks and heir to the manor house in question, had had a career plan of his own. One that did not include me. At least, not in connection with the white lace, rings and marquee.
And when that plan fell apart I just hadn’t had the heart to start again from scratch.
Probably because I didn’t have a heart. I’d given it away. It was gathering dust somewhere, along with my career plan, in PCF’s trophy cabinet.
My big mistake had been to believe, when he’d said he loved me, that marriage would follow. An even bigger mistake had been to fall totally, helplessly, hopelessly in love with him. I had discovered, too late, that men like him didn’t marry for love, but for advantage. And, having taken full and frequent advantage of my stupidity—admittedly with my whole-hearted co-operation—he’d married the heiress to a fortune large enough to fund the expensive upkeep of the said Elizabethan manor and keep him in the kind of luxury to which he felt entitled. As his father had done before him, apparently.
As Perry had explained when I confronted him with a copy of The Times in which his name was linked with the said heiress under the heading ‘Forthcoming Weddings’, it was in the nature of a family business: Fotheringay men didn’t work for their money; they married it.
The heiress was short-changed. For that kind of money she really should have got a title as well.
Anyway.
Here I was, spending my twenty-fifth birthday at an employment agency when I should have been organising a spur-of-the-moment frivolous celebratory bash for my friends. The kind that takes weeks to plan. I just hadn’t got the heart. What was there to celebrate? I was twenty-five, for heaven’s sake—that was a quarter of a century—and to make things worse my father had persuaded the trustees of my grandmother’s trust fund to put a stop on my monthly allowance so that I would have to get a serious job and stand on my own two feet.
That would teach me to tell little white lies.
Three months ago, in a spectacularly successful attempt to toss my shy best friend into the path of a billionaire playboy, I’d made up a story about having to hang onto my job because my father was threatening to stop my allowance. Something he did on a fairly regular basis, but which we both knew was nothing but bluff and bluster.
But now he’d actually done it.
It was for my own good, he had assured me.
Oh, sure.
I might not be clever, like my sister Kate, but I wasn’t stupid. I could see the way his mind was working. He thought that if I was short of money I’d have no choice but to return to the family nest and play housekeeper to him: a singularly unattractive prospect that offered all the undesirable aspects of marriage without any of the fun. Which was presumably why my mother had legged it with the first man to pay her a compliment since she’d walked down the aisle as Mrs Harrington.
‘Well?’
Miss Frosty was getting impatient.
‘Not a career plan as such,’ I said. Even I could see that she wasn’t going to be impressed with my romantic notions of connubial bliss. With the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight even I could see that it wasn’t so much a career plan as total fantasy… ‘I was never what you could describe as academic. My strengths are in what my mother described as “home skills”.’
‘Home skills?’ She didn’t actually get as far as smiling, but she did brighten considerably. ‘What kind of home skills?’
‘You know…flower arranging—that sort of stuff. I can do wonders with an armful of Rose Bay Willow Herb and Cow Parsley.’
‘I see.’ There was a significant pause. ‘And do you have a City and Guilds qualification for this?’ she asked finally. ‘Something I can offer an employer as proof of your capabilities?’
I was forced to admit that I hadn’t. ‘But the Ladies’ Home Union were jolly impressed when I stood in for my mother at the church flower festival at such short notice.’ Well, they’d been polite anyway. No one had so much as breathed the word ‘weeds’. Not within my hearing, anyway. Which, considering they’d been expecting the best blooms from my mother’s garden, had been generous of them.
Unfortunately, when she’d decided she’d had enough of tweeds and dogs and jumble sales and departed for South Africa with the muscular professional from the golf club, my father had driven a tractor through her prize-winning roses. Then, when there was nothing left to flatten, he’d repeated this pointless act of vandalism by doing the same thing to her immaculate herbaceous borders.
Now, that was stupid. She wasn’t there to have her heart broken over the destruction of all her hard work. She didn’t even know he’d done it, for goodness’ sake. And he was the one who had to live with the mess.
But after that Willow Herb and Cow Parsley had been all that I could lay my hands on in any quantity at such short notice.
‘Anything else?’
‘What? Oh…’ I was beginning to get irritated by this woman. Just because I couldn’t type a squillion words a minute, or do much more than send e-mails on my laptop, it didn’t mean I was worthless.
Did it?
No. Of course not. There were all kinds of things I could do. And with a sudden rush of inspiration I said, ‘I have organisational skills.’
I could organise great parties, for a start. That took skill. One look at Miss Frosty Face, however, warned me that party organising might not actually be considered much of an asset in the job market. Frivolity in the workplace was definitely a thing of the past.
But there were other things.
‘I can organise a fundraiser for the Brownies, or a cricket club tea, or a church whist drive.’ In theory, anyway. I’d never done any of those things single-handedly but, unlike my clever older sister, who had been too busy studying to get involved, I’d enjoyed helping my mother do all those things. It had been a heck of a lot more fun than revising for boring old exams, and it wasn’t as if I’d had any intention of going to university. I’d been going to follow in my mother’s footsteps—marry landed gentry and spend the rest of my life oiling the community wheels of village life.
Of course Kate had never had any trouble getting—or keeping—a job. And now she had a totally gorgeous barrister husband who adored her, too.
Maybe I should have paid more attention at school.
‘I can produce fairy cakes in vast quantities, ditto scones and sandwiches at the drop of a hat.’ I hadn’t done it since I’d left home at eighteen—to avoid running into PCF in the village, driving his new Ferrari, a wedding present from his bride—but it was like riding a bicycle. Probably. ‘And I can speak French, too,’ I said, getting a bit carried away.
‘Well?’
When I hesitated between lying through my teeth and a realistic appraisal of my linguistic skills she reeled off something double-quick in French. Too fast for me to understand, but I could tell it was a question because of the intonation. And I could make a good guess at what she was asking…
Show-off.
‘And play the piano.’ Before she could ask me the difference between a crotchet and a quaver I added, ‘And I know how to address anyone, from a Duke to an Archbishop—’
‘Then you appear to have missed your vocation,’ she said, cutting me off before I made a total idiot of myself. Or maybe not. Her expression suggested that I was way beyond that point. ‘You were clearly destined to marry one of the minor royals.’
I began to laugh. Too late I discovered I was on my own. This was not, apparently, her idea of a little light-hearted banter.
It occurred to me that this woman did not—unlike the much missed Peter—have a sense of humour. And, unlike him, she did not look upon a lack of formal qualifications as a challenge to her ingenuity; she just thought I was a total waste of space, a spoilt ‘princess’ who had some kind of nerve taking up her valuable time and expecting to be taken seriously.
It occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that she might have a point, and that maybe I should consider a totally serious reappraisal of my entire life. And I would. Just as soon as I was in gainful employment.
‘Look, I don’t need a job that pays a fortune,’ I told her. ‘I just need to be able to pay the bills.’ And treat myself to a new lipstick now and then. Not a fortune, but not exactly peanuts, either. At least I had the luxury of living rent-free, thanks to Aunt Cora, who preferred the guaranteed warmth of her villa in the south of France to the London apartment that had been part of her lucrative divorce settlement. I only hoped my mother had been taking notes… ‘I’ll consider anything. Really.’
‘I see. Well, since your skills appear to be of the domestic variety, Miss Harrington, maybe you could put them to good use. I don’t have much call for free-form flower arrangers just now, but how are you at cleaning?’
Cleaning? ‘Cleaning what?’
‘Anything that people will pay good money to someone else to clean for them rather than do it themselves. Cookers come top of the list, but kitchen floors and bathrooms are popular, too.’
She had got to be joking! The only cleaning fluid I’d handled recently came in small, expensive bottles from the cosmetic department at Claibourne & Farraday.
‘I don’t have any real experience in that direction,’ I admitted.
Aunt Cora’s flat came equipped with a lady who appeared three times a week and did anything that required the use of rubber gloves. She charged the earth on an hourly basis for her services, but I’d planned on sub-letting my sister’s old room in order to pay her. And to cover some of the monthly maintenance charges. Just as soon as it was vacant. Unfortunately Aunt Cora had taken advantage of Kate’s departure to offer her room to ‘some very dear friends who need somewhere to stay in London while they’re looking for a place of their own.’
I was hardly in a position to say that it wasn’t convenient. Actually, at the time it had been fine, but that had been months ago and there was still no sign of them finding anywhere else. And, staying rent-free—and, unlike me, expenses-free—in London, why would they be in any great hurry?
‘Well, that’s a pity. We can always find work for someone with the ability to apply themselves to a scrubbing brush. ‘ She gave a dismissive little shrug. ‘But clearly that’s an “anything” too far for you.’ With that, Miss Frosty stood up to signal that as far as she was concerned the interview was over. But just to ram the point home she said, ‘Should I be offered anything in your particular niche in the job market, I’ll give you a call.’
She managed to make the prospect sound about as likely as a cold day in hell. That I could live with. It was the smirk she couldn’t quite hide that brought an unexpectedly reckless ‘I’ll show her…’ genie bubbling right out of the bottle.
‘I said I was short of experience. I didn’t say I wasn’t prepared to give it a try.’
Even as I heard myself say the words I knew I’d regret it, but at least I had the satisfaction of surprising that look of superiority right off Miss Frosty’s face. I hoped it would be sufficient comfort when I was on my knees with my head inside some bloke’s greasy oven.
‘Well, that’s the spirit,’ she said, finally managing a smile. It was a smug, self-satisfied little smile, and I had the strongest feeling that she couldn’t wait to get stuck into the ‘domestic’ files and search for the nastiest, dirtiest job she could find. ‘I’ve got your telephone number. I’ll be in touch. Very soon.’
‘Great,’ I said, looking her straight in the eyes.
In the meantime I’d treat myself to the best pair of rubber gloves money could buy. It was, after all, my birthday.
It would be fine, I told myself as I reached the pavement and, on automatic, raised my hand to hail a passing taxi. Then thought better of it and stood back to let someone else take it.
It would be fine. Peter would be back from his holiday in a week or two, he’d find me something to do, and life would return to normal—more or less. But in the meantime my expenses had doubled and my income had just become non-existent.
It wouldn’t hurt to start economising and take a bus.
It wouldn’t hurt to buy a newspaper and check out the job prospects for myself, either. The only possible excuse for not taking whatever revolting job Miss Frosty dug up for me—and I had no doubt that it would be revolting—would be that I was already gainfully employed.
The prospect of telling her so cheered me up considerably. It wasn’t as if I was unemployable, or even lazy. I’d had loads of jobs. But the unappealing prospect of becoming unpaid housekeeper to my manipulative and thoroughly bad-tempered father was all the incentive I needed to stay seriously focussed. I was in the mood to show him, too.
Okay, so I’d majored in having fun for the last few years. I mean, what was there to be serious about? But I’d had a wake-up call, a reminder that I couldn’t carry on like this indefinitely.
Apparently I was supposed to get serious now I’d turned twenty-five. Get a career plan.
Let’s face it. I didn’t even have a life plan.
It occurred to me that if I wasn’t jolly careful another twenty-five years would drift by and I wouldn’t have had a life.
Yes, it was definitely time to get serious.
I stopped at the corner shop to stock up on cat food, and while I was there picked up the evening paper. I scanned the ads while I was waiting for the girl behind the counter to stop flirting with a man buying a motorcycle magazine and discovered to my delight that I could job hunt on the internet, thus bypassing the doubtful pleasure of being made to feel totally useless on a face to face basis.
I also bought a notebook—one with a kitten on the cover and its own matching pen. I’d need a notebook if I was going to do all this planning. And, feeling virtuous, I circled all the likely job prospects in the paper while I was on the bus, jumping off at my stop fired up with enthusiasm and raring to go.
‘Big Issue, miss?’
Saving money or not, I wasn’t homeless like the man standing on this freezing corner selling copies of a magazine for a living.
‘Hi, Paul. How’s it going? Found anywhere to live yet?’
‘It’s looking good for after Christmas.’
‘Great.’ I handed over the money for the magazine and then bent down to make a fuss of the black and white mongrel pup sitting patiently at his side.
‘Hello, boy.’ He responded happily to a scratch behind the ear and I gave him a pound, too, which more or less cancelled out my economy with the taxi. ‘Buy yourself a bone on me.’
I went in through the back entrance to the flats so that I could feed the little stripey cat who’d made a home there. She appeared at the first sound of kibble rattling in the dish. She was so predictable. Then I walked through to the lifts, grateful that my ‘guests’ were away for an entire week and determined to make a serious start on the job hunting front.
There were distractions waiting for me in the lobby, however.
I might be trying to ignore my birthday, but nobody else was taking the hint. The porter had a pile of cards for me, as well as a parcel from my sister—who was away visiting her in-laws for a family celebration—and some totally knockout flowers.
There was a whopping big bunch of sunflowers—my absolute favourite, and heaven alone knew where the florist had managed to get them this late in the year—from Ginny and Rich. I felt a lump forming in my throat. I was practically certain that it was a rule of being on honeymoon that you were supposed to be totally self-centred and forget that the rest of the world existed. I touched the bright petals. Not Ginny…
There was an orchid in a pot from Philly, too. I hadn’t seen my here-today-gone-tomorrow next door neighbour in ages. She and Cal were always flitting off to some corner of a foreign field, or jungle, or mountain range to film exotic fauna. Neither of them had allowed the arrival of their baby daughter to slow them down, but just carried her along with them, papoose-style, wherever they went.
I’d have been okay if the arrangement of pale pink roses hadn’t been from my mother.
I sniffed. Loudly. I refused to cry. I did not cry—I’d used up all the tears I was ever going to shed over Perry Fotheringay—but it was a close-run thing. Everyone in the world I loved was married, or away on an adventure, or busy getting a life. Not that I begrudged any of them one bit of happiness or success. I was just a little bit tired of endlessly playing the dizzy bridesmaid and doing my best to avoid catching the bouquet tossed so carefully in my direction before waving them off on their new lives. That was all.
I opened the package from my sister. Nestling inside the layers of tissue paper, I found a pot of industrial strength anti-wrinkle cream, support stockings and a pair of ‘big knickers’. The card—’Over the hill? What hill? I didn’t see any hill…’—that went with it contained a voucher for a day of total pampering with all the extras at a luxury spa. It was exactly what I needed.
A laugh and a bit of luxury.
I was still grinning when the phone began to ring. I picked it up, expecting to hear a raucous chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ from one of the gang I hung around with.
‘Sophie Harrington—single, sexy and celebrating—’
‘Miss Harrington?’ Miss Frosty’s voice froze the smile on my face. ‘How are you with dogs?’
‘Dogs?’
She wanted me to wash dogs?
‘One of our clients needs a dog-walker, and it occurred to me that this might be something you could do.’
Oh, very funny.
If this was her idea of ‘changing my life’ she could keep it. I’d go somewhere else. I cleared my throat, about to tell her what she could do with her dog-walking job; I just about managed to stop myself from saying it.
I’d said ‘anything’. If this was a test I wasn’t about to fail it just because I was too proud to walk someone’s dog for money. Not when I’d probably have done it for nothing, if asked nicely. Who was I kidding? Not probably—I’d have volunteered like a shot. I loved dogs. They were always the same. Up-front and honest. They had no hidden agendas, no secrets. They never let you down.
‘How much an hour?’ I asked. Since I hadn’t been asked nicely, I might as well be businesslike about it.
She told me.
A dog-walker didn’t rate as much per hour as a secretary, but if I was totally honest I had to admit that I could walk a lot better than I could type. And I couldn’t afford to be choosy.
‘Two hours a day—first thing in the morning and again in the evening,’ she continued. ‘It will leave you ample time to fit in other jobs during the day.’
‘Great,’ I said, the spectre of greasy ovens looming large. But it occurred to me that not only would I have a little money coming in—and I wasn’t in any position to turn that down—I’d also have plenty of time to work on my career plan. Look for a proper job. ‘When do I start?’
‘This afternoon. It’s a bit of a crisis situation.’
Naturally. Some idle bloke couldn’t be bothered to walk his own dogs and it was a crisis.
‘That’s not a problem, is it?’
‘Well, it is my birthday,’ I replied sweetly. ‘But I can take an hour out from the endless round of fun to walk a dog.’
‘Two dogs.’
‘Do I get paid per dog?’ I asked. ‘Or was the rate quoted for both of them?’ I was learning ‘businesslike’ fast.
‘You’re being paid for an hour of your time, Miss Harrington, not per dog.’
‘So I’d be paid the same if I was walking one dog?’
I thought it was a fair question, but she didn’t bother to answer. All she said was, ‘The client’s name is York. Gabriel York. If you’ve got a pen handy, I’ll give you the address.’
I grabbed my new kitty notebook, with its matching pen, and wrote it down. Then, since the ability to put one foot in front of the other without falling over was the only potential of mine that Miss Frosty-Face was prepared to tap, I registered with a couple of online agencies who might ignore me but at least wouldn’t be rude to my face.
