The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

So, he hadn’t been unconscious, then. Just in too much pain to move.

‘I’m Gabriella March. I work for your sister. Adele,’ she added. Who knew what damage she’d done? ‘She asked me to house-sit for you while she was away, since she wouldn’t be around to take care of things.’

‘House-sit? How long for?’

‘Twelve months.’

He responded with a word that suggested he was not noticeably impressed by his sibling’s thoughtfulness.

‘She expected you to be away for that long.’ Then, in case he took that as a criticism, ‘I’m sure you had a good reason for coming back early.’

‘Will a civil war suffice?’ Then, ‘If she’s away, why didn’t she ask you to house-sit for her?’

‘Oh, Adele let her flat. Those new places down on the Quay are snapped up by companies looking for accommodation for senior staff moving into the area. They’re so convenient…’ Then, because he didn’t look especially impressed by the inevitable comparison with his own inconveniently rambling house, she said, ‘Since she wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on this place and I was having landlord trouble, we did each other a favour.’

‘Are you one of her research students?’

‘What? Oh, no. I’m her cleaner. And yours, actually,’ she said. ‘At least I was before I moved in. It’s part of the deal now I’m living here. Adele is saving you money.’

‘What happened to Mrs Turner?’ he asked, apparently not impressed with the fiscal argument.

‘Nothing. At least, quite a lot-but nothing bad. She won the Lottery and decided that it was definitely going to change her life.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, good for her.’

Could the man be any more restrained?

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked.

Hurt herself? Was he suffering from a memory lapse? Partial amnesia, perhaps? She had done nothing. The accident had been entirely his fault…

‘When you fell,’ he persisted, presumably in case she was too dim to understand. Not that he appeared to care very much. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t bring herself to blame him.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe you should check?’ he advised.

‘Good idea.’ Ellie hauled herself to her feet and discovered that her left knee did hurt quite a bit as she turned. She decided not to mention it. ‘How about you?’

Dr Faulkner winced a bit, too, as he finally made it to his feet, and she instinctively put out her hand to help him.

He didn’t exactly flinch, but it was a close-run thing, and she made a performance of testing her own limbs, flexing a wrist as if she hadn’t noticed the way he’d recoiled from her touch.

‘Maybe you should take a trip to Casualty?’ she suggested. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Then, ‘So where is she? Adele.’

He sounded as if he might have a word or two to say to his sister about inviting someone he didn’t know to move into his house.

‘She’s bug-hunting. In Sarawak. Or was it Senegal? Or it could have been Sumatra…’ She shrugged. ‘Geography is not my strong point.’

‘Bug-hunting?’

Probably not quite precise enough for a philologist, Ellie thought, and, with a little shiver that she couldn’t quite contain, said, ‘She’s hunting for bugs.’ Which was quite enough discussion about that subject. ‘She’s away for six months.’ She made a gesture that took in their surroundings. ‘She wanted me to make the place look lived in. As a security measure,’ she added. ‘Turning lights on. Keeping the lawn cut. That sort of thing.’

‘And in return you get free accommodation?’

‘That’s a good deal. Most house-sitters expect not only to be paid, but provided with living expenses, too,’ she assured him, while trying out her legs to make sure they were in full working order, since she was going to need them later. The one with the twinge suggested that the evening was not going to be much fun. ‘And they don’t throw in cleaning for free.’

‘No, I’m sure they don’t.’ Then, having watched her gyrations and clearly come to the conclusion that she was a lunatic, ‘Will you live to dust another shelf, do you think?’

‘I appear to be in one piece,’ she told him, then gave another little shiver-and this time not because she was thinking of Adele Faulkner and her beloved bugs, or even because she was hoping to gain his sympathy, but at the realisation of how lightly she’d got off. How lightly they’d both got off. ‘What on earth did you think you were doing, creeping up on me like that?’ she demanded.

‘Creeping up on you? Madam, you were so wrapped up in the book you were reading I swear a herd of elephants could have stampeded unnoticed beneath you.’

Madam? Madam?

He bent and picked it up, holding it at a little distance, narrowing his eyes as he peered at the spine to see for himself what had held her in such thrall. ‘Wuthering Heights?’

His tone was as withering as any east wind blasting the Yorkshire Moors. Not content with practically killing her, he apparently felt entitled to criticise her taste in literature.

‘You can read?’ she enquired.

Ellie, rapidly tiring of his attitude, had aimed for polite incredulity. She’d clearly hit the bullseye-with the incredulity, if not the politeness-and as he turned his blue eyes on her she rapidly rethought the colour range.

Steel. Slate…

‘If someone helps me with the long words,’ he assured her, after the longest pause during which her knee, the good one, buckled slightly.

Then, realising what he’d said, it occurred to her that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he possessed a sense of humour, and she waited for the follow-up smile, fully prepared to forgive him and return it with interest, given the slightest encouragement. She wasn’t a woman to hold a grudge.

‘But I only bother if there’s some point to the exercise.’

No smile.

He patted his top pocket. ‘Did you notice what happened to my glasses?’he asked, handing her the book.

Ellie was sorely tempted to use it to biff him up the other side of his head, tell him to find his own damn glasses and leave him to it. But she liked living in this house. Actually, no. She loved living in this house. Especially when the owner was a long way away, out of the country, doing whatever it was that philologists did on research assignments.

There was something special about buffing up the oak handrail on banisters that had been polished by generations of hands. Cleaning a butler’s sink installed not as part of some trendy restoration project but when the house was new, wondering about all the poor women who’d stood in the same spot, up to their elbows in washing soda for a few shillings a week. Sleeping in the little round tower that some upwardly mobile Victorian merchant with delusions of grandeur had added to lend his house a touch of the stately homes.

What a pity Dr Faulkner hadn’t stayed wherever he’d been. Because, while his sister had been totally happy with the mutual benefits the arrangement offered, it was obvious that he was not exactly thrilled to be lumbered with a health hazard living under his feet. Or falling on top of him.

Maybe-please-he was on a flying visit. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Maybe-more likely-he wasn’t, and since the deal had been done on a handshake she didn’t have a contract, or a lease, or anything other than Adele’s word to save her from being thrown onto the street at a moment’s notice.

Belatedly, she held her tongue. And because it was easier-and probably wiser-than attempting to stare him down, she looked around for his glasses, spotting them beneath a library table stacked with academic journals.

They were the kind of ultra-modern spectacles that had no frame, just a few rivets through the lenses to hold them together, and as she scooped them up they fell to bits in her hand.