carried on, thinking to add, `As you probably know, one of her friends wrote off her old car.'
'I didn't know that,' Thomson murmured, and Yancie, this simple lift taking on nightmare proportions, was glad that for once her mother didn't seem to have anything to come back with.
Yancie's respite, however, was short-lived because, as though only breaking to recharge her batteries, her mother was taking a look at her in relation to her own flawless appearance and the impeccable tailoring of the man they were giving a lift to, and as if ashamed, to Yancie's horror, she began holding forth. `Honestly, Yancie, you used to have more dress sense. You're always wearing that same drab suit! You were wearing it when you came to meet Henry the Sunday before last!' Thank you, Mother! It wouldn't take a genius, and Thomson Wakefield was no fool, to work out that after she'd dropped him off the other Sunday she, and the firm's vehicle, had done a bit of private motoring. But it was not over with yet-in fact, it got worse. `Living with Delia Alford is doing you no good at all!' her mother stated. Stop! Mother, please stop! But it was already too late. Their unexpected, uninvited guest, who was most able to put two and two together, was taking an interest.
'Delia Alford?' he queried pleasantly, more interested in discussing people than in drab uniforms, apparently.
'You've met Yancie's aunt Delia?' Ursula Proctor enquired a touch sharply, as if it was her right to be introduced to all her daughter's friends first.
No! No, he hasn't met her! Nor is he likely to. And, thank goodness, this is where you get out. Yancie pulled over to let her out, but before she could push the passenger door open and wish her mother a hasty goodbye Thomson Wakefield was saying smoothly, `I believe I may have met her-son.'
Yancie knew it was all over before her mother responded, 'Greville…'
'I'll have to go,' Yancie butted in quickly. `I'm illegally parked.' But why was she bothering? Thomson didn't need to hear anything more. He'd heard all he needed to hear. To prove it he left the rear of the car and went to open the front passenger door.
'Thank you,' her mother accepted elegantly, and with no idea of the problems she had just caused her daughter she wished them goodbye and went on her way.
What Yancie did not need was for Thomson Wakefield to take the seat her mother had just vacated. `I wouldn't want your mother to think we're not the best of friends,' he murmured blandly-and Yancie knew, as she pulled away from the kerb, that she was in for it.
But she needed this job-the best she could do was to try and bluff it out. 'Er-do I gather I'm-um-likely to be suspended again?' she went into battle, inviting a discussion on the subject.
'You don't think I should dismiss you?'
Well, as a matter of fact, no, I don't. `What have I done?' she asked innocently. `Well, apart from borrowing the firm's motor to visit my mother the other Sunday. And I'm sure you'll see that, since I had been working-and was quite pleased to,' she inserted hastily, 'that…'
Thomson spared her further complicated self-exonerating explanations by cutting in. `You forgot to mention on your application form-in the space that asks 'Do any members of your family work for the company?'that you're related to one of the directors.'
He had her there. Attack. `I didn't know you took such a fine interest in your drivers' job applications.'
'With you, Yancie Dawkins, I've discovered it's as well not to take everything on face value.' What did he mean by that? `Was everything on your application form a lie?'
She wished she could remember! He'd obviously seen her application form more recently than her. 'Er-the address I gave is the right one.'
'Your aunt's address?'
Oh, hang it! `I'm not living with my aunt, I'm living with my cousins-er, Fennia and Astra. Greville's my half- cousin. He lives…' she broke off; she was rambling.
'I know where Greville Alford lives,' Thomson spared her coolly. But, shaming her, he went on, `Your mother believes you're living with your aunt.'
'I didn't tell her I was,' she defended, `I just didn't tell her I wasn't living with Ralph any more.'
A pause followed. A cold, icy kind of pause. `So that was a lie too, when you said you knew the theory of the facts of life, intimating you hadn't any experience…'
'It wasn't a lie!' she denied hotly-oh, grief, she wasn't doing herself any favours here getting cross. This was no way to go about keeping her job. But she followed his drift, and said more calmly, `Ralph is my stepfather.'
A few moments of silence ensued, but it didn't last for long before Thomson was questioning-though making it sound more like a statement-'You lived with him until recently?' He didn't wait for her to answer. `You left your stepfather's home around the time one of your friends wrote off your car.'
'No wonder you're the top man!' Yancie said sniffily.
'Your stepfather was angry and threw you out,' he went on as if she hadn't spoken.
'He did no such thing!' she denied. `Ralph wanted me to stay. He wants me to go back.'
'But you're refusing to go?'
'It's a pride thing.'
'Which is why you need this job.'
Now we're truly down to the nitty-gritty! It went without saying that Thomson was now fully aware that she had only got this job because she was related to Greville. 'Driving's about the only work I'm qualified for,' she confessed.
'What about housekeeping?' he enquired silkily.
Sneaky devil! She'd put on her job application that her previous job was as a housekeeper-she remembered that. `It was the truth!' she stated. `That is, I kept house for Ralph. It's a big house, too,' she added for a little extra importance. Well, she was in trouble here, and knew it.
'I don't doubt it,' Thomson Wakefield rejoined. `Your mother doesn't know you have a job, does she?'
'I think I can safely say my mother would throw a fit at the very idea of a daughter of hers working for a living,' Yancie replied, after so much deception glad suddenly to be honest. But, her heartbeat quickening all at once, she took her eyes off the road in front for a moment and turned to stare at him. `Are you saying I still have a job?'
Thomson Wakefield stared back at her, his expression giving nothing away. Then, music in her ears, `If you think you can bear the uniform,' he replied.
And as her heart rejoiced Yancie looked swiftly away. For a moment there, she felt so overjoyed she could have kissed him-and that would never do. Instead, she suddenly became aware of her surroundings-hadn't they been past that shop there twice before? `Where are we going?' she asked hurriedly, and, glancing at him, was sure she saw his lips briefly twitch before he abruptly told her to take him back to his office. She was late, of course, picking up her earlier passenger.
So as not to involve Greville in any prevarications on her behalf, she contacted him as soon as she could to say that Thomson Wakefield now knew that they were half cousins.
'Was he all right about it?' Greville asked.
Given that he'd all but pulled her back teeth in extracting from her all that there was to know! `He was very kind,' Yancie assured her cousin.
She supposed, when she thought about it, that Thomson had been kind. It was for certain he'd soon recognised that her mother didn't know she was working-and he could so easily have given her away, but hadn't. He could equally have tipped both of them out of the firm's vehicle, and driven off in it, but hadn't. Yes, he had a very kind streak in him.
Yancie drove him later that week. But forget kind. He was back to being the grouch she had first known. Treating the vehicle as an extension of his office, working away there, with barely a glance at her.
Yancie went home with Thomson on her mind a lot. And felt all fluttery in her chest the next day when she happened to be in Kevin Veasey's office when Veronica Taylor rang down for a car for Thomson.
'Shall I?' Yancie offered, available.
'He wants Frank to do this run,' Kevin smiled.
'Fine,' she smiled back-and felt unbelievably hurt.
She did not drive him for several days after that, and was sure she didn't give a button. Then, on Wednesday of the following week, Kevin Veasey told her she would be driving the Jaguar and Mr Wakefield tomorrow to a late afternoon meeting in Staffordshire. It was, she fully owned, ridiculous to feel so cheered. Quite, quite ridiculous.
