Inherited: One Nanny
Inherited: One Nanny
Emma Darcy
NANNY WANTEDTo my heir, Beau Prescott, I leave my Sydney estate and place into his good care my dedicated staff: housekeeper, gardener and nanny. Nanny? Beau Prescott was highly suspicious of this interloper in the family home. A fit man until his sudden death, what did his grandfather need with a nanny?Maybe he'd taken her in out of pity - Margaret Stowe did sound as if she'd be the starchy, spinster sort. But the vision that greeted him on his arrival home called out to every male hormone Beau had. Margaret Stowe was a stunningly beautiful young woman. Just what situation had he inherited?
“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.” (#u7fb50b8d-3e93-5118-bc59-30d175932b75)Letter to Reader (#u05e00a40-7a1e-539a-9431-4d7d98d21a3b)Title Page (#u8dac2e67-8c20-591e-8394-a576f4422eaa)Dedication (#ub4c0ddd1-8ac6-540d-b138-0b66c7023e7a)CHAPTER ONE (#u5c0a12f4-beeb-5d46-b7e3-3fd774056149)CHAPTER TWO (#u8d4b94db-971a-5646-85a7-d100d5360eb1)CHAPTER THREE (#u118b1d60-3d84-5224-8a77-859e213fae1f)CHAPTER FOUR (#u46bdd4fd-abeb-5ce5-9a0b-58ced36f4770)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.”
No more than he was, Beau thought darkly.
As he stepped into the majestic stairhall, his gaze automatically traveled up the flight of broad steps that gradually narrowed to the landing. A woman stood poised there, the light beaming in behind her seeming to set her hair aflame. This woman would have to be the most stunningly gorgeous, sexiest creature he’d ever seen in his life.
And she was Nanny Stowe?
A sharply unsettling question darted through the fog in Beau’s brain.
What had his grandfather been doing with her?
Two years she’d been under this roof and his grandfather, according to Wallace, had definitely not fallen into his second childhood. The more Beau thought about the situation, it became disturbingly clear that Nanny Stowe was mistress of the house.
Dear Reader,
We hope you’ve been enjoying Harlequin Presents
’ NANNY WANTED! series, in which some of our most popular authors have created nannies whose talents have extended way beyond taking care of children!
Emma Darcy’s novel brings you a nanny with a difference. She’s a woman of mystery—and incredible good looks—who is part of the household Beau Prescott inherits. Is she genuine in her reasons for being there, or is she the scheming woman he imagines? Read on as the startling truth is revealed.
Remember—nanny knows best when it comes to falling in love!
The Editors
Look out next month for:
THE NANNY AFFAIR by Robyn Donald (#1980)
Inherited: One Nanny
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Sue—for flaunting her fortieth birthday with a brilliant party where my friends Dr. Nick Smith, Dr. Geoffrey McCarthy and Dr. Harvey Adams happily informed me of the etiquette in delivering the results of a pregnancy test and insisted I acknowledge their contribution to this story.
CHAPTER ONE
A NANNY?
The question had niggled Beau Prescott on and off throughout the fourteen hour flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney. It had reared its tantalising head from the very first reading of his grandfather’s will, pertinently included with all the other official notices sent to him in the solicitor’s packet. Now that his journey home was almost over and he was about to get answers, it pushed once more to the forefront of his mind.
Why on earth had his grandfather employed a nanny for the last two years of his life? And why was she listed in the will as another responsibility to be inherited by Beau, along with the rest of the family retainers?
A nanny made no sense to him. There weren’t any children living in his grandfather’s household. None he knew of anyway. Certainly none had been named in the will. There seemed absolutely no point in including a nanny—whoever she was—amongst the staff who were to remain as his dependents for at least another year, if not for the rest of their lives.
It was different with the others. Beau was completely in sympathy with looking after Mrs. Featherfield who was virtually an institution as his grandfather’s housekeeper. Sedgewick, the butler, and Wallace, the chauffeur, had almost equal longevity. As for Mr. Polly, the head gardener, tipping him out of his beloved grounds was inconceivable. Each one of them deserved every consideration. But a nanny-come-lately without any children to mind?
Beau turned her name over in his mind...Margaret Stowe. Margaret sounded rather old-fashioned, spinsterish. For some reason he linked Stowe with stowaway. She could be a lame-dog nanny, fallen on hard times. His grandfather had a habit of taking in the occasional oddity, putting them on their feet again. But two years of largesse and an inclusion in the will seemed a bit much.
“We will be landing at Mascot on schedule,” the pilot announced. “The weather is fine, current temperature nineteen degrees Celsius. Forecast for today is...”
Beau looked out his window and felt his stomach curl, hit by a wave of grief he’d been holding at bay since he’d received the news of his grandfather’s death. The distinctive features of Sydney were spread out below, the predominance of red roofs, the harbour, the bridge, the opera house. This view had always meant coming home to him. But home had also meant Vivian Prescott, the man who’d taken in his orphaned eight-year-old grandson and given him the world as his playground.
Not so much of a grandfather as a grand person, Beau thought, keenly feeling the huge bite that had been taken so abruptly, so shockingly out of his life. Vivian Prescott had lived on a grand scale, had cultivated a grand approach to everything he’d done. His heart should have been grand enough to last a lot longer.
Vivian...now there was a name that would make most men cringe. The Prescott family had a history of bestowing eccentric names. Beau had often winced over his, but his grandfather...never! He’d rejoiced in having one he considered uniquely his. “It means life, my boy. And joie de vivre is what I’m about.”
He’d carried it with such panache, he’d made it perfectly acceptable, a natural extension of his highly individual personality, a positive expression of artistic flair and style, a provocative emphasis to the wickedly teasing twinkle in his ever-young eyes. It was almost impossible to believe he was actually gone and it hurt like hell not to have been there with him before he died.
A spurt of anger overlaid the grief. Damn it all! His grandfather had no business dying at eighty-six. He’d always boasted he’d live to a hundred, smoking his favourite cigars, drinking the best French champagne, a pretty woman hanging on each arm as he swanned through all the glittering charity events on his social calendar. He’d loved life too much to ever let go of it.
Beau heaved a sigh to relieve the tightness in his chest and told himself it was futile foolishness to feel cheated of more time with his grandfather. The fault was in his own complacency for letting almost three years go by without a visit home. It was all very well to excuse himself on the grounds of finding South America an explorer’s paradise. A trip home now and then wouldn’t have been a hardship. It simply had never occurred to him that the old man’s long run of good health might be failing.
There’d been no hint of it in his letters. But then there’d been no mention of a nanny, either. Beau frowned again over the vexing puzzle. If his grandfather had been sick, surely he would have hired a nurse, not a nanny. Unless...no, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe his grandfather had gone the least bit senile. There had to be some other answer.
The plane landed. The moment it stopped, Beau was out of his seat and opening the overhead locker for his flight bag, wanting to be off with as little delay as possible.
“May I help you, Mr. Prescott?”
It was the cute air hostess who’d been so eager and willing to look after his every need on the trip. Beau flashed her a smile. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” She was a honey but he wasn’t interested in taking up the invitation in her eyes. His mind was on serious business, no room for play.
Nevertheless, he was aware of her lustful once-over as he moved past her to the exit tunnel and felt a slight twinge of regret. He’d been womanless for a while, busy mapping out a new trek up the Amazon. Still, he’d never had a problem attracting a woman when he was ready for one. Being over six feet tall and having a body packed with muscles seemed to be a turn-on to most of them, even when he looked scruffy from being too long in uncivilised areas.
His mouth twitched as he remembered his grandfather calling it his curse. “It’s too easy for you, my boy, and if you keep taking the pickings, you’ll never know the fruits of settling down with a good woman.”
“I have no interest in settling down, Grandpa,” he’d answered.
It was still true three years later, yet his grandfather’s reply plucked at his conscience now.
“Beau, you’re thirty years old. It’s time you thought of having children. As it stands, you’re the last of our family line, and I for one, don’t like the thought of our gene pool coming to an end. It’s our only claim to immortality, having a line that goes on after we die.”
Had the old man been feeling his mortality then?
“Grandpa, there’s no time limit on a man to have children,” he’d argued. “Didn’t Charlie Chaplin have them into his nineties? I bet you could still have one yourself.”
“You need to stick around to bring them up right. Think about it, Beau. Your parents weren’t much older than you are now when their plane crashed in Antarctica. No second chances for them. If you don’t take time out from your travelling to get married and start a family, it may be too late before you know it.”
Too late...misery dragged at Beau’s heart. Too late to say goodbye to the wonderful old man who’d given him so much. Too late to say one last thank-you. Too late to even attend the funeral, held while Beau was still deep in the Amazon valley, out of range of any modern form of communication.
All he could do now was carry out his grandfather’s will as it had been set out for him, even to keeping a useless nanny in his employ for another year. And making Rosecliff—the Prescott palace—his residence for the same period of time.
Maybe the latter was his grandfather’s solution to making his footloose grandson stay still for a while, long enough to marry and start a family. Beau shook his head in wry dismissal of the idea. He wasn’t ready for it. He felt no need for it. Making it happen would be wrong for everybody concerned. Scouting Europe was next on his agenda. He wasn’t about to set that aside, and it was plain irresponsible to establish a nest he knew he’d be flying out of.
His long-legged stride beat all the other passengers to the immigration counter. He was through that bit of officialdom in no time and luckily his duffel bag was amongst the first pieces of luggage on the carousel. Having hefted it onto his back, and with nothing to declare, Beau headed straight for the arrival hall.
As he came down the ramp he spotted Wallace, his grandfather’s chauffeur, smartly attired in the uniform he was so proud of—convinced it added a dignified stature to his shortness—and clearly determined on maintaining the correct standard of service.
The sense of emptiness that had been eating at Beau was suddenly flooded with warmth. Wallace had taught him everything he knew about cars. Wallace had acted as father-confessor through troubled times. Wallace was much more than a chauffeur. He was family and had been since Beau was eight years old.
“It is so good to see you, sir,” Wallace greeted in heartfelt welcome, his eyes moistening.
Beau hugged him, moved by affection and a rush of protectiveness, patting him on the back as though the wiry little man was now the child in need of comfort. He had to be feeling the loss of Vivian Prescott as much, if not more than Beau. Wallace was in his late fifties and though spry for his age and certainly competent at his job, probably too old to start over with a new employer. His future was undoubtedly feeling very uncertain. Beau silently vowed to fix that, one way or another.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Wallace,” he said, drawing back to re-establish appropriate dignity.
“Nothing you could have done for him, sir,” came the quick assurance. “No warning. He just went in his sleep, like he always said he wanted to, right after a bang-up party. As Nanny Stowe says, the Angel of Death took him kindly.”
The unctious Angel of Death declaration instantly conjured up a complacently righteous woman stuffed full of sweet homilies. Beau barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. He had to bite his tongue, as well. Nanny Stowe clearly had Wallace’s respect. Giving voice to a stomach-felt, “Yuk!” was definitely out of place.
He managed a smile. “Well, a bang-up party was certainly Grandpa’s style.”
“That it was, sir. Always had marvellous parties.”
Beau’s smile turned into a rueful grimace. “I should have at least been here to organise a fitting funeral for him.”
“Not to worry, sir. Nanny Stowe took care of it.”
“Did she now?”
Beau balefully added officious busybody to complacent and sickeningly righteous. How dare a mere nanny take over his grandfather’s funeral? Sedgewick would have known what was required, having butlered for Vivian Prescott for nigh on thirty years, but a nanny who hadn’t rated highly enough to be mentioned by his grandfather while he was alive? Beau was deeply offended at the high-handedness of the woman. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Well, let’s get on home. The sooner the better,” he said, feeling distinctly eager to let Nanny Stowe know her presumptuous reign of authority was over.
“Can I take your bags, sir?”
“This one.” He handed over the flight bag for Wallace to feel useful. “Might as well leave the other on my back.” The little man’s knees would probably buckle under the weight of it.
“I could get a luggage trolley, sir.”
“Waste of time.” He waved towards the exit doors and set off, steering Wallace into accompanying him through the crowd of people still waiting for other arrivals. “I’d like you to tell me about the funeral,” he added through gritted teeth, wanting to know the worst before he met the interloping nanny.
The chauffeur looked pleased to oblige. “We did him proud, sir. As Nanny Stowe said, it had to be a grand funeral for a grand man. And so it was, sir.”
“How grand, Wallace?’ Beau demanded, extremely dubious that Nanny Stowe would have a full appreciation of his grandfather’s scale of grandness.
“Well, sir, we started with a splendid service in St. Andrew’s Cathedral. It was packed. People overflowing outside and on the streets. Couldn’t fit everyone in. Nanny Stowe got the notification list together and it included all the charity boards your grandfather sat on, all his friends from far and wide, politicians, everyone from the arts. It was a big, big turn-up.”
At least she got that much right, Beau brooded.
“You know how your grandfather loved handing out red roses...”
His trademark.
“You’ve never seen as many red roses as there were in that cathedral. I reckon Nanny Stowe must have cornered the market on them. They covered the casket, too. And everyone who came to the service was handed a red rose in remembrance.”
A nice touch, Beau grudgingly conceded.
They emerged from the hall into bright morning sunshine. A sparkling blue-sky day, Beau thought, his spirits lifting slightly. The chauffeur pointed to where the car was parked and they turned in that direction.
“Go on, Wallace,” Beau urged. “Describe the service to me.”
“Well, sir, the boys’ choir sang beautifully. They started off with ‘Prepare ye the way for The Lord’ from the musical, Godspell. It was one of his favourites, as you know. Loved the theatre, your grandfather did.”
“Yes. It gave him a lot of pleasure,” Beau agreed, beginning to have a bit more respect for Nanny Stowe. The woman did have some creative thought, though it probably stemmed from an ingrained attention to detail. A nitpicking fusspot came to mind, nothing escaping her eye or ear. Nevertheless, his grandfather would have relished the theatrical note at his funeral service so however it came about could not be overly criticised.
“Sir Roland from the Arts Council made a wonderful speech...”
His grandfather’s closest friend. The obvious choice.
“The bishop got a bit heavy with his words, I thought, but the readings from the bible were just right. Nanny Stowe chose them. All about generosity of spirit.”
“Mmmh...’ Beau wondered if Nanny Stowe was plotting to spark generosity of spirit in him, too.
The Rolls-Royce was parked, as usual, in a No Parking zone. Beau reminded himself to ask Wallace how he got away with that, but he had other things on his mind right now.
“The choir finished with a very stirring ‘Amazing Grace.’ Beautiful, it was,” Wallace went on, as he opened the trunk of the car to load in Beau’s luggage. “Then at the graveside, we had a lone piper playing tunes of glory. Sedgewick thought of that. Your grandfather was very partial to a pipe band when he was in his cups, if you’ll pardon the expression, sir.”
“Good for Sedgewick.” Beau warmly approved. Nanny Stowe hadn’t known everything! She’d probably be the type to follow the “early to bed, early to rise” maxim and had never witnessed his grandfather in his cups.
“What about the wake?” he asked, freeing himself of the duffel bag.
“Oh, we all knew what your grandfather would want there, sir. Oceans of French champagne, caviar, smoked salmon, pickled quails’ eggs...everything he liked best. Mrs. Featherfield and Sedgewick made the list and Nanny Stowe got it all in. She said the cost was not to be a consideration. I hope that was right, sir.”
“Quite right, Wallace.”
Though he’d certainly be checking the accounts. A blithe disregard for expenses was fine for his grandfather. For such an attitude to be adopted by the ubiquitous Nanny Stowe raised a few ugly suspicions about where the money went. Feathering her own nest before the grandson and heir arrived might be right down her stowaway alley.
As he dumped the duffel bag in the trunk, Beau was wondering if the family solicitor had been holding a watching brief on his grandfather’s estate while all this had been going on. Surely his legal responsibility didn’t begin and end with posting off a set of official documents to Buenos Aires.
Beau was champing at the bit by the time Wallace had ushered him into the back seat of the Roller. Home first to scout the nanny situation, then straight off to check the legal position. However, there was one burning question that couldn’t wait. As soon the car was in motion, he asked it.
“Why did my grandfather acquire a nanny, Wallace?”
“Well, you know how he liked to have his little jokes, sir. He said he needed to have a nanny on hand, ready to look after him when he slid into his second childhood since there was no telling when it might happen at his age.”
That seemed to be taking provident care a bit far. “Was there any sign of encroaching second childhood, Wallace? Please be frank with me.”
“Not at all, sir. Mr. Prescott was the same as he ever was, right up until the night he...um...passed over.”
At least he was saved the Angel of Death this time. “But he kept the nanny on regardless,” Beau probed for more information.
“Yes, sir. Said she was better for him than a gin and tonic.”
Beau frowned. “She didn’t stop him drinking, did she?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that, sir.” Wallace sounded quite shocked at the idea. “Nanny Stowe is very sociable. Very sociable.”
And knew which side of her bread was buttered, Beau thought darkly, making sure she kept in good with everyone. There seemed no point in further questioning. Nanny Stowe had Wallace sucked right in. He wasn’t about to say a bad word about the woman, despite her staying on so long without any nanny duties to perform. Such dalliance smacked of very dubious integrity to Beau. He was glad the chance to make his own judgment on her was fast approaching.
“Do you mind if I use the car phone to call Sedgewick, sir? He particularly asked to let him know when we were on our way.”
Beau couldn’t resist one dry remark. “I’m surprised it isn’t Nanny Stowe who wants to know.”
“Sedgewick will inform her, sir.”
Of course. “Go right ahead, Wallace. I wouldn’t deprive anyone of the chance to put out the welcome mat for me.”
And he hoped Nanny Stowe would be standing right in the middle of it, shaking in her boots!
CHAPTER TWO
FEELING extremely nervous about meeting Beau Prescott, Maggie once more studied the photograph Vivian had insisted she keep.
“That’s my boy, Beau. The wild child.”
Her mouth curved whimsically at the epithet given to his grandson. The photograph was three years old, taken at Vivian’s eighty-second birthday party, and the handsome hunk filling out a formal dinner suit in devastating style could hardly be called a child. Though there was an air of boyish recklessness in his grin, and a wild devil dancing in his eyes.
Green eyes. They were certainly very attractive set in a deeply tanned face and framed with streaky blond hair so thick it hadn’t been fully tamed for the formality of the photograph. Nevertheless, its somewhat shaggy state was rather endearing, softening the hard, ruggedness of a strong-boned face and a squarish jaw. He had a nice mouth, the lips well-defined, neither too full nor too thin. He looked good, no doubt about it, but looks weren’t everything.
“Tame him long enough to get him to the marriage altar and father a child with you, and Rosecliff and all that goes with it will be yours, Maggie.”
How many times had Vivian put that proposition to her in the past two years? A challenging piece of mischief, Maggie had always thought, a running bit of fun between them. She’d never taken it seriously, usually making a joke of it—
“What would I want with him? You’ve spoilt me for younger men, Vivian. None of them have your savoire faire or charisma.”
—or shrugging it off—
“I might not like him, Vivian. And there’s no way I’d many a man without at least liking him.”
“Every woman likes Beau,” was his stock answer.
“Well, he might not like me,” she’d argued.
“What’s not to like?”
Maggie had always let the banter slide at that point. Putting herself down in any shape or form was against her principles. She had a long history of a lot of mean people wanting to squash self-esteem out of her, treating her as worthless and of no account in the world, and she had determinedly risen above it. Nevertheless, too many disappointments had taught her liking could not be counted upon.
It had been one of the miracles of coming to this marvellous place, everyone on the staff liking her, welcoming her into the family, so to speak, and not a mean bone in any of them. Vivian had said she was his nanny and despite his highly eccentric notion of her job with him, she’d been accepted into the household as Nanny Stowe as though it were a perfectly normal position.
Vivian’s oft-repeated idea of her roping in the wild child to extend the family line and ensure a succession of Prescotts at Rosecliff also met with general approval.
It was, of course, a totally mad idea.
Except it wasn’t quite so mad anymore.
It was beginning to feel very much like a burden of responsibility.
Maggie shook her head, hopelessly uncomfortable with the pressure to perform. Yet it was there, and she couldn’t shrug it off. Nor could she bring herself to snuff out the hope that was riding on her shoulders. People she cared about were hurting. And there was also the sense of not letting Vivian down.
“You weren’t here. You have no idea how it is,” she said accusingly to the photograph. “You shouldn’t have been off in the wilds, Beau Prescott.”
They’d had to handle it all without him. After the first couple of grief-stricken days following Vivian’s untimely death, everyone had been so busy trying to get the funeral right, none of them had looked beyond it. Only when the funeral was over, did the loss really hit, and then the solicitor had come to spell out where they stood.
The one-year residency clause in the will had brought home the fact that Vivian Prescott was gone—really gone—and Rosecliff now belonged to his grandson who clearly had no use for it since he was always off travelling. After the stipulated year, the property could be sold or disposed of as he saw fit. Vivian Prescott’s reign here was over, and so were their lives with him.
Maggie knew she could always fall on her feet somewhere else. At twenty-eight she was young enough to cope with a downturn in fortune and she’d had plenty of practice at making do with odd jobs in the years before meeting Vivian Prescott. Flexibility was her strong point. Though it would be hard leaving this magical mansion and its magnificent setting. Harder still leaving the people who had given her the sense of being part of a real family.
However, it was like the end of their world for Mrs. Featherfield, and Sedgewick and Wallace and Mr. Polly. As young at heart as they all were, they would be viewed by other employers as at retirement age. If Beau Prescott decided to sell Rosecliff, where would they go? What would they do? Who would have them?
This was home to them. They didn’t want to be split up. They didn’t want to be dumped on the useless scrapheap, surviving on pensions. They weren’t old. They had at least another twenty good years in them. Probably more.
The flurry of fear added a further weight of grief.
Then Sedgewick had remembered.
He’d stood up, elegantly tall and splendidly dignified, his ingrained authority providing a point of calm in the storm. His big, soulful brown eyes had fastened on Maggie, and there was not the slightest bit of tremulous doubt in his delivered opinion.
“Nanny Stowe, you can save us. Mr. Vivian wanted you to.”
She’d shaken her head sadly. “I’m terribly sorry, Sedgewick. I simply don’t have the power to change his will.”
“You promised him...I heard you...the very night Mr. Vivian died. It was just before the guests arrived for the party and he asked me to pour you both a glass of champagne, remember?”
“Yes. But we were only chatting...”
“No. He said—I distinctly remember it—Promise me you’ll give it a chance with Beau when he comes home. And you did. You clicked glasses with him and gave your promise.”
“It was only funning, Sedgewick.”
“Oh no! No, no, no, no!” Mrs. Featherfield had clucked. “Mr. Vivian was very serious about getting Master Beau married off to you, Nanny Stowe. He talked about it many, many times...to all of us,” she’d added significantly.
“Always treated you like one of the family,” Wallace had chimed in. “That’s where his sights were set. Getting it legal.”
Mr. Polly, his glorious gardens under threat of being taken over by someone else—or worse, destroyed by some developer—had stirred himself to put in his sage opinion. “Matter of cross-pollination, getting the two of you together.”
“And in the light of Mr. Vivian’s passing over that night,” Sedgewick had added portentously, “I think everyone must agree you gave him a deathbed promise, Nanny Stowe. One cannot disregard the gravity of a deathbed promise.”
“A chance, Sedgewick,” Maggie had hastily pleaded. “I only promised to give it a chance. There’s no guarantee that Beau Prescott would ever see me as...as a desirable wife. Or, indeed, that I’d see him as a desirable husband.”
“But you’ll give it a good chance, won’t you, dear?’ Mrs. Featherfield had pressed. ”And you do have a year to make the best of it.”
“Be assured you will have our every assistance,” Sedgewick had declared.
“Hear, hear!” they had all agreed, their eyes pinning Maggie down with their anxious hope.
She had wanted to say again and again it was only a joke, but to Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield and Wallace and Mr. Polly, it was deadly serious. Their future was at stake. Making some other life was unthinkable, and their expectations of continuing the status quo into the sunset were riding on her and what Mr. Vivian had wanted.
The truly dreadful part was they had convinced themselves she could bring it off—marry the heir, have his child, and they would all live happily ever after at Rosecliff. The doubts she voiced were brushed aside. Worse...they attacked the doubts by plotting outrageous ways to get around them. The goal was now fixed in their minds and it was so blindingly wonderful, they didn’t want to see anything else.
Giving it a chance did not promise a certain result, she had warned each one of them.
And what were their replies?
Sedgewick, bending his head in soulful chiding, “Nanny Stowe, you know what Mr. Vivian always preached. You must cultivate a positive attitude.”
Attitude did not necessarily produce miracles!
Mrs. Featherfield, doing her endearing mother hen thing, “Think of a baby. A new baby at Rosecliff. I can’t imagine anything more perfect.”
Babies were not high on Maggie’s agenda. She was only twenty-eight, not thirty-eight!
Wallace, a lecherous twinkle in his eye as he pointedly looked at the long tumbling mass of her red-gold hair. “No need to worry. Nanny Stowe. I can assure you Master Beau will take one look at you and his brain will register—red hot mamma. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Maggie was not interested in the brain below Beau Prescott’s belt! Not unless there was an engaging brain above it, as well.
Mr. Polly, tending his prize roses. “Nature will take its course, Nanny Stowe. A little help and care and you can always get the result you want.”
Marriage, unfortunately, was not a bed of roses. It was a lot more complicated.
Maggie couldn’t truthfully claim she absolutely didn’t want it. Not having met the man, how could she know one way or the other? Even looking at Beau Prescott’s photograph and assessing his physical attractions, she couldn’t help feeling terribly uneasy with the situation.
It was fine for Vivian and all the faithful staff to dismiss the possibility of Beau Prescott’s not liking her or her not liking him. They didn’t want to admit the possibility. Maggie, however, had her reservations and many of them.
Besides, when it came to marriage, there was a matter of chemistry, too. Good-looking men had often left Maggie quite cold in the past. They were so full of themselves, there was no room for a two-way relationship. Not really. All they wanted was for a woman to fall on her back for them. Well, no thanks.
But maybe there could be magic with Beau Prescott. He did look very engaging in the photograph. If enough of Vivian had rubbed off on his grandson...
The ache in her heart intensified. Vivian Prescott had given her the most wonderful two years of her life. She hadn’t realised quite how much she’d loved that old man until... suddenly he wasn’t here anymore... and never would be again.
Joie de vivre.
Did his grandson have the same amazing zest to find pleasure in everything? Or make pleasure out of nothing! Or did one have to be old before time became so precious, the need to make the most of it inspired a creative talent for delight?
Her bedside telephone rang.
Maggie dropped the photograph back in the drawer of her writing desk, shutting it away before answering the call which would be from Sedgewick, telling her the real live flesh-and-blood Beau Prescott was on the last lap of his journey home. Her heart fluttered nervously as she picked up the receiver.
“He’s earlier than we thought, Nanny Stowe.” Sedgewick’s plummy tones rang in her ears. “Master Beau does have a way of getting out of airports in record time.” A touch of pride there.
They all loved him; Sedgewick, Mrs. Featherfield, Wallace, Mr. Polly. To them Beau Prescott was still their wild child, grown to manhood admittedly, but in no way changed from their long affectionate view of him. They wanted her to love him, too, but that was an entirely different ball game. To Maggie he was a stranger, even though he was Vivian’s grandson.
“Did Wallace say how far away they are?” she asked.
“About twenty minutes.” A lilt of excitement, anticipation. “I trust you are dressed and ready, Nanny Stowe.”
To knock Beau Prescott’s eyes out. That was the general advice. The plan. Consensus had been absolute—Mr. Vivian would have expected it of her.
“Yes, Sedgewick,” she returned dryly. “But I think it best to give Master Beau time to greet you and Mrs. Featherfield before I intrude. After all...”
“Splendid ideal We’ll hold him in the vestibule chatting. Then you make your entrance. I do hope you’re wearing black, Nanny Stowe. It looks so well against the red carpet on the staircase.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sedgewick, I am wearing black,” she assured him. “In mourning. Not for dramatic effect.”
“Most appropriate,” he warmly approved. “Though you must remember Mr. Vivian’s principles, Nanny Stowe. You don’t mourn a death. You celebrate a life. We cannot let sadness get in the way of...uh...propelling the future forward.”
“Thank you, Sedgewick.”
Maggie put the receiver down and heaved a long sigh, needing to relieve some of the tightness building up in her chest. She wandered around the room, trying to work off her inner agitation. Then on impulse, she opened the French doors that led onto the balcony and stepped outside.
The view drew her over to the balustrade. It was beautiful. Maggie doubted there was a more splendid position than here at Vaucluse, perched above Sydney Harbour, the magnificently kept grounds and gardens of Rosecliff spreading down to the water’s edge in geometrically patterned tiers, each one featuring a fountain to delight the eye.
The mansion itself was a famous landmark for tourist cruises on the harbour. Built on a grand scale in the neoclassical style and set on five acres of prime real estate, its gleaming white-glazed terracotta exterior with its graceful Ionic columns and other lavishly decorated architectural features made it stand out, even amongst a whole shoreline of mansions. It seemed rather ironic that Vivian had made his fabulous fortune from parking lots. From the most practical of properties to the sublime, Maggie thought.
He’d taken enormous pride in what he’d privately called the Prescott Palace, using it as it should be used for splendid charity balls and fabulous fund-raising soirees. She mused over the marvellous memories Vivian had given her. He’d loved showing off his home, loved the pleasure it gave to others simply by coming here, enjoying the wonders of great wealth.
But nothing went on forever.
Nothing ever really stayed the same.
Maggie checked the time on her watch. The last bit of leeway for her was running out. She looked up at the cloudless blue sky, then down at the sparkles of sunshine on the water.
If you’re out there somewhere, Vivian, and you really want this plan to work you’d better start waving your magic wand right now, because fairytales just don’t happen without it. Okay?
The only reply was the cry of gulls and the sounds of the city.
Maggie took a deep breath and turned to go.
The welcome mat was out for Beau Prescott.
CHAPTER THREE
THE huge black wrought-iron gates that guarded the entrance to Rosecliff were wide open. Wallace slowly turned the Rolls-Royce into the white-gravelled driveway, giving Beau plenty of time to get an eyeful of his home and its surrounds. As always, everything looked meticulously cared for; the lawns manicured, the rose gardens in healthy bloom, the two wings of the massive H-shaped mansion reaching out to welcome him.
It was nine o’clock and from the row of cars in the parking area for the daily staff, Beau realised nothing had been changed since his grandfather’s death. The life here was flowing on as usual, waiting for him to come and make decisions. It made him doubly conscious of the responsibilities he had inherited.
Many people were employed on this estate, not only those who most concerned him. He suddenly saw the wisdom of the one-year clause in his grandfather’s will. It would probably take that long to sort out what should be done with the place. Beau couldn’t see himself adopting the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by his grandfather, yet it would be a shame to see Rosecliff become less than it was under some other ownership.
Wallace drove around to the east wing which housed the entrance vestibule. He stopped the car directly in front of the great double doors, distinguished from all the other doors by a frame of elaborate wrought-iron grillwork. They were being opened, with meticulous timing, by Sedgewick.
Sure the insidious Nanny Stowe would be standing right behind the butler, Beau didn’t wait for Wallace to do his ceremonial chauffeur stuff. He let himself out of the Rolls and strode straight for the meeting which had become paramount in his mind.
To his somewhat bewildered frustration, it didn’t happen.
She wasn’t there.
Sedgewick, as imposing as ever, his big dark eyes somehow managing to look both doleful and delighted, took his hand in both of his in a fulsome greeting. “Welcome home, sir. Welcome home.”
“Sorry not to have been here before, Sedgewick,” Beau said with feeling, knowing how devastating it must have been for the old butler to lose the master he’d loved and been so proud of serving.
Then Mrs. Featherfield, dabbing the comers of her eyes with her trademark lace handkerchief, her well-cushioned bosom heaving in a rush of emotion. “Thank heaven you’re here at last, Master Beau. It’s a sad, sad time, but it lifts our hearts to see you home again.”
“Dear Feathers...” His boyhood name for her slipped out as he gave her a comforting hug. “I truly believed my grandfather would live to a hundred. I wouldn’t have been gone so long if...”
“I know, dear.” She patted him on the back and eased out of his embrace to address him earnestly. “But you mustn’t fret. As Mr. Vivian would say, yesterday’s gone, and we have to make the most of today because tomorrow’s just around the comer and time does slip by on us.”
He had to smile. “I remember.”
“And I’m sure Nanny Stowe will fill you in on...”
“Ah, yes! Nanny Stowe.” Beau pounced. “Wallace has been telling me about our new addition to the household. Where is she?”
Sedgewick cleared his throat. “A lady of deep sensitivity, Master Beau. Since Mrs. Featherfield and I have considerable longevity of service, Nanny Stowe wanted to give us a few minutes alone with you. However...” He gestured towards the stairhall. “...I expect she will be coming down any moment now.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Featherfield got all fluttery, urging Beau forward, leading the way under the lofty Palladian arch to where the staircase rose in elegant curves to the second-floor hall. “Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.”
No more than he was, Beau thought darkly.
As he stepped into the majestic stairhall, his gaze automatically travelled up the flight of broad steps that gradually narrowed to the first landing. A woman stood poised there, framed by the tall, arched balcony window, the light beaming in behind her seeming to set her hair aflame; glorious red-gold hair that sprang alive from her face, fanning out like a fiery halo with long glittering streamers which rippled down past her shoulders.
Beau was so stunned by this vision, it took him several moments to recollect himself enough to register more than the fabulous hair. She had skin so white it looked translucent, like the most delicate porcelain. Her face was strikingly beautiful, every feature finely balanced to please. Her neck looked almost unnaturally long, yet it, too, seemed utterly right, purposefully proportioned to hold such a face, as well as being the perfect foil for the glorious wealth of her hair.
She moved, jolting his gaze down to her feet to check he wasn’t imagining what he was seeing; feet encased in black shiny shoes with a gold chain across each instep; delicately shaped ankles leading to legs in sheer black stockings; legs that went on forever, mesmerising in their long, sleek femininity.
Beau knew there were sixteen stairs from the landing to the floor and she’d come down half of them before his eyes reached the short skirt of her black dress. A gold chain curved from hipbone to hipbone, dangling over her stomach, just above the apex of her thighs.
The air Beau was breathing started to fizz. Or maybe he wasn’t breathing at all and suffering from lack of oxygen. His chest felt seized up and his heart was drumming like a bongo on carnival night.
He dragged his gaze up past an impossibly small waist. A wild phrase leapt into his dazed brain...breasts like pomegranites...lush and ripe and delectable. Then he knew he was getting light-headed because his blood was all rushing down to his groin and very shortly he was going to be in big trouble.
Get back to the pure loveliness of her face, some shred of sanity shrieked. As his thigh muscles tightened to contain the hot prickling of desire, he watched the fascinating rise of a flush creep up the pearly white skin of her throat and its subsequent spread to her exotically slanted cheekbones. Then he was looking into her eyes, eyes as blue as the waters of the Caribbean, dazzling in their blueness.
“Nanny Stowe, sir,” Sedgewick announced, as though he were presenting the queen.
Not even the identification jolted Beau out of his enthralment. She was stepping towards him, no longer on the staircase, and he realised she was almost as tall as he was. If he reached out and pulled her against him their bodies would be right for each other, fitting together without any manoeuvring. The thought sent another shot of excitement down to the area Beau was struggling to control.
“Please accept my deepest sympathy, Mr. Prescott.”
Her soft, sexy voice caressed his spine into a sensual shiver.
“Your grandfather’s death was a grievous shock to all of us. I’m sure it was very much so to you.”
He belatedly noticed her hand extended to him. He grasped it, seeing its slim whiteness disappear, enfolded by his own darkly tanned hand, her fingers fluttering slightly against the strength of his. He wrenched his gaze up to hers again, fighting the fascination of the seemingly fragile extension of her femininity within his grip.
He had to think, had to speak. This woman, unbelievably, was Nanny Stowe. Sedgewick had said so. Therefore she had to be, however incredible it was.
“Wallace told me how well you arranged the funeral,” Beau heard himself say in a reasonably normal voice. “I could not have done better for my grandfather. Thank you.”
She nodded towards Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield. “Everyone helped.”
“Yes.” Beau forced himself to acknowledge them. “It was a grand effort and I appreciate it. Very much.”
They nodded, gratified.
Nanny Stowe spoke on, her sympathy subtly shifting to eloquent appeal. “I hope you don’t think it...well, unseemly...but I felt you might like to share the paying of last respects to your grandfather, so I arranged for the funeral service to be videotaped. The cassette is in the library, should you want to play it through sometime.”
“It was a kind thought. Thank you again.”
Beau was happily drowning in the glorious blue of her eyes, sucked right in by their seductive softness and going down for the third time. He was barely conscious of the replies he made, words dribbling out of his mouth when called for. When she fell silent he didn’t really notice. Her eyes were locked on to his and he could have stood there, getting in deeper and deeper but for Sedgewick interrupting.
“We have refreshments waiting for you in the informal dining room, sir.”
Her hand twitched in his, making Beau realise he was still hanging on to it. Reluctantly he let it go. Her skin was like warm silk as it slid away from his. “Yes. I could do with some coffee, Sedgewick,” he answered, obviously needing something to snap him out of this entrancement. Perhaps jet lag had caught up with him. Even moving from where he was didn’t occur to him.
Sedgewick orchestrated action. “Nanny Stowe, if you’d like to lead the way...”
She took a deep breath as though she, too, was feeling a lack of oxygen. “Perhaps you’d like to freshen up first, Mr. Prescott.”
Did he look as though he’d been run over by a truck? He smiled to dispel any questions about his mental and physical state, preferring to be the only one knowing how shaken he was. “No, I’m fine. Please lead on.”
He was happy to stay behind her, watching her walk. Her fabulous hair reached almost to her waist, its gleaming ripples shifting with each step she took. It was so alive, Beau fancied there was an electric current running through it, throwing off showers of sparks that were infiltrating him. Something had to account for the weird pins and needles attacking every part of his body.
Though the jaunty roll of her very cute bottom below her impossibly tiny waist might be causing the itchy feeling in his hands. He kept them rigidly at his sides to stop them from reaching out. This woman would have to be the most stunningly gorgeous, sexiest creature he’d ever seen in his life.
And she was Nanny Stowe?
A sharply unsettling question darted through the fog in Beau’s brain.
What had his grandfather been doing with her?
Two years she’d been under this roof and his grandfather, according to Wallace, had definitely not fallen into his second childhood. The more Beau thought about the situation, and all he’d heard and seen so far, it became disturbingly clear that Wallace, Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield viewed Nanny Stowe as mistress of the house.
And she was playing hostess to him right now!
The bottom suddenly fell out of the excitement she’d stirred in him. Beau went cold all over. It made horribly perfect sense. His grandfather had always enjoyed having a pretty woman on his arm. On both arms. But having found this one, why bother with any other? She had star quality on a megascale and his grandfather would have adored parading her everywhere. And probably adored her, as well! He’d loved owning beautiful things.
Beau’s stomach started contracting, working up a nauseous feeling. Refreshments were certainly in order. He obviously needed food as well as coffee.
When they reached the informal dining room, his suspicion was further confirmed by the way she moved automatically to the foot of the table and Sedgewick held her chair for her. Clearly it was her place and taken for granted, even though his grandfather was no longer here.
Then Mr. Polly arrived on the scene, carrying a basket of freshly cut, dark red roses. His weather-beaten face was cracked into a benevolent smile. “I’m so sorry I missed you at the front doors, sir. Good to have you home.”
Beau shook the offered hand. “Thank you, Mr. Polly. The gardens look as superb as ever.”
“I keep at it, sir. I brought this basket up. Thought Nanny Stowe might like to put these roses in your room, sir.” He turned to her. “They’re the best of the Mr. Lincolns, Nanny Stowe. Lovely fragrance.”
She blushed.
Beau was once again distracted by the fascinating flow of colour lighting up her pale skin.
Mrs. Featherfield swooped. “I’ll take the basket, Mr. Polly. Let’s go out to the kitchen and put the roses in water. Nanny Stowe will see to them later. She’s having coffee with Master Beau right now.”
Yes...they all considered Nanny Stowe a cut above themselves, Beau thought, watching Mr. Polly being swept away. Arranging roses in a vase for a guest’s room was the kind of genteel occupation suited to the mistress of the house. Except he wasn’t a guest. Which probably accounted for her embarrassment. She knew, even if the others didn’t yet appreciate it, his arrival changed the status quo.
Sedgewick proceeded to serve them with coffee and a selection of freshly baked croissants. “If you’d like something more substantial, sir, Jeffrey, the cook, is standing by.”
“No, I did have breakfast on the plane, Sedgewick. This is more than enough, thank you.”
Sedgewick stationed himself by the sideboard, ready to be attentive to every need. Nanny Stowe composed herself again, adopting a waiting attitude. Beau ate a crisp croissant and drank some coffee to wash down the flaky crumbs. It didn’t really help his churning stomach but it gave him time to think.
“Did my grandfather call you Nanny Stowe?” he asked.
A wry little smile played on eminently kissable red lips. “It amused Vivian to give me that title, Mr. Prescott.”
The familiarity of Vivian hit him in the gut. “So it was a pet name,” he suggested.
She frowned. “Not exactly. It did have a sort of purpose. My job was to be with him, accompanying him wherever he wanted to go and generally looking after him. But he didn’t call me Nanny himself. I was always Maggie to Vivian.”
“Maggie...” he repeated, knowing it plucked at a chord of memory.
“Yes. My Christian name is Margaret, you see.”
Maggie, the cat. That was it! Maggie from one of his grandfather’s favourite movies, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Elizabeth Taylor had played the role. She was married to a guy whose wealthy old father was dying and to clinch her husband’s inheritance she had pretended to be pregnant.
Pregnant!
Beau’s mind suddenly billowed in horror at the next thought that filled it. He’d more or less challenged his grandfather to beget his own heir for Rosecliff. While his grandfather hadn’t actually married Maggie Stowe, she’d lived very cosily with him for two years and she’d been given a year’s grace here after his death...which could mean his grandfather had still been hoping for a result.
“More coffee, Nanny Stowe?” Sedgewick asked, holding out the coffeepot.
She shook her head. Was she being careful of her caffeine intake?
“More coffee, sir?”
He waved it away. His heart was beating so fast he didn’t need any artificial stimulant. And thinking of hearts reminded him his grandfather had died of a heart attack...before anyone expected him to!
Doing what?
Trying to father a child?
Beau looked down the table at the blue-eyed red-haired siren who had power enough to entrance a man into attempting any reckless stupidity.
He had to know.
He had to ask.
He tried to find a way of couching the question less shockingly. Somehow the sense of urgency mashed his brain. Nothing came but the bald need to get the issue resolved. Immediately! The words shot out of his mouth...
“Are you pregnant, Maggie?”
CHAPTER FOUR
SEDGEWICK dropped the coffeepot.
The shock of this extraordinary happening momentarily distracted Maggie from the deeper shock delivered by Beau Prescott. She stared down at the broken pot and the coffee spreading across the parquet floor with a sense of disbelief. She’d never known Sedgewick to drop anything. Every one of his movements was a study in grace and dignity. Had he been as stunned as she was by the outrageous question thrown at her?
“I do beg your pardon,” he intoned, his face quite blank, as though he couldn’t believe the mishap, either.
“I’ll get one of the maids to clean it up,” Maggie said, pushing her chair back for action.
“No, no...I see I have been splashed, as well.” Distress showing now. For Sedgewick it was quite impossible to tolerate any imperfection in his dress. “I shall have this...this mess...seen to immediately. Please excuse me, sir, Nanny Stowe.”
Maggie was left to face Beau Prescott alone. She stared at him down the length of the table, her mind skittering over the wild hopes she’d been nursing. If he imagined her pregnant, to some other man...he couldn’t be feeling as overwhelmed by her as she was by him. Which put her hopelessly at odds with the feelings he’d stirred in her.
Never in her life had she been hit so forcefully by sheer male sex appeal. When he’d entered the stairhall and looked up at her on the landing, she’d been stunned into immobility by how little the photograph had represented the real man. His skin glowed with vitality. The streaks of sunshine in his hair had gleamed like gold. His face wasn’t just strongly handsome. His eyes were so magnetic they made it instantly charismatic.
His physique was no less impressive. Casually dressed in khaki shirt and trousers, he seemed almost larger than life, like a throwback to when men were hunters and survival of the fittest meant something. If his grandfather had been the ultimate sophisticate, Beau Prescott was the prime male animal, throwing out a compelling challenge to his female counterpart on some instinctive level that had nothing to do with civilisation.
She had no idea how long she’d stood on the landing, enraptured by him, but when she had finally willed her legs to move, the nylon in her tights seemed to crackle with electricity, sending little quivers of sensation through her thighs. Even more shockingly, she’d felt the hot moistness of sexual excitement as he watched her descend the stairs, his gaze travelling slowly up the length of her body until even her breasts started tingling and tightening in rampant response to the primitive charge emanating from him.
Then the mad joy of finding he was taller than she was, tall enough to make her feel they were made for each other. And his hand taking hers, like a burning brand on her skin, a claim of possession, of mating. Utter madness in the light of the question that was still ringing in her ears and echoing around the emptiness it had opened up in her brain.
And he had seemed so nice, as well. Charming. She could have sworn the attraction was mutual...the way he’d absorbed every detail of her appearance, gazed into her eyes, held her hand. She’d been dizzy with exhilaration by the time she’d sat down at this table. Then with Mr. Polly’s suggestion of putting roses in Beau Prescott’s bedroom, she’d begun fantasising...
Maggie swallowed hard. She had probably needed a sobering slap in the face. The dynamic green eyes were still intensely focused on her but she found them uncomfortably piercing now. He was waiting for her reply. Not that he had any right to it—such a personal thing to ask!—but she felt pressed to clear the air between them.
Her tongue felt thick. She forced herself to produce a flat statement of fact. “The answer is no, Mr. Prescott. I’m not pregnant and not likely to be.”
He looked relieved.
Maggie was goaded to ask, “Would you mind telling me what possessed you to make such an inquiry?” She couldn’t help a somewhat terse note creeping into her voice. Disappointment, most probably. Or disillusionment. She must have been fooling herself over his reaction to her since he had jumped to the conclusion she was intimately involved with someone else.
He winced. “My grandfather wanted an heir.”
Confusion whirled. “Aren’t you his heir?”
“Yes.” A heavy sigh ending in a rueful grimace. “But he was on at me to get married and have a child to safeguard the family line. The last time I was here with him, I suggested if he was so keen to pass on his gene pool he should have a child himself.”
Enlightenment dawned like a white frost, covering and killing what had seemed like warm fertile ground between them. “You thought...that I...and Vivian...” Maggie choked. It was too awful a lump to swallow.
He at least had the grace to look discomforted. “It seemed...possible.”
“Vivian was in his eighties!” There’d been almost sixty years between them!
“A man’s libido doesn’t necessarily wear out with age,” came the dry observation. He offered a crooked smile. “And you are very beautiful.”
Maggie was not mollified. She knew perfectly well that beauty was a learnt skill. Vivian had taught her that. He’d seen the raw potential in her and taken pride in developing it. However, beauty was not really the point at issue here. Beau Prescott was horribly mistaken in his judgment and he had to be corrected. She eyed him with searing determination as she spoke.
“Even if Vivian had felt...that way...about me, and he didn’t...”
“Maggie, you exude sex. No man would be proof against it, not even an octogenarian.”
“Oh!” Her face started heating up again. “You’re terribly wrong.” It was Beau himself who exuded sex, not her. No other man had ever made her feel so sexually aware of herself. It wasn’t fair of him to transfer what had happened between them to anyone else. She tried to explain. “Vivian liked me. He was proud of me...”
“I have no doubt he adored you. From your feet up.”
“He didn’t want me like that!” she cried in exasperation, barely holding back the burning fact that Vivian had wanted her to want him! And the terrible truth was she did. Except he wasn’t turning out as nice as she’d first thought him.
Blatant scepticism looked back at her.
“Your grandfather was a gentleman,” she declared emphatically. Which was more than she could say for him, the way he was going.
“My grandfather enjoyed flirting with young women,” he countered. “He insisted they kept him young. He boasted he’d live to a hundred. He brings you into his home and he dies at eighty-six. From a heart attack. Having met you, what am I supposed to think, Maggie?”
Her stomach revolted at the image he conjured up. Her eyes flashed fierce resentment at his offensive line of logic. “A man of any sense might have made some discreet inquiries before leaping to unwarranted conclusions,” she threw at him.
“Hardly unwarranted. It wouldn’t be the first time a beautiful young woman connected with an elderly millionaire. Power and wealth are well-known aphrodisiacs.”
“Right!” Maggie snapped, furious with his cynical view of a relationship which had been precious to her. “I suppose you envisage me just lying back, closing my eyes and thinking of Rosecliff!”
“And all that goes with it.”
Her heart lurched. Hearing Vivian’s own words, though they had applied to a possible marriage to his grandson, touched a very raw place. The whole idea of giving it a chance with Beau Prescott suddenly became intensely repugnant to her. Mutual attraction did not suffice. He would see her as a gold-digger even if he was panting after her.
The cleaning brigade came in, two of the daily maids whose job it was to keep every room in a pristine state. Maggie greeted them and introduced them to their new employer. Apart from those few words she waited in seething silence while the mess was attended to. Beau Prescott also held his tongue, which was just as well, because she felt like biting it off.
Of course, Vivian’s wealth had made life easy for her, and Rosecliff was the most beautiful place in the world to live in, but she wouldn’t have come here if she hadn’t liked Vivian Prescott, genuinely liked him, and she certainly wouldn’t have stayed if he’d tried to come on to her. No way! She would have been out of here like greased lightning!
The maids left, their efficiency truly admirable. Probably the thick atmosphere in the room had hastened their work. Maggie braced herself for the task of setting Beau Prescott straight. In no uncertain terms!
He spoke first. “I like to know what I’m dealing with, Maggie.”
“My title is Nanny Stowe.” And she hadn’t given him permission to call her Maggie.
“Nannies do tuck their charges into bed,” he dryly pointed out.
“Not...this one,” she retorted in high indignation.
He shrugged. “It seemed best to be direct. Your relationship with my grandfather...”
He stopped as Sedgewick stepped into the room, bearing another coffeepot.
Maggie was so incensed with Beau Prescott’s directness she swung around in her chair and impulsively appealed for backup. “Sedgewick, Mr. Prescott wants to know if I was sleeping with his grandfather. Would you be so kind as to...”
The butler halted in horror. The hand holding the coffeepot shook alarmingly. Maggie held her breath, silently cursing herself for shocking the poor man again.
“Steady, Sedgewick,” Beau Prescott gently advised.
The elderly butler stared at the treacherous hand until it performed as it was supposed to, holding firmly. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling, as though appealing to the heavens beyond it. The expression on his face was easily read. What was the world coming to?
“I’m sorry for upsetting you, Sedgewick,” Maggie said remorsefully.
“Not at all,” he said with lofty dignity. He carried the pot to the sideboard, set it on the hotplate with due ceremony, then swung around to face the wild child with a look of pained reproof. “Sir, Mr. Vivian did not have an illicit liaison with Nanny Stowe,” he stated unequivocally.
“Thank you, Sedgewick,” Maggie leapt in before Beau Prescott could open his big mouth. “Did you ever see him kiss me other than on the cheek or on the forehead, or, in a moment of pure old-world gallantry, on the hand?”
“Never!” came the emphatic reply.
“Did you ever observe him fondle me in what could be called an intimate manner?”
“Certainly not!”
“Did he ever display any sign of being a randy old man around me?”
Sedgewick looked affronted, as well he might. “Mr. Vivian was a gentleman.” Which, to Sedgewick, was the definitive reply, delivered in ringing tones.
However, since a similar declaration by her had not cleared Beau Prescott’s prejudice, Maggie continued to have the situation spelled out, her eyes glittering a proud challenge at her accuser at the other end of the table.
“In your own words, Sedgewick, what was Mr. Vivian’s manner towards me?”
“I believe he thought of you as his adopted daughter whose company was always a delight to him.”
“And my manner towards Mr. Vivian?”
“You wish me to be frank, Nanny Stowe?”
“Ruthlessly frank, Sedgewick.”
“I believe you thought of Mr. Vivian as a benevolent godfather who made beautiful things happen. You saw it as your job to make them even more beautiful for him.”
The truth. The simple truth. And it had been beautiful. It was wicked and destructive of Beau Prescott to soil it with his revolting and insulting interpretations. A rush of tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. “Thank you, Sedgewick,” she managed huskily.
He bowed to her in a show of respect. “At your service, Nanny Stowe. Would you like your coffee cup refilled?”
“Please.”
He handled the pot perfectly. Not a drop wavered or spilled. The masterly performance provided a sense of calm. “A refill for you also, sir?’ he inquired.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/emma-darcy/inherited-one-nanny/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Emma Darcy
NANNY WANTEDTo my heir, Beau Prescott, I leave my Sydney estate and place into his good care my dedicated staff: housekeeper, gardener and nanny. Nanny? Beau Prescott was highly suspicious of this interloper in the family home. A fit man until his sudden death, what did his grandfather need with a nanny?Maybe he'd taken her in out of pity - Margaret Stowe did sound as if she'd be the starchy, spinster sort. But the vision that greeted him on his arrival home called out to every male hormone Beau had. Margaret Stowe was a stunningly beautiful young woman. Just what situation had he inherited?
“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.” (#u7fb50b8d-3e93-5118-bc59-30d175932b75)Letter to Reader (#u05e00a40-7a1e-539a-9431-4d7d98d21a3b)Title Page (#u8dac2e67-8c20-591e-8394-a576f4422eaa)Dedication (#ub4c0ddd1-8ac6-540d-b138-0b66c7023e7a)CHAPTER ONE (#u5c0a12f4-beeb-5d46-b7e3-3fd774056149)CHAPTER TWO (#u8d4b94db-971a-5646-85a7-d100d5360eb1)CHAPTER THREE (#u118b1d60-3d84-5224-8a77-859e213fae1f)CHAPTER FOUR (#u46bdd4fd-abeb-5ce5-9a0b-58ced36f4770)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.”
No more than he was, Beau thought darkly.
As he stepped into the majestic stairhall, his gaze automatically traveled up the flight of broad steps that gradually narrowed to the landing. A woman stood poised there, the light beaming in behind her seeming to set her hair aflame. This woman would have to be the most stunningly gorgeous, sexiest creature he’d ever seen in his life.
And she was Nanny Stowe?
A sharply unsettling question darted through the fog in Beau’s brain.
What had his grandfather been doing with her?
Two years she’d been under this roof and his grandfather, according to Wallace, had definitely not fallen into his second childhood. The more Beau thought about the situation, it became disturbingly clear that Nanny Stowe was mistress of the house.
Dear Reader,
We hope you’ve been enjoying Harlequin Presents
’ NANNY WANTED! series, in which some of our most popular authors have created nannies whose talents have extended way beyond taking care of children!
Emma Darcy’s novel brings you a nanny with a difference. She’s a woman of mystery—and incredible good looks—who is part of the household Beau Prescott inherits. Is she genuine in her reasons for being there, or is she the scheming woman he imagines? Read on as the startling truth is revealed.
Remember—nanny knows best when it comes to falling in love!
The Editors
Look out next month for:
THE NANNY AFFAIR by Robyn Donald (#1980)
Inherited: One Nanny
Emma Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Sue—for flaunting her fortieth birthday with a brilliant party where my friends Dr. Nick Smith, Dr. Geoffrey McCarthy and Dr. Harvey Adams happily informed me of the etiquette in delivering the results of a pregnancy test and insisted I acknowledge their contribution to this story.
CHAPTER ONE
A NANNY?
The question had niggled Beau Prescott on and off throughout the fourteen hour flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney. It had reared its tantalising head from the very first reading of his grandfather’s will, pertinently included with all the other official notices sent to him in the solicitor’s packet. Now that his journey home was almost over and he was about to get answers, it pushed once more to the forefront of his mind.
Why on earth had his grandfather employed a nanny for the last two years of his life? And why was she listed in the will as another responsibility to be inherited by Beau, along with the rest of the family retainers?
A nanny made no sense to him. There weren’t any children living in his grandfather’s household. None he knew of anyway. Certainly none had been named in the will. There seemed absolutely no point in including a nanny—whoever she was—amongst the staff who were to remain as his dependents for at least another year, if not for the rest of their lives.
It was different with the others. Beau was completely in sympathy with looking after Mrs. Featherfield who was virtually an institution as his grandfather’s housekeeper. Sedgewick, the butler, and Wallace, the chauffeur, had almost equal longevity. As for Mr. Polly, the head gardener, tipping him out of his beloved grounds was inconceivable. Each one of them deserved every consideration. But a nanny-come-lately without any children to mind?
Beau turned her name over in his mind...Margaret Stowe. Margaret sounded rather old-fashioned, spinsterish. For some reason he linked Stowe with stowaway. She could be a lame-dog nanny, fallen on hard times. His grandfather had a habit of taking in the occasional oddity, putting them on their feet again. But two years of largesse and an inclusion in the will seemed a bit much.
“We will be landing at Mascot on schedule,” the pilot announced. “The weather is fine, current temperature nineteen degrees Celsius. Forecast for today is...”
Beau looked out his window and felt his stomach curl, hit by a wave of grief he’d been holding at bay since he’d received the news of his grandfather’s death. The distinctive features of Sydney were spread out below, the predominance of red roofs, the harbour, the bridge, the opera house. This view had always meant coming home to him. But home had also meant Vivian Prescott, the man who’d taken in his orphaned eight-year-old grandson and given him the world as his playground.
Not so much of a grandfather as a grand person, Beau thought, keenly feeling the huge bite that had been taken so abruptly, so shockingly out of his life. Vivian Prescott had lived on a grand scale, had cultivated a grand approach to everything he’d done. His heart should have been grand enough to last a lot longer.
Vivian...now there was a name that would make most men cringe. The Prescott family had a history of bestowing eccentric names. Beau had often winced over his, but his grandfather...never! He’d rejoiced in having one he considered uniquely his. “It means life, my boy. And joie de vivre is what I’m about.”
He’d carried it with such panache, he’d made it perfectly acceptable, a natural extension of his highly individual personality, a positive expression of artistic flair and style, a provocative emphasis to the wickedly teasing twinkle in his ever-young eyes. It was almost impossible to believe he was actually gone and it hurt like hell not to have been there with him before he died.
A spurt of anger overlaid the grief. Damn it all! His grandfather had no business dying at eighty-six. He’d always boasted he’d live to a hundred, smoking his favourite cigars, drinking the best French champagne, a pretty woman hanging on each arm as he swanned through all the glittering charity events on his social calendar. He’d loved life too much to ever let go of it.
Beau heaved a sigh to relieve the tightness in his chest and told himself it was futile foolishness to feel cheated of more time with his grandfather. The fault was in his own complacency for letting almost three years go by without a visit home. It was all very well to excuse himself on the grounds of finding South America an explorer’s paradise. A trip home now and then wouldn’t have been a hardship. It simply had never occurred to him that the old man’s long run of good health might be failing.
There’d been no hint of it in his letters. But then there’d been no mention of a nanny, either. Beau frowned again over the vexing puzzle. If his grandfather had been sick, surely he would have hired a nurse, not a nanny. Unless...no, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe his grandfather had gone the least bit senile. There had to be some other answer.
The plane landed. The moment it stopped, Beau was out of his seat and opening the overhead locker for his flight bag, wanting to be off with as little delay as possible.
“May I help you, Mr. Prescott?”
It was the cute air hostess who’d been so eager and willing to look after his every need on the trip. Beau flashed her a smile. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” She was a honey but he wasn’t interested in taking up the invitation in her eyes. His mind was on serious business, no room for play.
Nevertheless, he was aware of her lustful once-over as he moved past her to the exit tunnel and felt a slight twinge of regret. He’d been womanless for a while, busy mapping out a new trek up the Amazon. Still, he’d never had a problem attracting a woman when he was ready for one. Being over six feet tall and having a body packed with muscles seemed to be a turn-on to most of them, even when he looked scruffy from being too long in uncivilised areas.
His mouth twitched as he remembered his grandfather calling it his curse. “It’s too easy for you, my boy, and if you keep taking the pickings, you’ll never know the fruits of settling down with a good woman.”
“I have no interest in settling down, Grandpa,” he’d answered.
It was still true three years later, yet his grandfather’s reply plucked at his conscience now.
“Beau, you’re thirty years old. It’s time you thought of having children. As it stands, you’re the last of our family line, and I for one, don’t like the thought of our gene pool coming to an end. It’s our only claim to immortality, having a line that goes on after we die.”
Had the old man been feeling his mortality then?
“Grandpa, there’s no time limit on a man to have children,” he’d argued. “Didn’t Charlie Chaplin have them into his nineties? I bet you could still have one yourself.”
“You need to stick around to bring them up right. Think about it, Beau. Your parents weren’t much older than you are now when their plane crashed in Antarctica. No second chances for them. If you don’t take time out from your travelling to get married and start a family, it may be too late before you know it.”
Too late...misery dragged at Beau’s heart. Too late to say goodbye to the wonderful old man who’d given him so much. Too late to say one last thank-you. Too late to even attend the funeral, held while Beau was still deep in the Amazon valley, out of range of any modern form of communication.
All he could do now was carry out his grandfather’s will as it had been set out for him, even to keeping a useless nanny in his employ for another year. And making Rosecliff—the Prescott palace—his residence for the same period of time.
Maybe the latter was his grandfather’s solution to making his footloose grandson stay still for a while, long enough to marry and start a family. Beau shook his head in wry dismissal of the idea. He wasn’t ready for it. He felt no need for it. Making it happen would be wrong for everybody concerned. Scouting Europe was next on his agenda. He wasn’t about to set that aside, and it was plain irresponsible to establish a nest he knew he’d be flying out of.
His long-legged stride beat all the other passengers to the immigration counter. He was through that bit of officialdom in no time and luckily his duffel bag was amongst the first pieces of luggage on the carousel. Having hefted it onto his back, and with nothing to declare, Beau headed straight for the arrival hall.
As he came down the ramp he spotted Wallace, his grandfather’s chauffeur, smartly attired in the uniform he was so proud of—convinced it added a dignified stature to his shortness—and clearly determined on maintaining the correct standard of service.
The sense of emptiness that had been eating at Beau was suddenly flooded with warmth. Wallace had taught him everything he knew about cars. Wallace had acted as father-confessor through troubled times. Wallace was much more than a chauffeur. He was family and had been since Beau was eight years old.
“It is so good to see you, sir,” Wallace greeted in heartfelt welcome, his eyes moistening.
Beau hugged him, moved by affection and a rush of protectiveness, patting him on the back as though the wiry little man was now the child in need of comfort. He had to be feeling the loss of Vivian Prescott as much, if not more than Beau. Wallace was in his late fifties and though spry for his age and certainly competent at his job, probably too old to start over with a new employer. His future was undoubtedly feeling very uncertain. Beau silently vowed to fix that, one way or another.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Wallace,” he said, drawing back to re-establish appropriate dignity.
“Nothing you could have done for him, sir,” came the quick assurance. “No warning. He just went in his sleep, like he always said he wanted to, right after a bang-up party. As Nanny Stowe says, the Angel of Death took him kindly.”
The unctious Angel of Death declaration instantly conjured up a complacently righteous woman stuffed full of sweet homilies. Beau barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. He had to bite his tongue, as well. Nanny Stowe clearly had Wallace’s respect. Giving voice to a stomach-felt, “Yuk!” was definitely out of place.
He managed a smile. “Well, a bang-up party was certainly Grandpa’s style.”
“That it was, sir. Always had marvellous parties.”
Beau’s smile turned into a rueful grimace. “I should have at least been here to organise a fitting funeral for him.”
“Not to worry, sir. Nanny Stowe took care of it.”
“Did she now?”
Beau balefully added officious busybody to complacent and sickeningly righteous. How dare a mere nanny take over his grandfather’s funeral? Sedgewick would have known what was required, having butlered for Vivian Prescott for nigh on thirty years, but a nanny who hadn’t rated highly enough to be mentioned by his grandfather while he was alive? Beau was deeply offended at the high-handedness of the woman. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Well, let’s get on home. The sooner the better,” he said, feeling distinctly eager to let Nanny Stowe know her presumptuous reign of authority was over.
“Can I take your bags, sir?”
“This one.” He handed over the flight bag for Wallace to feel useful. “Might as well leave the other on my back.” The little man’s knees would probably buckle under the weight of it.
“I could get a luggage trolley, sir.”
“Waste of time.” He waved towards the exit doors and set off, steering Wallace into accompanying him through the crowd of people still waiting for other arrivals. “I’d like you to tell me about the funeral,” he added through gritted teeth, wanting to know the worst before he met the interloping nanny.
The chauffeur looked pleased to oblige. “We did him proud, sir. As Nanny Stowe said, it had to be a grand funeral for a grand man. And so it was, sir.”
“How grand, Wallace?’ Beau demanded, extremely dubious that Nanny Stowe would have a full appreciation of his grandfather’s scale of grandness.
“Well, sir, we started with a splendid service in St. Andrew’s Cathedral. It was packed. People overflowing outside and on the streets. Couldn’t fit everyone in. Nanny Stowe got the notification list together and it included all the charity boards your grandfather sat on, all his friends from far and wide, politicians, everyone from the arts. It was a big, big turn-up.”
At least she got that much right, Beau brooded.
“You know how your grandfather loved handing out red roses...”
His trademark.
“You’ve never seen as many red roses as there were in that cathedral. I reckon Nanny Stowe must have cornered the market on them. They covered the casket, too. And everyone who came to the service was handed a red rose in remembrance.”
A nice touch, Beau grudgingly conceded.
They emerged from the hall into bright morning sunshine. A sparkling blue-sky day, Beau thought, his spirits lifting slightly. The chauffeur pointed to where the car was parked and they turned in that direction.
“Go on, Wallace,” Beau urged. “Describe the service to me.”
“Well, sir, the boys’ choir sang beautifully. They started off with ‘Prepare ye the way for The Lord’ from the musical, Godspell. It was one of his favourites, as you know. Loved the theatre, your grandfather did.”
“Yes. It gave him a lot of pleasure,” Beau agreed, beginning to have a bit more respect for Nanny Stowe. The woman did have some creative thought, though it probably stemmed from an ingrained attention to detail. A nitpicking fusspot came to mind, nothing escaping her eye or ear. Nevertheless, his grandfather would have relished the theatrical note at his funeral service so however it came about could not be overly criticised.
“Sir Roland from the Arts Council made a wonderful speech...”
His grandfather’s closest friend. The obvious choice.
“The bishop got a bit heavy with his words, I thought, but the readings from the bible were just right. Nanny Stowe chose them. All about generosity of spirit.”
“Mmmh...’ Beau wondered if Nanny Stowe was plotting to spark generosity of spirit in him, too.
The Rolls-Royce was parked, as usual, in a No Parking zone. Beau reminded himself to ask Wallace how he got away with that, but he had other things on his mind right now.
“The choir finished with a very stirring ‘Amazing Grace.’ Beautiful, it was,” Wallace went on, as he opened the trunk of the car to load in Beau’s luggage. “Then at the graveside, we had a lone piper playing tunes of glory. Sedgewick thought of that. Your grandfather was very partial to a pipe band when he was in his cups, if you’ll pardon the expression, sir.”
“Good for Sedgewick.” Beau warmly approved. Nanny Stowe hadn’t known everything! She’d probably be the type to follow the “early to bed, early to rise” maxim and had never witnessed his grandfather in his cups.
“What about the wake?” he asked, freeing himself of the duffel bag.
“Oh, we all knew what your grandfather would want there, sir. Oceans of French champagne, caviar, smoked salmon, pickled quails’ eggs...everything he liked best. Mrs. Featherfield and Sedgewick made the list and Nanny Stowe got it all in. She said the cost was not to be a consideration. I hope that was right, sir.”
“Quite right, Wallace.”
Though he’d certainly be checking the accounts. A blithe disregard for expenses was fine for his grandfather. For such an attitude to be adopted by the ubiquitous Nanny Stowe raised a few ugly suspicions about where the money went. Feathering her own nest before the grandson and heir arrived might be right down her stowaway alley.
As he dumped the duffel bag in the trunk, Beau was wondering if the family solicitor had been holding a watching brief on his grandfather’s estate while all this had been going on. Surely his legal responsibility didn’t begin and end with posting off a set of official documents to Buenos Aires.
Beau was champing at the bit by the time Wallace had ushered him into the back seat of the Roller. Home first to scout the nanny situation, then straight off to check the legal position. However, there was one burning question that couldn’t wait. As soon the car was in motion, he asked it.
“Why did my grandfather acquire a nanny, Wallace?”
“Well, you know how he liked to have his little jokes, sir. He said he needed to have a nanny on hand, ready to look after him when he slid into his second childhood since there was no telling when it might happen at his age.”
That seemed to be taking provident care a bit far. “Was there any sign of encroaching second childhood, Wallace? Please be frank with me.”
“Not at all, sir. Mr. Prescott was the same as he ever was, right up until the night he...um...passed over.”
At least he was saved the Angel of Death this time. “But he kept the nanny on regardless,” Beau probed for more information.
“Yes, sir. Said she was better for him than a gin and tonic.”
Beau frowned. “She didn’t stop him drinking, did she?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that, sir.” Wallace sounded quite shocked at the idea. “Nanny Stowe is very sociable. Very sociable.”
And knew which side of her bread was buttered, Beau thought darkly, making sure she kept in good with everyone. There seemed no point in further questioning. Nanny Stowe had Wallace sucked right in. He wasn’t about to say a bad word about the woman, despite her staying on so long without any nanny duties to perform. Such dalliance smacked of very dubious integrity to Beau. He was glad the chance to make his own judgment on her was fast approaching.
“Do you mind if I use the car phone to call Sedgewick, sir? He particularly asked to let him know when we were on our way.”
Beau couldn’t resist one dry remark. “I’m surprised it isn’t Nanny Stowe who wants to know.”
“Sedgewick will inform her, sir.”
Of course. “Go right ahead, Wallace. I wouldn’t deprive anyone of the chance to put out the welcome mat for me.”
And he hoped Nanny Stowe would be standing right in the middle of it, shaking in her boots!
CHAPTER TWO
FEELING extremely nervous about meeting Beau Prescott, Maggie once more studied the photograph Vivian had insisted she keep.
“That’s my boy, Beau. The wild child.”
Her mouth curved whimsically at the epithet given to his grandson. The photograph was three years old, taken at Vivian’s eighty-second birthday party, and the handsome hunk filling out a formal dinner suit in devastating style could hardly be called a child. Though there was an air of boyish recklessness in his grin, and a wild devil dancing in his eyes.
Green eyes. They were certainly very attractive set in a deeply tanned face and framed with streaky blond hair so thick it hadn’t been fully tamed for the formality of the photograph. Nevertheless, its somewhat shaggy state was rather endearing, softening the hard, ruggedness of a strong-boned face and a squarish jaw. He had a nice mouth, the lips well-defined, neither too full nor too thin. He looked good, no doubt about it, but looks weren’t everything.
“Tame him long enough to get him to the marriage altar and father a child with you, and Rosecliff and all that goes with it will be yours, Maggie.”
How many times had Vivian put that proposition to her in the past two years? A challenging piece of mischief, Maggie had always thought, a running bit of fun between them. She’d never taken it seriously, usually making a joke of it—
“What would I want with him? You’ve spoilt me for younger men, Vivian. None of them have your savoire faire or charisma.”
—or shrugging it off—
“I might not like him, Vivian. And there’s no way I’d many a man without at least liking him.”
“Every woman likes Beau,” was his stock answer.
“Well, he might not like me,” she’d argued.
“What’s not to like?”
Maggie had always let the banter slide at that point. Putting herself down in any shape or form was against her principles. She had a long history of a lot of mean people wanting to squash self-esteem out of her, treating her as worthless and of no account in the world, and she had determinedly risen above it. Nevertheless, too many disappointments had taught her liking could not be counted upon.
It had been one of the miracles of coming to this marvellous place, everyone on the staff liking her, welcoming her into the family, so to speak, and not a mean bone in any of them. Vivian had said she was his nanny and despite his highly eccentric notion of her job with him, she’d been accepted into the household as Nanny Stowe as though it were a perfectly normal position.
Vivian’s oft-repeated idea of her roping in the wild child to extend the family line and ensure a succession of Prescotts at Rosecliff also met with general approval.
It was, of course, a totally mad idea.
Except it wasn’t quite so mad anymore.
It was beginning to feel very much like a burden of responsibility.
Maggie shook her head, hopelessly uncomfortable with the pressure to perform. Yet it was there, and she couldn’t shrug it off. Nor could she bring herself to snuff out the hope that was riding on her shoulders. People she cared about were hurting. And there was also the sense of not letting Vivian down.
“You weren’t here. You have no idea how it is,” she said accusingly to the photograph. “You shouldn’t have been off in the wilds, Beau Prescott.”
They’d had to handle it all without him. After the first couple of grief-stricken days following Vivian’s untimely death, everyone had been so busy trying to get the funeral right, none of them had looked beyond it. Only when the funeral was over, did the loss really hit, and then the solicitor had come to spell out where they stood.
The one-year residency clause in the will had brought home the fact that Vivian Prescott was gone—really gone—and Rosecliff now belonged to his grandson who clearly had no use for it since he was always off travelling. After the stipulated year, the property could be sold or disposed of as he saw fit. Vivian Prescott’s reign here was over, and so were their lives with him.
Maggie knew she could always fall on her feet somewhere else. At twenty-eight she was young enough to cope with a downturn in fortune and she’d had plenty of practice at making do with odd jobs in the years before meeting Vivian Prescott. Flexibility was her strong point. Though it would be hard leaving this magical mansion and its magnificent setting. Harder still leaving the people who had given her the sense of being part of a real family.
However, it was like the end of their world for Mrs. Featherfield, and Sedgewick and Wallace and Mr. Polly. As young at heart as they all were, they would be viewed by other employers as at retirement age. If Beau Prescott decided to sell Rosecliff, where would they go? What would they do? Who would have them?
This was home to them. They didn’t want to be split up. They didn’t want to be dumped on the useless scrapheap, surviving on pensions. They weren’t old. They had at least another twenty good years in them. Probably more.
The flurry of fear added a further weight of grief.
Then Sedgewick had remembered.
He’d stood up, elegantly tall and splendidly dignified, his ingrained authority providing a point of calm in the storm. His big, soulful brown eyes had fastened on Maggie, and there was not the slightest bit of tremulous doubt in his delivered opinion.
“Nanny Stowe, you can save us. Mr. Vivian wanted you to.”
She’d shaken her head sadly. “I’m terribly sorry, Sedgewick. I simply don’t have the power to change his will.”
“You promised him...I heard you...the very night Mr. Vivian died. It was just before the guests arrived for the party and he asked me to pour you both a glass of champagne, remember?”
“Yes. But we were only chatting...”
“No. He said—I distinctly remember it—Promise me you’ll give it a chance with Beau when he comes home. And you did. You clicked glasses with him and gave your promise.”
“It was only funning, Sedgewick.”
“Oh no! No, no, no, no!” Mrs. Featherfield had clucked. “Mr. Vivian was very serious about getting Master Beau married off to you, Nanny Stowe. He talked about it many, many times...to all of us,” she’d added significantly.
“Always treated you like one of the family,” Wallace had chimed in. “That’s where his sights were set. Getting it legal.”
Mr. Polly, his glorious gardens under threat of being taken over by someone else—or worse, destroyed by some developer—had stirred himself to put in his sage opinion. “Matter of cross-pollination, getting the two of you together.”
“And in the light of Mr. Vivian’s passing over that night,” Sedgewick had added portentously, “I think everyone must agree you gave him a deathbed promise, Nanny Stowe. One cannot disregard the gravity of a deathbed promise.”
“A chance, Sedgewick,” Maggie had hastily pleaded. “I only promised to give it a chance. There’s no guarantee that Beau Prescott would ever see me as...as a desirable wife. Or, indeed, that I’d see him as a desirable husband.”
“But you’ll give it a good chance, won’t you, dear?’ Mrs. Featherfield had pressed. ”And you do have a year to make the best of it.”
“Be assured you will have our every assistance,” Sedgewick had declared.
“Hear, hear!” they had all agreed, their eyes pinning Maggie down with their anxious hope.
She had wanted to say again and again it was only a joke, but to Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield and Wallace and Mr. Polly, it was deadly serious. Their future was at stake. Making some other life was unthinkable, and their expectations of continuing the status quo into the sunset were riding on her and what Mr. Vivian had wanted.
The truly dreadful part was they had convinced themselves she could bring it off—marry the heir, have his child, and they would all live happily ever after at Rosecliff. The doubts she voiced were brushed aside. Worse...they attacked the doubts by plotting outrageous ways to get around them. The goal was now fixed in their minds and it was so blindingly wonderful, they didn’t want to see anything else.
Giving it a chance did not promise a certain result, she had warned each one of them.
And what were their replies?
Sedgewick, bending his head in soulful chiding, “Nanny Stowe, you know what Mr. Vivian always preached. You must cultivate a positive attitude.”
Attitude did not necessarily produce miracles!
Mrs. Featherfield, doing her endearing mother hen thing, “Think of a baby. A new baby at Rosecliff. I can’t imagine anything more perfect.”
Babies were not high on Maggie’s agenda. She was only twenty-eight, not thirty-eight!
Wallace, a lecherous twinkle in his eye as he pointedly looked at the long tumbling mass of her red-gold hair. “No need to worry. Nanny Stowe. I can assure you Master Beau will take one look at you and his brain will register—red hot mamma. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Maggie was not interested in the brain below Beau Prescott’s belt! Not unless there was an engaging brain above it, as well.
Mr. Polly, tending his prize roses. “Nature will take its course, Nanny Stowe. A little help and care and you can always get the result you want.”
Marriage, unfortunately, was not a bed of roses. It was a lot more complicated.
Maggie couldn’t truthfully claim she absolutely didn’t want it. Not having met the man, how could she know one way or the other? Even looking at Beau Prescott’s photograph and assessing his physical attractions, she couldn’t help feeling terribly uneasy with the situation.
It was fine for Vivian and all the faithful staff to dismiss the possibility of Beau Prescott’s not liking her or her not liking him. They didn’t want to admit the possibility. Maggie, however, had her reservations and many of them.
Besides, when it came to marriage, there was a matter of chemistry, too. Good-looking men had often left Maggie quite cold in the past. They were so full of themselves, there was no room for a two-way relationship. Not really. All they wanted was for a woman to fall on her back for them. Well, no thanks.
But maybe there could be magic with Beau Prescott. He did look very engaging in the photograph. If enough of Vivian had rubbed off on his grandson...
The ache in her heart intensified. Vivian Prescott had given her the most wonderful two years of her life. She hadn’t realised quite how much she’d loved that old man until... suddenly he wasn’t here anymore... and never would be again.
Joie de vivre.
Did his grandson have the same amazing zest to find pleasure in everything? Or make pleasure out of nothing! Or did one have to be old before time became so precious, the need to make the most of it inspired a creative talent for delight?
Her bedside telephone rang.
Maggie dropped the photograph back in the drawer of her writing desk, shutting it away before answering the call which would be from Sedgewick, telling her the real live flesh-and-blood Beau Prescott was on the last lap of his journey home. Her heart fluttered nervously as she picked up the receiver.
“He’s earlier than we thought, Nanny Stowe.” Sedgewick’s plummy tones rang in her ears. “Master Beau does have a way of getting out of airports in record time.” A touch of pride there.
They all loved him; Sedgewick, Mrs. Featherfield, Wallace, Mr. Polly. To them Beau Prescott was still their wild child, grown to manhood admittedly, but in no way changed from their long affectionate view of him. They wanted her to love him, too, but that was an entirely different ball game. To Maggie he was a stranger, even though he was Vivian’s grandson.
“Did Wallace say how far away they are?” she asked.
“About twenty minutes.” A lilt of excitement, anticipation. “I trust you are dressed and ready, Nanny Stowe.”
To knock Beau Prescott’s eyes out. That was the general advice. The plan. Consensus had been absolute—Mr. Vivian would have expected it of her.
“Yes, Sedgewick,” she returned dryly. “But I think it best to give Master Beau time to greet you and Mrs. Featherfield before I intrude. After all...”
“Splendid ideal We’ll hold him in the vestibule chatting. Then you make your entrance. I do hope you’re wearing black, Nanny Stowe. It looks so well against the red carpet on the staircase.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sedgewick, I am wearing black,” she assured him. “In mourning. Not for dramatic effect.”
“Most appropriate,” he warmly approved. “Though you must remember Mr. Vivian’s principles, Nanny Stowe. You don’t mourn a death. You celebrate a life. We cannot let sadness get in the way of...uh...propelling the future forward.”
“Thank you, Sedgewick.”
Maggie put the receiver down and heaved a long sigh, needing to relieve some of the tightness building up in her chest. She wandered around the room, trying to work off her inner agitation. Then on impulse, she opened the French doors that led onto the balcony and stepped outside.
The view drew her over to the balustrade. It was beautiful. Maggie doubted there was a more splendid position than here at Vaucluse, perched above Sydney Harbour, the magnificently kept grounds and gardens of Rosecliff spreading down to the water’s edge in geometrically patterned tiers, each one featuring a fountain to delight the eye.
The mansion itself was a famous landmark for tourist cruises on the harbour. Built on a grand scale in the neoclassical style and set on five acres of prime real estate, its gleaming white-glazed terracotta exterior with its graceful Ionic columns and other lavishly decorated architectural features made it stand out, even amongst a whole shoreline of mansions. It seemed rather ironic that Vivian had made his fabulous fortune from parking lots. From the most practical of properties to the sublime, Maggie thought.
He’d taken enormous pride in what he’d privately called the Prescott Palace, using it as it should be used for splendid charity balls and fabulous fund-raising soirees. She mused over the marvellous memories Vivian had given her. He’d loved showing off his home, loved the pleasure it gave to others simply by coming here, enjoying the wonders of great wealth.
But nothing went on forever.
Nothing ever really stayed the same.
Maggie checked the time on her watch. The last bit of leeway for her was running out. She looked up at the cloudless blue sky, then down at the sparkles of sunshine on the water.
If you’re out there somewhere, Vivian, and you really want this plan to work you’d better start waving your magic wand right now, because fairytales just don’t happen without it. Okay?
The only reply was the cry of gulls and the sounds of the city.
Maggie took a deep breath and turned to go.
The welcome mat was out for Beau Prescott.
CHAPTER THREE
THE huge black wrought-iron gates that guarded the entrance to Rosecliff were wide open. Wallace slowly turned the Rolls-Royce into the white-gravelled driveway, giving Beau plenty of time to get an eyeful of his home and its surrounds. As always, everything looked meticulously cared for; the lawns manicured, the rose gardens in healthy bloom, the two wings of the massive H-shaped mansion reaching out to welcome him.
It was nine o’clock and from the row of cars in the parking area for the daily staff, Beau realised nothing had been changed since his grandfather’s death. The life here was flowing on as usual, waiting for him to come and make decisions. It made him doubly conscious of the responsibilities he had inherited.
Many people were employed on this estate, not only those who most concerned him. He suddenly saw the wisdom of the one-year clause in his grandfather’s will. It would probably take that long to sort out what should be done with the place. Beau couldn’t see himself adopting the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by his grandfather, yet it would be a shame to see Rosecliff become less than it was under some other ownership.
Wallace drove around to the east wing which housed the entrance vestibule. He stopped the car directly in front of the great double doors, distinguished from all the other doors by a frame of elaborate wrought-iron grillwork. They were being opened, with meticulous timing, by Sedgewick.
Sure the insidious Nanny Stowe would be standing right behind the butler, Beau didn’t wait for Wallace to do his ceremonial chauffeur stuff. He let himself out of the Rolls and strode straight for the meeting which had become paramount in his mind.
To his somewhat bewildered frustration, it didn’t happen.
She wasn’t there.
Sedgewick, as imposing as ever, his big dark eyes somehow managing to look both doleful and delighted, took his hand in both of his in a fulsome greeting. “Welcome home, sir. Welcome home.”
“Sorry not to have been here before, Sedgewick,” Beau said with feeling, knowing how devastating it must have been for the old butler to lose the master he’d loved and been so proud of serving.
Then Mrs. Featherfield, dabbing the comers of her eyes with her trademark lace handkerchief, her well-cushioned bosom heaving in a rush of emotion. “Thank heaven you’re here at last, Master Beau. It’s a sad, sad time, but it lifts our hearts to see you home again.”
“Dear Feathers...” His boyhood name for her slipped out as he gave her a comforting hug. “I truly believed my grandfather would live to a hundred. I wouldn’t have been gone so long if...”
“I know, dear.” She patted him on the back and eased out of his embrace to address him earnestly. “But you mustn’t fret. As Mr. Vivian would say, yesterday’s gone, and we have to make the most of today because tomorrow’s just around the comer and time does slip by on us.”
He had to smile. “I remember.”
“And I’m sure Nanny Stowe will fill you in on...”
“Ah, yes! Nanny Stowe.” Beau pounced. “Wallace has been telling me about our new addition to the household. Where is she?”
Sedgewick cleared his throat. “A lady of deep sensitivity, Master Beau. Since Mrs. Featherfield and I have considerable longevity of service, Nanny Stowe wanted to give us a few minutes alone with you. However...” He gestured towards the stairhall. “...I expect she will be coming down any moment now.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Featherfield got all fluttery, urging Beau forward, leading the way under the lofty Palladian arch to where the staircase rose in elegant curves to the second-floor hall. “Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.”
No more than he was, Beau thought darkly.
As he stepped into the majestic stairhall, his gaze automatically travelled up the flight of broad steps that gradually narrowed to the first landing. A woman stood poised there, framed by the tall, arched balcony window, the light beaming in behind her seeming to set her hair aflame; glorious red-gold hair that sprang alive from her face, fanning out like a fiery halo with long glittering streamers which rippled down past her shoulders.
Beau was so stunned by this vision, it took him several moments to recollect himself enough to register more than the fabulous hair. She had skin so white it looked translucent, like the most delicate porcelain. Her face was strikingly beautiful, every feature finely balanced to please. Her neck looked almost unnaturally long, yet it, too, seemed utterly right, purposefully proportioned to hold such a face, as well as being the perfect foil for the glorious wealth of her hair.
She moved, jolting his gaze down to her feet to check he wasn’t imagining what he was seeing; feet encased in black shiny shoes with a gold chain across each instep; delicately shaped ankles leading to legs in sheer black stockings; legs that went on forever, mesmerising in their long, sleek femininity.
Beau knew there were sixteen stairs from the landing to the floor and she’d come down half of them before his eyes reached the short skirt of her black dress. A gold chain curved from hipbone to hipbone, dangling over her stomach, just above the apex of her thighs.
The air Beau was breathing started to fizz. Or maybe he wasn’t breathing at all and suffering from lack of oxygen. His chest felt seized up and his heart was drumming like a bongo on carnival night.
He dragged his gaze up past an impossibly small waist. A wild phrase leapt into his dazed brain...breasts like pomegranites...lush and ripe and delectable. Then he knew he was getting light-headed because his blood was all rushing down to his groin and very shortly he was going to be in big trouble.
Get back to the pure loveliness of her face, some shred of sanity shrieked. As his thigh muscles tightened to contain the hot prickling of desire, he watched the fascinating rise of a flush creep up the pearly white skin of her throat and its subsequent spread to her exotically slanted cheekbones. Then he was looking into her eyes, eyes as blue as the waters of the Caribbean, dazzling in their blueness.
“Nanny Stowe, sir,” Sedgewick announced, as though he were presenting the queen.
Not even the identification jolted Beau out of his enthralment. She was stepping towards him, no longer on the staircase, and he realised she was almost as tall as he was. If he reached out and pulled her against him their bodies would be right for each other, fitting together without any manoeuvring. The thought sent another shot of excitement down to the area Beau was struggling to control.
“Please accept my deepest sympathy, Mr. Prescott.”
Her soft, sexy voice caressed his spine into a sensual shiver.
“Your grandfather’s death was a grievous shock to all of us. I’m sure it was very much so to you.”
He belatedly noticed her hand extended to him. He grasped it, seeing its slim whiteness disappear, enfolded by his own darkly tanned hand, her fingers fluttering slightly against the strength of his. He wrenched his gaze up to hers again, fighting the fascination of the seemingly fragile extension of her femininity within his grip.
He had to think, had to speak. This woman, unbelievably, was Nanny Stowe. Sedgewick had said so. Therefore she had to be, however incredible it was.
“Wallace told me how well you arranged the funeral,” Beau heard himself say in a reasonably normal voice. “I could not have done better for my grandfather. Thank you.”
She nodded towards Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield. “Everyone helped.”
“Yes.” Beau forced himself to acknowledge them. “It was a grand effort and I appreciate it. Very much.”
They nodded, gratified.
Nanny Stowe spoke on, her sympathy subtly shifting to eloquent appeal. “I hope you don’t think it...well, unseemly...but I felt you might like to share the paying of last respects to your grandfather, so I arranged for the funeral service to be videotaped. The cassette is in the library, should you want to play it through sometime.”
“It was a kind thought. Thank you again.”
Beau was happily drowning in the glorious blue of her eyes, sucked right in by their seductive softness and going down for the third time. He was barely conscious of the replies he made, words dribbling out of his mouth when called for. When she fell silent he didn’t really notice. Her eyes were locked on to his and he could have stood there, getting in deeper and deeper but for Sedgewick interrupting.
“We have refreshments waiting for you in the informal dining room, sir.”
Her hand twitched in his, making Beau realise he was still hanging on to it. Reluctantly he let it go. Her skin was like warm silk as it slid away from his. “Yes. I could do with some coffee, Sedgewick,” he answered, obviously needing something to snap him out of this entrancement. Perhaps jet lag had caught up with him. Even moving from where he was didn’t occur to him.
Sedgewick orchestrated action. “Nanny Stowe, if you’d like to lead the way...”
She took a deep breath as though she, too, was feeling a lack of oxygen. “Perhaps you’d like to freshen up first, Mr. Prescott.”
Did he look as though he’d been run over by a truck? He smiled to dispel any questions about his mental and physical state, preferring to be the only one knowing how shaken he was. “No, I’m fine. Please lead on.”
He was happy to stay behind her, watching her walk. Her fabulous hair reached almost to her waist, its gleaming ripples shifting with each step she took. It was so alive, Beau fancied there was an electric current running through it, throwing off showers of sparks that were infiltrating him. Something had to account for the weird pins and needles attacking every part of his body.
Though the jaunty roll of her very cute bottom below her impossibly tiny waist might be causing the itchy feeling in his hands. He kept them rigidly at his sides to stop them from reaching out. This woman would have to be the most stunningly gorgeous, sexiest creature he’d ever seen in his life.
And she was Nanny Stowe?
A sharply unsettling question darted through the fog in Beau’s brain.
What had his grandfather been doing with her?
Two years she’d been under this roof and his grandfather, according to Wallace, had definitely not fallen into his second childhood. The more Beau thought about the situation, and all he’d heard and seen so far, it became disturbingly clear that Wallace, Sedgewick and Mrs. Featherfield viewed Nanny Stowe as mistress of the house.
And she was playing hostess to him right now!
The bottom suddenly fell out of the excitement she’d stirred in him. Beau went cold all over. It made horribly perfect sense. His grandfather had always enjoyed having a pretty woman on his arm. On both arms. But having found this one, why bother with any other? She had star quality on a megascale and his grandfather would have adored parading her everywhere. And probably adored her, as well! He’d loved owning beautiful things.
Beau’s stomach started contracting, working up a nauseous feeling. Refreshments were certainly in order. He obviously needed food as well as coffee.
When they reached the informal dining room, his suspicion was further confirmed by the way she moved automatically to the foot of the table and Sedgewick held her chair for her. Clearly it was her place and taken for granted, even though his grandfather was no longer here.
Then Mr. Polly arrived on the scene, carrying a basket of freshly cut, dark red roses. His weather-beaten face was cracked into a benevolent smile. “I’m so sorry I missed you at the front doors, sir. Good to have you home.”
Beau shook the offered hand. “Thank you, Mr. Polly. The gardens look as superb as ever.”
“I keep at it, sir. I brought this basket up. Thought Nanny Stowe might like to put these roses in your room, sir.” He turned to her. “They’re the best of the Mr. Lincolns, Nanny Stowe. Lovely fragrance.”
She blushed.
Beau was once again distracted by the fascinating flow of colour lighting up her pale skin.
Mrs. Featherfield swooped. “I’ll take the basket, Mr. Polly. Let’s go out to the kitchen and put the roses in water. Nanny Stowe will see to them later. She’s having coffee with Master Beau right now.”
Yes...they all considered Nanny Stowe a cut above themselves, Beau thought, watching Mr. Polly being swept away. Arranging roses in a vase for a guest’s room was the kind of genteel occupation suited to the mistress of the house. Except he wasn’t a guest. Which probably accounted for her embarrassment. She knew, even if the others didn’t yet appreciate it, his arrival changed the status quo.
Sedgewick proceeded to serve them with coffee and a selection of freshly baked croissants. “If you’d like something more substantial, sir, Jeffrey, the cook, is standing by.”
“No, I did have breakfast on the plane, Sedgewick. This is more than enough, thank you.”
Sedgewick stationed himself by the sideboard, ready to be attentive to every need. Nanny Stowe composed herself again, adopting a waiting attitude. Beau ate a crisp croissant and drank some coffee to wash down the flaky crumbs. It didn’t really help his churning stomach but it gave him time to think.
“Did my grandfather call you Nanny Stowe?” he asked.
A wry little smile played on eminently kissable red lips. “It amused Vivian to give me that title, Mr. Prescott.”
The familiarity of Vivian hit him in the gut. “So it was a pet name,” he suggested.
She frowned. “Not exactly. It did have a sort of purpose. My job was to be with him, accompanying him wherever he wanted to go and generally looking after him. But he didn’t call me Nanny himself. I was always Maggie to Vivian.”
“Maggie...” he repeated, knowing it plucked at a chord of memory.
“Yes. My Christian name is Margaret, you see.”
Maggie, the cat. That was it! Maggie from one of his grandfather’s favourite movies, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Elizabeth Taylor had played the role. She was married to a guy whose wealthy old father was dying and to clinch her husband’s inheritance she had pretended to be pregnant.
Pregnant!
Beau’s mind suddenly billowed in horror at the next thought that filled it. He’d more or less challenged his grandfather to beget his own heir for Rosecliff. While his grandfather hadn’t actually married Maggie Stowe, she’d lived very cosily with him for two years and she’d been given a year’s grace here after his death...which could mean his grandfather had still been hoping for a result.
“More coffee, Nanny Stowe?” Sedgewick asked, holding out the coffeepot.
She shook her head. Was she being careful of her caffeine intake?
“More coffee, sir?”
He waved it away. His heart was beating so fast he didn’t need any artificial stimulant. And thinking of hearts reminded him his grandfather had died of a heart attack...before anyone expected him to!
Doing what?
Trying to father a child?
Beau looked down the table at the blue-eyed red-haired siren who had power enough to entrance a man into attempting any reckless stupidity.
He had to know.
He had to ask.
He tried to find a way of couching the question less shockingly. Somehow the sense of urgency mashed his brain. Nothing came but the bald need to get the issue resolved. Immediately! The words shot out of his mouth...
“Are you pregnant, Maggie?”
CHAPTER FOUR
SEDGEWICK dropped the coffeepot.
The shock of this extraordinary happening momentarily distracted Maggie from the deeper shock delivered by Beau Prescott. She stared down at the broken pot and the coffee spreading across the parquet floor with a sense of disbelief. She’d never known Sedgewick to drop anything. Every one of his movements was a study in grace and dignity. Had he been as stunned as she was by the outrageous question thrown at her?
“I do beg your pardon,” he intoned, his face quite blank, as though he couldn’t believe the mishap, either.
“I’ll get one of the maids to clean it up,” Maggie said, pushing her chair back for action.
“No, no...I see I have been splashed, as well.” Distress showing now. For Sedgewick it was quite impossible to tolerate any imperfection in his dress. “I shall have this...this mess...seen to immediately. Please excuse me, sir, Nanny Stowe.”
Maggie was left to face Beau Prescott alone. She stared at him down the length of the table, her mind skittering over the wild hopes she’d been nursing. If he imagined her pregnant, to some other man...he couldn’t be feeling as overwhelmed by her as she was by him. Which put her hopelessly at odds with the feelings he’d stirred in her.
Never in her life had she been hit so forcefully by sheer male sex appeal. When he’d entered the stairhall and looked up at her on the landing, she’d been stunned into immobility by how little the photograph had represented the real man. His skin glowed with vitality. The streaks of sunshine in his hair had gleamed like gold. His face wasn’t just strongly handsome. His eyes were so magnetic they made it instantly charismatic.
His physique was no less impressive. Casually dressed in khaki shirt and trousers, he seemed almost larger than life, like a throwback to when men were hunters and survival of the fittest meant something. If his grandfather had been the ultimate sophisticate, Beau Prescott was the prime male animal, throwing out a compelling challenge to his female counterpart on some instinctive level that had nothing to do with civilisation.
She had no idea how long she’d stood on the landing, enraptured by him, but when she had finally willed her legs to move, the nylon in her tights seemed to crackle with electricity, sending little quivers of sensation through her thighs. Even more shockingly, she’d felt the hot moistness of sexual excitement as he watched her descend the stairs, his gaze travelling slowly up the length of her body until even her breasts started tingling and tightening in rampant response to the primitive charge emanating from him.
Then the mad joy of finding he was taller than she was, tall enough to make her feel they were made for each other. And his hand taking hers, like a burning brand on her skin, a claim of possession, of mating. Utter madness in the light of the question that was still ringing in her ears and echoing around the emptiness it had opened up in her brain.
And he had seemed so nice, as well. Charming. She could have sworn the attraction was mutual...the way he’d absorbed every detail of her appearance, gazed into her eyes, held her hand. She’d been dizzy with exhilaration by the time she’d sat down at this table. Then with Mr. Polly’s suggestion of putting roses in Beau Prescott’s bedroom, she’d begun fantasising...
Maggie swallowed hard. She had probably needed a sobering slap in the face. The dynamic green eyes were still intensely focused on her but she found them uncomfortably piercing now. He was waiting for her reply. Not that he had any right to it—such a personal thing to ask!—but she felt pressed to clear the air between them.
Her tongue felt thick. She forced herself to produce a flat statement of fact. “The answer is no, Mr. Prescott. I’m not pregnant and not likely to be.”
He looked relieved.
Maggie was goaded to ask, “Would you mind telling me what possessed you to make such an inquiry?” She couldn’t help a somewhat terse note creeping into her voice. Disappointment, most probably. Or disillusionment. She must have been fooling herself over his reaction to her since he had jumped to the conclusion she was intimately involved with someone else.
He winced. “My grandfather wanted an heir.”
Confusion whirled. “Aren’t you his heir?”
“Yes.” A heavy sigh ending in a rueful grimace. “But he was on at me to get married and have a child to safeguard the family line. The last time I was here with him, I suggested if he was so keen to pass on his gene pool he should have a child himself.”
Enlightenment dawned like a white frost, covering and killing what had seemed like warm fertile ground between them. “You thought...that I...and Vivian...” Maggie choked. It was too awful a lump to swallow.
He at least had the grace to look discomforted. “It seemed...possible.”
“Vivian was in his eighties!” There’d been almost sixty years between them!
“A man’s libido doesn’t necessarily wear out with age,” came the dry observation. He offered a crooked smile. “And you are very beautiful.”
Maggie was not mollified. She knew perfectly well that beauty was a learnt skill. Vivian had taught her that. He’d seen the raw potential in her and taken pride in developing it. However, beauty was not really the point at issue here. Beau Prescott was horribly mistaken in his judgment and he had to be corrected. She eyed him with searing determination as she spoke.
“Even if Vivian had felt...that way...about me, and he didn’t...”
“Maggie, you exude sex. No man would be proof against it, not even an octogenarian.”
“Oh!” Her face started heating up again. “You’re terribly wrong.” It was Beau himself who exuded sex, not her. No other man had ever made her feel so sexually aware of herself. It wasn’t fair of him to transfer what had happened between them to anyone else. She tried to explain. “Vivian liked me. He was proud of me...”
“I have no doubt he adored you. From your feet up.”
“He didn’t want me like that!” she cried in exasperation, barely holding back the burning fact that Vivian had wanted her to want him! And the terrible truth was she did. Except he wasn’t turning out as nice as she’d first thought him.
Blatant scepticism looked back at her.
“Your grandfather was a gentleman,” she declared emphatically. Which was more than she could say for him, the way he was going.
“My grandfather enjoyed flirting with young women,” he countered. “He insisted they kept him young. He boasted he’d live to a hundred. He brings you into his home and he dies at eighty-six. From a heart attack. Having met you, what am I supposed to think, Maggie?”
Her stomach revolted at the image he conjured up. Her eyes flashed fierce resentment at his offensive line of logic. “A man of any sense might have made some discreet inquiries before leaping to unwarranted conclusions,” she threw at him.
“Hardly unwarranted. It wouldn’t be the first time a beautiful young woman connected with an elderly millionaire. Power and wealth are well-known aphrodisiacs.”
“Right!” Maggie snapped, furious with his cynical view of a relationship which had been precious to her. “I suppose you envisage me just lying back, closing my eyes and thinking of Rosecliff!”
“And all that goes with it.”
Her heart lurched. Hearing Vivian’s own words, though they had applied to a possible marriage to his grandson, touched a very raw place. The whole idea of giving it a chance with Beau Prescott suddenly became intensely repugnant to her. Mutual attraction did not suffice. He would see her as a gold-digger even if he was panting after her.
The cleaning brigade came in, two of the daily maids whose job it was to keep every room in a pristine state. Maggie greeted them and introduced them to their new employer. Apart from those few words she waited in seething silence while the mess was attended to. Beau Prescott also held his tongue, which was just as well, because she felt like biting it off.
Of course, Vivian’s wealth had made life easy for her, and Rosecliff was the most beautiful place in the world to live in, but she wouldn’t have come here if she hadn’t liked Vivian Prescott, genuinely liked him, and she certainly wouldn’t have stayed if he’d tried to come on to her. No way! She would have been out of here like greased lightning!
The maids left, their efficiency truly admirable. Probably the thick atmosphere in the room had hastened their work. Maggie braced herself for the task of setting Beau Prescott straight. In no uncertain terms!
He spoke first. “I like to know what I’m dealing with, Maggie.”
“My title is Nanny Stowe.” And she hadn’t given him permission to call her Maggie.
“Nannies do tuck their charges into bed,” he dryly pointed out.
“Not...this one,” she retorted in high indignation.
He shrugged. “It seemed best to be direct. Your relationship with my grandfather...”
He stopped as Sedgewick stepped into the room, bearing another coffeepot.
Maggie was so incensed with Beau Prescott’s directness she swung around in her chair and impulsively appealed for backup. “Sedgewick, Mr. Prescott wants to know if I was sleeping with his grandfather. Would you be so kind as to...”
The butler halted in horror. The hand holding the coffeepot shook alarmingly. Maggie held her breath, silently cursing herself for shocking the poor man again.
“Steady, Sedgewick,” Beau Prescott gently advised.
The elderly butler stared at the treacherous hand until it performed as it was supposed to, holding firmly. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling, as though appealing to the heavens beyond it. The expression on his face was easily read. What was the world coming to?
“I’m sorry for upsetting you, Sedgewick,” Maggie said remorsefully.
“Not at all,” he said with lofty dignity. He carried the pot to the sideboard, set it on the hotplate with due ceremony, then swung around to face the wild child with a look of pained reproof. “Sir, Mr. Vivian did not have an illicit liaison with Nanny Stowe,” he stated unequivocally.
“Thank you, Sedgewick,” Maggie leapt in before Beau Prescott could open his big mouth. “Did you ever see him kiss me other than on the cheek or on the forehead, or, in a moment of pure old-world gallantry, on the hand?”
“Never!” came the emphatic reply.
“Did you ever observe him fondle me in what could be called an intimate manner?”
“Certainly not!”
“Did he ever display any sign of being a randy old man around me?”
Sedgewick looked affronted, as well he might. “Mr. Vivian was a gentleman.” Which, to Sedgewick, was the definitive reply, delivered in ringing tones.
However, since a similar declaration by her had not cleared Beau Prescott’s prejudice, Maggie continued to have the situation spelled out, her eyes glittering a proud challenge at her accuser at the other end of the table.
“In your own words, Sedgewick, what was Mr. Vivian’s manner towards me?”
“I believe he thought of you as his adopted daughter whose company was always a delight to him.”
“And my manner towards Mr. Vivian?”
“You wish me to be frank, Nanny Stowe?”
“Ruthlessly frank, Sedgewick.”
“I believe you thought of Mr. Vivian as a benevolent godfather who made beautiful things happen. You saw it as your job to make them even more beautiful for him.”
The truth. The simple truth. And it had been beautiful. It was wicked and destructive of Beau Prescott to soil it with his revolting and insulting interpretations. A rush of tears blurred her eyes and clogged her throat. “Thank you, Sedgewick,” she managed huskily.
He bowed to her in a show of respect. “At your service, Nanny Stowe. Would you like your coffee cup refilled?”
“Please.”
He handled the pot perfectly. Not a drop wavered or spilled. The masterly performance provided a sense of calm. “A refill for you also, sir?’ he inquired.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/emma-darcy/inherited-one-nanny/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Emma Darcy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: NANNY WANTEDTo my heir, Beau Prescott, I leave my Sydney estate and place into his good care my dedicated staff: housekeeper, gardener and nanny. Nanny? Beau Prescott was highly suspicious of this interloper in the family home. A fit man until his sudden death, what did his grandfather need with a nanny?Maybe he′d taken her in out of pity – Margaret Stowe did sound as if she′d be the starchy, spinster sort. But the vision that greeted him on his arrival home called out to every male hormone Beau had. Margaret Stowe was a stunningly beautiful young woman. Just what situation had he inherited?