“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Mrs Clayton saiddistractedly. She still looked like she was struggling with something. Then she focused back on me and gave me a stern glare that would have had me shaking in my plimsolls thirty years ago. “If I agree to this, you’ve got to promise me not to be so… well…you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rafe, honestly, you know what I’m saying. You treat every situation and every person in it like you’re in your courtroom. I’m immune as I’ve seen you wee yourself at the school nativity but…”
“That was Ollie Harding!” I snapped. Bloody Ollie. Twenty-seven years later and I was still taking the flak for his lack of bladder control.
“Goodness, it doesn’t matter now, dear,” Mrs C said in her patented placatory tone. Alright for her –shewasn’t the one being reminded of shit that went down in prep school. “What I’m saying is that you’re intimidating. This girl, Clara, she…” Mrs C trailed off and looked over my shoulder towards the classroom door, her expression troubled. “She’s quiet.”
“She seems to have plenty to say to my son.”
“No, not with the children. She has a natural affinity with the children. It’s adults Clara struggles with. Her employment agreement is clear on no contact with parents.”
I thought back to all the various ways Ozzie had described Clara. Everything was “Miss Clara this” and “Miss Clara thinks that,” “Miss Clara told this joke and I nearly peed myself laughing” – what kind of stunt was this woman trying to pull? Clearly, she just wanted to waltz off with her paycheck and not have to face any of the tricky aspects of teaching, like communicating effectively with the parents who wereprovidingher damn paycheck.
It seemed as though she had Mrs Clayton and that form teacher wrapped around her little finger too. She must be some sort of master manipulator. Did I want another manipulative female around my kid? I’d had enough of that with his mother.
“I’m sorry, but I insist she makes an exception for me,” I said firmly. Mrs Clayton stared at me for a long moment and I decided to go in for the kill. “Of course, I could always take my concerns to the governors. Are they aware that there’s a teacher at the school declining meetings with parents and only answerable to the pupils? Is that something they’d be happy with?”
Mrs Clayton’s face reddened and she narrowed her eyes at me again. “You always were a stubborn little blighter,” she said in a low voice, and I suppressed a smile. “Fine. I’ll set it up. But I need a chance to talk to her first.”
I felt a wave of frustration but tamped it down. I could wait a few more hours. Tuesdays were my day with Ozzie, the one day I never scheduled court. I took him to school and picked him up every week. On my other days with Oz, his nanny did the drop-offs. Officially, I only had fifty percent custody of Ozzie. Unofficially, his mother was always fucking off to Europe and the States, so despite her having made my life hell in the custody battle, she rarely made an effort to be in the country to spend the time with Ozzie that she had fought so hard for. I was determined to give him some stability and be the parent he could rely on. So Tuesdays with Ozzie were sacrosanct, even if it pissed the clerk at chambers off.
“I will arrive here thirty minutes prior to collection time today. I presume I can meet her then?”
Mrs Clayton sighed, that troubled look was back in hereyes again and for some reason I felt a twinge of unease. But no, I told myself. It is not unreasonable to want to meet the person my son talks about nonstop. She couldn’t possibly be that pathologically shy, could she?
Chapter 3
Do you, by any chance, actually speak?
Clara
“Clara,”Mrs Clayton said, and I looked up from the French plait I was redoing in Margot’s long hair. Her original plaits had long since fallen victim to her various playground escapades, and all that hair needed to be wrangled out of her face so that she could finish her painting. “He’s here early, dear.”
My heart felt like it was lodged in my throat at her words as I continued to try and finish the plait with shaking fingers. When Mrs Clayton had approached me earlier to ask if I would meet Lord Sterling, I’d given her a flat no. Then she’d told me that he was threatening to go to the board of governors, that it could put my position in jeopardy, and I realised I’d have to go through with it. I could not risk this job. It was a lifeline for me at the moment.
A wave of resentment swept through me then. People like Lord Sterling had no idea how terrifying any threat to your employment was when you were struggling to get by in London like me. When youhadto live independently.When going to your family for help was out of the question. I shuddered at the very thought. No, people like him just demanded stuff. They issued commands and expected us lesser mortals to do their bidding.
Work was supposed to be my safe space, one of myonlysafe spaces, and he was ripping that away from me. My bloody contract said I didn’t have to meet parents, but I was guessing Lord Sterling didn’t care about that as long as he got his way.
“O-o-okay,” I stammered and bit my lip as I frantically tried to finish the plait, annoyed with myself that I’d let that speech impediment creep back in. I was usually really good at staying calm and talking normally at school, but of course, most of the time, I was talking to under-tens with no prospect of over-large lords interrogating me. Thankfully, I managed to finish the plait after a few more painful seconds of struggling to control my shakes. But as I was about to stand, Margot grabbed my hand with her tiny one.
“Are you okay, Miss Clara?” she asked, her blue eyes filled with concern as she blinked up at me. For someone who was prepared to lock a supply teacher in a cupboard, Margot had surprisingly well-honed empathy. I forced a smile.
“Of course I am, love. You finish off your lovely painting now, okay, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Daddy!” shouted Ozzie, jumping to his feet and sprinting across the room, knocking his chair over in the process. With a sickening lurch, I turned to the doorway to see Ozzie collide with the long legs of the large man filling it. He was all the way across the room, but this was the closest I’d ever been to Lord Sterling, and he seemed even more intimidating than when I spied on him from the first-floor window.
When he looked across at me, I thought I might pass out. His ice-blue eyes stared straight into mine, fixing me in place like I imagined a lion would fix an antelope. His intensity was almost too much for me to cope with. I wanted to run but was frozen to the spot. Thankfully, he looked down at his son, breaking the connection and allowing me to take in some much-needed oxygen.
“Hey buddy,” he said in a warm voice which did not match his intense, icy stare from moments ago, as his hands went to his son’s hair to ruffle it. Then he did something that, if I didn’t already have a raging crush on the man, would have kick-started one in a serious way – he dropped down to crouch in front of Ozzie so that he was at eye level with him and smiled the most glorious smile I’d ever seen in my entire life. I heard Lily mutter, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” from behind me, so I knew I wasn’t the only one affected. Even Mrs C let out a small sigh. “You had a good day, mate?” Lord Sterling asked after giving his son a brief hug.
“Yes!” Ozzie said. “Miss Clara taught me another game which helps my brain sort out the letters, and then she showed me all the actions to the sounds and then?—”
“Did she now?” Lord Sterling said, looking over his son’s head and straight at me again. Bloody hell. I was not going to survive an actual conversation with this man. There was simply no way I could manage it. Lily gave me a nudge, and I stood up awkwardly from the child-sized chair I’d been perched on, pushing my glasses back up my nose and tucking my hair behind my ears. “Well, I’m going to have a little chat with Miss Clara now before the end of school,” Lord Sterling continued, his eyes still fixed on me. His deep voice saying my name gave me the weirdestswooping sensation in the pit of my stomach, almost as though I was free-falling on a rollercoaster.
Ozzie looked between his father and me with a small frown on his face. “Be nice to Miss Clara, Daddy,” he bossed, some of his father’s tone leaking into his little boy voice. This didn’t surprise me. Ozzie was a miniature carbon copy of his dad. Lord Sterling ruffled his son’s hair again and smiled down at him. The swooping got worse.
