‘No, of course she isn’t. I’m not saying that. I simply—’
He cut across me again. ‘If you put her up to this, I suggest you’d do well to remember precisely whose daughter Emma is and precisely who you are working for.’
A deathly silence followed, broken by Emma suddenly bursting into floods of tears. I jumped to my feet. I wasn’t going to listen to this. Before anyone could say or doanything else, I left the room.
‘I can’t begin to apologise. I don’t know what came over me. I’m so very sorry.’
I looked up at Luc from where I was sitting on my icy-cold bed in my now icy-cold room. He must have rushed straight after me because it was less than a minute since I had left the salon.
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it bloody does! What I said was not just rude and nasty, it was unforgivable.’
‘Well, you were ambushed. Your daughter,’ I tried to explain, ‘she took you by surprise.’
‘She certainly did, but that’s absolutely no excuse for the way I spoke to you.’
I shook my head. ‘You only spoke the truth. She is your daughter and youaremy employer.’ There was a pause. I looked up to where he was looming over me. ‘I should not in any way have got involved in your… situation.’
He ran his fingers through his hair in his characteristic exasperated sort of way and then looked at me.
‘I certainly find myself involved in a situation I never envisaged happening,’ he said.
‘So I also apologise, for invading your privacy.’
‘You know I didn’t mean that.’
‘Whatever.’ With a deliberately dismissive shrug, I fixed a bland smile on my face mainly because all at once I was terrified I was going to burst into tears as well, although I wasn’t quite sure why. I knew I’d broken all the rules, allowed myself to cross barriers that shouldnever have been crossed. I’d abrogated my own private rule book, my ‘keep your distance, never get involved’ stricture. I’d shat all over it, although I wasn’t quite sure how that had happened either. Well, it wasn’t going to happen any longer.
‘Anyway, I must get on,’ I said briskly, patting and smoothing the duvet cover as if rolling pastry and making as if to rise, which was all I could do while he was continuing to stand bang in front of me. The room was so constricted, if I stood up we’d be dancing the lambada. Yet still he stared at me. Then abruptly he frowned and looked round the room.
‘Goodness, I’ve only just noticed but it’s bloody cold in here. Has the radiator been switched off?’
‘It… um… switched itself off,’ I said cautiously, in case he accused me of sabotaging his central heating. Marching over to the radiator, he seized the thermostat knob which promptly, as it had done with me, came off in his hand.
‘Oh, fuck!’ he screamed and, again as I had, kicked the radiator for good measure. Once more we looked at each other, when suddenly – unexpectedly – he started laughing. ‘You can’t stay in here,’ he said. He glanced around the room once more. ‘It’s a horrible room anyway. We should never have put you in here. You can move to one of the bedrooms upstairs. Get your stuff together and I’ll take it up for you.’
‘There’s really no need—’
‘Don’t oblige me to pull rank on you again.’ Then, in a gentler voice, he continued, ‘It’s perishing in here, Alix. I can’t have my chef freezing to death. So please, just do asI say.’ Chucking the radiator knob on the bed, he walked to the door and paused there a second. ‘Funny, but I hate to think of you in here.’ He eyed the room with distaste. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes. Get your stuff together.’ And he was gone.
In confusion, I sat very still on the very cold bed. So much for my resolution to detach myself from the personal life of my employer. So much for keeping my distance. Now it appeared I was to be moved even closer, promoted to the Mandeville private family quarters. And I was completely helpless to do anything about it. It was as though I was anchored by an invisible piece of elastic that pinged me back into line the moment I tried to escape. I might have been standing on the edge of a maelstrom, clinging to the shifting sides as I was drawn powerlessly towards its whirling depths.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Oh, a Bedlington!’
That is what Jess squealed the very second she seteyes on me. I couldn’t think what on earth she meant. Was she uttering some kind of curse? A French imprecation perhaps? Except it didn’t sound remotely French; it didn’t sound remotely like anything that made sense. Perhaps the pressures of the festive season had finally got to Jess and Christmas insanity had taken hold. Let’s face it, by the time Boxing Day arrives, most women in the Western world are certifiable, me included.
***
I’d got down to the Villa Matisse kitchen on Boxing Day much later than ideal, around nine o’clock, to find Luc and Emma already ensconced at the table, Luc gnawing on a piece of stale baguette and jam while frowning at his phone and Emma equally involved in her own phone in between swigging a bowl of black coffee. They both looked up, however, as I came in and greeted me pleasantly.
‘Room all good?’ Emma enquired politely. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Fine, thank you.’
Actually, I hadn’t slept anything like well, tossing and turning wakefully for hours on end only to fall into an uneasy doze around dawn which was why I was now so late. Despite it being smoothed over, yesterday evening’s contretemps with Luc had left me feeling thoroughly jangled. Then there had been the business of changing rooms.
