A Nanny for Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

cafe,' Tara urged. 'You'd have a lovely bedroom. Would you like to look at it?' She began to scramble out of bed, and Phoebe restrained her firmly.
    'And I have a home, too.' With a roof that leaks and wiring on the blink and a nosy landlord. 'Your father will soon find someone else to look after you.'
    'I don't want someone else.' Tara sounded rebellious and fractionally close to tears.
    Phoebe took her hand. 'Look, I came to say good night, not have a fight. Everything will work out, poppet. You'll see.'
    Tara pulled her hand away and turned over, burying her face in the pillow. 'I don't like being on my own,' said a muffled voice.
    Phoebe sighed soundlessly. 'Listen, if you're a good girl, and stop fussing, I'll come and play Snakes and Ladders with you one day. If your daddy will let me, that is.'
    A transformed and beaming face was lifted from the pillow. 'Will you come tomorrow?'
    'No, I have to go to work. Besides,' she added with a touch of sternness, 'Saturdays and Sundays are your special time with your father, aren't they?'
    'Ye-e-es.' Tara wriggled a bit. 'But he wouldn't mind if you were there too.'
    'Oh, I think he might,' Phoebe said lightly. And I certainly should. 'Cuddle down now, and I'll tuck you in.'
    Tara obeyed. 'You sound like a nanny,' she said.
    Phoebe bent and swiftly kissed a pink cheek. 'That's the easy part,' she said.
    She closed the door softly behind her, and started down to the floor below. All the doors were shut there too, but she could remember what the rooms were like, she thought, her footsteps faltering a little. Especially one of them. The one with the big four-poster bed with a canopy over it. The one she'd been taken to...
    Out of the past, she could remember someone saying, 'It looks like a bloody altar.'
    And Tony's voice drawling, 'Then let's supply the virgin sacrifice.'
    She shivered violently, trying to blot out his voice as well as the more potent memories of his lips on hers, his hands moving over her, undressing her slowly...
    'Is something the matter?' Dominic Ashton's voice, speaking sharply, broke across her reverie.
    She realised she was standing, rooted to the spot, outside his bedroom. He was at the top of the stairs, staring at her.
    He said, 'I've never heard that this house is haunted, but you look as if you've seen a ghost.'
    'No—no, I'm fine. I—I thought I heard Tara calling,' she improvised rapidly.
    He said abruptly, 'I'll sleep up there tonight, in case she needs anything.'
    Phoebe walked ahead of him down to the hall. 'You don't think there's a chance Cindy will turn up?'
    'I know she won't,' he said grimly. 'You were quite right. She's in hospital—and the boyfriend too. I've just been on to the casualty department at Westcombe. They had an accident on the bike—hurrying back for Tara, apparently.'
    Phoebe gasped. 'Are they badly hurt?'
    'Torn ligaments for him, and a broken collarbone for her. It could have been very much worse. I'll call in there after I've dropped you off, with a dose of unpleasant medicine for the pair of them.'
    She said quickly, 'Don't be too angry with her, please. She'll know how stupid she's been, and be feeling really bad about it. And anger's such an awful thing—when you're frightened and ashamed, anyway...' Her voice tailed into silence.
    'Well,' he said at last. 'That was certainly a cry from the heart.' He held out her coat for her. 'Do I really seem so formidable?'
    'I—I was speaking generally.' Phoebe slid her arms into the sleeves and began to Tumble with the buttons.
    'Were you?' His grey gaze was searching. 'I'd have safd you had something very particular in mind, and—'
    To her intense relief, his analysis was interrupted by a sharp peal of the doorbell.
    Dominic Ashton's brows rose. 'Now, who can this be?" he said, half to himself.
    He went to the door and threw it open.
    'Darling.' The woman who swept in with immense assurance was tall, with pale blonde hair swept back by a velvet Alice band. Her wine-coloured