A Pretend Engagement Read Online Free PDF Page B

job and I've nowhere to live until I hear from my live-in job applications,' she lied sorrowfully.

     

    Leon Beaumont looked as if to say, Tough. Oh, how she'd delight in kicking him out. Did Johnny really, really want to keep his job? `You intend to "five-in"?' Beaumont asked harshly. `You want to be a...' he paused '...a "live-in" skivvy?' he enquired deliberately.

     

    Oh, to thump his head! `The nearest town is miles away,' she controlled herself to explain.

     

    `You didn't come here on your bike-there's a car parked out there.'

     

    Clearly this man did not miss much. She'd had it with him. I tried, Johnny, I tried. `So I'll leave!' she answered snappily-and with no little amazement. She had been going to throw this man out, for goodness' sake, and here she was, saying that she was going to leave! Johnny, of course. A part of his job appeared to be to find this womanizing swine a bolt hole when his womanizing backfired on him. Well, Johnny had been efficient-he had found him that bolt hole-nobody was likely to find Beaumont here.

     

    She sighed heavily, and was about to get out of there when she found that Leon Beaumont had misinterpreted the reason for her sigh. He thought she was sighing because she was homeless and had nowhere to go. She guessed it was that, but didn't thank him for it when suddenly he seemed to relent in his tough stance.

    But his tone was curt, nevertheless, when he stated abruptly, `You can stay and earn your keep-with certain conditions.'

    Huh! Big of you! I own this place! Johnny? Always Johnny. She lowered her glance so Beaumont should not see the enmity in her eyes. `Anything you say,' she answered meekly.

    There was a moment of silence, as if he either didn't care for her meekness or did not believe in it. But he was soon sharply itemizing. `One, you tell anyone I'm here just so much as a whispered hint-and you're out. Got that?'

    She knew he meant the press, if they came sniffing around. They must have been 'doorstepping' him to have got that picture of him decking Neville King. `You don't want anyone to know you're here?' she asked innocently. `I saw a picture of you in the paper yesterday. Are you afraid of that woman's husband...?' She didn't finish, and he didn't bother to dignify her absurd question with an answer.

    `I want no company but my own,' he told her forthrightly.

    `You're off women too?"

    'In spades!' he retorted, and she could see that he meant it. `Which leads me to the second condition. You stay out of my bedroom!'

    Oh, the arrogance of it! How she managed to hold down some snappy comment she had no idea. But she did, to ask nicely, `You'll manage to make your own bed?'

    He gave her a speaking look. She waited to be hired or fired. `Get my breakfast!' he ordered.

    Get it yourself, sprang to mind. But by the look of it, whether she wanted it or not- and she did not-she had been hired. `Three bags gull, sir,' she retorted, her phoney meekness short-lived as, his instructions given, he strode out.

    Varnie went to her grandfather's pantry to see what, if anything, there might be there that would in any way do for his lordship's breakfast. As she had anticipated, unless he fancied canned mandarins followed by canned corned beef, there was nothing. She went to the drawing room, where she found her new and unwanted employer standing looking out of the window.

    He was so not interested in her he did not even turn around. `I shall have to go to the shops,' she announced bluntly.

    He did turn then, favouring her with a brooding kind of look. `Get me a newspaper,' he commanded, and, to her huge embarrassment, he took out his wallet, extracted some notes and, without a word, held them out to her.

    She flushed scarlet. `I don't want your money!' she erupted indignantly.

    He stared at her in some surprise-surprise not only at her high colour but at her genuine indignation too. He seemed about to make some comment about both, but changed his mind to tell her