Her Man Friday (5 page)

She took a moment to shrug back into her suit jacket and tuck her feet back into her shoes, then made her way toward the stairs at the back of the kitchen. Predictably, a fourth—and hopefully final—scream serenaded her as she began her ascent toward the back of the house where her own room was. Her room, and Mrs. Puddleduck's room, too.

Of course, Mrs. Puddleduck's name wasn't really Mrs. Puddleduck. It was something else that only
sounded
like Puddleduck, but Lily could never remember what it was. At any rate, Schuyler had hired the woman a few months ago—against Lily's recommendation to the contrary—to be Chloe's nanny. Even though, at fourteen, Chloe was a bit too old to have a nanny. Even though what Chloe really needed was a companion of equal measure. Like a wolverine, for example. Or that masked butcher from the "Halloween" movies. Or Hermann Goering. Someone along those lines.

"Coming, Mrs. Puddleduck," Lily called out mildly as she topped the last stair that led to her and the nanny's quarters, hoping that would prevent another bout of screaming. Nevertheless, she hastened her stride toward the other woman's room. Which was good, because she was opening her mouth for yet another bellow just as Lily entered.

The apartment was nearly identical to her own, painted a creamy shade of pale yellow, with ivory lace curtains covering both of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the garden behind the house. A huge, oval-shaped, hooked floral rug spanned the entirety of the room, not quite obscuring the honey-toned hardwood floor beneath. The furnishings were simple but beautiful—a full bed with an embroidered ivory-on-ivory coverlet, a dresser and bedside table, a rocking chair and armoire, all crafted of exquisite bird's-eye maple. The mid-afternoon sun spilled through the windows to cast a warm, golden light over it all, dappling the room with lacy shadows.

Yes, Lily noted with a fond smile, not for the first time, this room at Ashling was pretty much exactly like her own. Well, except for that small slimy… thing… surrounded by a pool of clear, pungent… stuff… in the middle of the other woman's bed.

She approached it cautiously, striving for a sympathetic smile at the quivering nanny, but there were times when Lily found it difficult to be sympathetic toward the other woman. She looked to be only in her fifties, but she dressed and acted like a centenarian. A boring, stuffy, self-defeating centenarian, at that, and not one of those eccentric, fun-loving centenarians who jumped out of airplanes and drank whiskey and called octogenarians "Sonnyboy" or something like that. Still, Lily supposed no one was perfect. And who knew what kinds of things lurked in Mrs. Puddleduck's background, after all? She might very well be the way she was today because of episodes like this very one.

Lily turned her attention back to the bed—to the
thing
surrounded by
stuff
on the bed—and tried to identify it. Funny, it did seem familiar somehow, but she couldn't quite place where she had encountered such a thing before. She had tilted her head to one side in an effort to contemplate it from another angle when Leonard Freiberger, having evidently heard the screams, too, came crashing into the room.

She was amazed he'd been able to pinpoint the source of the outburst from Schuyler's office two floors and a couple of hallways below. That showed real investigative talent. She'd only known to come here herself because, well, this sort of thing had happened at least once a week since Chloe Sandusky had come to live with them. Who else could have been screaming
but
Mrs. Puddleduck?

The nanny
du jour
was always Chloe's favorite target.

"Hello, Mr. Freiberger," Lily said as she turned to greet him, wondering if being exposed to Chloe's habits on his first day at work would prevent him from returning tomorrow. Goodness, she hoped not. She was reluctant to replace the nanny, even though she and the other woman hadn't much agreed on anything, especially where Chloe was concerned. (And there had also been that business about Mrs. Puddleduck thinking that Clarence Thomas had told the truth.) But Lily
really
didn't want to have to replace Mr. Freiberger. She rather liked him.

"Miss Rigby," he replied, his even timbre of voice at odds with the expression of stark horror etched on his face. "May I ask what all that screaming was about?"

"Oh, by all means," Lily told him.

He hesitated for a moment, waiting for her to explain, and when she didn't, he added, "Uh, then… what was all that screaming about?"

Lily sighed. "I'm afraid Mrs. Puddleduck has been the victim of a little prank."

"A little prank?" the nanny repeated. "A little
prank
? You call that… that… that
thing
on my bed a little prank? And it's
Poddledock
," she added. "I wish you would remember that."

Her question directed Mr. Freiberger's attention to the bed, and his expression of stark horror was immediately replaced by one of vague repugnance.

"
What
," he said, pointing toward the offending item, "is
that
?"

With what she hoped was an encouraging smile to both of them, Lily covered the remaining length of the room in a half-dozen strides and extended her hand toward the thing on the bed. But before she could touch it, Leonard Freiberger moved in from behind her and caught her hand deftly in his.

"Maybe you should let me," he said.

She noted then that he looked different from the way he had appeared earlier at the front door. He'd shed his jacket, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He'd also rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and she couldn't help but notice that he had some very good musculature for someone whose primary activity in life was pushing pencils. Even with number two lead, a man must have to push an awful lot of them to get muscles like that.

She also noticed that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but that was really neither here nor there.

More than his physical appearance, however, something else was different—his entire demeanor since this morning seemed to have gotten somehow… larger. That was the only way Lily could describe it. Although she'd already thought him tall and broad, suddenly he seemed even taller and broader. He wasn't slouching anymore, but there was more to his expansion than that. He just seemed… larger. All over. More self-assured. In every way. Just
more
. More than he had been before. Lily had to force herself not to take a step backward in an act of self-preservation.

"It's all right," she told him, shaking off the odd realization as she tipped her head toward the mess on the bed. "I have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. I know what I'm doing."

She patted his hand with her free one, trying to ignore the warmth and roughness of his skin, the kiss of the coarse hair growing there. Then—very reluctantly—she removed his hand from her own. Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed, but he allowed her to go forward alone, shrugging off his concern for her welfare quite literally. So Lily leaned over the bed and, without an ounce of fear or concern, poked the small, slimy thing with her finger.

"Oh, I know what this is," she said as a flashback from tenth grade biology class hit her square in the head. It was the unmistakable aroma of formaldehyde that did it. "This is…" She threw what she hoped was a heartening look over her shoulder. "Well, to be precise, it's part of a pig."

"Uh, precisely which part?" Mr. Freiberger asked.

She picked up the offending item between thumb and forefinger, turning it first to the left, and then to the right. "I do believe it's the spleen. In fact, I'm sure of it. I recall dissecting one in high school, myself. It was really quite a fascinating experiment. I had no idea that a pig spleen was actually capable of—"

A sound from behind—actually two sounds: a gasp and a thump—halted Lily's observation, because it alerted her to the fact that Chloe's nanny had fainted. So she replaced the pig part on the bed, then sighed as she spun around.

"Oh, dear," she said. Then, trying her best to reassure the other woman, in spite of her lack of consciousness, she added, "It's only a biological organ. We all have a spleen, after all. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I assure you." Turning to the bookkeeper, she added, "Mr. Freiberger, if you could look in the bathroom there behind you, I think you'll find some ammonia capsules in the medicine cabinet. Would you fetch them, please?"

He was gazing at her in much the same way one might look when the porch lights were dim, but he did as she'd requested. When he returned, Lily asked him to see if he could rouse the nanny while she washed her hands. By the time she rejoined them, the other woman had begun to come around. Together, they managed to bring her to a sitting position on the floor.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Puddleduck?" Lily asked when the other woman's pupils had returned to their normal size. Well, sort of normal, anyway. Kind of. "Would you like a cup of tea, or perhaps one of your muscle relaxers? I'll be happy to get you either one."

Feebly, the other woman shook her head. "What I would like, Lily, is two weeks' severance pay and a damned good reference from Mr. Kimball. And it's
Poddledock
," she added with surprising force for someone who had just regained full consciousness.

That, of course, was what Lily had been afraid the other woman would want. In spite of that, she said, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. I did warn you that Chloe isn't your average fourteen-year-old."

"You told me Chloe was a handful," the nanny said. "You never mentioned that she was prone to this kind of mischief and mayhem."

"Yes, well, I never said a handful of what," Lily offered halfheartedly.

Unfortunately, she knew the nanny's objections were perfectly well grounded. Lily was absolutely certain that, deep down, Chloe Sandusky was a good kid. But the girl had indulged in so much, well, mischief and mayhem, since coming to Ashling, that even Mother Teresa would have felt taxed.

In a last ditch effort, however, and with as much cheerfulness as she could muster—which, granted, wasn't much—she pointed out, "Chloe's actually quite a remarkable child. I mean, think about it. This all shows real promise for a career in veterinary medicine."

"Or a career in serial killing," Mr. Freiberger added in a flat voice.

Lily threw him what she hoped was a chastening look. "Wake up and smell the formaldehyde, Mr. Freiberger. It's clear that Chloe performed the operation in a controlled environment like biology class, and didn't just take advantage of a defenseless creature while skulking about the farmlands with her friends, the Children of the Corn."

In response to her assurance, he only arched one eyebrow in silent query.

Lily lifted her chin smugly. "Chloe is what some people would call a gifted child," she began in the girl's defense.

"She's what other people would call a menace to society," he countered, his gaze never flinching.

Lily was about to speak again, but before she could comment, Mrs. Puddleduck began to rouse herself. She stood silently, wavered a bit, smoothed out her dress, wavered a bit more, and then made her way to the closet with all the imperiousness of a czarina. Well, a czarina who was completely whacked on laudanum, anyway. Without a word, she withdrew a suitcase from inside, opened it on the floor, and began to jerk her clothes from the hangers above. She didn't bother to fold them, only tossed them one by one into the suitcase at her feet.

Even though she knew it would probably be pointless to try to make amends, Lily offered, "In light of today's, urn, incident, I'm sure we could talk Mr. Kimball into giving you a little bonus for your troubles." She bit back a derisive chuckle. Even Publisher's Clearinghouse didn't have enough money to pay a nanny for Chloe Sandusky.

The other woman spun around and glared at her.

"No, thank you," she bit out through gritted teeth.

"How about if you just take a little time to think about it, hmm?" Lily tried further. "A few days off? Paid, naturally."

But the nanny shook her head and went back to her packing. "No, I think I'll check into that prison matron position I saw advertised in the paper last Sunday. That should be an enormous improvement over this place."

Lily sighed. "Well, naturally, you'd know what's best for your career."

The other woman expelled a strangled sound, but said nothing more.

"Truly, I wish you'd reconsider," Lily tried again. She did
not
relish the prospect of interviewing potential nannies for Chloe. She might spend weeks trying to find someone else. And she had a million other, more pressing, things to do than search for an appropriate companion for Chloe. "Let me talk to Mr. Kimball to see what kind of permanent future arrangements we can make," she said.

Mrs. Puddleduck hesitated in her packing. "I'm assuming you mean permanent future
financial
arrangements?"

"Of course," Lily assured her.

"Significant ones?"

"Well, you are already earning far more than the average nanny. Let's not get greedy."

The other woman spun around and thrust her fists upon her ample hips. "I am
not
greedy," she said. "And Chloe is
not
a nanny's typical charge. The girl is a menace."

"But a gifted menace," Lily reminded her.

"Nevertheless, if Mr. Kimball wants me to continue working with her, he's going to have to make it worth my while. Call it hazardous duty pay, if you want. Because that's exactly what it will be. That girl needs a drill instructor, not a nanny."

"Well, I do appreciate all the work you've put in with Chloe," Lily said. "I know it hasn't been easy."

That strangled sound erupted from the nanny again, then she said, "You might want to tell that to Mr. Kimball. And don't forget to include the part about me deserving a bonus. A
big
bonus."

"I'll do my best," Lily told her, "but you know how Mr. Kimball feels about bonuses."

Mrs. Puddleduck's expression pretty much illustrated her feelings without a word spoken. Which was just as well, Lily thought, because that kind of language really wasn't appropriate coming out of the mouth of a nanny.