The Right Bride? (33 page)

‘Come through,’ he invited, standing back to allow her to precede him into his large and thickly carpeted office. She was five feet nine—and had to look up to him. She had been about to leave, but found she was going into his office. He followed her into a large room that housed not only office furniture but had one part of the room—no doubt where he conducted more relaxed business—given over to a coffeetable and several padded easy chairs. He closed the door behind them and indicated she should take a seat to the side of his desk. ‘I was sorry about your father,’ he opened.

So he knew who she was? ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

‘Columbine, isn’t it?’ he asked, she guessed, since he had her application form in front of him, more to get her to feel at ease before they started the interview.

‘I’m called Colly,’ she replied, and felt a fool when she did, because it caused her to want to explain. ‘I thought, since I was applying—formally applying—for the position with Mr Blake that I should use my full name—er—formal name.’ She was starting to feel hot, but did not seem able to shut up. Nerves, she suspected. ‘But Columbine Gillingham is a bit of a mouthful.’ She clamped her lips tight shut.

Silas Livingstone stared at her and seemed glad that she had at last run out of breath. But, when she was getting ready to quite dislike him, he gave her a pleasant look and agreed, ‘It is, isn’t it?’ going on, ‘I stopped by Vernon Blake’s office earlier. His present secretary said everything was running smoothly in his absence with the exception of an interviewee, Columbine Gillingham, who could not be contacted. Your father’s obituary mentioned he had a daughter Columbine—I didn’t think there would be two of you.’

It was her turn to stare at him. Was that why he had decided to interview her himself—because of her connection with her father? But there was no time to ask, and she supposed it was irrelevant anyway, because, obviously a man with little time to spare, Silas Livingstone was already in interview mode.

‘What secretarial experience have you?’ he enquired, glancing down at her application form as if trying to read where, in invisible ink, it was stated she had any office experience at all.

She felt hot again. ‘I’m a bit short of actual secretarial experience,’ she felt obliged to reply, wondering anew at her temerity in actually applying for the senior secretarial post. ‘But my languages are good. And—and I type quite fast.’

He leaned back in his chair, his expression telling her nothing. ‘How fast?’ he enquired politely.

‘How fast?’ she echoed.

‘Words per minute.’ He elucidated that which any secretary worthy of the name would know. And, clearly already having formed a picture of her secretarial expertise—or lack of it, ‘Any idea?’ he asked.

She had no idea. Could not even give him a hint. She sat up straighter. ‘Shall I leave?’ she offered proudly.

He shook his head slightly, but she was unsure whether it was at her non-statement of work experience there before him or whether he was telling her that
he
would decide when the interview was over.

‘Have you ever had a job?’ He looked straight into her wide green eyes and asked directly.

‘Er—no,’ she had to admit. But quickly added, ‘I kept house for my father. When I left school I took over the housekeeping duties until…’

‘Until he remarried?’ Again that direct look.

‘I…My father’s new wife preferred I should continue to look after everything.’ Heavens, how lame that sounded!

‘So you have never had an actual job outside of the home?’

Keeping house had kept her pretty busy. Though there was her interest in art. ‘I usually help out at an art gallery on a Tuesday,’ was the best she could come up with. She had visited that particular gallery often enough over the years to get to know the owner, Rupert Thomas, who at one time had
asked her to ‘hold the fort’ for him when he’d had to dash out. From there it had grown and, today being Tuesday, she would normally be doing a bit of picture-dusting, a bit of invoicing, a bit of dealing with customers, not to mention making Rupert countless cups of coffee were he around.

‘Is this paid employment?’ Silas Livingstone wanted to know.

She was feeling uncomfortable again, and knew for sure that she should never have come. ‘No,’ she admitted.

‘Have you ever worked in paid employment?’

‘My father gave me an allowance,’ she mumbled. She was unused to talking about money; it embarrassed her.

‘But you’ve never earned—outside of the home?’ he documented. Then abruptly asked, ‘Tell me, Columbine, why did you apply for this job?’

He annoyed her. He clearly could not see why, with her lack of experience, she had bothered to put pen to paper. She couldn’t see either—now. But his formal use of Columbine niggled her too. So much so that she was able to overcome her embarrassment about money to tell him shortly, ‘I am not my father’s heir.’ She locked antlers with Silas Livingstone—and would not back down. But she did not miss the glint that came to his eyes.

‘Your father left you something, though? Left you provided for?’ he did not hesitate in asking.

Colly did not want to answer, but rather supposed she had invited the question. ‘He did not,’ she answered woodenly.

‘I thought he had money?’

‘You thought correctly.’

‘But he left you—nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘The house?’

‘I need to find somewhere else to live.’

There was a sharp, shrewd kind of look in those dark blue eyes as he looked at her. ‘Presumably the new Mrs Gillingham
did quite nicely,’ he stated—and Colly knew then that, while her father had been blind to the taking ways of Nanette, Silas Livingstone, within the space of the few minutes he had been in conversation with her at the crematorium, had got her measure.

But Colly was embarrassed again, and prepared to get to her feet and get out of there. It went without saying that she had not got the job. He must think her an idiot to have ever applied for the post in the first place. All she could do now was to try to get out of there with some shred of dignity intact.

She raised her chin a proud fraction. ‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Livingstone. I applied for the job because I need to work, and not from some whim…’

‘Your allowance is stopped?’ He said it as if he knew it for a fact. ‘You need to finance yourself?’

‘I need a job that pays exceptionally well if I’m to live in a place of my own and be self-sufficient. But…’

‘You’re looking for somewhere to rent?’

‘That’s one of my first essentials,’ she confirmed. ‘That and to be independent. I intend to make a career for myself. To—’

She broke off when Silas Livingstone all at once seemed to be studying her anew. There was certainly a sudden kind of arrested look in his eyes, an alertness there, as if some thought had just come to him.

But even while she was scorning such a notion she could not deny he seemed interested in what she was saying. ‘What about men-friends?’ he asked slowly. ‘You obviously have men-friends,’ he went on, flicking a brief glance over her face and slender but curvy figure. ‘Where do they come into your career-minded intention to be independent?’

She had thought the interview was over, and had no idea where it was going now. But since she had told this man so much, without ever having intended to—it spoke volumes for his interviewing technique—there seemed little point in hold
ing back now. ‘My father saw fit to leave everything to his new wife, and that was his prerogative. But it was a shock to me just the same, and it has made me determined to never be dependent on anyone ever again.’ She went to get to her feet, but Silas Livingstone was there with another question.

‘You have one man-friend in particular?’ he enquired.

‘Right now I have no interest in men or even dating,’ she replied. ‘I…’

‘You’re not engaged?’

‘Marriage is the last thing on my mind.’

‘You’re not thinking of settling down, or living with some man?’

‘Marriage, men or living with one of them just doesn’t enter my plans,’ she answered. ‘I’m more career-minded than husband-minded. I want to be independent,’ she reiterated. She had never been interviewed for a job before, so supposed being asked such detailed and personal questions must be all part and parcel of a job interview, but to her mind the interview was over. ‘I apologise for taking up so much of your time,’ she began, prior to departing. ‘I thought when I applied for the job that I would be able to do it. It was never my intention to waste Mr Blake’s time—or yours. But, since I obviously haven’t got the job, I won’t waste any more of it.’

She got up from her chair—but, oddly, Silas Livingstone motioned that she should sit down again. She was so surprised by that—she’d have thought he could not wait for her to be gone—that she did in fact sit down.

‘I’m afraid you haven’t the level of experience necessary to work for Vernon Blake,’ Silas Livingstone stated. ‘But,’ he went on, before she could again start to wonder why, in that case, she had sat down again, ‘there is the possibility of something else that might be of interest.’

Colly’s deflated spirits took an upturn. While it was fairly certain that this other job would not pay as well as the one
advertised, there was hope here that she might find a job that would lead to better things. Why, a company of Livingstone Developments’ size must employ hundreds of office staff. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She had a brain, there must be quite a few other jobs she could do!

‘I’d be interested in anything,’ she answered, trying not to sound too eager, but ruining it by adding, ‘Absolutely anything.’

He silently studied her for what seemed an age. Studied her long and hard, before finally replying, ‘Good.’

‘What sort of work is it? I’m fairly good with computers. Or perhaps it’s something to do with translating? I’d—’

‘It’s a—newly created post,’ he cut in. ‘The details haven’t been fully thought through yet.’ Again he seemed to study her, his eyes seeming to take in everything about her. ‘Perhaps you’d be free to join me for lunch—say, Thursday?’

‘Lunch?’ she repeated. Was this the way of interviews?

He did not answer, but opened a drawer and withdrew what appeared to be a desk diary and began scanning it. But even while she was getting her head around the notion of lunching with this man while he told her more fully the details of this new vacancy he was shaking his head.

‘By the look of it lunch is out for the next couple of weeks.’ That was a relief. Personable though the man was, not to say downright good-looking, she somehow felt oddly reluctant to have lunch with him. Her relief, however, was short-lived, because, rehousing his diary, Silas Livingstone looked across at her. ‘It will have to be dinner,’ he announced. And, as cool as you please, ‘Are you free this Friday?’ he enquired.

Colly wasn’t sure her jaw did not drop. She closed her mouth and stared at him. While admittedly she did not have all that much experience of men—this was a new approach. She might also not have any experience with general job interview procedure either, but she did not feel she had to be a genius to work out that this was far from the norm.

‘Forgive me, Mr Livingstone,’ she replied, striving hard for some of his cool tone. ‘But I believe I’ve already told you that my interest rests solely with finding a job that pays well.’ And, in case he had forgotten, she repeated, ‘Men and dating just do not figure in my plans for the foreseeable future.’

‘I heard you,’ he replied evenly, adding—totally obscurely as far as she was concerned—‘That is an excellent start. But,’ he went on, ‘my sole intention in requiring you to have dinner with me is so we may discuss, in informal detail, this newly arisen—vacancy.’

Colly eyed him warily. Two years ago she hadn’t had a suspicious bone in her body. But two years of living under the same roof as the devious Nanette had taught her not to take everything at face value.

‘This
is
business?’ Colly stayed to probe.

‘Strictly business,’ he answered, with not a smile about him.

Colly studied him. It made a change. But, looking at him, she somehow felt she could believe him. Could believe that this was not some newfangled way of him getting a date. And, looking at him, sophisticated and virile, she suddenly saw it was laughable that this man, who probably had women falling over him, would need to use any kind of a ruse to get a woman to go out with him anyway. Indeed, Colly started to feel a trifle pink about the ears that she had for one moment hinted that he might be interested in her in more than a ‘business’ way.

‘Friday, you said?’ she questioned finally, when he had given her all the time she needed to sift through everything.

‘If you’re free,’ he agreed.

‘This job—’ she gathered her embarrassed wits together ‘—you can’t tell me more about it now?’

‘The—situation is recent, as I mentioned. I need to do some research into all it entails.’

‘You’ll have done your research by Friday?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he replied evenly.

She wanted to ask if the job was working for him. But, since he was the head of the whole shoot, she thought it must be. ‘Bearing in mind my lack of experience, you think I would be able to do the job?’

‘I believe so,’ he replied, his dark blue eyes steady on her.

Colly got to her feet. She felt not a little confused, and hoped it did not show. ‘Where shall I meet you?’ she asked.

Silas Livingstone was on his feet too. Tall, unsmiling that she had just agreed to have dinner with him on Friday. ‘I’ll call for you at eight,’ he stated.

She opened her mouth to tell him her address. Then closed it again. It was on her application form, and at a rough guess she felt that this man would not have missed that. In fact, she had a feeling that this man, who was obviously going to research into this newly created job pretty thoroughly before he offered it to her—or otherwise—never missed a thing.

H
ER
first interview with Silas Livingstone had been on Tuesday. By Thursday of that same week Colly’s head was beginning to spin from the effort of trying to pinpoint exactly what kind of job was in the offing that would be better discussed in ‘informal detail’ over dinner.

She still inwardly cringed whenever she thought of how, without a pennyworth of secretarial experience, she had applied for that senior secretarial job. It just went to show, she realised, how desperate she was for a job that paid well enough to afford her somewhere to live.

And that she would have to find that somewhere to live, and quickly, had been endorsed for her again last night, when Nanette had entertained a few of her rowdy friends. It was her right, of course, but the gales of laughter, male and female, that had come from the drawing room had impinged on Colly’s sensitivities. Her father had barely been dead a month.

His widow had obviously decided to be the merry sort. If that was her way of grieving, so be it, but Colly had seen little sign of genuine grief. And all she wanted to do now, she mused, as she began to clear up the debris from the previous night’s entertainment, was find a place of her own and get started on being solely independent. She knew then that whatever this job was, that was being newly created by Silas Livingstone, she would take it.

While it might not pay as well as that multilingual secretary’s job, Silas Livingstone was well aware of her circumstances, so surely he would not be considering her for this new vacancy unless the salary that went with it was an adequate living wage.

By early Friday evening Colly had reasoned that, because her only skills were in keeping a well-run house, some small knowledge of art and an ability with languages, this newly created vacancy must involve the use of her languages in some way—which, plainly, was not secretarial. But, again, why dinner? It was almost as though the job was not in his office at all! As if it were nothing to do with office life—and that was why he was interviewing her in ‘informal detail’ outside of the office.

She was getting fanciful. Colly went upstairs to shower and get dressed, ready for Silas Livingstone to call.

Because this was to all intents and purposes a business dinner, Colly opted to wear a black straight ankle-length skirt of fine wool and a heavy silk white shirt-blouse. She joined the two with a wide suede belt that emphasised her tiny waist. She brushed her long brown hair with its hint of red back from her face in an elegant knot, and when she took a slightly apprehensive glance in the full-length mirror she was rather pleased with her general appearance. It was only then that she accepted that, with no other likely-looking job being advertised in the paper this week, she was pinning a lot of hope on this interview. She did so hope she would not come home disappointed. It was just that afternoon that Nanette had bluntly asked when she was leaving.

It was her luck that when, at ten minutes to eight, with a black wool cloak over her arm, she went downstairs to wait, she should meet Nanette in the hall. ‘Where are you off to?’ Nanette asked nastily, her eyes looking her over.

‘I’m going out to dinner.’

‘What about
my
dinner?’ Nanette asked shrewishly.

Only just did Colly refrain from telling her that she had been her father’s housekeeper, not hers. ‘I thought you might be going out yourself,’ she replied quietly; the atmosphere in the house was hostile enough without her adding to it.

‘A—friend will be joining me later,’ Nanette snapped. And,
an anticipatory gleam coming to her eyes, ‘Don’t disturb us when you come in.’

Colly went into the breakfast room to wait. It was a dark January night and she would see the car’s headlights as they swept up the drive. Now, don’t hope for too much. She attempted to calm herself down. There was every chance she might not yet be offered this job which could mean independence and a new way of life.

A minute or so later car headlights lit up the drive. Colly donned her cloak and, hoping it was Silas Livingstone and not Nanette’s ‘friend’, left the breakfast room and went out to meet him.

It was her hopefully prospective employer. He left the driver’s seat and came to open up the passenger door. ‘Hello, Colly,’ he greeted her amicably.

Well, that sounded friendly enough. She preferred Colly to Columbine. ‘Hello,’ she murmured. In no time she was seated beside him and they were motoring back down the drive. ‘You found the house all right?’ she asked politely. It was a nice house, in a very well-to-do neighbourhood.

‘Not a problem,’ he returned pleasantly, and matched her for polite conversation as he drove them to the eating establishment he had chosen, which happened to be a hotel.

He waited in the foyer while she checked her cloak. After taking a deep breath, her insides churning, she went out to join him. She gave him a smile. He smiled back, his eyes taking in her smart appearance. She had been out on dates before—but never with someone like him.

But this was not a date, she reminded herself as he escorted her to a lounge area. ‘You’re over your disappointment of last Tuesday, I hope?’ he enquired as he waited for her to be seated.

‘I blush whenever I think of my nerve in even applying,’ she answered as he took a seat facing her.

He seemed to approve of her honesty. But, when she
thought that he would now begin to interview her for this other job, the newly arisen job, to her surprise did not, but merely commented, ‘You’re having a rather desperate time of it at the moment,’ and asked, ‘What would you like to drink?’

He went on to be a most courteous and pleasant companion.

‘Mr Livingstone—’ she began at one point.

Only to lose her thread completely when, ‘Silas,’ he invited—and kept up a polite flow of conversation as they transferred to the dining room.

He asked her opinion on sundry matters as they ate their way through the first course, and in fact was everything she could wish for in a platonic dinner partner. So much so that they were midway through their main course before she recalled that they were not here as friends but as prospective employer and employee.

‘This job,’ she inserted during a break in the conversation, realising only then how thoroughly at ease with him she felt. If that had been his aim he could not have done better.

‘We’ll get to that in time,’ he commented. ‘Is the steak to your liking?’

They were back in the lounge drinking coffee before Colly found another chance to introduce the subject of work without appearing to be blunt.

‘I’ve very much enjoyed this evening,’ she began politely, ‘but…’

‘But now, naturally, you’d like to know more about the vacancy.’ He favoured her with a pleasant look, and explained, rather intriguingly, she felt, ‘I wanted to get to know you a little before we embarked on a—full discussion.’

‘And—er—you feel you have?’

‘Sufficiently, I believe,’ he replied, going on, ‘I also wanted privacy to outline what I have in mind.’ His mouth quirked upwards briefly. ‘I hesitated to ask you back to my home.’

Her lovely green eyes widened somewhat. ‘You’re—um—
making this sound just a little bit personal,’ she answered warily.

He considered her answer, but did not scoff that it was nothing of the sort, as she had expected him to. Doing nothing for her suddenly apprehensive feelings, he said, ‘I suppose, in an impersonal way, it could be termed personal.’

‘Do I get up and leave now?’ she enquired coldly.

‘I’d prefer you stayed until you’d heard me out,’ he replied, his dark eyes fixed on her apprehensive green ones. ‘You’re quite safe here,’ he added, glancing round what was now a deserted lounge. ‘And we have all the privacy we need in which to talk this vacancy through.’

So that was why he had not gone into detail over dinner! A few fellow diners had been within eavesdropping distance should they have cared to listen in. ‘So, you having assured me I’m not required to sing for my supper, I’m listening,’ Colly invited, relaxing again, because should this conversation go in a way she did not care for she could decline to allow him to drive her to her home, and could ask someone at Reception to get her a taxi.

To hear that she was ready for him to outline the job was all Silas Livingstone was waiting for. Though, instead of outlining the work, he first of all stated, ‘I’ve learned a little of you this evening, Colly. Sufficient, at any rate, to know that I should like to offer you this—position.’

Her heart lightened. Oh, thank heaven. She was on her way! Silas Livingstone must believe she could do the job, or he would not be willing to offer it to her. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ She beamed, her overwhelming relief plain to see. She might soon be self-sufficient, have money of her own and be able to afford somewhere to rent, and not beholden to Nanette for a temporary roof over her head.

He looked at her shining green eyes. ‘You don’t know what the job is yet,’ he cautioned.

‘I don’t care what it is,’ she answered delightedly. ‘As long as it’s honest and pays well. You wouldn’t offer if—’

‘Are things really so bad for you?’ he butted in softly.

Colly took a breath to deny that things were in any way bad for her. Though when she thought of the dire state of her present finances, and then of Nanette’s daily barbs that she pack her bags and leave, Colly couldn’t think that they could be much worse.

‘What sort of work would I have to do?’ she enquired, ready to turn her hand to anything.

Silas studied her for a moment, not commenting that she had not given him a detailed account of just how awful things were at the only home she had ever known. Instead, he asked, ‘Tell me, Colly, if it were not so very essential for you to find somewhere to live and to find a job with a salary sufficient with which to pay rent, what would be an ideal scenario for you?’

Again Colly found herself wishing she knew more about the usual interviewing techniques. Though, looking into the steady dark blue eyes of Silas Livingstone, she had an idea that he would not always follow the path of what was usual anyhow.

She looked away from him. ‘I want to be independent,’ she replied. ‘I thought, a couple of years ago, that I’d like to have a place of my own…’

‘But your father wanted you to stay on as housekeeper?’

‘Nanette, the woman he married, she preferred that I stayed on.’

‘And now, now that she has inherited the house and everything else, she wants you gone.’

It was not a question but a statement. And one that Colly could not argue against. ‘So that makes my first priority to find somewhere to live and, of course, a job too.’ She shrugged, feeling more than a touch embarrassed, but, it not needing any thinking about, she went on to honestly answer
his question about her ideal scenario. ‘From choice, I would prefer to do some sort of training. Perhaps take a year’s foundation course while I looked into possible careers—or even go on to university.’ She felt awkward again as she looked Silas in the eyes and confessed, ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but apart from an interest in art—though no particular talent—I have no idea what, if anything, I’m especially good at.’

Silas smiled then. He did not do it too often, but when he did she momentarily forgot what they were talking about. ‘You have a nice way with you,’ he answered. ‘You have integrity, and I have formed an opinion that I can trust you.’

Colly felt a touch pink. Was that what all that non-business chat over dinner had been about—Silas gauging from her answers, her questions, her general demeanour, what sort of a person she was? My, but he was clever. So clever she had not had a clue what he was about. ‘Yes, well,’ she mumbled, just a trifle embarrassed. ‘You must—er—trust me to have offered me the job.’ She got herself more of one piece. And, on thinking about it, considered it was more than high time that she found out more about this vacancy. ‘May I know exactly what the job entails? What my duties will be?’ she asked.

Then she discovered she would find out what she wanted to know, but only when he was good and ready—because he had not finished asking questions of his own yet. ‘First of all,’ he began, ‘tell me what you know about the firm of Livingstone Developments?’

Realising that since he was paying the piper she would have to dance to his tune, she replied, ‘That’s fairly easy. When I knew I had an interview last Tuesday, I made it my business to find out all I could about the company. I’d never been for an interview before,’ she explained, ‘so I had no idea of what sort of questions I should know the answers to.’

He accepted that as fair comment. ‘What did you discover?’ he wanted to know.

‘I discovered that Livingstone Developments—only it wasn’t called that then—was founded years and years ago by one Silas Livingstone.’

‘Sixty years ago, by my grandfather,’ Silas filled in.

‘It was only a small company then—dealing with industrial equipment, I think.’ She waited for him to interrupt. He didn’t, so she went on. ‘The firm expanded when your grandfather’s son took over.’

‘The firm made quite a progressive leap forward when my father took over,’ Silas stated. ‘Under his leadership the firm went on to become a leading international firm of consulting engineers.’

‘And when, five years ago, Borden Livingstone stepped down and you were voted to be chairman, you led the firm onwards to take in the design and manufacture of more advanced engineering products.’

‘You
have
done your homework,’ Silas commented when she had nothing more to add. Then, giving her a straight look, ‘All of which perhaps makes you see what a tremendous amount of hard work has gone on over the past sixty years to make Livingstone Developments into the much-respected and thriving company it is today.’ His eyes were still steady on her when quietly he added, ‘And what a colossal waste of all those years of hard labour, of effort, it would be if I can’t come up with some way to prevent the company from sinking into decline.’

Startled, Colly stared at him. ‘Livingstone Developments is in trouble?’ she gasped, forgetting about her own problems—the company employed thousands of people!