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CHAPTER TWO

ASHLEY HARCOURT DIDN’T know that today was to mark the beginning of a completely different phase in her life. her desk calendar looked the same as usual. It bore no big red letters to give warning of something momentous about to happen. There was no sense of premonition hovering in her mind.

She was faced with a particularly nasty piece of work in the person of Gordon Payne, who was sitting in her home office, filling the chair on the other side of her desk and voicing a string of complaints. But she was ready to deal with that. More than ready.

Giving satisfaction was a high professional priority to Ashley. She prided herself on running her employment agency effectively, fitting the right people into the right jobs. But there was a limit, a very definite limit, to how much satisfaction any one person could demand from another.

Ashley had precisely formed opinions on this point. She was twenty-nine years old, had worked hard to build up her own business after being widowed and had dealt with a great many people in a wide variety of situations. Satisfaction in any relationship was a two-way street, a compatible, complementary give-and-take situation.

As she listened to Gordon Payne revealing himself in his true colours, she silently berated herself for a bad mistake in judgement. The affable manner that had fooled her into misplacing a top quality client with him smacked of the same polished charm that had fooled her into a miserable marriage ten years ago. She should have recognised it, been suspicious of it. Warning signals should have crawled down her spine.

‘When I dictate a letter, I expect my secretary to type it word for word, each word spelled correctly,’ Gordon Payne ranted on. ‘I do not want her assuming she knows the English language better than me. If there is corrections to be made, I make them.’

Ashley held her tongue, mentally noting the two grammatical errors in that little speech. Here was another king-size ego who knew everything and could do no wrong! Ashley had been married to one for long enough to have experienced the God complex at close quarters. She had learnt there was no reasoning with it, no appeal that would pierce it, no way to get around it.

In her youthful naivety, Ashley had fallen blindly in love with Roger Harcourt. He had been handsome, always well-dressed, sophisticated in his tastes and strongly athletic, excelling in all competitive sports. Self-assurance had oozed from him, and during their early days together, Ashley had thought him utterly perfect.

Having drifted between divorced and disinterested parents for most of her teens, she had loved the way Roger took charge of everything and told her what was best for her to do. Ashley had interpreted that as proof of his caring for her. She’d had no perception of how tyrannical it could become.

She had thought she was getting love and strength and support and direction in her life when she had married Roger Harcourt.

She had certainly got direction.

She had had such a surfeit of direction from Roger, she doubted she would ever stomach the idea of marriage again. However difficult she sometimes found running her own life and being a single parent, it was still preferable to having her subordination taken as someone else’s right.

Gordon Payne was now behaving as though she was subordinate to him, too. ‘Run proper tests on these women in future. Don’t believe their résumés,’ he commanded. ‘It’s nothing but pretentious twaddle.’

As head of a home construction company—Painless Homes with Gordon Payne—and a member of the local shire council, he was a man of considerable standing in the community. Ashley had thought him a valuable business client, someone who would direct others to her agency if her service satisfied him. After hearing the dismissed secretary’s story earlier this afternoon, she had decided then and there to cut him from her files, regardless of cost or consequences.

She was still inwardly fuming over the treatment that this pompous pain of a man had dished out to a young woman whom any sensible employer would cherish. Cheryn Kimball was too good for him. That was the problem.

Cheryn was not only highly qualified in all the areas Gordon Payne had demanded, she presented herself with style and polish and had a natural charm of manner that would endear her to most people. She had been traumatised, reduced to floods of tears by the unjust haranguing and arbitrary dismissal over doing what she believed to be her job.

‘And I don’t want a woman who talks back at me!’ the monster ego raged.

That hit a particularly raw point with Ashley. Roger had felt he had the right to silence her by icily declaring, ‘I am the head of this house!’ What was she supposed to have been? The tail? The feet running after him all the time? She had discovered, too late, there were only one-way streets with Roger.

Ashley barely stopped herself from glowering at Gordon Payne. What he wanted was a mechanical robot programmed to toadying submission. Yes, master. At your service, master. Whatever you say, master.

The warm indulgence he had displayed towards his previous long-time secretary was explained in Cheryn’s report. The woman had been mollycoddling him for the past twenty years. Even though she had retired, she had ‘dropped in’ at the office each day this week to ‘break Cheryn in to the way dear Gordon likes things done,’ and deliberately, jealously undermined Cheryn’s confidence in her position and abilities.

Just like Roger’s mother.

Ashley shuddered.

Roger’s mother had considered herself a cut above everyone else since she was supposedly connected to some great line of landed gentry in Britain. Such pretensions had obviously contributed to Roger’s sense of superiority. Her condescending manner had been a constant burr under Ashley’s skin.

She hadn’t wished Roger and his mother dead. She had made up her mind to divorce both of them. The fight for freedom had just begun when fate intervened and released her from the trauma of battling a custody case over William.

Of course, any reasonable person wouldn’t have tried to drive across a bridge that was partly submerged by torrential floodwaters. Roger hadn’t liked being beaten by anything. He and his mother had been swept away by a force bigger than both of them. They had probably drowned with a sense of outrage that such a thing could have happened.

Now here was this odious man reminding her of all she had put behind her. She wished she could wave a magic wand and give him a taste of servitude under someone like himself. Unfortunately her power of reprisal was strictly limited to a figurative kick out the door.

‘I won’t be paying your commission until you find me a suitable secretary,’ was the predictable ultimatum. ‘And I want someone in the office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning to get on with the work. A temporary will have to do until you come up with the right person.’

‘I’m sorry you’ve been disappointed, Mr. Payne,’ Ashley said coolly, ‘but may I remind you that our contract was for me to supply you with three interviewees with the qualifications you listed. I did so. You chose Miss Kimball. You owe me five hundred dollars, and I expect to be paid.’

‘You guaranteed satisfaction,’ he answered angrily.

‘You specified initiative as one of the qualities you required, Mr. Payne. Miss Kimball believed she was saving you the embarrassment of sending out grammatically incorrect letters. Many employers would value such care, knowledge and attention applied to their correspondence.’

That stung him. ‘I tell you she got it wrong!’ Gordon Payne’s face developed angry red patches. ‘When I specified initiative I meant for her to supply me with what I needed, when I needed it, without having to ask all the time. She failed that, too!’

‘There is a difference between initiative and mind-reading, Mr. Payne. I do have a reader of tarot cards and a magician in my files, but I don’t have any clairvoyants or mind-readers. Not amongst those seeking either permanent or temporary employment. I suggest you try some other agency.’

The red patches deepened to burning blotches. He stood up, using his size to intimidate. He was a bullish figure of a man, short-necked, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested. His rather fleshy features were framed by crinkly brown hair, giving him a deceptively boyish look for a man in his forties. There was a mean glitter in his dark eyes.

‘Don’t get smart with me, Mrs. Harcourt,’ he snarled. ‘I hold a position of influence in this town. I could do you a lot of good.’

The threat that he could also do her a lot of damage was left hanging, unspoken but clearly implied.

Ashley was on the petite side, below average height, delicately boned, slim-framed. She achieved what she hoped was a mature and dignified stature by wearing smartly tailored business suits and pinning her long blond hair into a French pleat, but her appearance was essentially dainty and feminine.

Gordon Payne undoubtedly thought he could make mincemeat out of her and eat her for breakfast. What he didn’t know was she was one hundred per cent steel-proofed against being bullied into anything she didn’t want to do. If he’d looked more closely he might have seen some sign of that in the flintlike directness of her wide grey eyes.

She remained seated. This was her office, her home, her castle, and no-one was going to shift her from the position she had established for herself. ‘I appreciate the offer, Mr. Payne,’ she said calmly. ‘I regret I can’t return the favour. I’ve already done my best for you.’

He pressed the knuckles of one hand on her desk and leaned forward, his chin stuck out pugnaciously. ‘You don’t know what side your bread is buttered on, Mrs. Harcourt. You have wasted a great deal of my time, with no satisfactory result, and I expect you to make up for it.’

‘How do you suggest I do that, Mr. Payne?’

‘By supplying me with temporaries until you come up with a permanent who’s satisfactory to my needs.’

‘That was not part of our agreement,’ she stated decisively. ‘I have advised you that I cannot satisfy your new requirements and suggested you try another agency. Our business together is concluded, Mr. Payne.’

He glared at her as though he couldn’t believe his ears.

Ashley pushed her chair back and rose smoothly to her feet. ‘I’ll see you out.’

‘Like hell you will! I haven’t finished with you yet.’

He stood his ground belligerently. Ashley had the distinct feeling he would block her path to the door if she skirted the desk and made a beeline for it. A physical confrontation would make him feel superior again. She stood completely still, hoping to defuse the aggression emanating from him.

‘What more do you wish to say, Mr. Payne?’ she enquired blandly.

‘I can do you a lot of harm, Mrs. Harcourt,’ he drawled, relishing the prospect of dealing in fear.

‘Harm is a two-edged sword.’

‘What can you do to me?’ he jeered.

The smugness of the man goaded Ashley into a fighting reply. ‘I have contacts, too, Mr. Payne. I could make sure that no-one will ever want to work for you personally again.’

He gave a derisive laugh. ‘Money will take care of that.’

He was probably right. The power of money to corrupt even the highest principles was well proven. Ashley hated Gordon Payne’s knowing use of it. The urge to knock him off his cocky perch gathered a compelling force as she remembered all the mean power games Roger had played on her.

Withholding money. Withholding use of the car. Demanding an account for everything she did while he didn’t have to account for anything. Let Gordon Payne account for his behaviour, she thought blisteringly, losing all sense of discretion as she went on the attack.

‘Money won’t restore your reputation,’ she asserted cuttingly. ‘When Miss Kimball’s story shows you up as a fool who doesn’t know the English language—’

‘I was right!’

The ugly humour was replaced by ugly fury. Ashley didn’t care. She remorselessly drove the point home.

‘No, Mr. Payne. You could not have been more wrong. You made a clown of yourself by defending the indefensible.’

Naked hatred glittered at her. ‘Think yourself a balltearer, do you? One of those offensive, insulting females who are so envious of men, they’ll do anything to pull them down.’

Ashley’s chin lifted in lofty disdain of his opinion. ‘You’re certainly one of the men who justify the whole feminist movement.’

He sneered. ‘I take it you’re not a merry widow.’ His gaze dropped to her breasts, her waist, her hips, his mouth curling salaciously. ‘What you need is a man to get rid of your screwed-up frustrations.’

‘A typically sexist statement to gloss over your own inadequacies, Mr. Payne.’

That thinned his fleshy lips and snapped his gaze back to hers. ‘Well, we’ll see who turns out to be inadequate, Mrs. Harcourt.’ He picked up her favourite Lladro figurine from the desk. ‘You have a fondness for clowns?’

She held her tongue, momentarily shocked by the malevolent gloating in his eyes. The wonderful clown he held in his hand was a masterpiece of expression, reflecting the sad ironies of life. Because she had stood up to Gordon Payne, it was about to be destroyed. She could see it coming, could do nothing to stop it and knew her adversary relished her helplessness. The realisation that she had been headstrong and foolish in challenging him came too late.

‘I’ll enjoy putting you at the centre of a circus, Mrs. Harcourt. I could start by having this home block of yours rezoned as wetlands. Then, of course, there’s the licence for this agency. Needs investigation for legitimate practice. A visit from an industrial relations officer. A tax audit…’ He lifted her figurine clown to shoulder height, ready to smash it down. ‘This is what’s going to happen to you… .’

Ashley hadn’t meant to cry out. She had resolved to suffer the inevitable in silent, contemptuous dignity. Yet an inarticulate croak of protest burst from her throat at the sheer, wanton destructiveness about to be enacted.

‘You called, madam?’ a very English voice enquired.