Buch lesen: «A Baby In His In-Tray»

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHAT I’M SAYING, Liz, is that someone has left a baby on your—my—’ she amended, aware that Liz had already corrected her twice so far this phone call ‘—desk!’

‘A baby?’ Liz parroted for the third time, and Olivia Grace Gilmour closed her eyes and dragged in a breath—a long, deep, calming breath. In through her nose and out through her mouth. No matter how much she might want to, she couldn’t take her twin to task for her incredulity. She could hardly believe it herself.

Except seeing was believing.

She peered once more into the baby carrier at the sleeping infant.

‘Livvy, I...’

Liv waited but nothing else was forthcoming, and her heart rate kicked up another notch.

‘Where’s Judith?’

Judith was Liz’s assistant. ‘She called in sick.’

‘Good.’

‘Good?’ She tried to keep the shrill note out of her voice. A partner in confusion and concern would be welcome at the moment. But Liz was right. It was just as well Judith wasn’t here to witness her panic. Liv didn’t want to give the game away. She swallowed and tried to modulate her voice. ‘There was a letter addressed to your boss tucked into the side of the baby carrier.’

‘Your boss,’ Liz corrected. If a voice could sound green, hers sounded green.

‘My boss,’ Liv managed through gritted teeth.

Never had agreeing to stand in for her twin at her day job seemed a crazier move than it did right at this very moment. But it was only for a week and Sebastian Tyrell—Liz’s boss—was away. Not that he sallied forth all that often from his estate in Lincolnshire, from where he apparently oversaw operations. But with him being away it meant she shouldn’t even need to speak to him on the phone. This week should’ve been non-eventful, mission possible, a walk in the park. Liz had promised her it’d be a piece of cake.

Except now there was a baby.

Somewhere in the back of her mind maniacal laughter sounded.

She stared into the carrier at the cherubically sleeping baby—the teensy-tiny baby. ‘Heavens, Liz, it’s little. She can’t be more than four or five months old.’

‘Oh, God.’ If possible, Liz’s voice turned greener. Liv grimaced. Her twin had never been good with babies. And now—

‘Have you read the letter?’

Liv swung away from the baby, seized the letter and paced to the window overlooking a busy inner-London street, a sliver of the Thames in the distance, glinting silver in the afternoon light.

‘Of course I’ve read the letter!’ It was why she’d rung. It gave no clue whatsoever to the baby’s identity. And she had no idea what to do. ‘It says “Sebastian”—not Dear, not Seb, but “Sebastian—I can’t do this any more. It’s not fair. You owe me. Do not let baby Jemima down!”’ She glared at the inoffensive-looking piece of paper. ‘“Not” is underlined three times. It ends in an exclamation mark.’ She pulled in another long breath. ‘It’s not signed.’

‘Not signed?’ Liz’s voice rose. ‘Dear God, Livvy, I’m stuck in Turkey in the middle of a plane strike. It’ll take me days to get home and—’

‘Relax, Liz!’ The words shot out of her with more confidence than she’d dreamed possible, but she recognised the panic in her twin’s voice and needed to allay it. Liz was pregnant and she needed to stay calm. ‘I’m not asking you to come home. You need to stick to your plan.’

What Liz didn’t need was additional stress. Dear God, her sister had enough on her plate at the moment. Liv mentally kicked herself for troubling Liz with this except...except she’d panicked herself. ‘Look, seriously, I can take care of everything at this end. I was just keeping you apprised of developments like I promised I would.’ She dragged a hand back through her hair. ‘And I thought you might have some idea where this baby had come from.’

‘I haven’t the foggiest. I can’t think of a single baby he has in his life.’

‘Well...obviously somewhere along the line he became a father.’

A strangled noise on the other end of the phone was Liz’s only reply.

She swallowed. Did Liz’s boss even know he had a child?

‘Oh, what a mess! But Livvy, I can’t shed any light on this at all. I wasn’t joking when I said the most personal thing Mr Tyrell and I have ever shared was our mutual concern over an accountant I’d hired. I mean, I hardly ever see him, the only thing we ever discuss is work...and that as briefly as possible as a rule. He’s not a chatty man.’

‘Seriously? Nothing personal? Ever?’ She still couldn’t get her head around that.

Liz was silent for a moment. ‘When I returned from my holiday he asked me if I had a nice time. I said yes. That was the extent of the discussion.’

The holiday where Liz had become pregnant to her hot mystery man?

‘No passing comments about politics and the state of the nation, or a book you’ve been reading, or a movie you’ve seen?’ she persisted.

‘No! We have a weekly phone call—the Tyrell Foundation is his baby and it’s obviously close to his heart—but that’s it. He’s busy doing whatever it is lords running their estates are busy doing. It’s the reason I was so convinced we could pull this switch off.’

They’d thought it so unlikely that Liv would even need to speak to him that they’d practically considered it a fait accompli. But now... She swallowed and nodded. She could do it. She could pull it off. After all, she’d had no trouble convincing Judith that she was Liz.

Still...deceiving the sixty-two-year-old Judith who did a solid job at maintaining the foundation’s database but who was more interested in sneaking in a surreptitious game of Solitaire than gossiping with Liv was one thing. Deceiving a businessman in his prime was a different matter altogether.

‘Livvy?’

‘This new development might mean me and your Mr Tyrell have to come face-to-face.’

‘Will you be OK with that?’

She could practically see the grimace on her twin’s face. ‘Yes.’ She gave a silent scream and then stuck out her chin. ‘But I’m not changing my hair.’

Finally Liz laughed. ‘We already agreed I’d have to lop a few inches off mine before I came home. And in the unlikely event he even sees it, let alone mentions it, I’ll tell him I’ve gone back to being blonde.’

For a moment she could almost picture her twin waving an unconcerned hand through the air, treating the issue of hair as a matter of little importance. Liv couldn’t help smiling. She loved her hair. ‘Right. We’ll call that Plan A, then.’

‘What are you going to do now, though? About the baby?’

She suspected what she should do was call the police, but...

‘Please don’t lose me my job, Livvy.’

But there was that—it was what she was here for. Everything else in Liz’s life was up in the air and she was clinging to the security of her job like a lifeline. Liv couldn’t jeopardise that.

And if Mr Tyrell did happen to be the father of this baby...well, it wouldn’t be fair to call the authorities until after she’d spoken with him.

‘I’m going to ring your—my—boss and ask him what he wants to do about the situation. I’ll do my best to sound cool and efficient—’ like her twin ‘—but if I sound a tiny bit flustered I think, given the circumstances, that’ll be understandable.’

‘Oh, Liv, are you sure you don’t want me to come home? I can do my best to get back asap. Given this rotten plane strike, if Mr Tyrell is out of the country it could take him days to get home too. And in the meantime you could be literally left holding the baby on your own.’

‘Which sounds like more fun than doing government grant acquittals. There’s not been a peep from the little tyke. And before you ask—yes, she’s breathing. I checked. Besides, I love babies—you know that. And thankfully they’re not actually all that much trouble at this age.

‘Except for the four-hourly feeds and the sleep deprivation.’ Liv glanced down at the baby and grinned. ‘Not much sleep deprivation happening here. Besides, Mr Tyrell is bound to know who Baby Jemima is and what I should do with her. We’ll sort it out.’

‘I’m so, so sorry, Liv. If I’d thought for a moment that anything like this would happen, I’d have never asked you to fill in for me.’

‘I know. But don’t fear—I’ll muddle on through. You just focus on sorting things out at your end. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’

Liv hung up from her twin and tucked her phone back into her handbag. She stared again at the sleeping baby and bit her lip. It was usual for babies to sleep a lot, right? She touched her fingers to the baby’s forehead, but the baby didn’t feel hot or feverish.

What on earth was the poor little mite going to think when she woke up and found her mother gone? ‘Poor little chick.’

Right.

She planted herself in her office chair and pulled the phone towards her, punching in the contact number that Sebastian Tyrell had left...along with the instruction Only to be used in the direst of emergencies.

The phone rang three times before it was answered. ‘Ms Gilmour.’

‘Yes.’

‘I trust this is an emergency?’

The cold, clipped tones told her it had better be or there’d be hell to pay. She took an immediate dislike to the man. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

‘My parents...?’

His tone didn’t change and she disliked him even more. ‘To the best of my knowledge they’re in excellent health. This has nothing to do with your parents. It’s to do with—’

Baby Jemima chose that moment to let loose with a loud wail.

Heavens! Who knew something so small could produce a sound so fierce? She stood up to peer into the carrier—still perched on her desk where it’d been left—but the sight of Liv seemed to startle the baby further. Baby Jemima’s face turned red as she started crying in earnest.

Oh, heck!

Sebastian Tyrell’s voice boomed down the line at her. ‘Is there a baby in my office?’

Technically, it was her office.

Actually, it was Liz’s office.

‘Hey, there, little one, hush.’ She ran her hand across the baby blanket—over the baby’s tummy—in an effort to impart some comfort. ‘Shh, it’s OK.’ She spied the dummy pinned to the blanket and popped it into the baby’s mouth. Baby Jemima immediately stopped crying and sucked on it greedily. Oh! She must be hungry.

‘What is a baby doing in my office?’

She hated that voice—the cutting ice of it. ‘That, Se—sir...’ She quickly caught herself. Liz had told her that first names weren’t used in the office. Ever.

She closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. She had to keep her wits about her. Slip-ups were not allowed. She couldn’t let Liz down. It was Sebastian Tyrell’s reserve, his distance—both physical and emotional—that had made them believe they could pull this deception off. They could still pull it off. She and Liz were identical twins—at least on the outside. He’d never be able to tell them apart. She could do this.

‘Continue, Ms Gilmour. Stopping partway through a sentence is not only unprofessional, but irritating.’

Her chin shot up and her nostrils flared. ‘I was hoping you could shed light on this particular emergency, sir. You see, the baby is the emergency. It was left on my desk during my lunch hour...along with a letter for you.’

‘What?’

She held the phone a little further away from her ear and refrained from pointing out that deafening one’s office manager wasn’t particularly professional either. Or that having her eardrums blasted was seriously irritating.

‘You’ll have to excuse me for having read your letter, but I deemed the situation warranted it.’ She feared, though, that her tone told him she didn’t give a flying fig what he thought about her having read his letter.

Air hissed down the line at her. ‘Read it out loud.’

She did. Word for word. As few as they were.

Without being asked, she read the letter again, allowing him time to process it. She waited for him to respond. When he continued to remain silent she asked, ‘What would you like me to do?’

‘I’m thinking.’

She wanted to tell him to think faster. ‘Do you know baby Jemima?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know who her mother might be?’

‘Ms Gilmour, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop peppering me with questions.’

Jemima spat her pacifier out and set up a toothache-inducing wail. ‘Mr Tyrell, there’s a baby on my desk that is evidently hungry and probably in need of changing—a baby that has obviously been abandoned by its mother. You’ll have to excuse my impatience, I’m afraid.’ She pulled in a breath. ‘If you don’t know who this baby is or who she belongs to, then the sensible thing to do would be to contact the police and hand her over to Social Services.’

‘No!’

She blinked. So...maybe he did have a clue?

‘This child’s mother obviously thinks there’s some connection between us, between the baby and me.’

‘Or someone could be trying to take advantage of your aristocratic heritage,’ she felt honour-bound to point out. Sebastian was Lord Tyrell’s only son. The Tyrell family had that enormous estate in Lincolnshire. Not to mention a London house and a holiday villa somewhere on the Riviera.

She rubbed Jemima’s tummy again, and tried to entice her to take her dummy—unsuccessfully. If anything the volume of her cries only increased.

‘Going to the police has the potential to cause a scandal. The tabloids would have a field day.’

She rolled her eyes. What on earth was a scandal when a baby’s welfare was at stake?

‘And a scandal will affect the Tyrell Foundation. It’s on a knife-edge already. I don’t want to risk scaring away the benefactors I’ve been in negotiations with for the last few months. We’ve worked too hard for that.’

Sebastian’s charity wasn’t one of the glamorous ones featuring children or animals on their flyers. His charity assisted the recently unemployed in the over-fifties age bracket to find work.

From all that Liz had said, it was gruelling work too, and apparently Sebastian toiled like a Trojan. It wasn’t something she’d have expected from an aristocrat’s son.

We all have our peccadilloes, she reminded herself. She’d have never expected to be particularly fluent in office work, and yet here she was.

She tossed her head and gritted her teeth. She was glad she’d become skilled enough to help her sister out of a tight spot.

Baby Jemima’s continual crying scratched through her brain, making her temples throb. ‘Where on earth are you anyway?’

A heavy sigh came down the line. ‘Australia.’

‘Australia!’ She said a rude word.

‘Ms Gilmour, did you just swear?’ There was no censure in his voice, just astonishment.

‘I can’t stand this crying another second. I need to change and feed the baby. I’ll call you back.’

Without further ado, she hung up on him.

Don’t lose me my job, Livvy.

She grimaced before pouncing on the bag the absent mother had evidently packed for the baby. She’d searched it for clues earlier. It contained clothes, toys, nappies, formula and bottles, and, most importantly of all, a set of instructions. A quick glance at them told her that Jemima’s next feed had been due fifteen minutes ago.

She crooned nonsense at the baby as she changed and then fed her. ‘Don’t you worry, little snuggly-wuggly Jemima. We’ll have you fed and dry in no time. Would you like to hear a bit about me—my qualifications and what have you? Well, I’ll have you know that I was the go-to babysitter when I was in high school. And believe me there were plenty of tots in Sevenoaks, Kent. And since then I’ve been made a godmother—twice! Once to baby Bobby and once to baby Matilda. So you see, I do have credentials. You’re in safe hands.’

Jemima drank her bottle with an avid greed that made Liv laugh. ‘You’re simply lovely, little Jemima.’

The baby puked up on the sleeve of Liv’s blouse when Liv burped her, and then promptly fell asleep again.

‘Easy-peasy, nothing to it,’ Liv murmured, gently placing her in the carrier again. ‘If only I could curl up and go to sleep too. But no, not I. I now have to ring my sister’s boss and apologise for hanging up on him. Grovel if I have to so he won’t fire Liz. Wish me luck, little one.’

Without wasting any more time, she grabbed the phone and hit redial. It was picked up on the first ring. ‘I’m sorry I hung up so abruptly, but I had to—’

‘There’s no need to apologise, Ms Gilmour. The noise was driving me to distraction as well and I’m not even in the same country, let alone the same room. It all sounds quiet now, though.’

‘Baby Jemima has been changed and fed and, having thrown up on my blouse, is now blissfully asleep. All’s well in Baby Land.’

‘I’ll replace your blouse.’

She blinked. ‘That won’t be necessary. It’ll wash out.’ She stared down at the sleeping baby and something inside her chest clenched. ‘She really is the sweetest little thing. Would you like me to send you a photo?’

‘Why?’

She shook herself. What was she thinking? Sebastian Tyrell didn’t sound like the kind of man who oohed and aahed over cute baby pictures. ‘Maybe...maybe she looks like her mother and that’ll give you a clue to the baby’s identity.’

‘I...uh... OK.’

She was grasping at straws and they both knew it. Nevertheless she took a picture on her phone and sent it through to him.

A long silence ensued. ‘Babies all look the same to me.’

She bit her lip. ‘You don’t have much experience with babies, do you?’

‘No.’

She drummed her fingers against her desk. He’d ruled out the police, so... ‘Do you want me to organise a nanny or some kind of babysitting service?’

‘I may not know much about babies but I know business. Questions will be asked and the answers recorded. The baby’s full details will need to be provided—a birth certificate may need to be produced.’

She doubted an actual birth certificate would be required, but she caught the gist of his concerns. They didn’t know Jemima’s full details. They barely knew any details at all! And if he was the baby’s father...

Another long silence ensued—a silence that started to burn and chafe through her. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’ll consider this any kind of solution, but Jemima can stay with me until you get back to London. How does that sound?’

‘It sounds perfect.’

His relief was evident and it occurred to her now that those long silences of his had been strategic devices to lead her to the point of making this precise offer. She didn’t know whether to be outraged or not.

‘I understand this is a great imposition on you, Ms Gilmour, and you have my sincere gratitude.’

She chose not to be outraged.

‘I also understand that you can’t be expected to perform both nanny duties and office duties at the same time. Please organise a temp to take over in your absence. Judith performs her duties ably, but...’ He trailed off. ‘The woman you arranged to come in while you were on holiday was very good.’

‘I’ll check with the agency and see if she’s available.’ Playing nanny would be far more fun than playing office manager. And she couldn’t help thinking that the further away from the office she was, the less the likelihood of her and Liz’s deception being detected.

Win-win.

She glanced at the sleeping baby. Except what was baby Jemima winning? Nothing. She faced upheaval and an uncertain future. She bit back a sigh. Thankfully the baby was blissfully unaware of that fact.

‘I hope your mother is all right,’ she murmured.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Oops! ‘Oh... I was talking to the baby, but... Her mother must’ve felt in the direst of straits to leave her baby like this.’

And she’d left her baby in the care of Sebastian Tyrell. What did that show?

That she trusted him?

She swallowed. That he was the father?

‘I’d prefer it, Ms Gilmour, if you refrained from enacting a Cheltenham tragedy.’

Her chin shot up. ‘To be perfectly frank with you, sir, I’m not sure it much matters what you’d prefer. I’d have preferred not to have come back from lunch to find an anonymous baby abandoned on my desk. There’s not only a mystery to solve—’ who was the child’s mother ‘—but a couple of serious issues to be dealt with too. I can’t help feeling time is of the essence.’

Don’t lose me my job, Livvy.

She grimaced and waited for him to take her to task for her insolence. He didn’t. Instead there was that darn silence again. She suddenly laughed. ‘You don’t feel that you can reprimand me at the moment because you’re in my debt.’

‘I have no wish to reprimand you. You’re worried, understandably so, and I share your concerns. I will own, however, to a little...surprise over your fieriness.’

She winced. She needed to tread carefully—channel her more level-headed sibling. ‘Babies bring it out in me,’ she offered weakly.

‘I see.’

‘I should go and let you make your travel arrangements.’ She blinked. ‘I mean...you are planning to return immediately, aren’t you?’ She’d simply taken that for granted.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Or perhaps you’d like me to organise your travel arrangements?’ She gave a silent scream. Were they part of her job description? She had no idea.

‘The arrangements are already underway.’

The tap-tapping noises in the background suddenly made sense. She wondered how many devices he had open in front of him besides his phone—his tablet and laptop perhaps? Those strategic silences suddenly took on a different complexion.

A moment later she dismissed that thought. No, she’d bet her life on the fact that Sebastian Tyrell was a master of the strategic pause.

‘I’ll be back in London as soon as I can.’

‘Travel safe, sir.’

‘Wait!’

She wanted away from him—now! Though she couldn’t explain why. ‘Yes?’

‘I’d like you and the baby to move into my house on Regent’s Park.’

Not a chance! ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tyrell, but I’m not comfortable with that. I’ll go back to my—’ she gulped back the word sister’s, covered it with a cough ‘—flat. I know where everything is there.’

‘I—’

‘Please don’t waste time arguing with me.’

‘Very well.’

She winced at the tightness of his voice.

‘You’re going to incur expenses—the baby will need things. Please charge them to my personal account. I insist that I take care of all the expenses.’

‘OK, will do.’ She made a mental note to keep all receipts.

‘I hope to see you very soon, Ms Gilmour.’

And then he was gone. Liv scowled at the receiver, miffed beyond measure that she hadn’t had the chance to hang up first. She dropped the receiver back into its cradle. ‘I can hardly wait.’

* * *

Liv sat bolt upright in bed and grabbed her phone before it could ring again. The clock by the bed read five forty-four a.m. Please don’t have woken the baby! She held her breath but no answering wail met her expectant ears. Thank you, God!

‘What?’ she growled into the phone without the slightest bit of grace. It was too early and she was too tired.

‘Ms Gilmour?’

Oh, God! ‘Mr Tyrell?’

A sigh heaved down the phone. ‘For the last five minutes I’ve been knocking on your door. I understand that it’s early, but I’m starting to worry that I’m disturbing your neighbours.’

‘Don’t you dare wake the baby!’ she whisper-hissed at him. ‘Don’t make another sound on threat of...of something dire!’

She leapt out of bed and shot to the front door of Liz’s flat, reefing it open as quietly as she could. Her finger halted halfway to her lips when she took in the man that stood on the other side. Six feet two inches of solid-muscled man stood there, bristling with square-jawed arrogance and wide-legged impatience. Dark chestnut hair, lighter on the ends, stood up at odd angles as if he’d repeatedly run his hand through it. She had to fight the impulse to reach out and smooth it down.

She swallowed. Liz had never mentioned how handsome Sebastian Tyrell was. Why not? A pulse started up in her throat, making her breath choppy and uneven. Sebastian Tyrell wasn’t merely handsome—the man was hot with a capital H!

‘I know I look a mess,’ he growled. ‘But you could have the manners to pretend to not notice. I’ve come directly from the airport, and it’s taken me more than fifty hours to get here, so what do you expect? And, I might add, you don’t look much better.’

Dear God, she was standing in the open doorway in her pyjamas. They were perfectly respectable. They covered everything adequately. Some would argue more than adequately.

He continued to stare at her. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

She tried to smooth it down. It probably looked like a rat’s nest, though she knew that wasn’t what he referred to. ‘A...a change is as good as a holiday,’ she mumbled.

He looked as if he were going to say something more, but then blinked and shook himself. ‘Are you going to let me in?’

‘You cannot wake the baby.’

* * *

Sebastian took in the martial light in his office manager’s eyes and raised both hands. ‘Understood.’

He’d never seen Ms Gilmour so...undone, if that was the correct term. He could barely discern a trace of his cool, efficient office manager in the woman in front of him. Granted, he’d never knocked on her door at the crack of dawn and dragged her from her bed either.

And then there was her hair!

It took all his strength not to reach out and touch it, to track a strand’s length to see if it contained some kind of magic.

He rolled his shoulders—jet lag.