Boss Meets Baby(102)
‘I wouldn’t read too much into it,’ Keir said, deliberately— pushing his hands into the pockets of his light coloured chinos, as if signalling that he wouldn’t be paying the animal any undue attention while he was there. He had agreed to her request to bring the dog with her, and that should be enough. ‘He’s just grateful to be let out. You can walk anywhere, but I’d be glad if you kept the dog away from the flowerbeds. Is your stuff in the boot? All the staff in the house are busy, so I’ll take it upstairs to your room. It’s on the second floor. I’ll leave the door open so that you know which one it is. Dinner is at eight, and I like people to be prompt. Enjoy your walk.’
Her smile gone, Georgia frowned and murmured, ‘Thanks.’ And if the withdrawal of that smile made Keir feel as if he’d deliberately deprived himself of something extraordinary, then he told himself he deserved it. Watching her collect Hamish’s lead from her handbag beside the driver’s seat and walk away, he— opened the car boot and lifted out her luggage to carry it into the house.
Freshly showered after her walk round the grounds with Hamish, Georgia sat on the bed in her room and examined the employment contract Keir had left for her to sign. He didn’t waste much time, did he? What did he think she was going to do? Run away after driving since the early hours of the morning to get here?
Even though she might have briefly entertained the thought, after the distinctly frosty way he’d shut down on her following her remark about Hamish liking him, Georgia was not about to give him the satisfaction. She would show Keir Strachan, Laird of Glenteign, that she was a reliable, efficient and skilled worker—and most of all that she kept her word when a promise was made.
Signing her name with a deliberate flourish, she laid the paperwork aside, then shook her damp hair free from the towel she’d wrapped it in. Pushing her fingers through the dark slippery strands, she let her gaze wander over her new surroundings. The room was the height of elegance, with plenty of loving feminine touches everywhere—from the rose-pink velvet curtains, with their matching gathered tiebacks and deep swags, to the rather grand mahogany dressing table with its gleaming surfaces, ornate lace doilies and sparkling oval-shaped mirror. The drowsy scent of late summer pervaded the air, and there was a breathtaking bouquet of white roses in a pink vase arranged on top of a polished satinwood chiffonier that made Georgia’s heart skip with pleasure.
She wondered who had been responsible for such a delightful touch. Noah had told her that Keir wasn’t married, so it must be some other female…Georgia felt vaguely annoyed that she was even speculating about it at all. She should be concentrating on getting ready to present herself to her new boss; that was what she should be doing!
Jumping up, she went to fetch her hairdryer from her almost empty suitcase. Realising that it was almost ten to eight, an unwelcome twist of anxiety knotted her stomach at the recollection that her new employer expected people to be ‘prompt’ for dinner. Trying to quell the feeling of rebellion that the thought surprisingly inspired, she turned her mind instead to the prospect of meeting the other staff who worked in the house.
Noah had told her how fond he’d grown of Keir’s housekeeper, Moira Guthrie, while he’d worked there, and if the woman was as friendly as he had described— then perhaps she needn’t be as daunted as she was feeling at present at the idea of living in such a grand, impressive residence. Not to mention acting as secretary to a man who appeared to welcome gestures of friendliness with about as much enthusiasm— as finding a viper in his bed!
Unlike her bedroom, the dining room had plenty of masculine touches in evidence—from the array of shining swords placed strategically round the walls to the several portraits of presumably past lairds who overlooked the proceedings with a definitely superior— air. Breathtakingly impressive, the room was decorated in true baronial splendour. In fact, as she’d followed the very amiable Moira Guthrie inside, Georgia had half expected a fanfare to sound.
She bit down on her lip to suppress a smile. Under its high-raftered ceilings and candle sconces on the walls, and seated at the long refectory table with its burnished silverware and elegant cream dinner service, it was easy to imagine herself transported to a much more elegant and mannered era. All this finery was a far cry from Georgia and Noah’s ridiculously small dining room at home, with its wellused pine table bought at a local second-hand store, and— the four matching chairs that were in urgent need of refurbishment…
Glancing briefly down at her simple pink cotton dress, worn with the heart-shaped rose quartz pendant that her mother had left her, Georgia couldn’t help musing that her employer might expect much more elegant attire in her dressing for dinner in his imposing house. Oh, well…Noah hadn’t seemed to worry about such things, and nor should she. Neither of them had ever been able to afford elegant clothes even if they’d desired them. Most of the time they had been too busy just trying to survive.
Bereft of both parents since Noah was fourteen, Georgia, just five years his senior, had taken over her brother’s care from that too young age, and worrying about finances had dominated her life for more years than she cared to remember. Even to the point of sacrificing— any opportunity for a loving relationship, according— to her concerned friends. But there was no real sacrifice in Georgia’s mind. She would do it all again tomorrow if she had to. Still, she couldn’t deny that the valuable commission to help work on the gardens at Glenteign had literally arrived in the nick of time.