When Robin helped with the selling, trade always improved, because Robin jollied the customers. The market was popular; customers arrived from miles around. When Robin smiled at them most folk smiled back, and in no time she would be helping them find a bargain.
Mrs Myson had been on the charity stall the morning Robin had been buying a little china ballerina, for a friend’s birthday, from the bric-a-brac section. ‘I used to have red hair. Not as beautiful as yours, but red,’ the old lady serving had told her. Robin had liked her on sight. Her gaiety of spirit had made a little bond between them and Robin had looked out for her in the months that had followed.
Mrs Myson was usually on the charity stall. She turned up for all sorts of good causes, from a country ravaged by war or drought or earthquakes to the local cats’ home. And although she was always cheerful Robin wondered if she had a lonely life outside her charity fund-raising.
If the old lady lived in this house and the powerful Marc Hammond was watching out for her, she was hardly alone, but Robin felt she would have quite enjoyed being Maybelle Myson’s companion. There was a refreshing spark of devilment in the old lady, and when Marc said, ‘You work on a charity stall?’ as if he couldn’t believe that Robin would be helping anybody but herself, Mrs Myson defended her indignantly.
‘Yes, Robin has helped on the stall.’ A couple of times when Robin had found Mrs Myson alone and busy she had given a hand. ‘And last week she helped us pack up when we had that cloudburst.’ Mrs Myson was still holding Robin’s hands. ‘You are taking the job?’
‘I’ve already been turned down.’ Robin smiled as she spoke because it was best to treat this lightly.
‘Why?’ Mrs Myson was bewildered, looking at Marc for an explanation.
‘The idea is to find you a congenial companion who can drive a car and keep an eye on you,’ he said wearily. ‘I know you think you could still ferry a raft up the Amazon but you need reminding that you are eighty-two years old, and I have no intention of letting you loose with a juvenile delinquent.’
‘What did you say?’ Robin glared; she couldn’t help it. ‘I am not a juvenile.’ Not even a teenager. Twenty years old today, and so far it had been the kind of birthday she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. ‘Nor am I a delinquent,’ she snapped. ‘I could sue you for saying that.’
‘Only if you got yourself a very good lawyer.’ That had to be a joke of sorts; Marc Hammond, head of Hammond and Hammond, was the smartest lawyer she was ever likely to meet.
Deadpan, she said, ‘Ha, ha.’ And Mrs Myson protested.
‘That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, Marc. What’s so unsuitable about Robin? Why shouldn’t she be—’ she pulled a face as if this was a silly description ‘—a lady’s companion?’
He showed real exasperation for the first time, his voice suddenly harsh, ‘For God’s sake, look at her.’
Robin knew what he meant by that. Her hair was so bright a red that only those who had known her since she was a child believed that it was natural, and she wore it almost waist-length. But even when it was tucked away under a hat Robin Johnson was still a knockout. She had a model girl’s long-legged figure, with high cheekbones, a wide mouth and restless green eyes. Without deliberately doing a thing, Robin was a stirrer. Around her, life quickened and sometimes got out of hand.
She knew how she was looking now—her cheeks flushed and her eyes glinting, because Marc Hammond had that effect on her—but Mrs Myson seemed to see nothing wrong in her appearance. ‘I can’t believe you’d turn Robin down just because she’s young,’ Mrs Myson said.
Marc Hammond smiled at that. Cynically. And his voice was sarcastic, as he said, ‘I take back the juvenile; I’m sure Miss Johnson is old for her years.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Robin muttered. She managed to get one hand free from Mrs Myson, who had a very firm grip for someone in her eighties.
‘But you still think she might be too hot to handle?’ Mrs Myson was teasing Marc and he was looking at her with amused tolerance.
‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘She certainly was last time.’
‘Last time?’ the elderly lady echoed.
‘When she worked for me,’ said Marc Hammond. ‘Briefly.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Myson was smiling. ‘This has to mean there was some sort of trouble.’
‘There would have been,’ he said drily, and Robin flared up.
‘Don’t make it sound as if I was robbing the till.’
There had been no tills in that office. Hammond and Hammond were the top law firm in town, the building they occupied was one of the most impressive, and Robin had arrived there as a trainee receptionist.
And had met Marc Hammond. She had seen him crossing the foyer—a tall, dark, strikingly good-looking man. He had come across, looked hard at her and welcomed her to the firm. She had gulped, feeling her breath catch in her throat, and she had still been holding her breath when he’d walked away. After that he hadn’t seemed to notice her at all until her first Friday.
Others had. A studious, bespectacled junior clerk had fancied her from the first day, and when Robin had had lunch with him he had gone back to the office on cloud nine. He’d even grinned at the husky biker in studded leather who had been leaning on the counter under the disapproving eye of the senior receptionist, until the biker had come over and knocked him flat.
The clerk’s first impression was that here was a homicidal maniac, and for the first time in his life, and probably the last, he started frantically to fight back.
Robin shrieked. She knew the biker. She had had a very brief fling with him and wanted no more. She yelled, ‘Stop it, you idiots,’ but the biker went on throwing the punches and, seeing blood, the receptionist gave a high-pitched scream that went on and on.
Hammond and Hammond was a law firm. Folk came into their offices carrying a load of grief and resentment, but there had never been a scene as physically violent as this, a rough and tumble between two men, fists and feet flying, and a girl with long flaming red hair dodging around screaming their names and trying to shove them apart.
When Marc Hammond came down the stairs Robin didn’t see him until he yanked the biker away and threw him through the door into the street. Jack was two hundred and ten pounds but he went out bodily, hardly touching the ground.
Then Hammond turned on his employees. ‘Right, you two—in my office,’ he said.
The receptionist was moaning now, staring at the spots of blood on Robin’s white shirt. There was more on the junior clerk because it was his nose which was bleeding, although it didn’t show up on his dark suit. He dug into his pocket for a tissue, trying to staunch the flow as they trailed after Marc Hammond, through a small, empty office into a large room with panelled walls and a huge desk with a black leather top.
Hammond closed the door and Robin thought that she and the clerk must look a wretched pair. Tony had realised he had been fighting with Robin’s boyfriend in front of Hammond himself and that this was probably going to cost him his job. His nose was sore, and he’d lost his glasses, so that he could hardly see. But he could see enough for Marc Hammond, still immaculate and cool as a cucumber, to look more formidable than a gang of roughnecks.
Robin was flushed and breathing fast, her hair all over the place, and miserably aware that most of this was her fault. The young man blinked, head ducked. Robin looked up at Marc Hammond and wondered if there was any way she could plead for her colleague.
‘You’d better clean up and go home for the day,’ he said.
‘Yessir,’