Beauty? Hook him? Charming! At that point Phinn was in two minds about whether or not she wanted the job. She felt sorry for Ash—of course she did. As for her cousin…she was feeling quite angry with Leanne. But…then Phinn thought of Ruby, and at the thought of a stable and a paddock there was no question but that she wanted the job.
‘I haven’t the first idea what a paid companion is supposed to do…I mean, what would I have to do? You wouldn’t expect me to take him down to the pub and get drunk with him every night, I hope?’
‘You like beer?’ he asked sharply.
‘No!’ she shot straight back.
‘You’d been drinking this afternoon,’ he retorted, obviously not caring to be lied to. ‘There was a smell of beer on your breath.’
‘Honestly!’ she exclaimed. And she was thinking of working for this man who could sniff out beer at a hundred paces! But what choice did she have? ‘If you must know, I hate the stuff. But I’ve been having a courtesy swig out of Idris Owens’ beer tankard ever since I was ten years old—it’s a sort of tradition, each time I go to the farrier. It would have been churlish to refuse his offer when I took Ruby to have her hooves checked over by him this afternoon.’
For a moment Ty Allardyce said nothing, just sat there looking at her. Then he said quietly, ‘Rather than hurt his feelings, you quaffed ale that you’ve no particular liking for?’
‘So what does that make me?’ she challenged, expecting something pretty pithy in reply.
But, to her surprise, he replied in that same quiet tone. ‘I think it makes you a rather nice kind of person.’ And she was struck again by the change in him from the man she had thought he was.
‘Yes, well…’ she said abruptly—grief, she’d be going soft in the head about him in a minute. Buck up, she instructed herself. This man could be ironhard and unyielding without any trouble. Hadn’t she witnessed that for herself? ‘So I’m—er—to take over the sort of guardianship of Ash from you while you—um—go about your business?’
‘Not quite,’ Ty replied. ‘What I believe Ash needs just now is to be with someone who will be a sensitive ear for him when he needs to talk. Someone to take him out of himself when he looks like becoming a little melancholy.’
‘You think I’ve got a sensitive ear?’
Again he looked steadily at her. ‘You’ll do,’ he said. And he would have left it at that, but there were questions queuing up in Phinn’s mind.
‘You think it will take as long as six months for Ash to—um—get back to being his old self?’
‘Hopefully nowhere near as long. Who knows? Whatever—I’m prepared to guarantee stabling and a place for you to rest your head for the whole six months.’
‘Fine,’ she said.
‘You’ll start tomorrow?’
And how! ‘You’d better let me have your phone number,’ she requested, overjoyed, now it had had time to sink in, that by the look of it Ruby was going to have a proper stable and a paddock all to herself.
‘Why would you want my phone number?’ Ty asked shortly.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she erupted at her new boss. ‘So I can ring Ash and ask him to come and pick me up with my belongings. I can bring Ruby over later.’
‘You want to inspect her accommodation first?’
‘I’d—er—have put it a little more tactfully,’ she mumbled. ‘But, yes, that’s the general idea. I could still ask Mickie if you don’t want Ash to do it.’
‘Who’s Mickie?’
‘He lives in the village. He’s a bit eccentric, but he has a heart of gold. He—er—’ She broke off—that was more than he needed to know.
She quickly realised that she should have known better. ‘“He—er—” what?’
Phinn gave a resigned sigh. ‘Well, if you must know, I’d already arranged for Mickie to take my cases and bits and pieces up to Honeysuckle Farm for me tomorrow.’
Ty Allardyce shook his head, as though she was a new kind of species to him. ‘Presumably he would have kept quiet about your whereabouts?’
‘Well, there you are,’ she said briskly, about nothing, and then fell headlong when, in the same bracing tone, she said, ‘Had I not sold my car, I…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Well, I did,’ she added quickly. And then, hurriedly attempting to close the interview—or whatever it was, ‘So I’ll get Mickie to—’
‘You sold your car?’ Ty Allardyce took up.
‘Yep.’ He didn’t need to hear more.
And nor did he, she discovered. Because what this clever man did not know he was astute enough to decipher and guess at. ‘According to my lawyers, you paid a whole whack of back rent before you handed in the keys to the farm,’ he commented slowly. Adding, ‘Had I thought about it at all, I’d have assumed that the money came from your father’s estate. But—’ he looked at her sharply ‘—it didn’t, did it?’
She shrugged. ‘What did I need a car for? I thought I’d got a steady job here—no need to look for work further afield. Besides, I couldn’t leave Ruby on her own all day.’ Phinn halted, she’d had enough of talking about herself. ‘Have you told Ash that you were going to offer me a job?’
Ty looked at her unspeaking for some moments, and then replied, ‘No.’
She saw it might be a little awkward if Ash objected strongly. ‘How do you think he’ll take my moving in to be his companion?’ No point in ducking the question. If Ash did not want her there, then the next six months could be pretty miserable all round.
‘My brother feels things very deeply,’ Ty began. ‘He has been hurt—badly hurt. In my view it would be easier for him if he didn’t know the true reason for your being at the Hall.’
‘I wouldn’t be able to lie to him,’ Phinn said quickly. ‘I’m not very good at telling lies.’
‘You wouldn’t have to lie.’
Phinn looked into steady grey eyes and felt somewhat perplexed. ‘What, then?’ she asked. ‘I can’t just ring him out of the blue and ask him to come and get me.’
‘It won’t be a problem,’ Ty assured her. ‘Ash knows that you and Ruby have to leave here. I’ll tell him that, apropos of you having nowhere to go, I called to thank you for what you did today and offered you a temporary home.’
Phinn’s eyes widened. ‘You think he’ll believe such philanthropy?’ she queried—and discovered that her hint of sarcasm was not lost on him.
‘My stars, I pity the poor man who ends up with you!’ he muttered under his breath, but then agreed, ‘Normally I doubt he’d believe it for a moment. But, apart from him not being too concerned about anything very much just now, he’s as grateful to you as I am that you were where you were today.’ The matter settled as far as he was concerned, he took out his wallet, extracted his business card, wrote several numbers on it and, standing up, handed it to her.
Phinn glanced at the card in her hand and read that he had given her his office number, his mobile number, the phone number of his London home and the one she had asked for—the number of the Hall.
‘No need to have gone raving mad,’ she commented. She had only wanted one telephone number, for goodness’ sake!
‘Just in case,’ he said, and she realised he meant her to ring him