‘But you thought I’d take it in my stride?’
‘I think you take most things in your stride, Hester.’
She smiled a little. ‘After years of looking after other people’s children, I should have the knack by now.’
Connah smiled back as he put his empty cup in the sink. ‘Am I forgiven for the security check?’
When he smiled like that she could forgive him anything. ‘I expected one for myself as a matter of course. But no one’s ever checked up on my family before.’
‘Will you do me a great favour?’ he asked, surprising her.
‘If I can,’ she said cautiously.
‘I assume that your mother knows I’m the man who came knocking on her door in the snow all those years ago?’
‘Of course. I rushed home to tell her after the first interview—’ Hester halted. ‘By the way, if you saw me at the Chesterton, may I ask why you interviewed me twice?’
‘The first time was to make sure that my first impression was right, and you were exactly what I was looking for. But I had to wait for the security check before I could call you back to offer you the job.’
‘I see.’ She held the look steadily. ‘So what favour do you need?’
‘Have you told your family I had them investigated?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Good. In that case, could you keep it to yourself? Your stepfather would probably just be furious, but your mother would be hurt. I don’t want that any more than you do, Hester.’
‘Then I won’t tell her.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘Can I cook you some breakfast?’
‘Coals of fire?’ Connah smiled crookedly. ‘It’s a tempting thought, but no, thanks. I must be on my way. If you need to speak to me while I’m away, ring me.’
‘I hope I won’t.’
‘I know you do,’ he said, and left her to her tea.
‘Good morning,’ said Sam, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘Did you see the boss before he left?’
‘Yes, I did. Good morning, Sam.’ She finished her tea. ‘There’s more in the pot if you want. I’d better check on Lowri. She was out for the count when I got up.’
Hester smiled wryly as she went up to Lowri. The job had an unexpected benefit. Three flights of stairs would do wonders for her personal fitness.
Lowri was still out for the count. Hester eyed the sleeping face for a moment, then scribbled a note to ask Lowri to come down for breakfast when she woke. With the radio for company, Hester had ironed half the contents of the trunk by the time the yawning child finally trailed into the kitchen in her dressing gown.
‘Good morning,’ said Hester, smiling. ‘How about scrambled eggs?’
Lowri nodded sleepily. ‘Yes, please.’ She slid into a chair at the table, watching as Hester folded the ironing board. ‘Has Daddy gone?’
‘Yes, he left very early.’
‘Do you know when he’s coming back?’
‘He didn’t say.’ Hester poured orange juice into Lowri’s glass. ‘But cheer up. He said yes to a visit to my mother and Robert.’
Lowri’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘When? Today?’
‘No, tomorrow for tea. Today we go shopping for clothes. Then we have some lunch and shop for food. How’s that for a programme?’
‘At last!’ said Lowri when Hester emerged from her own room later in a navy cotton shirt and white denim skirt. ‘You look nice. Can I buzz Sam now and say we’re ready to go?’
The morning was tiring but very entertaining. Let loose in a shopping mall packed with chain stores full of clothes that sent her into raptures, Lowri looked through every last bit of merchandise in each shop they went into, it seemed to Hester, before she made her final choices. But though Connah had handed over a generous sum of money, Hester firmly steered her charge past shops that sold expensive designer clothes.
‘You’ll be tired of them or have grown out of them, long before you get your money’s worth,’ she said practically. ‘And with those long legs everything will look good on you, anyway. With shoes it’s different, no economising there.’
‘Trainers?’ said Lowri hopefully.
‘Of course. And something less sporty too.’
‘Not school shoes!’
‘No. At least not yet. We leave those until the end of the holiday.’
They loaded their packages on to a patient Sam, then made for a café to wait while he stowed everything in the car.
Not sure of the protocol, Hester was relieved to hear that Sam had always lunched with Lowri and Alice during shopping trips near Bryn Derwen.
‘But Alice is married now, to Owen’s father,’ said Lowri as she downed her drink thirstily. ‘Owen’s mother died when he was little, and his grandma brought him up, just like me. But she’s got arthritis now, so Mr Griffiths married Alice.’
‘That’s nice for Owen,’ said Hester.
Lowri nodded sagely. ‘Alice used to take me to the farm a lot, so Owen’s known her for ages. He thinks she’s cool. It’s a very good arrangement, Grandma says.’
Not least for Mr Griffiths, thought Hester, and looked up with a smile as Sam came in to join them.
‘Good,’ said Lowri. ‘Let’s eat!’
When Hester finally got to bed that night she stretched out with a sigh of relief, confident that she’d made a reasonable start with Lowri. There’d been an awkward moment at suppertime when the child had wanted Sam to stay and eat his lasagna in the kitchen with them, but he’d refused, saying he liked to read the paper while he ate his dinner and, in any case, he couldn’t leave the monitors that long.
‘You leave them when you come out with us,’ Lowri had pointed out mutinously, but he told her that was different and he had to get going or his dinner would be cold.
It was different, Hester could have told Lowri, because when he was out with them, Sam had Lowri under his watchful eye all the time. Here in the house, his job was to keep unwanted visitors away for the same reason. But Hester also had an idea that Sam refused to cross a line he saw as clearly defined. Connah thought a great deal of Sam Cooper, it was obvious, but the relationship on both sides was still very much employer and valued employee. And, since Connah had elected to dine in the kitchen when he was at home, it would have been awkward if Lowri had expected Sam to join them.
We’d have made an ill-assorted quartet, thought Hester wryly. In her former job, the question of eating with her employers had never arisen. They were both successful actors with working hours that varied according to the film or television series they were involved in. It was Hester who’d made the children’s supper. The three-year-old Herrick twins, Sebastian and Viola, were engaging children Hester had been very fond of. But when their parents won lead roles in an American television series, nothing they could say would persuade Hester to accompany the family to Los Angeles.
Hester sighed as she stared through the window at the stars. After a job in a theatrical household, her next post would be very different. George Rutherford, her new employer, owned a very successful haulage firm. His wife Sarah was still helping him run it, seven months into her first pregnancy at the age of