Caro thought of the self-contained man who’d interrogated her across the desk and tried to imagine him with this precious little girl. She couldn’t conjure the image, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care. He was protective of Ariane.
‘Here.’ She held out Caro’s capacious bag.
‘Thank you.’ Caro barely stopped herself calling the child by her name. ‘My name is Caro. Can you say that?’
‘Caro. That’s easy.’
‘And what’s your name?’
‘Ariane.’
‘What a pretty name.’
‘My daddy said he and Mummy picked it because I was so pretty.’ Those big eyes filled with tears and Ariane’s chin wobbled.
Caro’s excitement shattered, her insides curdling. Ariane had lost her parents. She was grieving.
‘I can see that,’ Caro said slowly as she reached for her bag and began to rummage in it. ‘I know some girls in St Ancilla who are called Ariane. They’re named for a famous lady. She was very pretty, but more importantly she was kind and brave too.’
‘She was?’ Ariane blinked up at her, diverted.
‘Oh, yes. She lived a long time ago before there were good hospitals and medicines. When all the people were very sick from a bad illness the lords and ladies shut themselves away because they were afraid they would get sick too. But Ariane came out of her castle and visited the poor people. She made sure they had food and clean water and helped them get better.’
‘I want to be like her. I want to help.’
‘Well,’ Caro said slowly, withdrawing a scarf from her bag, ‘you can get some practice now, helping Maxim. Here. Can you hold his arm like this?’
Ariane nodded and stood by Caro’s knee, head bent as she concentrated on holding the bear and his arm in just the right way. Caro felt the brush of her soft little hand. A flutter of sensation rippled up Caro’s arm, arrowing to her heart. She tugged in a tremulous breath and focused on fashioning the scarf into a sling.
There’d be time for emotion later, when she was alone. She couldn’t give in to it now. That would be self-indulgent, besides scaring a child who knew her only as a stranger.
But as Caro knotted the scarf, her attention wasn’t on the bear but on Ariane, whose world had been ripped apart. Who needed stability, kindness and above all love.
Caro vowed that, whatever it took, she would be the one to provide that.
Jake stood in the doorway, watching the pair with their heads bent over the teddy bear.
There was nothing especially arresting about the sight. Yet there was something about the woman and the girl together that hit him like a fist to the ribs.
Because it should have been his sister Connie here with Ariane?
Jake released a slow breath from searing lungs.
That went without saying. He’d give everything he had to see Connie here, alive and well. But this skitter of preternatural awareness didn’t spring from loss. Or not loss alone.
What was it about this pair that stopped him in his tracks?
They spoke Ancillan so he didn’t understand their conversation. Yet he’d understood Ariane’s sadness and the way Caro Rivage had directed the conversation, allaying the tears he’d seen brim in his niece’s eyes.
His confidence in this woman as a potential nanny soared. Anyone who could make Ariane smile these days was good in his book. He liked Ms Rivage’s sensitivity, the deft way she’d handled what looked like a fraught moment.
Not that he was ready to give her the job. Her qualifications were laughably light compared with some of the experts who’d worked in the field for decades.
Jake frowned, watching her wind something around the teddy’s arm, murmuring to Ariane.
There was something there he couldn’t put his finger on. Some...similarity between them. His nape prickled as instinct stirred.
It wasn’t their colouring. Ariane’s was vibrant whereas Caro Rivage had dull brown hair and dark brown eyes. Ariane’s face was heart-shaped and Caro Rivage’s was oval. Yet the slanting set of their eyes looked similar and maybe something around the shape of the nose.
He shook his head as his brain cleared. There was no link. It was merely the way they worked together, both intent, both speaking Ancillan. He imagined things.
For some reason his sixth sense had worked overtime ever since Caro Rivage arrived. So much that after the phone call he’d checked her application again at Neil’s desk, looking for anomalies. But there was nothing that didn’t fit. The references and qualifications of all the shortlisted applicants, including Ms Rivage, had already been checked.
His first assessment had been right. She was ordinary, not outstanding.
Jake always chose outstanding. He didn’t have time for ordinary. That was how he’d built his business and his personal fortune, through excellence. Yet he couldn’t stifle the idea that perhaps it wasn’t outstanding Ariane needed but someone ordinary. Someone to help her grope her way back to normalcy after her trauma.
He frowned. That was crazy. He wanted the best for Ariane.
Jake ploughed his fingers through his hair. Maybe he was oversensitive when it came to choosing Ariane’s nanny. This wasn’t like his usual decisions. Then there was nothing at risk but money, albeit lots of it.
Where his niece was concerned, Jake refused to take risks. She’d been through enough. He thought of his sister and brother-in-law’s car, crushed almost to nothing by a massive tree brought down in a storm. It was a miracle Ariane had survived when her parents died.
He owed it to her and Connie to keep her safe.
He stepped into the room. Instantly the woman in brown jerked her head up, those impenetrable eyes locking on his.
What was it about her that made his hackles rise?
Clearly, despite her apparent absorption in the child, she was attuned to his presence. Jake didn’t know whether that was good or suspicious.
Or maybe, the idea surfaced again as their eyes held and his chest expanded on a deep breath, it wasn’t suspicion tugging at him. Could it be attraction?
Jake dismissed the idea. Caro Rivage might have fine features and a certain understated elegance, and poise...definitely poise. But Jake preferred more in his women. Eye-catching beauty and scintillating personalities for starters. Jake didn’t date dull sparrows.
Nor did he mix work and pleasure. No dating the staff.
He stopped before them, jaw firming. She wasn’t staff. Not yet. Probably never.
‘What happened to Maxim? Is he okay?’
Ariane looked up and he caught a fleeting smile. His niece was pleased to see him, even if not pleased enough to hug him. He stifled a pang of regret.
He couldn’t blame her. He was still almost a stranger. His trips to St Ancilla hadn’t been frequent and though he’d stayed with Connie and her family, he’d usually worked during the day when Ariane was awake.
‘His arm came off. But Caro can fix him. We need...’ She turned to the woman.
‘Thread. Wool to sew his arm on.’
Ariane nodded. ‘Wool. Do you have wool, Uncle Jake? Please? Then we can make him better.’ Pleading eyes turned to him and Jake felt that familiar stab of