Page 4 of Gold Digger
Still no movement.
“I promise I don’t bite,” said a smiling Margot. “Hmm, if you don’t come down, I’ll have to eat all the cookies the cook made myself, and then my bottom will be even fatter, andthenI won’t be able to ride my horse, Bertie.” I heard a shuffling from above at that. It would have been talk of horses and not the cookies that tempted her out. Hayley was obsessed with horses. We watched as her little face appeared between the banisters, her wide eyes flicking between Margot and me. “Come on then,” said Margot smartly. “You’re needed to save my bottom and Bertie’s back, remember?” Hayley looked at me. When I nodded, she turned and started to make her way down the stairs.
“Careful, Hails,” I said, and she looked at me, raising her eyebrows as if to sayI’m not a complete clumsy idiot like you.I can make it down a set of stairs without making a complete numpty of myself.I scowled at her.
“I got distracted, okay? I didn’t expect him to be home and it gave me a shock.”
Hayley rolled her eyes:You’re clumsy all the time, even without the shock of your intimidating actual duke employer scaring the bejesus out of you.
“Whatever,” I muttered. “As if you never fall over.”
Hayley’s eyebrows went even higher, and I huffed in annoyance. “Okay, I’ll give you that. You might have received the lion’s share of our coordination genes.” Hayley had amazing balance and hand-eye coordination. If I could afford it, or indeed convince her to go, I would have her at every dance, tennis and gym club under the sun. As it was, she point-blank refused, so she was stuck playing tennis with me in the park on a Saturday, which, given my complete lack of skill, was not ideal.
Margot cleared her throat as Hayley made her way over to me. “You twoseemto be having a conversation, but only one of you is speaking,” she observed. “It’s quite uncanny.”
Hayley skirted the edge of the sofa to come and sit next to me, still clutching Keith. My good hand enclosed hers, giving it a squeeze.
“Margot, this is my sister Hayley. She isn’t much of a talker, I’m afraid,” I said quietly. Hayley squeezed my hand back, and her gaze dropped to the floor as her cheeks turned pink.
Margot looked between us again with kind eyes, then approached the sofa to squat in front of Hayley. “Never mind,” she said in a soft voice. “Too many chatterboxes out there talking about big bottoms and horses, I say.” That drew a very brief bit of eye contact from Hayley and a small smile. I blinked. Hayley rarely smiled at anyone but me, and certainly not within the first five minutes of meeting them. Apart from me, her grandparents and her teachers at school, there weren’t really many otheradults in her life. And her grandparents had only really shown an interest in the last six months. I’d been trying to encourage them to bond, but it was hard going. Brenda and Tony had hated my mother and, by extension, me. After all, they weren’tmygrandparents, as they reminded me frequently. The starkest reminder had been two weeks ago on Christmas Day. I’d been lonely plenty of times in my life, but that day may have been my lowest point.
“Listen, Margot,” I said. “I really appreciate you not saying anything to your son when you spotted Hayley earlier. I wouldn’t normally bring her with me, but… she had a dreadful tummy ache last night and this morning, and I just couldn’t take her to school like that.”
“Lottie, my son is usually a very charming chap. I’m not sure why he’s behaving like a high-handed tyrant from the last century with you at the moment, but you can take sick days if you need to. He would never object to that.”
I broke eye contact with her to glance at Hayley, then cleared my throat. “I… um, that’s good to know, but I—” God, this was awkward. I didn’t want to outright call Margot a liar, but I was pretty sure her sonwouldfrown on taking sick days. I’d learnt the hard way that rich people were ruthless.
I shivered when I remembered the parting speech of my last employer, Mrs Buchanon. “I’m afraid we need reliable staff and somebody with the ability to… maintainstandards.” She’d been eyeing my trainers with the soles coming away and the frayed sleeves of my jumper when she said “maintain standards”, and I’d never felt so mortified in my life. I’d like to see her maintain standards clothing-wise on the budget I was subsisting on back then. I’d barely had enough for food and rent. But unfortunately, I couldn’t really argue the reliability aspect. Hayley had been even worse when I was working for them. I’d explained the situation to the Buchanons, and they’d seemed sympathetic atfirst. But in the end, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the week off I took for our mother’s funeral. Mrs Buchanon just didn’t want to be inconvenienced anymore with my “frequent absences”. I don’t think her husband’s habit of eyeing my arse with undisguised interest helped either. So no, I wasn’t falling into the trap of thinking there was room for mistakes. Not anymore.
I cleared my throat. “Hails, why don’t you check out the bookshelf?” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. Hayley loved books, and one of the walls of this room was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Her eyes lit up, but then she frowned, glancing at my ankle again and biting her lip. “I’m fine, lovebug,” I said softly. She freed her hand from mine and lifted it up with her little finger extended. I linked it with my little finger and whispered. “Pinky promise.” She glanced between me and the books, and I sighed. “It’s okay. Go and have a look. They might have a copy ofBlack Beauty.” That did the trick. Her eyes went back to the shelves, and she finally gave into temptation, getting up from the sofa and crossing the room to start examining the spines.
I turned back to Margot once Hayley was sufficiently out of earshot. “I just really need to keep this job,” I whispered. My stomach was feeling tight at how I’d argued with the duke earlier. The last thing I needed was to piss him off. But he was so blooming bossy. Of course, he wasn’t to know that my eight-year-old sister was hiding in his mezzanine, and that leaving for hospital without her was completely out of the question. So my reaction probably hadn’t made that much sense. But, honestly, fraggle off, mate. I’d been looking after myself since I was ten; I could deal with a measly sprained wrist and ankle. God.
Margot’s eyes flicked between me and Hayley.
“Your parents?” she whispered back, and I shook my head. Her mouth tightened, and a look of determination came over her face. Since working here, I’d come to realise that Margot wasquite something. Despite the fact she had her own house in the country, she spent alotof time in London, her favourite pastime interfering in her son’s life and siphoning his money off into the various charity foundations she’d set up under the Buckingham name. She was a force to be reckoned with, and I had a feeling Hayley and I were about to experience that first-hand.
Chapter 4
Twenty-something snowflakes
Lottie
I hated waitressing. For a start, I’d had to leave Hayley with Ada, my crazy eighty-two-year-old neighbour. Ada didn’t mind; it wasn’t as though Hayley was difficult to look after – she went to bed at seven-thirty, so all Ada had to do was hang out in my flat and eat my food (which she did with gusto – I knew I’d have another trip to the Co-op in my near future, which better not be more than the fifteen pounds I had left for the rest of the month). Also, waitressing ate into my time in the evenings when I could study for the Open University psychology course I’d been doing part-time for the last two years, which required about sixteen hours a week. Luckily, I’d been able to sneak some of those hours into my time at Buckingham House (seriously, the man did not need a cleaner, his house was immaculate – as I’ve said before, posh people are weird) but I still had to do the bulk of the work late at night.
But even without all of that, I would still hate waitressing. The trick was to try and fade into the background. My outfit would hopefully help with that – white shirt and black skirt which screamedstaff member; low ponytail and minimal make-up. I was careful to fill people’s glasses without making eyecontact. No smiling at the guests. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be a complete disaster…
“Bloody hell, you seen the totty they’ve got serving tonight?”
Ah. Fading into the background wasn’t quite working as well as I’d hoped. I swallowed and moved to the next group, one of whom was the bloke who’d just described me astotty. His back was to me, so he obviously hadn’t realised I was there. I’d have loved to just slope off, but the whole group had empty glasses, and I was carrying a full bottle of champagne. It would have meant skirting around all of them without serving them to get to the rest of the room, which would look very obvious and weird. I swallowed and moved forward.
“Champagne?” I muttered the low question, eyes downcast, cheeks hopefully not too red.
A couple of throats cleared in embarrassment, likely having realised what I’d heard. A few muttered yes, and I started filling glasses. Unfortunately, you can’t pour champagne quickly, and with the number of glasses held out my way, I wasn’t getting out of there anytime soon.
“See what I mean?” muttered the same voice as before, and I flinched, almost missing the rim of the next glass. Clearly, he was not one of the embarrassed cohort.
“Nice,” hissed his friend in a voice I recognized, and my heart sank as I poured with an unsteady hand. I’d yet to actually see their faces as not only was I focused on their glasses, but they were all alottaller than me.
