'So I'M not at all sure when he'll be back,' Lucy Helliar apologised as she closed the door between the suite and the vestibule, and Caro, trying not to scream with frustration, found a smile and obeyed the invitation to step right along in.
'Some unforeseen legal business cropped up in Paris—involving solicitors and the record company Fleur was with and re-issues and everything getting tied up so that any future income goes to Sophie,' Lucy explained. 'I don't understand the ins and outs of it myself, but it seemed complicated and urgent so he had to drop everything and fly over.'
The compulsion to apologise to Finn had been too strong to deny but it had taken all her courage to bring herself to actually face him. And now Lucy was telling her he was in France, had been for the last eight days.
In the main living room Sophie, with Horn sitting solemnly at her side on the apple-green carpet, was loudly 'reading' a rag book held upside down, but the baby babble turned to a crow of delight as she turned and spied Caro, holding out her arms to be picked up and cuddled.
Caro obliged, annoyed by the lump that jumped into her throat. It was over two weeks since she'd last seen Sophie and she'd missed her more than she would ever have believed possible.
'I guess you'll be relieved to hear everything went smoothly as far as Mytton Wells is concerned. Finn pulled strings and contracts were exchanged the day before he flew to Paris. You should all be comfortably settled in soon. Finn tells me the house is structurally sound as a bell—it just needs re-decorating and the few bits and pieces the previous owners left behind need moving out.'
Lucy bobbed around the room, picking up Sophie's scattered toys, tidying them away. Caro thought she looked relieved to have an adult to talk to after her solitary baby-minding stint.
'I'm not saying that this hotel isn't enormously comfortable, of course. And it's so handy for the park for Sophie's outings, and the staff couldn't be more accommodating, but it's not like a proper home of your own, is it? Now, would you like me to ring for tea, or shall we have it later when Sophie has hers? And tell me how your poor mother is. Are you sure you're happy to leave her? You mustn't feel you have to hurry back on my account.'
Caro declined the offer of tea, began to think seriously about Lucy's final remark, and sat down on one of the sofas with the baby on her knee. She reassured her hostess about her mother's condition.
'Mum's been out of hospital for a few days now and she's feeling much, much better. Her ribs are still strapped and giving her some discomfort but, as she says, that's nothing to what it could have been. And my sister's taken time off work to look after her.'
She and Katie had had several more long talks over the last couple of weeks and Caro had gradually been able to come to terms with what her sister had done, and forgiven her.
And when she'd phoned through to her partner Mary had said, 'Of course you must take time off until poor Emma's home and well on the way to recovery. Do give her my love. Does Finn Helliar want someone to replace you? Should I contact him?'
'If he does, he'll contact you. But don't hold your breath,' Caro had said drily. She would give Mary the news of her ignominious dismissal some other time. 'Why didn't you tell me he was widowed and had travelled back to England with his mother?'
'Didn't I? Goodness. I suppose it must have shot out of my head when you insisted on being interviewed for the position of nanny,' Mary had defended.
So now all that was left was the truly desperate need to put things right with Finn. He wasn't here, of course, and it might be days more before he was back in England, but if she wasn't very much mistaken Lucy was opening a door on a golden opportunity— provided she was brave enough, or devious enough, to take it.
'Well, if you're absolutely sure?'
r /> 'About coming back?'
She held her breath and felt her heart thump about in her chest and only expelled a long, slow sigh when Lucy affirmed, 'Yes. Exactly. Of course I was—and still am if it's necessary—perfectly happy to look after little Sophie until Finn can get back from France. But I don't have too much time left in Great Britain and I would like to finish that visit with my friends—but only if you're absolutely sure you are able to leave your mother and pick up your duties here again.'
Her assumptions had been right! Finn hadn't told his mother he'd sacked the nanny. She couldn't imagine why. There was a lot to Finn Helliar she didn't understand. And stuff about herself she was only just beginning to understand, like the depth of devious behaviour she was capable of and the precise extent of her bravery.
It would be easier if Lucy, dear soul that she was, was out of the way visiting her friends when she finally faced Finn with that apology, but when he discovered what she had done he would not be a happy man.
But that didn't stop her. She took a deep breath, painted on a smile, and said, 'Perfectly sure, Mrs Helliar. So why don't you contact your friends and make whatever arrangements you need to make now?'
He would not be pleased to arrive back in London and find her re-installed as Sophie's nanny. Correction, he would spit tacks! But it would give her the perfect opportunity to try to put things right. To apologise profoundly and to take her leave of him carrying second prize with her.
Not first prize, which would be to hear him say he'd been telling the truth about falling in love with her, but the second prize of his forgiveness, which was, after all, probably more than she deserved.
Caro was sure she was going into a decline, or something remarkably like one. Just three days back as Sophie's nanny and all her clothes hung loosely on her and her cheekbones stuck out like doorknobs.
Three days of wondering if she'd done the right thing, of pushing Sophie's buggy for miles and miles round Regent's Park, of long, long evenings broken only by Lucy's friendly phone call when she checked that they were OK, three days of being too hyped up to do more than pick at her food, of wondering when he'd show up and how she'd face him when he did. 'Shall we do something really exciting today?' she asked Sophie on the morning of the fourth day. 'Let's give the park a miss and have a real day out.'
It looked like being a gorgeous day again, this summer seeming set to break all records. The thought of hanging around the hotel suite, with forays into the park to break the monotony, watching the minutes and hours of the day slide away with still no sign of Finn, was something she'd had more than enough of.
She was enjoying looking after his daughter and was, she knew, getting very good at it. The problem was, each day she grew to love the little girl more, and when the time came for that final goodbye she was sure part of her heart would break.
And she wouldn't be at all surprised if Lucy returned from her visit with her friends before her son got back from that Paris business trip. And that would involve her in making a whole extra heap of embarrassing explanations and deprive her of the opportunity of being alone with him.
'A picnic, huh?' She plucked the tiny girl out of her cot and waltzed with her into the bathroom. 'We'll visit the house Daddy's bought for you, and play in the garden. It's a beautiful house, poppet, and you're a very lucky little girl.'
Her own small runabout was now in Finn's underground parking slot here at the hotel. She had come back to town and collected it from outside her apartment block in Highgate as soon as she'd been sure her mother was going to make a full recovery, driving it back to the lodge so that she and Katie didn't have to take David away from his work to do the hospital run. Presumably Finn had left the off-roader in the long-stay airport car park.