So she could ask the kitchens for a picnic hamper and they could be away within the hour, heading for fresh air and silence and a chance for her to renew her acquaintance with the home that was now his, imprint it more deeply on her mind so that she could picture him there in the years to come.
Which was a pretty slushy sort of thought, especially coming from the brain of one of the coolest operators in the nanny-agency business! She was not a sentimental or slushy person. Or she hadn't been until recently. Plucking the baby out of the bath, she wrapped the sturdy little body in a huge fluffy towel and squatted back on her heels, her eyes misty, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
She was going to have to pull herself together. OK, so he was the first man who had ever made her feel that there could be something in the business of falling in love and tying your life, your whole future, up with another person, needing and loving someone else until that someone else became your whole existence. But that didn't mean he would be the last man capable of doing that, did it?
A huge lump constricted her throat. She swallowed it roughly. OK, so who was she fooling? Hell could freeze over before she found another man who affected her the way Finn Helliar did. But that didn't mean he could feel the same way about her, did it?
No, he'd made it abundantly clear he couldn't. First off, the sound of his dead wife's name on her lips had horrified him, made him feel he was making love with something utterly repulsive. He'd certainly acted as if that were the case. And then he'd bawled her out and then he'd sacked her.
Then, just to make sure he couldn't like or respect her in a million years, she'd told him exactly why she'd lied her way into his employ. To get revenge. To pay him back for something he hadn't done.
Of course he'd said that that was something they were going to have to talk about—like when she and Katie could expect to be hauled in front of the courts on a charge of slander. But in the end he hadn't bothered. He probably thought that neither of them was worth the expenditure of time and trouble.
Suddenly, it became imperative that she and Sophie get away from here. It was like being in the dentist's waiting room waiting for her name to be called.
A day in the country would soothe her jangling nerves, give her a breathing space, make her better able to calmly make those overdue apologies when he did turn up, impress him with her sincerity.
She dressed them both in hot-weather casual gear. Ice-blue cotton shorts and a toning T-shirt for Sophie, and a gauzy black cotton skirt and white lawn sleeveless blouse for herself, because they were about the coolest things she had with her.
'Should Mr Helliar return before I do,' she instructed the receptionist when she collected the picnic hamper she'd ordered and the baby seat she'd borrowed, 'please tell him that Nanny Fair has taken the baby to Mytton Wells. We aim to be back well in time for the baby's bedtime.'
A hotel porter was needed to help transport everything to the car. It felt as if they were going on safari, Caro thought wildly, eyeing the borrowed baby seat—essential if Sophie was to be strapped in safely—and the hamper which looked big enough to hold food for five thousand and two bulging bags stuffed with all the bits and pieces Sophie would need during the day, not forgetting Horn.
An hour later, feeling slightly more relaxed, Caro stopped the car under the shade of a group of beech trees at the side of the long drive that wound its endless way up to Mytton Wells.
She had no intention of going on up to the house; it would be locked and empty so there really was no point. But transporting all the paraphernalia, plus Sophie, down to the meadow so that the little girl could run and play in freedom and safety proved more problematical than she'd bargained for.
The time they'd visited before there had been two adults to fetch and carry from the car, two adults to keep an eye on and amuse the lively toddler. She didn't want to think about that day. Thinking about it now made her want to cry.
It had been an almost perfect day, a happy day. Looking back, she now knew she'd been falling in love with him and had already known, deep in the silent places of her heart, that he couldn't be as unprincipled and callous as she'd set out believing him to be.
'Right, Sophie, off we go!' she uttered with a false brightness that was perilously close to tears. Fiercely promising herself she could not get maudlin, she settled the cotton sun-hat more securely on the golden curls. 'You can carry Horn while I push this. OK?'
'This' was a teetering edifice made up of the picnic hamper and the bulging bags of Sophie's necessaries, all balanced precariously on the baby buggy. It took some careful manoeuvring, especially when they'd left the mown expanse of the lower-garden lawns and were negotiating the semi-steep ha-ha that separated meadow and woodland from the more formal areas.
'There! It was worth it, wasn't it, poppet?' Hot and breathless, Caro sank down at last in the long feathery grass which was ornamented with swaying field poppies and ox-eye daisies and rummaged in the picnic basket.
As she'd suspected, the hotel kitchens had packed enough to feed an army. Sophie snacked on fruit and juice and Caro took the top off a plastic container of tiny smoked salmon sandwiches then put it back on again. She wasn't hungry.
So she and Sophie made daisy chains, or rather she did the making while Sophie toddled around pulling up handfuls of flowers until Caro insisted they had enough. She didn't want to denude the meadow of wild flowers entirely!
It was getting hotter, a heavier, more sultry heat, when, an hour or two later, Caro carried the little girl back from their expedition down to the edge of the shallow stream that wound around the bottom of the meadow then disappeared into the wood.
The exercise and fresh air had tired the baby and after giving her another drink of juice Caro settled her and Horn on the cot blanket and the tiny pillow she'd brought along with all the other necessaries. 'Shall we have a story?' She smiled into the already drooping eyes. 'How about Goldilocks? It's your favourite.'
Too late, she was afraid she'd said the wrong thing. Sophie needed to nap and any mention of bears was usually enough to have her racketing around on her hands and knees making her famous growly noises.
But the sudden brightening of those drowsy eyes wasn't the prelude to a game of bears, she realised as the little girl held out her chubby arms and carolled excitedly, 'Daddeeee!'
'How's my sweetie-pie?' Strong, tanned arms scooped the tiny girl up from her nest in the long, soft grasses. His white business-wear shirt had the sleeves rolled up and narrow-fitting dark grey tailored trousers skim
med long, long legs and those lean, mean hips of his.
Caro's fingers dug into the soft, warm grass. She felt dizzy, the sudden shock of seeing him here, where she surely hadn't expected him, blocking the supply of oxygen to her brain.
He joined her, sitting cross-legged on the grass, his baby daughter held firmly between his knees. 'I got your message from Reception.' His deep voice was even, almost without intonation. For some reason his very calmness gave her the shivers and she knew exactly why when he told her, 'I'm not raising the roof, but that doesn't mean I'm not furious with you. I don't want to alarm Sophie by yelling at you—'
Or traumatise her for life by taking you by the throat and shaking, hard, Caro tacked on for him inside her head, and shuddered at the look in his eyes. His voice might be calm but those eyes said it all. Contemptuous dislike didn't come near describing what was staring at her from those glittering silver depths.