The Housekeeper's Awakening

‘In that case, I’d love to.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

He shuffled the cards and dealt them and watched her brow pleating in concentration as he explained the rules to her. To his surprise he didn’t have to repeat them and she seemed to grasp the concept of the game with remarkable speed.

He had expected—what? That he’d beat her without trying and soon become bored with effortless victory as had happened so often in the past? He was midway through the second game when he realised she was good. Actually, she was very good. And he was having to keep all his wits about him to compete against a mind which was more agile than he’d given her credit for.

She was bright, he thought in confusion. She was very bright.

‘Are you sure you haven’t played this before?’ he questioned suspiciously.

‘If I’d played before, then why would I have allowed you to explain all the rules to me?’

‘Gamesmanship?’

‘That’s a very cynical viewpoint, Luis,’ she said as she studied the fanned-out cards in her hand.

‘Maybe life has made me cynical.’

She looked up and extended her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. ‘Oh, poor diddums!’

It wasn’t an expression he knew but the meaning was clear and Luis found himself laughing in response. But that confused him even more, because women didn’t usually amuse him, unless it was with the light, teasing comments they sometimes made when they were removing their clothes. Women had their place, but humour rarely featured in it. And suddenly he found himself intrigued by this badly dressed woman with her surprisingly street-sharp grasp of the complex card game. ‘You do realise,’ he said slowly, ‘that I know practically nothing about you.’

She looked up and the light from the lamp shone directly into her face, turning her eyes the colour of clear, bright honey. And Luis suddenly found himself thinking: They are beautiful eyes.

‘Why should you?’ she questioned. ‘It isn’t relevant to my work. You don’t need to know anything about me.’

‘A woman who deflects questions about herself?’ he drawled. ‘Can this really be happening, or am I dreaming?’

‘That’s an outrageous generalisation to make about women.’

‘And one which happens to be true. Generalisations usually are.’ He leaned back against the chair and narrowed his eyes. ‘So how long have you worked for me now? It must be a year?’

‘It’s two and a half, actually.’

‘That long?’

‘Time flies when you’re having fun,’ she said.

He heard the flippant note in her voice as he continued to study her. ‘Being a housekeeper is an unusual job for a woman your age, isn’t it?’ he observed slowly.

‘I suppose so.’ She shrugged. ‘But it’s a good job if you don’t have any qualifications. Or if you need somewhere to live,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

He put his cards face down on the table. ‘You don’t have any qualifications? That surprises me. You are clearly bright enough—judging by the way you’ve just picked up a relatively complicated card game.’

Carly didn’t answer straight away and not just because his words sounded so patronising. She didn’t want to tell him about her hopes and dreams—she didn’t want to expose herself in any way to him because she sensed a certain danger in doing that. If it had been any other time, she might have distracted herself with a task which needed doing and hoped he’d forget about it. But it wasn’t any other time—it was now—and she was out of her usual comfort zone. She couldn’t pretend that she needed to go and see to something in the kitchen because she suspected he would overrule her. Luis wanted to talk and Luis was paying her wages. And what Luis wanted, he generally got.

‘I’ve been trying to make up for lost time,’ she said. ‘Which is why I did those evening classes. And why I’ve taken a couple of the science exams I really ought to have taken at school.’

‘You’ve been studying science?’

She heard the surprise in his voice. ‘Yes. What’s the matter with that? Some people do actually like those subjects.’

‘But they’re not usually women.’

‘Again, another outrageous generalisation.’ She shook her head in mock despair. ‘That’s the second sexist thing you’ve said within the space of two minutes, Luis.’

‘How can it be sexist if it’s true? Look at the stats if you don’t believe me. Men dominate the field of science. And maths,’ he added.