screwed it into a French pleat and anchored the loose strands with combs, but she could feel it threatening to burst loose even as she sat there.
It had worked well enough back home—certainly impressed the solicitor she had been working for until he’d retired a few weeks earlier—but in the glamorous world of Knightsbridge she looked exactly what she was: an ordinary girl from an ordinary little town in the industrial north-east. It would take more than a neatly pressed cotton blouse and chain store suit to disguise the fact.
She might have done better to have worn a pair of jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her hair in a pigtail—that at least was a classic any girl could aspire to. Except the woman who faced her across a vast acreage of immaculately tidy desk, her jet hair glossy, small white hands the perfect setting for the king’s ransom of diamonds she was wearing on her fingers, undoubtedly wore designer jeans—the ones with the label stitched on the outside so you’d know how expensive they were. Jilly’s, on the other hand, came from the sort of shops where, if you wanted to preserve any kind of street cred, you cut out the labels before you wore them.
Nobody was fooled but it avoided catty put-downs such as, ‘I only buy my knickers from that place’ and you just knew the cat in question meant her everyday knickers—not the sort she’d wear on a really hot date. Or, even worse, the teeth-curlingly awful, ‘Good grief, my mother shops there…’
And now Amanda Garland of the Garland Agency was looking down her long, straight nose in a way that suggested she couldn’t quite believe that she had offered Jilly Prescott a job of any kind—no matter how brilliant she might be on paper.
Actually, now she was sitting in a thick-carpeted, soft-focus office opposite the kind of high-powered woman she associated with glossy American soaps, Jilly couldn’t quite believe it either.
She’d checked out the quality dailies at her local public library and made a list of secretarial agencies offering temporary work in London, then sent off her CV in the hope that someone would be impressed enough by her qualifications to give her a chance. After all, her qualifications were pretty impressive.
Now she was here, though, she had a sinking feeling that she was way out of her league. Only her stubborn Geordie pride refused to admit to the possibility that she might be second best in anything, stopped her from walking out right now. That, and Richie. The thought of him, of what he had achieved with nothing to commend him but cheek, a hard push and a following wind was more than enough to stiffen her resolve. Anything he could do…
‘Extremely lucky.’ Amanda Garland was beginning to irritate her. Luck, Jilly thought, mentally squaring her shoulders, had nothing to do with it. It had been sheer hard work.
There was nothing like a Royal Society of Arts Grade Three Typewriting Certificate with ‘Distinction’ to make even the Amanda Garlands of this world sit up and take notice, although Jilly knew that it was the infinitely rarer certificate, the one that promised she could effortlessly take down a hundred and sixty words per minute in faultless shorthand and transcribe it with equal ease, that had got her this far.
Of course Ms Garland had insisted on testing her anyway, just in case those desirable pieces of paper might have been the product of a bit of smart work with a home computer. Actually her brothers could probably have done a pretty convincing job if she had needed them to, so she didn’t blame the woman for that. She just wished she wouldn’t keep saying how lucky she was.
‘Well, I won’t keep you. I’ve told Max that you’ll start this morning. Have you got somewhere to stay, Jilly?’ she asked, glancing at the suitcase Jilly had brought with her.
‘I’m staying with my cousin until I can find somewhere of my own. Actually, I need to call her and let her know I’ve arrived—’ She had been about to ask if she could use the telephone, but she was already being ushered towards the door and she let it go.
Amanda Garland paused in the doorway. ‘I’d better warn you, Jilly, that Max is a very demanding employer and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’ So? The question must have been written all over her face because the woman went on, ‘He’s desperate and he needs someone with really good shorthand, or…’ The doubt was there again.
‘Or?’ Jilly repeated.
The other woman’s brows rose a fraction at her directness. ‘Or frankly I wouldn’t have considered you for the position.’
‘Well, that is frank of you,’ Jilly replied, tired of being looked down on. The woman could keep her job. There were hundreds of other agencies in London and it suddenly occurred to her that, if the Garland Agency was prepared to bring her all the way from Newcastle because of her shorthand speed, she might just be in a buyer’s market. ‘Are my clothes that bad?’ she enquired, with that native pertness for which her part of England was famous. ‘Or is it my accent that’s the problem?’
At home everybody thought she talked ‘posh’, but Jilly knew better. Despite the fact that her mother had insisted on elocution lessons with an actress who had been ‘resting’ ever since the war—which war no one had ever dared enquire—she was well aware that her voice still betrayed its origins.
Ms Garland’s eyes widened slightly and her lips twitched in what might have been amusement. ‘You’re very direct, Jilly.’
‘I find it helps if you want people to know what you think. What do you think, Ms Garland?’
‘I think…I think that perhaps you’ll do, Jilly.’ And finally the creases about her eyes and mouth defined a genuine smile. ‘And don’t worry about your accent—Max won’t. He’ll only notice how well you do your job. I’m afraid my brother can be a bit of a monster to work for and to be honest I’d be happier if you were older. I’m rather tossing you in at the deep end.’
Her brother? Jilly felt her cheeks heat up. Amanda Garland was trusting her to work for her brother? ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, ‘I thought—’ Then with a sudden grin, ‘Don’t worry, Ms Garland, I’m a pretty good swimmer. Gold medal. Life-saving certificate.’ Her smile came easily. ‘And as for my age, well, I’m getting older by the minute.’
Amanda Garland laughed. ‘Just keep that sense of humour and take no nonsense from Max. If he shouts at you…well, just be, um, direct.’
‘Don’t worry, I will. And I find that when men get particularly difficult, imagining them naked helps a lot.’ Amanda’s laughter turned into a fit of coughing. ‘How long is he likely to need me?’ Jilly asked when Amanda had recovered sufficiently to answer.
‘His personal assistant is away looking after her sick mother and frankly we have no idea how long that will be.’ Her face became grave. ‘Several weeks at least, I should think, but don’t worry—if you can work for Max you can work for anyone and with your qualifications I won’t have any trouble placing you.’
‘Oh, right. Well, thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me yet. Just remember what I said about standing up for yourself. And take a taxi. I don’t want you getting lost between here and Kensington.’
‘I’ve got an A to Z—’ she began.
‘I said take a taxi, Jilly. I promised Max you’d get there today, not at the convenience of London Transport. I’ll call him and let him know that you’re on the way.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Go!’ As Jilly still hesitated she said, ‘This is an emergency! Get a receipt and give it to Max—he’ll pay.’
Jilly didn’t stop to argue. No one had ever wanted her badly enough to pay for a taxi before—if this was working in London it was no wonder Gemma was having such a good time. She picked up her suitcase and, holding the agency card with Max Fleming’s address on it, she retreated swiftly to the pavement to hail one of the famous black London taxis.
She’d seen it done on the films and on television a thousand times but could hardly believe she was doing it herself as, clutching her suitcase, she stepped out into the