Good Girl or Gold-Digger? by Kate Hardy Read Free Book Online

years, so my grandfather decided to wind up the business. But my grandmother was from a showman’s family and they’d collected some of the machines our family made. Bill took over and added to the collection. You could buy rides really cheaply at one point—sometimes all we had to do was pick up the scrap and haul it to the workshops for restoration—but over the last few years steam engines have become seriously collectable. We could never afford to buy the machines we have now if we had to start again from scratch.’
    ‘Is your father an engineer, too?’ Felix asked.
    ‘He designs industrial lifts—well, he did. He’s aboutto retire. He thinks the fairground is fun, but there’s no future in it.’ And that she was wasting her talents when she could’ve made a real name for herself in engineering.
    ‘What about Bill’s children?’
    Daisy bit her lip. ‘Bill and Nancy couldn’t have kids. Which is such a shame, as they would’ve been brilliant parents.’
    ‘I got the impression,’ Felix said, ‘that Bill thinks of you practically as his daughter.’
    She nodded. ‘We see things the same way.’
    ‘Are your brothers interested in the fairground?’ Felix asked.
    She frowned. ‘How do you know about my brothers?’
    ‘Bill told me that you’re the youngest of four.’
    ‘They’re engineers, too, but they see things Dad’s way. Ed builds bridges, Ben designs cars, and Mikey works in irrigation systems.’ She sighed. ‘Being the much-awaited little girl, I was a huge disappointment to my mother. I was never into pink and frilly stuff. If she put me in a dress and told me to play with my dolls, she’d come in ten minutes later to find I’d left them exactly where she’d put them, and I was busy making something with one of my brothers’ construction kits or taking something apart to see how it worked.’
    ‘Somehow, I can imagine that,’ Felix said with a smile—a smile that said he was on her side.
    ‘Sometimes I wish I’d been the oldest. They all might’ve found it a bit easier to accept.’
    ‘What, that you wanted to be an engineer, too?’
    ‘Not so much that.’ She fiddled with the asparagus.
    ‘What, then?’
    ‘If I’d gone to uni to study engineering, they would’ve been fine about it.’
    Felix looked surprised. ‘You don’t have a degree?’
    ‘I’m the only one of us who doesn’t.’ She bit her lip. ‘The thing is, I always knew what I wanted to do, and a degree would just have held me back for three years. So I compromised; I stayed at school to do my A levels, then trained as a mechanic.’
    ‘Which I’d guess wasn’t an easy option, either. Were there any other girls on the course?’
    ‘I was the only one.’ She grimaced. ‘It took me until halfway through my course to persuade my tutors and the other students that I was there solely because I wanted to do the job, and not because I was looking for a man.’
    She still wasn’t. Even if the one sitting opposite her was a particularly fine specimen and had fine laughter-lines at the corners of those stunning grey eyes.
    ‘Ouch,’ Felix said. ‘So I take it you had to come top in your exams to prove to everyone you were serious?’
    ‘Try every single assignment,’ she said dryly.
    ‘And they gave you a hard time?’
    She shrugged. ‘I qualified, and that’s the main thing.’ She sighed. ‘I know it disappointed my parents and my brothers, but I love what I do. It’s who I am.’
    ‘Family expectations, eh?’ he said, startling her: she hadn’t thought he would understand. But the expression in his eyes, hastily covered, told her he too must have disappointed his family in some way.
    ‘It’s the same for you, isn’t it?’ she asked.
    There was a long, long pause, and then he nodded. ‘Except I’m the oldest rather than the youngest.’
    ‘So what were you supposed to do?’
    ‘Become the third generation in the family stockbroking business.’ He attacked his mushrooms. ‘Luckily