Outsider by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online

purposes with herself,
    and told herself it was seeing the home she had created with Tony so totally
    changed.
    If Eliot was up at the house, she would go back to the office, she decided
    rather feverishly.
    She turned the handle and walked in, stopping dead, as Eliot got up from the
    edge of her desk where he'd been sitting, and walked towards her.
    'So there you are,' he observed. 'I thought perhaps you'd gone to lunch.'
    'No.' Natalie lifted her chin. 'As a matter of fact, I've been seeing
    your—friend safely bestowed.'
    'Oh." He looked faintly surprised. 'Well, that was good of you. Has she
    settled in all right?'
    'I'd have thought that was your concern rather than mine,' Natalie said
    shortly. 'Why don't you go and see? The bed's made up and waiting for you.'
    She saw the dark brows snap together ominously, and clapped a hand over
    her mouth. 'Oh God, I'm sorry! Pretend I never said that. It's none of my
    business anyway what you do.'
    'I'll second that,' he said coldly. 'Perhaps you'd be good enough to tell me
    what the hell you're talking about.'
    'Sharon.' Natalie picked up a sheaf of papers and looked at them as if they
    were important. 'I—found her hanging round waiting for you, so I took her
    up to the flat. She—er—she goes very well with the decor,' she added
    desperately into an increasingly icy silence.
    Eliot said, 'You took her up—to my flat ? In God's name, why?' He closed his
    eyes for a moment. 'No, don't tell me. Let me guess. She's female, under
    fifty, no hump, no squint, therefore I must be having an affair with her. Is
    that how it reads?'
    She felt herself beginning, hatefully, to blush, and turned away. 'As I said,
    it's really none of my business. This is the nineteen-eighties, after all...'
    'Oh, but Sharon's very much your business,' he said, with a kind of awful
    calm. 'That's why I was looking for you—to give you these.' He handed her
    an envelope. He' said savagely, 'Sharon's insurance card, Mrs Drummond.
    Her P45, and her references. Beddable though she undoubtedly is, I draw the
    line about sleeping with employees.' His voice lengthened into a sarcastic
    drawl. 'Sharon's a stable lad, Mrs Drummond, and a bloody good one. She
    was with a trainer I rode for regularly near Newbury. The horses she looked
    after there, however, are coming here next week, so I offered her the chance
    to come with them. I made her no other kind of offer, although heaven only
    knows what she's thinking now.' He took the envelope from Natalie's
    nerveless fingers and tossed it on to her desk. 'And now I suggest you get her
    out of my bedroom, offering whatever explanation seems good to you, and
    over to the blockhouse, where she belongs. And later, you and I will have a
    little talk.'
    Natalie pressed her hands to her burning face. 'I'm sorry—I'm so sorry. It
    was just—she was there, and Andrew said you'd brought this blonde to
    Harrogate...' She broke off, staring at him imploringly.
    'Then Andrew wants to be a damned sight more discreet,' said Eliot shortly.
    'Now on you way, and let's see if you're as good at repairing damage as you
    are at causing it.'
    In the end, it was easier than she could have hoped. Sharon good-naturedly
    accepted her stumbling excuses about 'a mistake' and was willingly
    shepherded to her rightful habitat.
    'I knew it was too good to be true,' she said, as she put her case down on the
    narrow single bed with its colourful patchwork cover.
    'I expect you're hungry.' Natalie prepared to make a hasty departure before
    Sharon asked any awkward questions about her original accommodation.
    'There's plenty of stuff in the big freezer in the kitchen which you can just
    heat up in the microwave.'
    'I'll find my way about. Don't worry about me,' Sharon assured her, as she
    unfastened her case and began to take out her things.
    I'm not worried about you, thought Natalie as she made her way belatedly to
    the house for lunch. I'm wondering what Grantham is going to say when he
    hears