Her Man Friday(10)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"That," she said, "was just the latest in a series of troubling developments here at Ashling."

"I see," he said. "And who exactly is Chloe? Other than a juvenile delinquent, I mean?"

Lily supposed that if he were going to be working at Ashling for any length of time, he was going to have to be made aware of Chloe’s existence sooner or later. Doubtless, there was some kind of OSHA regulation about such a thing.

She opened her mouth to explain, but the words didn’t quite make it out because she was too busy studying the changes in Mr. Freiberger. With his dweeby jacket gone and his ugly necktie all askew like that, he looked quite fetching. His hair was rumpled in a way that was almost sexy, as if some woman had been clutching great handfuls of it in her fingers while he buried his head between her—

Goodness, but that was an uncharacteristically lascivious thought she was having. Lily’s eyes widened in shock as the graphic image materialized in her brain, but no amount of coaxing would roust it. She shook her head once to clear it, but unfortunately, the image of Mr. Freiberger, um, doing that… to her… came bouncing right back to the forefront of her brain again. She swallowed with some difficulty and made a mental note to have a date with someone. Anyone. Soon.

"Chloe is Mr. Kimball’s ward," she said, telling herself she must have imagined the huskiness her voice seemed to have suddenly adopted.

"His ward?" Mr. Freiberger echoed doubtfully.

But Lily wasn’t going to offer up specifics of the arrangement to a total stranger, so she only reiterated, "Yes, his ward."

"What? You mean like Batman and Robin?"

She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. "Batman and Robin?"

He nodded. "Yeah, you know. Like Bruce Wayne’s young ward, Dick Grayson?"

Lily shook her head. "No. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Kimball and Chloe have never donned Spandex and fled from a secret underground entrance to Ashling in a re-engineered Pontiac to rid Gotham City of its unsavory elements."

Leonard Freiberger offered her a look that was less than tolerant. But he said nothing.

"Actually," she told him, spurred by his silence, "the situation is more like Jane Eyre."

"Come again?"

"You know," Lily went on, "the part about Mr. Rochester’s ward being the offspring of a French opera girl? Only with Chloe, her mother wasn’t a French opera girl. She was a, uh, a cabaret dancer. But she was originally from Versailles, Indiana, for what it’s worth."

Mr. Freiberger’s eyebrows shot up at that. "You mean she was a stripper?"

Lily suddenly wondered if she was due for a manicure, and dropped her gaze to the backs of her hands. "Yes, I believe that is, in fact, what they’re called in this country."

"So Chloe is Mr. Kimball’s illegitimate daughter by a stripper from Indiana?"

Lily continued to study her left cuticles. "Well, I never said that."

"You didn’t have to."

"I didn’t?"

"It was that Jane Eyre reference that did it. Just because I’m a bookkeeper, Miss Rigby, doesn’t mean I haven’t read books."

She glanced up at that, only to find that Mr. Freiberger was glaring at her. "I didn’t mean to imply that—"

"Chloe’s secret is safe with me," he interrupted her. "If that’s what you were worried about. The last thing a fourteen-year-old girl needs is to have talk like that circulating about her."

Actually, talk like that was the least of Chloe’s worries, Lily thought. But there was no reason to tell Mr. Freiberger about all that. "Thank you for your discretion," she said instead.

"How long has she been living here?"

Lily couldn’t imagine why he would be interested in such a thing, but she told him, "About a year and a half now."

He nodded slowly, and she got the feeling it was because he was thinking hard about something. And although she was reluctant to interrupt him, it suddenly occurred to her that the two of them were alone in Mrs. Puddleduck’s room, and his forearms really were quite, quite sexy, and she hadn’t had a date in quite, quite some time, so it would probably be better for them to retreat to their previous positions pronto, mainly because Schuyler’s office and the kitchen were in two separate wings of the house, and at the moment, Lily felt an intense need to be far, far away from Mr. Freiberger and his forearms.

So she said, "Would you like to come to the kitchen for a cup of tea?"

Thankfully—at least, she tried to convince herself that she was thankful of the fact—Mr. Freiberger declined her invitation. "Thank you, Miss Rigby, but I really should go back to my work. I was right in the middle of something very interesting when I heard Mrs. Puddleduck scream."

Lily nodded. "Some other time then."

He dipped his head forward a bit in acknowledgment. "I think I’d like that."

A whiff of formaldehyde reminded her that there was one last matter to which she needed to attend. After glancing briefly over her shoulder, she said, "I’ll, uh, I’ll have Mr. Tooley, the groundskeeper, see to the, uh, the spleen. Perhaps he could put it in the compost bin. I’ll need to order a new mattress, as well." Until then, she thought, the nanny could claim one of the guest rooms.

"Disposing of the evidence?" Mr. Freiberger asked. The look on his face suggested that he was only half-joking.

Lily expelled a restless breath. "Look, I won’t lie to you. Chloe is more than a handful. But deep down, she is a good kid. She’s just had some rough breaks, you know?"

"What kind of rough breaks?"

Unwilling to divulge the particulars of Chloe’s young life to a man she’d just met—after all, even juvenile delinquents were entitled to some privacy—Lily only said, "Let’s just say she has a lot of issues to work out, shall we? Despite what Mrs. Puddleduck said, Chloe’s not dangerous."

If nothing else, Lily was certain about that. Even after a life fraught with insecurity, instability, and perhaps even subtle abuse, Chloe Sandusky was, in essence, a good kid. She was just crying out for attention, and, as a gifted child—as an extremely gifted child, Lily amended—she was simply much more effective than other kids at going about such a thing.

"I’ll hold you to that," Mr. Freiberger said.

Oh, goody, Lily thought. And then maybe he’d hold her to himself.

She bit back a sigh at the thought and extended her arm toward the door, indicating he should precede her. But he only smiled and mimicked her gesture, suggesting that she should go first instead. So Lily strode forward with the bookkeeper right behind her. And, with no small effort, she somehow managed to keep from following him when they parted ways at the foot of the stairs. Instead, with a brief nod to his forearms—uh, to him—she returned to her cold tea, and warm thoughts, in the kitchen alone.