Husband-To-Be Page 8

  His voice was perfectly level, the words strictly pragmatic—but Rachel thought if she’d been in the girl’s place she’d almost have preferred to be shouted at. She felt obscurely embarrassed at being present, but somehow it seemed equally. embarrassing to leave. She began, unobtrusively, to pick up papers from the floor.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Grant. ‘You’ve been soaked to the skin; you need something to warm you up. Why don’t you come into my office? You can have a fortified coffee while I make a couple of calls.’

  In the end not only Rachel but Olivia followed him into his office.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry this has happened Grant,’ said Rachel as they closed the door on the unfortunate secretary. ‘I know it’s really all my fault. It would never have happened in the first place if you hadn’t taken William.’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to subject herself to a dose of that chilly rationality, but fair was fair; it wasn’t the girl’s fault she’d been working in an office with a specimen of wildlife most people found terrifying.

  Rather to her surprise, Grant’s face lightened. ‘Of course it’s all your fault,’ he agreed as he punched numbers into the phone. ‘And mine, for being fool enough to take the damned thing.’

  He waited for some time, receiver to his ear, then put it down again. ‘No reply,’ he said thoughtfully, then shrugged and poured out cups of coffee from a machine in the corner. A bottle of whisky emerged from a cupboard.

  ‘Not for me, Grant,’ said Olivia. ‘Look, there’s something I need to talk to you about…’

  Grant added an amount of whisky to Rachel’s mug and his own, and passed the mugs round.

  ‘In a moment,’ he said. He cocked an eye at Rachel. ‘Of course it’s your fault, and it’s thrown everything in confusion, and it’s a nuisance that Jenny’s computer may be out of commission. But this has uncovered what seem to be a couple of serious problems. To tell the truth, I’d rather they came to light now than later, when a lot more could stand to be lost than a few hours’ copy-typing.’

  He took a sip of coffee. ‘It worries me that the network people haven’t fixed this problem, whatever it is,’ he said. ‘It worries me that we can’t reach them to get them moving on it. My secretary’s way of dealing with the difficulty is obviously a cause for concern. It looks as though we need to get a few things straight, and we may well need to get some new people to take care of our network. That’s worth knowing, even at the cost of a little temporary confusion.’

  ‘But Grant,’ protested Olivia, ‘you can’t just take away Xpro’s contract just like that. I’ve known Nigel for yonks. The firm does brilliant work.’

  ‘For other people, maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘Obviously I’ll hear what they have to say first—always supposing I can get through to them.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Olivia. ‘Anyway, you’ve only the girl’s word for it that the problem really is with the network. If you ask me she’s totally incompetent. She was probably doing something wrong and blaming the system.’

  Rachel sipped her coffee and sighed, stung for a moment by thoughts of what might have been. She didn’t blame Jenny for not having a back-up right up to the last second. She did think if she, Rachel, had spent weeks in that deliciously wall-to-wall-carpeted room, instead of up to her thighs communing with the reeds, she would have made Xpro’s life miserable until they’d fixed the network, and she’d have kept Grant up-to-date with developments, if only to show her gratitude to the man who’d freed her from the Great Outdoors. Instead the only thing she had to be grateful for was that he’d let her spider come in from the cold.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Olivia, after a little pause, when Grant made no response to this remark, ‘that wasn’t what I had to say to you. I’ve heard something wonderful! Rupert was staying with Mummy and Daddy last week, and he said Glomac are definitely interested in your science park. They’ve been looking to build up a base in this area, and he thinks the park would be just the place!’

  ‘Glomac?’ said Grant. ‘You know what I think about Matheson.’

  ‘I know you had a little disagreement about that drug,’ said Olivia. ‘I really think you’ve misjudged Rupert, darling. But anyway, this is something completely different.’

  ‘But they’re huge.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s a wonderful opportunity!’

  ‘Yes, but we’ll only have limited space, after all,’ he pointed out. ‘The main point is to have a focus for independent researchers and inventors—people who need first-rate facilities but are better off if they can pool some of the resources rather than make a massive capital investment themselves. Glomac would take up an enormous amount of room; in fact they might swallow up the whole shebang. I don’t think they’re really the kind of outfit we want.’

  Olivia stared at him. ‘But Grant, you must be sensible,’ she said. ‘Good heavens, if people hear Glomac want in, the shares will go through the roof. You’d certainly have no problems raising the rest of the finance. You’d have to be mad to turn down something like this.’

  Grant smiled at her. ‘I know,’ he said cheerfully. ‘That’s what makes it so much fun. I’d love to see the faces on Glomac’s board when we turn them down.’

  For the second time that afternoon, Rachel felt acutely embarrassed at being where she was. Even the swamp might have been better than this.

  It was only too obvious that Olivia was not only not amused but horrified; or rather, it was obvious to Rachel, but Grant seemed so convinced that Olivia shared all his ideals that any other possibility didn’t seem to occur to him.

  It was equally obvious that Grant had his heart set on a park as he had just described it, and would give up the whole idea sooner than set up operations for a multinational heavyweight like Glomac; or rather, it was obvious to Rachel, but Olivia, for all her dismay at this setback, didn’t seem able to believe that anyone could seriously reject the certain prospect of solid cash for what she clearly considered a whim.

  ‘Maybe I’d better be going,’ said Rachel.

  ‘But you just got here,’ protested Grant. ‘And we’re having such a lovely time. Tell you what, I’ll put this on automatic redial—’

  His intercom buzzed. ‘Yes?’

  The secretary’s voice explained, tearfully, that she had been unable to get the computer to start up again. Would Mr Mallett like her to start retyping the material on his computer? She would stay all night to finish it if he wanted her to.

  ‘That’s nice of you to offer, Jenny,’ said Grant. ‘But I think our best bet at this stage is to fax it to the London office. You’ve got the number of my secretary there? Terrific. Well, give Ellen a call to let her know it’s on the way, and ask her to get three or four people working on it up there. There don’t seem to be any problems using my computer on the network, so we can print it out down here when it’s done.’

  Jenny agreed to this. Was there anything else? she asked.

  ‘No, I think that’s all. Why don’t you give the office a quick tidy and take the rest of the day off? I realise this has been pretty traumatic.’

  The intercom crackled in gloomy agreement and fell silent.

  ‘Wonder if I’ll see her again?’ said Grant. ‘Shame she didn’t take to William. I suppose I should have introduced them properly when she first came.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Olivia tartly, ‘you should have got rid of that monstrosity weeks ago. For God’s sake, Grant, she may not have been very businesslike about back-ups, and she seems to have been hopelessly unprofessional in dealing with her computer, but it’s not exactly businesslike of you to keep it here. I trust you’re getting rid of it now, anyway.’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ said Grant. ‘But I’ve told Rachel he can stay in my office, so he won’t have his feelings hurt by people who don’t understand him.’

  Olivia gave an impatient little laugh.

  ‘I’m sure that kind of attitude was fine when you were starting out, Grant,’ she told him. ‘But if you want to accomplish a
nything you’ve got to get people to take you seriously. All the more so if you want a—a mixture of smallish businesses in the park, which is bound to make financing more difficult. I know you’re used to doing what you like, but you simply can’t afford to be so—to be seen as childish.’

  Rachel held her breath. She felt as if she’d been watching two cars drive straight at each other at a hundred miles an hour: collision now was surely inevitable? Grant was easygoing, but she was beginning to discover that he had a core of steel. Even the most easygoing of men, anyway, would not take kindly to the implication that the things he cared about most—never mind a stray spider in the office—looked childish.

  To her astonishment, Grant threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘My poor darling,’ he said, the brilliant blue eyes dancing. ‘What a trial I must be to you. Spiders in the office, bats in the belfrey—what have you done to deserve it? Never mind. If we keep quiet about William I think I might just be able to persuade a few people that I’m not a complete lunatic.’

  He jumped to his feet, strode across the office, and kissed her quickly. Rather oddly, this seemed to have more of an effect on Rachel than on Olivia. The blonde girl simply stood unresponsively on the spot, and looked up at him with barely concealed impatience when it was over—whereas Rachel felt for a moment as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. Ridiculous. Olivia was his fiancée, for heaven’s sake. And it hadn’t even been that much of a kiss.

  Grant seemed, if anything, rather amused by the lack of response.

  ‘I really do know what I’m doing, you know,’ he said, with the kind of smile that always made Rachel’s toes curl up inside her shoes. ‘But I’m sorry it’s so hair-raising for the passengers. Anyway, why don’t you show us what you’ve got lined up for the conference centre? I’m sure that will make people sit up and stare.’

  He punched a series of numbers into the phone again, and set it to speaker so that he could dispense with the receiver. He then explained to Rachel that Olivia had taken over the furnishings of the conference centre, since Jenny had felt unable to take on so much responsibility.

  Olivia brought out a couple of catalogues and spread them open on the desk. At first reluctantly, but presently with more enthusiasm, she began to outline the equipment she had lined up, while the phone rang and rang at the network support office.

  Rachel forced herself to look politely at the catalogues. Grant had put an arm around Olivia’s shoulder; Rachel stood on Olivia’s other side. She should not be thinking of the hand resting lightly on Olivia’s upper arm. She should be concentrating on display boards and overhead projectors. She shouldn’t be thinking of the times he’d held her hands, or put a coat round her shoulders, or dried her hair. He was obviously someone to whom physical contact came very naturally; most of the time it didn’t mean anything. With his fiancée, obviously, it meant something, and Rachel would do better not to think about it.

  She looked down at the glossy pages. Olivia seemed to put a much higher premium on things like presentation binders. Rachel couldn’t tell what Grant made of all this; presumably it had his approval.

  ‘Grant told me your suggestion about vending machines,’ Olivia remarked, in a bored drawl. ‘And I did think about it, but this is such a fabulous old place, isn’t it? Obviously one’s got to be commercial, but we don’t want to be too naff; so I’m afraid I dropped that one.’

  Rachel tried to pull herself together. She was engaged to Driscoll. She was being ridiculous. ‘It doesn’t have to be vending machines, obviously,’ she said. ‘But scientists and academics don’t really care that much about gracious living; they just want to talk, and most of them spend their lives talking over plastic cups of coffee in the basements of libraries and laboratories. A conference gives them the chance to talk to people they won’t meet on their home turf.’

  Olivia glanced at her, one beautifully groomed eyebrow raised. Rachel was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was wearing a large ancient blue T-shirt that did not belong to her, tattered shorts that obviously didn’t belong to her, and a man’s jacket that obviously belonged to Grant As a credible spokesperson for what the high-powered researcher was really looking for, she could probably give Mickey Mouse a run for his money.

  ‘Well, I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Yes, see if you can’t come up with something that doesn’t outrage your sensibilities too much,’ said Grant. He gave Rachel a hint of a smile over the lovely blonde head. ‘Dr Hawkins is our resident expert, you know. We ignore her advice at our peril.’

  Suddenly Rachel had had enough.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ she said abruptly. ‘It’s still only early afternoon, Grant. I’ll take the computer into town and see if someone can revive it for you.’ She slipped the jacket off her shoulders and draped it over a chair. ‘I’ll drop these things off here tomorrow.’

  ‘No hurry, but must you go now?’ His arm still rested easily round Olivia.

  ‘Yes, I’d better.’

  There was a short silence, in which they realised that the telephone at the network support office was still ringing, and ringing unanswered.

  ‘All right. You can take the four-wheel drive and bring that back tomorrow.’ He dug into a pocket, extracted keys, and handed them to her.

  The phone was still ringing. Grant looked at it thoughtfully. At last he picked up the receiver and put it down again with a click. His arm slid down from Olivia’s shoulder, Rachel felt something strangely like relief.

  ‘Well, darling,’ he remarked, still looking at the phone, ‘any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I do hope taking our business elsewhere won’t spoil the friendship.’

  Olivia looked stonily at the phone, and then at Grant’s face. Any minute now she would say something cutting, and Grant would laugh again and pull her into his arms.

  ‘I’ll bring back the car first thing,’ Rachel said hastily, and she almost ran from the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RACHEL twisted and turned in front of the mirror for a final inspection. The conference centre had miraculously made its deadline: halfway through May it was actually ready to open. It wasn’t strictly necessary, as Olivia had pointed out, for the resident environmentalist to come to the inaugural party, but Grant had quashed this objection without hesitation. It could only do good, he had argued, to have a rising young scientist present. Especially an ornamental one, he had added rashly, and Olivia had abandoned the discussion. In the face of Olivia’s scepticism Rachel had determined to do justice to the occasion.

  Rachel surveyed herself now with a mixture of pleasure and nervousness. Did she really dare wear this in public?

  The dress was black velvet, with a skirt that flared from the narrow waist to just below the knees, and a bodice cut as low as was compatible with being there at all. It made a sort of gesture to modesty—above the velvet filmy black gauze rose to the neck and formed long sleeves to the wrist—but it was still a far cry from the kind of dress worn in academic circles.

  Still, at least for once she didn’t look like Boy Wonder. Since Driscoll was not going to be there, it was perhaps a little odd that she had gone to so much effort to dazzle, but she was not going to think about that.

  She put on dark red lipstick and a dramatic sweep of eyeliner, and surveyed herself again.

  Not bad, if she said so herself. Her hair had grown to a black thatch now, but it still had a gamine quality that contrasted strikingly with the sultry make-up and sexy, sophisticated dress. To look at her, you would never have thought the woman in the mirror had spent half her life counting the movements of small insects in grass habitats, making notes on graph paper and drinking stale water from a plastic flask. Rachel gave herself an approving nod, slipped into filmy tights and very high-heeled black court shoes, and was ready to go.

  Olivia was clearly startled, and none too pleased, by her appearance, though after her first double take she did her best to seem noncommittal. Grant was le
ss self-restrained.

  ‘R. K. V.!’ he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as she entered the foyer. ‘You look sensational. Try not to let them know you’re doing the environmental impact study, though; they won’t believe anyone without horn-rimmed glasses can possibly be any good.’

  In fact Rachel spent the first half of the evening talking scientific shop with various acquaintances. Professor Edwards, her former supervisor and an eminent zoologist, had come, as had a number of other colleagues. The evening actually demonstrated the excellent adaptation of the building to its new purpose: people were encouraged to wander about exploring the facilities, and those with similar interests rapidly discovered the small nooks which were so convenient for quiet, intense conversation.

  ‘You’ve done a first-rate job here, Mallett,’ said Professor Edwards, drawing Grant into the little circle that already held Rachel and a couple of former fellow research students. ‘Trouble with a lot of these places is they’re set up by administrators, people who see what a conference is on paper and organise for that.’

  He snorted. ‘Right, they say, what have we got here? Fifty papers in three days—that’s six coffee breaks, two breakfasts, two dinners, three lunches and a hell of a lot of photocopying—and they don’t give you a place to go to talk to the person who was your only reason for coming to the damned thing in the first place. So you end up sitting in someone’s bedroom or a broom closet, or going down to the local pub.’

  ‘I’m glad you approve,’ said Grant.

  ‘Think I’m being polite, don’t you? I’m never polite—waste of time. We’ve already made arrangements for our biennial meeting next spring, more’s the pity, but we’re having a kind of impromptu conference in September on some very interesting results that have just been published on Madagascar. I’ll have a word with the Secretary, tell him to book us in here.’