Page 29 of A Colourful Country Escape
‘OK, maybe notperfectorder.’ Lexie crossed her arms over her chest.
Cory stood up. ‘Look, I’m going to put some of this stuff in Mrs Moon’s old quarters upstairs before we have an open-fire disaster.’ He nodded towards the crackling fireplace. ‘If you choose to sleep up there with it tonight, then whatever.’
He made it sound so easy. Lexie watched as he began moving boxes, and Ben rolled up his sleeves and joined in the production line.
‘Well, hey, just because I’m a woman … ’ Lexie jumped up and rolled up her own sleeves, not wanting to be out-muscled. Moving a few boxes upstairs for now couldn’t hurt, and it was getting late. She didn’t have anywhere else to put them, or even anything else to transport them with, other than her skinny arms.
As they trudged up and down the stairs, Lexie felt some of her lost adrenaline creeping back. Some of the fight that had drained from her since finding her life in a heap. Ben and Cory were right. She was homeless from their mother’s own doing. Mrs Carrington-Noble owed her a roof over her head and if it got on the woman’s nerves, that served her right too. And it would only be temporary. Once Lexie had paid these fines she’d have money to pay proper rent somewhere. In the meantime, she could give Ben a contribution for staying here.
Plus she’d have a new camper van in a few weeks’ time. Ben was going to replace it and charge it to his mother – Lexie had agreed to that much. But Lexie wanted it to be equally vintage – as close to her darling Penny as possible. It would need to be sourced, which would take time.
Ben had also offered to pay the fines, of course. But Lexie had reluctantly concluded that that mess was of her own making. If she wasn’t so disorganised with her life, so rubbish with money and fearful of paperwork, Penny’s documents would have been up to date.
‘If you’re moving in and having to put up with Ben for even more hours, we should probably give you a pay rise,’ Cory joked. ‘You’ll be like a fly on the wall.’
More hours with Ben. Wasn’t she meant to be staying out of the way and not ruffling Mrs Carrington-Noble’s matchmaking feathers? Fly in the ointment, more like. This did not bode well.
Ben dropped a box inside Lexie’s new room and let out a huff. ‘Am I that dreadful that we have to pay people to put up with me?’ he asked his brother.
‘Well, Lexie probably wouldn’t choose to hang around with you. The girl’s got better taste.’ Cory thrust an arm in Lexie’s direction.
Ben seemed to contemplate her for a long moment as she stood in the doorway. She felt self-conscious in her purple pinstripe suit trousers, her top half stripped down to her vest top after all the heavy lifting. Her face must have been pink with the effort and there was a definite sheen across her chest. Why was he looking at her like that?
‘Her taste is very … consistent.’ Ben nodded towards her nose stud, which perfectly matched her mascara and tied in with her vest top. ‘She’s amber today.’
Lexie tried her best not to change to red. Why did his scrutiny cause such a sudden heat?
‘I don’t want a pay rise,’ Lexie said firmly.
‘There you go, mate. Maybe you’re not so bad.’ Cory slapped his brother on his white-shirted back, and she noticed for the first time Ben’s loosened tie was actually quite colourful. And he looked pretty chiselled under the well-fitting cotton.
She shook herself down. Maybe it was a good thing his mother was concentrating on finding him a woman. Getting hot under the vest top about her totally unsuitable boss was not part of this already ludicrous situation.
She kicked the final box over the threshold and vowed to find herself a seriously cold shower.
Chapter 15
There was no mistaking it: that peacock was definitely glaring at her. Lexie had noticed it more and more since Mrs Carrington-what’s-her-chops had first shown her face the other day. The day when she had undoubtedly decided to wait until Lexie was off the premises and have her camper van towed and turned into a hexa-bloody-hedron.
Lexie stuck her tongue out at the peacock’s haughty pointed face from the safety of her new living quarters, and adjusted her tie-dye headscarf. She’d heard Mrs Moon mutter that the spots on the peacocks’ tails were like the boss lady’s all-seeing eyes, and it wouldn’t have surprised her. Mrs Carrington-Noble had probably installed bird-cam.
The woman was on the prowl again today, of course. Lexie knew that from the peacock fanfare and screeching tyres she’d heard earlier on. In the few days since Lexie had moved into Nutgrass Hall, Mrs Carrington-Noble had been creating increasingly more absurd excuses to stalk over and mark her territory like a passive-aggressive cat. The woman was on a warning from Ben to be civil, but she was finding novel ways to make Lexie feel like a veritable pig in a poke.
So, Lexie would just stay out of the way. She was determined to make this room her sanctuary, for the short space of time she’d vowed to be here. A safe place to get on with her work, stay out of trouble and earn her living as a respectable and non-flaky employee until her new camper van was ready and she could go and camp elsewhere. Easy. She had no interest in being dragged into anything else.
She settled herself at the long table, which she’d pulled across to the window and draped in a length of bright orange-and-pink Thai silk from her travels. Lexie had commandeered this as her desk, and it was the only pop of colour in the room. She was getting used to her new space, with its huge four-poster bed at one end, and a living area with cream sofas and a coffee table at the other. And it was a huge relief to have her own en-suite bathroom, rather than legging it to the leisure centre for a sneaky shower.
But it was all so pale, and she’d never liked that fussy damask pattern. Its pompous little leaves seemed to form part of a club that would never unfurl enough to let her sort in. Not that she wanted to be in, of course. Out was perfectly acceptable. Out was where she belonged; just minding her own quiet business.
Boooonng.Well, OK. Quiet apart from that grandmother clock in the corner. The one that made sporadic tick-tock-tutting noises at her, interspersed with ferocious bongs that made her skin jolt. Lexie checked the time. Fifteen minutes until she’d need to creep down the stairs for her work catch-up with Ben. In the meantime, she was in planning mode. She had her laptop open and was looking at the photos she’d taken of the Carrington Paints makeovers, from her field trip to rich clients’ houses with Ben.
Yes. She could turn this into a fantastic blog post, and use lots of fun quotes for social media posts too. She wrote down ideas on multi-coloured sticky notes and stuck them along her desk. The houses they’d visited had been impressive, and yet …
She ran her fingers over the Carrington Paints catalogue, which she had open beside her laptop. Something was still lacking. The sad thing was that none of its colours were that interesting in isolation. Perhaps with a bit of mixing and a dash of something else. A sprinkle of colourful inspiration from a far-off land, a spice-filled souk or a riotous sunset … She eyed the lifeless walls for a second. No. All of this was just temporary, and she had no business making her mark. She was just employed to spice up their online world, and she was only hanging on to that much by a beige thread and a few white fibs.
Big ideas were for people who cared about big money. And she didn’t intend to be one of those. So why were her hands busy cutting out swatches of coloured material and paper-clipping them to the pages of the Carrington Paints book? Urgh. Wandering minds could get into all sorts of mess.
‘Alexiiiiiiiiis!’
