CHAPTER SEVEN
When closing time came around, she peeked outside, looking up and down the dark street, but although the London traffic was nose-to-tail as always, headlights blinding her in all directions, she couldn’t see any sign of a limousine. So much for that, she thought caustically, and began going through her lock-up routine, emptying the till, totting up the card transactions, and setting the alarm. Partway through entering the last few digits into her calculator, Shantelle, who had been turning off lights and making sure all pot plants were sitting on their overnight capillary watering systems, gave a sudden shriek, rather like a deranged parrot.
Startled by this unexpected screech, Rose entered one too many digits in the calculator, and swore loudly.
‘Language!’ Shantelle said at once, chiding her with a teenager’s relish for the boot being on the other foot.
‘Well, you made me jump,’ she said guiltily. ‘What on earth are you shrieking about? Did you see another mouse?’
There had been a mouse spotted earlier in the year, hiding out in the store room. Happily it had done a runner as soon as traps had been put down, so although Rose had steeled herself to dispose of a possible tiny corpse, none had ever materialised.
‘That! That over there!’ Shantelle, peeking outside through the snow-sprayed, tinsel-laden window frame, waved a frantic, ring-bedecked hand at the darkness. ‘Bit bigger than a mouse. See?’
Curious, Rose crept to the window and looked out over the girl’s shoulder.
A sleek black limousine sat at the kerb a few hundred yards down from the shop, in the small area reserved for delivery vans to pull in.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Rose whispered under her breath, staring. ‘I thought he was kidding about sending a limo.’
As they both watched in fascination, the driver’s door opened and a liveried chauffeur climbed out, cap and all. Not a male chauffeur, Rose realised in surprise as the chauffeur came closer, but a woman in tight-fitting black trousers that flared over black, high-heeled boots, and a fitted cream jacket that matched her peaked cap. And she was undoubtedly looking at the shop signs as she sauntered their way, tall and elegant, long blonde ponytail swinging from side to side.
‘Bloody hell. She’s a woman!’
‘Well spotted,’ Rose said drily, then hurried back to the counter and gave up on calculating the takings. She scooped the receipts into her handbag instead, along with today’s takings in cash, and left the empty till drawer wide open to deter burglars from breaking in. Then she grabbed her coat and scarf, and nodded Shantelle to do the same. ‘Everything off? Good, then we might as well lock up.’
‘Any chance of a lift home?’ Shantelle asked cheekily as Rose punched the code into the alarm.
The liveried chauffeur was at the open door now, looking in at them both with cool disinterest. ‘Miss Mistletoe?’ She had an odd accent. Nordic, perhaps. That would certainly tally with the blonde hair and the stately height. ‘Miss Rose Mistletoe?’
‘Erm, yes, that’s me,’ Rose said awkwardly, and nudged a staring Shantelle through the doorway, then pulled the door shut and locked it as the alarm went through its routine. ‘Did Mr Grimsby send you to collect me?’
‘Yes, madam.’
Shantelle’s eyes were wide. She studied the woman from head-to-toe, fanning herself with the end of her woolly scarf. ‘Madam,’ she repeated dreamily, and shook her head. ‘She called you madam.’
‘I’m to drive you home, madam,’ the woman continued, glancing sideways at Shantelle with a slight frown in her eyes. ‘Then on to dinner with my employer.’
‘Your employer?’
‘Yes, madam. Mr Grimsby.’
‘So you’re not … erm … just hired for tonight?’
The blonde’s eyebrows rose, but she remained icily polite. ‘No, madam. I’m Ebba, Mr Grimsby’s personal driver.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Ebba.’ She hesitated, feeling an elbow poke her in the ribs. ‘Any chance you could give Shantelle here a lift home as well?’
Ebba looked from her to Shantelle dubiously. ‘I don’t wish to cause offence, miss, but I’ve been given quite a tight schedule and Mr Grimsby is very keen on punctuality.’
‘She lives in the same street as me.’
Shantelle nodded, gesturing to Rose and then herself. ‘Same street. We’ve always known each other.’ She giggled. ‘We’re practically twins!’
The blonde’s eyebrows rose even more steeply as she studied Shantelle, then she turned back to Rose with a nod of her cap. ‘In that case, if you would both accompany me, I’ve parked the car this way.’
‘We saw it,’ Shantelle gushed. ‘Such a nice car. I’ve never been in a limousine before. Does Mr Grimsby use it a lot?’
Ebba hesitated, walking a few feet ahead of them, then nodded again. ‘Quite frequently, yes. Particularly for business clients.’
‘What, like when he’s entertaining big business tycoons, you mean? Does he keep a ton of champagne in there, and … and escort girls, and – ’
Furious, Rose shot her a quelling look, mouthing ‘Shut. Up.’
Lapsing into silence, Shantelle gave a helpless shrug, then brightened again as Ebba clicked her car key and the limousine lit up like a Christmas tree, lights flashing as it unlocked with an elegant beep. The chauffeur opened the back door and stood holding it while first Rose, and then Shantelle, slid inside the plush interior. The seats were expensive cream leather and smelt gorgeous.
‘Is that aftershave I can smell?’ Shantelle whispered, looking about herself in awe. The back of the limousine was huge, with vast deep cushions more like beds than seats, and for added privacy there was a smoky glass panel between them and the front of the car. ‘I bet His Nibbs was in here last.’
Rose sniffed the air. She recognised the aftershave at once, and nodded grimly. ‘Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
Along with the aftershave was a faint whiff of cigar smoke that was not too unpleasant. But she doubted it had come from Nick Grimsby. She had an unerring nose, and when they’d met before, he had not smelt to her like a man who smoked. Not even Cuban cigars to clinch a big deal, she thought drily, and settled back against the leather upholstery.
My God, it was comfortable.
‘I could get used to this,’ she said with a laugh, and then caught Shantelle’s wide-eyed look. ‘But I won’t, of course,’ she added, and sat up more stiffly. ‘That horrid man,’ she whispered to her assistant. ‘He thinks he can seduce me into agreeing to sell up. That’s what all this is about.’
Shantelle gripped her arm. ‘You think he’s going to try S. E. X?’
‘What?’
‘To get you into bed?’
Rose abruptly understood what she meant, and gasped. ‘No, no, I meant … All this luxury, it’s very … seductive. Not actual … seduction.’
‘Oh, right.’ Shantelle made a face. ‘Though he’s not too bad, is he? As a looker. Even with that scar. Actually, maybe that scar makes him even more of a looker.’
Rose decided not to comment.
Ebba had got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine, pressing a button that made the smoky glass panel between them slide silently back.
‘Have you got everything you need, Miss Mistletoe?’ she asked politely.
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘There’s a phone on the console to your right, and a television in the central panel. If you’d like a drink, there’s a small selection of chilled drinks available below the television.’
Shantelle, who had immediately turned on the television at these words, now flung open the narrow door below its high-spec screen to display several bottles of champagne, wine, and various spirits with mixers.
‘Oh my gawd!’ she gasped, and make a grab for the champagne.
‘Put that back at once!’ Then she said more loudly, for Ebba’s benefit, ‘We’re fine, thank you very much. We’d just like to go home.’
‘Of course, madam.’
The glass panel slid shut again, and soft classical music filled the air as the limousine pulled gently away from the kerb and slid purring into the traffic queue.
‘No champers?’ Shantelle asked, almost in a moan.
‘Seduction, remember? Don’t give in to it,’ Rose hissed in her ear, and was relieved when her assistant released the bottle, albeit reluctantly, and sat back beside her. ‘Besides, it’s not a long enough journey for us to gulp down an entire bottle of champagne! And I don’t intend turning up drunk to this business dinner.’