Gold Digger

Lottie

“You can come down now, child,” Margot called up to the mezzanine, and my heart sank. We were totally rumbled. When there was no movement from up there, I sighed, resigning myself to losing my job.

“It’s okay, Hayley,” I said. “You don’t have to hide anymore. The jig is up.”

Still no movement.

“I promise I don’t bite,” said a smiling Margot. “Hmm, if you don’t come down, I’ll have to eat all the cookies the cook made myself, and then my bottom will be even fatter, and then I won’t be able to ride my horse, Bertie.” I heard a shuffling from above at that. It would have been talk of horses and not the cookies that tempted her out. Hayley was obsessed with horses. We watched as her little face appeared between the banisters, her wide eyes flicking between Margot and me. “Come on then,” said Margot smartly. “You’re needed to save my bottom and Bertie’s back, remember?” Hayley looked at me. When I nodded, she turned and started to make her way down the stairs.

“Careful, Hails,” I said, and she looked at me, raising her eyebrows as if to say I’m not a complete clumsy idiot like you. I can make it down a set of stairs without making a complete numpty of myself. I scowled at her.

“I got distracted, okay? I didn’t expect him to be home and it gave me a shock.”

Hayley rolled her eyes: You’re clumsy all the time, even without the shock of your intimidating actual duke employer scaring the bejesus out of you .

“Whatever,” I muttered. “As if you never fall over.”

Hayley’s eyebrows went even higher, and I huffed in annoyance. “Okay, I’ll give you that. You might have received the lion’s share of our coordination genes.” Hayley had amazing balance and hand-eye coordination. If I could afford it, or indeed convince her to go, I would have her at every dance, tennis and gym club under the sun. As it was, she point-blank refused, so she was stuck playing tennis with me in the park on a Saturday, which, given my complete lack of skill, was not ideal.

Margot cleared her throat as Hayley made her way over to me. “You two seem to be having a conversation, but only one of you is speaking,” she observed. “It’s quite uncanny.”

Hayley skirted the edge of the sofa to come and sit next to me, still clutching Keith. My good hand enclosed hers, giving it a squeeze.

“Margot, this is my sister Hayley. She isn’t much of a talker, I’m afraid,” I said quietly. Hayley squeezed my hand back, and her gaze dropped to the floor as her cheeks turned pink.

Margot looked between us again with kind eyes, then approached the sofa to squat in front of Hayley. “Never mind,” she said in a soft voice. “Too many chatterboxes out there talking about big bottoms and horses, I say.” That drew a very brief bit of eye contact from Hayley and a small smile. I blinked. Hayley rarely smiled at anyone but me, and certainly not within the first five minutes of meeting them. Apart from me, her grandparents and her teachers at school, there weren’t really many other adults in her life. And her grandparents had only really shown an interest in the last six months. I’d been trying to encourage them to bond, but it was hard going. Brenda and Tony had hated my mother and, by extension, me. After all, they weren’t my grandparents, as they reminded me frequently. The starkest reminder had been two weeks ago on Christmas Day. I’d been lonely plenty of times in my life, but that day may have been my lowest point.

“Listen, Margot,” I said. “I really appreciate you not saying anything to your son when you spotted Hayley earlier. I wouldn’t normally bring her with me, but… she had a dreadful tummy ache last night and this morning, and I just couldn’t take her to school like that.”Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.

“Lottie, my son is usually a very charming chap. I’m not sure why he’s behaving like a high-handed tyrant from the last century with you at the moment, but you can take sick days if you need to. He would never object to that.”

I broke eye contact with her to glance at Hayley, then cleared my throat. “I… um, that’s good to know, but I—” God, this was awkward. I didn’t want to outright call Margot a liar, but I was pretty sure her son would frown on taking sick days. I’d learnt the hard way that rich people were ruthless.

I shivered when I remembered the parting speech of my last employer, Mrs Buchanon. “I’m afraid we need reliable staff and somebody with the ability to… maintain standards .” She’d been eyeing my trainers with the soles coming away and the frayed sleeves of my jumper when she said “maintain standards”, and I’d never felt so mortified in my life. I’d like to see her maintain standards clothing-wise on the budget I was subsisting on back then. I’d barely had enough for food and rent. But unfortunately, I couldn’t really argue the reliability aspect. Hayley had been even worse when I was working for them. I’d explained the situation to the Buchanons, and they’d seemed sympathetic at first. But in the end, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the week off I took for our mother’s funeral. Mrs Buchanon just didn’t want to be inconvenienced anymore with my “frequent absences”. I don’t think her husband’s habit of eyeing my arse with undisguised interest helped either. So no, I wasn’t falling into the trap of thinking there was room for mistakes. Not anymore.

I cleared my throat. “Hails, why don’t you check out the bookshelf?” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. Hayley loved books, and one of the walls of this room was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Her eyes lit up, but then she frowned, glancing at my ankle again and biting her lip. “I’m fine, lovebug,” I said softly. She freed her hand from mine and lifted it up with her little finger extended. I linked it with my little finger and whispered. “Pinky promise.” She glanced between me and the books, and I sighed. “It’s okay. Go and have a look. They might have a copy of Black Beauty .” That did the trick. Her eyes went back to the shelves, and she finally gave into temptation, getting up from the sofa and crossing the room to start examining the spines.

I turned back to Margot once Hayley was sufficiently out of earshot. “I just really need to keep this job,” I whispered. My stomach was feeling tight at how I’d argued with the duke earlier. The last thing I needed was to piss him off. But he was so blooming bossy. Of course, he wasn’t to know that my eight-year-old sister was hiding in his mezzanine, and that leaving for hospital without her was completely out of the question. So my reaction probably hadn’t made that much sense. But, honestly, fraggle off, mate. I’d been looking after myself since I was ten; I could deal with a measly sprained wrist and ankle. God.

Margot’s eyes flicked between me and Hayley.

“Your parents?” she whispered back, and I shook my head. Her mouth tightened, and a look of determination came over her face. Since working here, I’d come to realise that Margot was quite something. Despite the fact she had her own house in the country, she spent a lot of time in London, her favourite pastime interfering in her son’s life and siphoning his money off into the various charity foundations she’d set up under the Buckingham name. She was a force to be reckoned with, and I had a feeling Hayley and I were about to experience that first-hand.