Читать книгу Perfect Marriage Material - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 8

CHAPTER ONE

TULLAH reached tiredly for the receiver as the telephone started to ring. She had just walked into her flat. Despite the fact that the company she worked for was cutting back on both taking on and promoting staff, the amount of work passing over her desk seemed to increase every day. Officially she finished at five-thirty but tonight, just like every other night for the past six weeks or so, it had been gone nine before she actually left work. But not for much longer... Thank goodness.

‘Tullah Richards,’ she announced softly into the receiver in the faintly husky and rather sensual voice that her friends teased her sounded far too sexy for the determined career woman she proclaimed herself to be.

‘Tullah! Wonderful. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. It’s still on for this weekend, isn’t it?’

Tullah smiled as she recognised the voice of Olivia. She and Olivia had worked together a few years earlier and had remained good friends even though Olivia was now married with a small daughter and living in the Cheshire countryside, whilst she had remained in London determinedly pursuing her chosen career path. But not for much longer. By an odd quirk of fate, she, too, would soon be moving to Haslewich....

‘Yes, if it’s still OK with you,’ she responded to Olivia’s question.

‘We’re looking forward to it,’ Olivia assured her. ‘What time do you expect to arrive?’

‘About five, I think. I’m supposed to be meeting the rep from the relocation people at one and we’re going to go round several properties they’ve picked out for me.’

‘Properties...that sounds very grand,’ Olivia teased.

Tullah laughed. ‘I wish,’ she agreed. ‘Actually I’ve already told them that I shan’t be able to afford anything much more expensive than a single-bedroomed flat, or preferably a small cottage, although I understand with the influx of new residents from Aarlston-Becker relocating to Haslewich, property locally is at something of a premium.’

‘Some of it is,’ Olivia agreed. ‘I think initially there was a feeling amongst the upper echelons of Aarlston-Becker that they’d be able to exchange their city semis for seven-bedroomed country mansions and ex-vicarages, complete with paddocks for ponies and Gertrude Jekyll—style gardens. However, the reality hasn’t been quite like that. Property is cheaper here, but... There are some very pretty little houses in Haslewich itself. Great-Aunt Ruth already has four new neigh-bours on Church Walk where she lives and we’ve certainly been handling a big increase in conveyances.

‘What will happen about your London flat, by the way?’

‘Oh well, I’ve been quite lucky there. Sarah, the girl I share with, is getting married and she and her new husband are buying me out, so at least I’m not having to hang fire waiting for a buyer, although part of the deal when Aarlston-Becker offered me the job was that they would cover all my moving costs, including any bridging loans I might need, plus making sure I got a mortgage.’

‘That’s my girl.’ Olivia laughed. ‘I must say I’m really looking forward to your moving up here. It will be like old times. I can’t believe sometimes that it’s over three years since I left the company. So much has happened. Caspar and I’ve married and we’ve had Amelia, the practice has really become busy this past year and Uncle Jon and I have been talking about taking on a qualified legal assistant or even possibly a full solicitor.’

‘Mmm...well, you certainly did make the right decision leaving when you did,’ Tullah assured her darkly. ‘The amount of cutbacks we’ve been having are quite frightening.’

‘They’ll be sorry to lose you, though,’ Olivia returned. ‘I must say I felt awfully proud of you when I heard that you’d been head-hunted to join Aarlston-Becker.’

‘Along with a good dozen or so other people,’ Tullah felt bound to point out, ‘and only because they’d decided to relocate to Haslewich almost at the last minute instead of going ahead with their original plans to move their European divisional headquarters to The Hague because the British incentives were so much better.’

‘Well, you’re certainly going to be working for a first-class international organisation,’ Olivia told her enthusiastically. ‘I know how impressed my cousin Saul has been since he joined them six months ago. Like you, he, too, was head-hunted by them when they first relocated and—’

‘Saul,’ Tullah interrupted her, an unusual sharpness entering her normally soft husky voice.

‘Mmm...he’s one of my cousins, well, perhaps a second or even a third on my father’s side. I’m never quite sure with our tangled family history. You may not remember him although he was at the wedding and the christening, as well. Tall, dark and—’

‘Handsome,’ Tullah supplied grittily, adding trenchantly, ‘So far as I can remember, Olivia, you have at least half a dozen second and third male cousins who could answer that description.’

‘Maybe,’ Olivia agreed and then her voice softened slightly as she continued, ‘But there’s only one Saul.’

‘If only,’ Tullah muttered sourly under her breath. Then raising her voice so that Olivia could hear her, she remarked, ‘I do remember him—vaguely. Very dark, rather autocratic and quite the gallant, as I recall. He made a big fuss about making sure everyone knew what a good father he was, but I seem to remember it was your Aunt Jenny who actually seemed to be spending the most time looking after his children.

‘I thought that his side of your family lived in Pembroke,’ she added disdainfully.

‘They did...they do. It’s just that since Uncle Hugh is virtually fully retired, he and Ann spend a good deal of their time travelling abroad. Uncle Hugh is a keen sailor and, well, to cut a long story short, Saul is divorced now and he thought it would be better for the children to grow up in an environment where they had close family ties, and in fact that was the clinching element in his taking this job with Aarlston’s. Quite a coincidence, really, both of you working for their legal department but then, of course, it is a huge multinational organisation.

‘There was quite a lot of local antagonism towards them when they first moved into the area. Aunt Ruth said it reminded her of when the Americans arrived during the Second World War, only they had the benefit of silk stockings and chocolate to ease their way into the community.

‘Aunt Jenny was saying the other day that she’d heard on the local grapevine via Guy Cooke, her business partner—his widespread family are Haslewich, you should know. They’ve been here right from the word “go”—the general consensus of opinion tends to be in favour of the influx, or at least the boost to the local economy that it brings with it.’

‘Mmm...well. it’s good to know I shan’t be facing the local eviction committee,’ Tullah told her ruefully.

Olivia laughed. ‘You? No way. It’s going to be lovely having you to stay for the weekend, Tullah. I’m really looking forward to it.’

‘So am I,’ Tullah confirmed with a smile.

Once she had replaced the receiver, though, she wasn’t smiling. Saul Crighton. She hadn’t realised that he was living in Haslewich now or, even worse, working for Aarlston-Becker. She knew, of course, that Olivia had something of a soft spot for him although she couldn’t understand why. By all accounts and from the gossip she had overheard at Olivia and Caspar’s wedding, Saul had come very close to breaking them up, cold-bloodedly trying to persuade a then very vulnerable Olivia into having an affair with him, even though he had been married at the time.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Tullah had also overheard the same two people discussing the fact that one of Olivia’s young teenage cousins, Louise, was in all likelihood also a victim of Saul’s egotistical and grossly selfish need to boost his flagging self-esteem in the only way he apparently knew how—flattering and seducing young, immature and vulnerable girls into having affairs with him.

Tullah knew all about that kind of man and she knew, too, just what sort of devastation they could wreak, just what kind of hurt and self-loathing they could inflict on their victims. She should do. She after all...

But it was pointless harking back to the past. She had very firmly closed the door on that particular episode of her life when she had come to live and work in London. The young girl who had fallen so intensely and so damagingly in love with the married man who had cold-bloodedly fed on her naïvety and inexperience, her belief that when he said he loved her and his marriage was an empty sham, he truly meant it, no longer existed. How could she? She had been damaged beyond repair, destroyed by the trauma of discovering just how much her lover had deceived her, by learning that not only had he no intention of leaving his wife but that also, far from being the love of his life, she was actually just one in a long, long chain of affairs he had lured his victims into over the years.

If she was honest with herself, she could see now that it wasn’t so much her youthful love and adoration that still festered deep down inside her, but the humiliation he had wrought, the self-hatred, the awareness of her own foolishness and gullibility.

His wife had told her wearily at the time that the only reason she had not left him was because of their children.

‘They still need him even if I don’t,’ she had told Tullah tiredly, and Tullah, aware humiliatingly of how much she missed her own father since her own parents’ divorce, had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to prevent herself from crying like a child herself.

Over the years she had come into contact with a good many men who suffered from the same egocentric needs as the man who had hurt her so badly—shallow, vain creatures, possessed of a dangerously alluring charm that could all too easily deceive the vulnerable and naïve, and so far there was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that Saul Crighton was yet another example of the breed.

She remembered that he had asked her to dance at Olivia and Caspar’s wedding, frowning down at her from his admittedly impressive height of over six feet when she had refused as tersely and abruptly as a child.

She could remember, too, watching Olivia fuss over him, explaining when she saw Tullah watching her that he had been going through a bad time and that he carried a heavy burden of responsibility.

‘He and his wife...are separated,’ she had explained, a little uncomfortably when Tullah had made no response. Tullah had said nothing, not wanting to cause any discord between Olivia and her by informing her friend that she was not surprised. After all, she had just overheard about Saul’s attempt to seduce Olivia away from Caspar.

It had been Max Crighton, another of Olivia’s cousins, Jon and Jenny’s elder son, who had explained the whole situation to her.

‘Saul likes ’em young...he’s at that age,‘ Max had told her cynically. ‘Mind you, he’s not exactly the faithful type. No sooner had he realised that he’d lost Olivia than he started making a play for my sister Louise.’

She had spent a good half an hour listening to Max explaining the intricate interfamily relationships that existed between the various members of the Crighton clan. He himself was quite obviously very much a man who liked to flirt, but Tullah had found his frank and open attempts to engage her in a subtly sensual exchange of banter far more healthy and easy to deal with than, to her mind, Saul’s much more sinister and underhanded pseudo sincerity, especially when she had seen Louise, all coltish limbs and soft, trembling mouth, watching him with her heart in her eyes. No, she hadn’t liked Saul Crighton a bit...not one tiny little bit.

‘You’re looking very thoughtful and broody,’ Caspar commented to his wife as he walked into the kitchen, put down the essays he had brought home to read and went over to the table where she was standing to take her in his arms and kiss her. ‘Mmm...that was nice.’

‘Mmm...very,’ she agreed, telling him, ‘I spoke to Tullah earlier. She’s definitely coming up this weekend.’

‘Ah, now I understand. It’s the thought of doing a little bit of matchmaking that’s turning you all broody, isn’t it, and not—’

‘Well, Tullah is twenty-eight, just the right age to settle down,’ Olivia told her husband defensively. ‘And she’s so motherly....’

‘Motherly?’ Caspar gave a shout of laughter as he visualised his wife’s friend. ‘Is this the same Tullah we’re talking about? Tullah with the figure that’s straight out of every man’s fantasy...somewhere between Claudia Schiffer and a Baywatch babe? The same Tullah with those wonderful, dark gypsy eyes and curls and that gorgeous pouting mouth that makes her look so provocative and yet at the same time somehow more vulnerable and less knowing, if you know what I mean...and—’

‘Caspar,’ Olivia warned.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised unrepentantly. His eyes twinkled as he admitted, ‘Perhaps I was getting a trifle carried away...but you have to admit that no one would ever think she’s a highly qualified lawyer. She looks as though her sex-appeal rating would be through the roof while her IQ—’

‘Caspar!’ Olivia warned more darkly.

‘OK, OK...calm down. You know perfectly well that my taste runs to sassy blondes with flashing eyes and... All I’m trying to say,’ he added patiently, ‘is that stunning and sensual and very, very sexy Tullah may be, but motherly...’

‘That’s just because you’re judging her on the way she looks,’ Olivia told him severely. ‘As you’ve just said yourself, she is highly qualified. She actually started working in a small professional practice, you know, but the trauma of dealing with so many divorce and custody cases got to her so much that she decided to switch to industry instead. Her own parents split up when she was in her teens, and from what she’s told me about it, I suspect it had a very traumatic effect on her.’

‘Mmm...very probably.’ They exchanged long, understanding looks with one another. Caspar’s own childhood had not been an easy one, passed as he had been from parent to parent, forced to take a back seat as they both remarried and produced further families, which in his mind seemed to supplant him.

Olivia’s childhood, too, had not been without its problems. Her father, David, her uncle Jon’s twin brother, had disappeared whilst recovering from a serious heart attack, simply discharging himself and walking out, leaving no trace of where he was going or what he intended to do and her mother...

Tania, her mother, after years of suffering from an eating disorder, was now living in the south of England. She had telephoned Olivia several weeks ago to tell her excitedly that there was a new man in her life whom she wanted her daughter to meet.

‘I was thinking of how perfectly one of the Chester cousins would be for Tullah,’ Olivia told Caspar.

‘One of them?’ he repeated, raising his eyebrows.

‘Well, there are so many to choose from,’ she defended herself, ‘and now that Luke and Bobbie are married...well, it might just give the others the impetus they need. After all, it can’t be lack of financial security that’s holding them back.’

‘You sound like one of Jane Austen’s characters,’ Caspar teased her.

Olivia laughed again. ‘You mean, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”’ she quoted. ‘I was thinking more of the emotional need,’ she informed Caspar with great dignity. Now let me see... There’s James and Alistair, Niall and Kit.’ She ticked their names off on her fingers.

‘She can’t marry all of them,’ Caspar interrupted her.

‘Of course not,’ she agreed, giving him a scathing look. ‘But I am sure that one of them... After all, just think what she’s got in common with them.’

‘What?’ Caspar invited.

‘Well, for a start, they’re all members of the same profession,’ she told him, raising her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Honestly, men!’ She turned to the papers she had been about to read before he came in, shaking her head.

‘Livvy...’ She stared at Caspar as he drew her gently to him, ‘Look, I know you mean well, and yes, your cousins and Tullah possibly do have something in common, but she’s a high-flying professional woman of almost thirty. Don’t you think if she wanted to settle down and have children she’d have found a partner of her own choice by now?’

Olivia bit her lip. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn’t interfere?’

‘Well...’

‘I was only thinking of having a couple of dinner parties...returning invitations...that kind of thing.’

‘Mmm... I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you enjoy marriage and motherhood so much that you want to inflict it, er, share its pleasure, with all your friends.’

‘I suppose you should,’ she agreed. ‘Speaking of which...do you remember how we were talking the other night about it being time we thought about a brother or sister for Amelia?’

‘What, you’re not—’

‘Not yet,’ she told him demurely. ‘But we really ought to—’

‘Oh yes, we really ought,’ Caspar agreed, laughing as he turned her towards the kitchen door and the stairs that lay beyond it.