Читать книгу Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 17

Jon paused uneasily as he got out of his car. There were lights shining from the upstairs window, which he knew belonged to David and Tiggy’s large bedroom—only Tiggy’s bedroom now and for some time to come if, as the specialist warned, David was going to have to remain in hospital for the present.

‘I thought the idea these days was to get the patient back on his or her feet and home as quickly as possible after a heart attack,’ Jon had commented when the specialist had taken him through his proposals for David’s treatment.

‘There are heart attacks and heart attacks,’ Mr Hayes had responded enigmatically, ‘and there are patients and patients.’

Olivia’s car was parked outside and Jon’s heart sank slightly as she opened the door to his knock.

‘Tiggy’s upstairs,’ she told him and took him through into the small sitting room that he always associated with David’s wife.

Like her, it was delicate and feminine and somehow always seemed to smell of her perfume. David had his own study on the other side of the hall, which reminded him …

‘I’d like to have a word with you before Tiggy comes down,’ Olivia told him as she handed him the glass of dry sherry she had poured him.

Jon’s heart sank a little further. He had no need to ask her what she wanted to talk to him about.

‘I know that nothing will ever persuade Gramps, and to some extent Dad, too, since he always tends to fall in line with Gramps’s views that a woman, any woman, but most especially a Crighton woman, is capable of being a competent lawyer, but I thought that you were different, Uncle Jon. I am qualified, you know, and … But from the look on your face when I offered to stand in for Dad until he’s fit enough to return to work—’

‘Olivia, I know how well qualified you are,’ Jon interrupted her dryly, ‘and as for your competence …’ He gave her a wry look. ‘We both know that you are far, far more than merely competent, but—’

‘But you still don’t want me working here in the practice.’

‘It isn’t a matter of what I may or may not want,’ Jon hedged. ‘You know—’

‘What? That Gramps doesn’t approve? You can’t run the practice on your own. It’s obvious from what Mr Hayes has told me that at least part of the cause of Dad’s heart attack was the stress he was under at work. You don’t have time to advertise and interview and—’

‘There are agencies that supply temporary cover,’ Jon started to point out, but Olivia overruled him, shaking her head, her chin firmly, stubbornly, set.

‘Yes, I know, but …’ She stopped speaking and walked impatiently over to the fireplace before turning round and demanding, ‘If I were male … if I were Max, for instance, you wouldn’t think twice about accepting my offer, and—’

‘Olivia, I promise you, any reluctance you might imagine there is on my part to take you on has nothing to do with your sex.’

‘Hasn’t it? Then prove it,’ Olivia challenged him.

Jon closed his eyes tiredly; there was no point in continuing to oppose her. He couldn’t carry the workload of the practice without help. He hadn’t had a chance to go through David’s desk or files yet, but if the backlog of work there was as large as he suspected … How could he explain to Olivia that the reason for his reluctance to accept her offer was because he … If only he had had more time. If only he had had some warning, he might have been able to …

‘It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your offer, Olivia,’ he told her quietly.

‘Good,’ she returned firmly. ‘Then that’s settled. I’ll start tomorrow morning.’

‘What’s settled?’ Tiggy demanded as she walked into the room. She was wearing some kind of housecoat-type garment, Jon noticed, a floaty, chiffony affair in soft pastels that reflected the delicate purity of her skin.

She had never been exactly robust-looking, but since David’s heart attack, she seemed even more vulnerable and fragile.

‘It’s settled that I’m going to be filling in for Dad until he’s fit enough to go back to work,’ Olivia answered her mother. She frowned slightly as she commented, ‘I thought you said you were going upstairs to get dressed.’

‘Yes, I did … I was,’ Tiggy agreed. Jon noticed she hung her head almost as though she were the child and Olivia the parent. ‘But …’ She turned to Jon, her eyes wide and appealing as she told him huskily, ‘I started thinking about David and …’ Her mouth started to tremble, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You won’t be cross with me for not getting dressed properly, will you, Jon? After all, you are family. I’m so glad you’re here,’ she added without waiting for his response. ‘The bank keeps ringing up and—’

‘I would have spoken to the bank, Tiggy,’ Olivia interrupted her. Her mother gave her a tearful look.

‘I know you would, but it’s better if Jon talks to them. He’s a man and …’

She bit her lip as Olivia replaced her empty sherry glass on the silver tray with unnecessary force.

‘Oh, Saul rang,’ Tiggy told her. ‘He wants you to ring him back.’ She waited until Olivia had left the room before turning to Jon and saying apologetically, ‘Olivia isn’t in a very good mood, I’m afraid. I think she and Caspar have had a row. Oh, Jon.’ She stopped talking, her voice suspended by her tears. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be burdening you with my problems, but I know David—’

‘Shh … it’s all right,’ Jon started to reassure her, ‘and you’re not burdening me. I want to help.’

‘Oh, Jon.’ The misty-eyed look she gave him was full of gratitude and trust. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if it hadn’t been for you. I’m not like Jenny or Olivia. It doesn’t matter what happens, they always seem able to cope, but I’m not like them.’

No, she wasn’t, Jon acknowledged. He couldn’t remember the last time that Jenny had needed him, turned to him, wanted him…. His heart missed a beat. He hadn’t let himself think about their quarrel as he drove over here.

‘Am I a nuisance, Jon? I’m sure Jenny …’

‘No, of course you aren’t.’

Later he wasn’t sure how it had happened. One moment he was reaching out automatically and a little awkwardly to pat her reassuringly on the arm; the next Tiggy was in his arms, fragile, fragrant and fatally feminine, clinging to him and crying out her anxiety and fear.

His awareness that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the chiffon affair and that her breasts felt pert and firm came too late for him to do anything about his body’s unexpected reaction to her. He could feel the soft warmth of her breasts against his body, the scent of her filling his nostrils. He had an overwhelming urge to …

When Tiggy nervously whispered, ‘We mustn’t. Olivia might come back,’ he suddenly returned to his senses—to reality—his face flooding with hot, guilty colour as he released her and stepped awkwardly back from her, unable to look directly at her as he started to apologise.

‘No, it’s not your fault,’ Tiggy stopped him shakily before bursting out in an anguished voice, ‘Oh, Jon, you don’t know how much I’ve needed someone like you. David hasn’t … Our marriage …’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. You’re his brother … his twin.’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘But who else can I talk to … confide in … trust?’ She lifted her hand to her head.

‘My head aches so much I can’t think. There are so many things I ought to do … things that I know that Jenny would be able to do, but I just can’t …’

It hurt him that she so constantly felt the need to compare herself unfavourably with Jenny. How well he himself knew that feeling of envy, the sense of shame and self-dislike it brought, the guilt and self-contempt.

‘You and Jenny are different people,’ he told her gently.

‘Yes, I know,’ she agreed, giving him a slightly wobbly smile. ‘But I can’t help thinking that if Jenny had been David’s wife, she would have seen what was happening, she would have known … done something … I just know that everyone blames me for his heart attack,’ she confessed brokenly.

‘No, you mustn’t think that,’ Jon denied. ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault. How could it be? Look … I have to go, but don’t worry. I’ll speak to the bank in the morning.’

There was something else he had to ask … something he had to do. He paused and then took a deep breath.

‘Tiggy, I was wondering … the keys to David’s desk here, do you …?’

‘They’re upstairs,’ she told him instantly. ‘Do you want them? I’ll go and get them for you.’

She was so trusting, so guileless, he could taste the sour bile of his guilt.

‘If … if you don’t mind, there are some papers … some files.’

‘I shan’t be a moment.’

He closed his eyes as he watched her leave, his forehead beaded with sweat, his heart thumping. He silently prayed to God not to be right, not to let the suspicions that had been gathering round him like dark clouds be confirmed.

Tiggy returned, smiling her innocent triumph, as she gave him David’s keys. ‘I’m not sure which ones are for his study desk,’ she confided, her forehead puckering.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll find them,’ Jon reassured her. The telephone had started ringing and he held his breath in relief as she went to answer it.

Feeling like a thief, he hurried into David’s study, flicking through the keys Tiggy had handed him until he found the ones for the desk. The drawers were a jumble of unanswered mail and unfiled correspondence all thrown haphazardly on top of one another. He could see the familiar buff edge of the file poking out from underneath a thick, untidy wad of bank statements. His heart started to beat very fast.

He had just removed the file when the study door opened. He froze as he heard Olivia exclaiming, ‘Tiggy … Oh, Uncle Jon, it’s you.’

‘Yes. I was just getting some papers … your mother …’

Olivia frowned as she watched the awkward way he tried to conceal the buff file he had removed from her father’s desk amongst some of the papers he had picked up.

‘I, er, promised your mother I’ll ring the bank in the morning.’

‘Won’t you need to take Dad’s bank statements, then?’ Olivia suggested quietly.

‘What? Oh yes …’ He reached for them almost reluctantly as though he didn’t want to touch them, Olivia noticed.

Her instincts warned her that something was wrong. Jon looked pale, ill almost, but then none of them was exactly behaving normally at the moment. Take Saul for instance. She had telephoned him at Queensmead to discover that he wanted her advice.

‘Hillary and I have decided to separate,’ he had told her tautly. ‘She wants to go back to the States. As yet we haven’t made any plans to divorce, but I suspect it will only be a matter of time before we do so. I’m going to need a good divorce lawyer, Livvy. I want full custody of the kids. There’s no way they’re going to be passed between us like parcels and no way do I intend to be an absentee father. You’re more up to date with these things than me. Is there someone you can recommend?’

‘I’m like you. I work in industry,’ Olivia reminded him. ‘Wouldn’t Max have more idea?’

‘Max!’ Saul had snorted with derisive contempt. ‘The only ideas he’s got are how to extract more money out of Ben. Come over if you can, Livvy, please. I need someone to talk to … or are you and Caspar …?’

‘Caspar’s gone out,’ Olivia told him shortly, not wanting to tell him that she and Caspar had quarrelled.

‘So you can come over, then?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed after a small pause, ‘I can.’

She had gone into the study thinking her mother was there and intending to tell her that she was going out. She hadn’t expected to find Jon there and expected even less to see the almost guilty way he seemed to be furtively going through her father’s papers.

Tiggy appeared at the door. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ she asked Jon.

‘Yes, yes, I have,’ he told her, adding, ‘Look, Tiggy, I must go.’

‘Yes, I know you must,’ she agreed wanly. ‘Jenny will be cross with me for keeping you so long, but you will come with me when I go to see David tomorrow, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I will,’ Jon assured her gently.

‘I’m going to Queensmead to see Saul,’ Olivia told her mother, then turned to Jon and asked him quietly, ‘What time shall I be at the office in the morning?’

A shadow crossed his face before he reluctantly answered, ‘I normally like to be there around eight-thirty.’

‘Fine, eight-thirty it is,’ Olivia agreed.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Olivia asked Saul, concern etching her features. He had met her at the door as she arrived and had plainly been waiting for her, shaking his head as she turned towards the house.

‘Do you mind if we talk outside? It’s easier for me somehow. We could walk down to the river. Remember how much you used to love it as a kid?’

‘I can remember how exasperated you got when I disturbed your fishing expeditions.’ Olivia laughed. ‘Remember the time I fell in …?’

‘Can I ever forget it? You terrified the life out of me, and I’m sure your mother thought I’d pushed you in deliberately.’

‘I’ll bet there were plenty of times when you wanted to,’ Olivia teased him.

‘The temptation was certainly there,’ he agreed wryly, ‘and I don’t just mean the temptation to give you a ducking….’

‘Oh?’ Olivia frowned as she looked questioningly at him.

‘No,’ he returned softly. ‘Dunking you wasn’t what I had in mind at all the night I caught you skinny-dipping.’

This time, Olivia’s ‘oh’ was low and vibrant with remembered teenage embarrassment. ‘It was midsummer night’s eve, and I—’

‘You were standing there perched on a rock in the middle of the river stark naked, curtsying to the moon,’ Saul interrupted her huskily, ‘and you looked—’

‘A complete idiot,’ Olivia supplied ruefully for him. ‘No … a complete naked idiot,’ she amended, tongue-in-cheek.

‘You looked like a young acolyte, a moon maiden, offering herself up in sacrifice, virginal and pure; as innocent as a child and yet as knowledgeable as Eve. I wanted to reach out to you, take hold of you. You had been in the river and I could see the water still running off your skin, your breasts, your belly, your … The moonlight turned your body the colour of moonstones, pale and almost translucent. I wanted to bury my face between your legs and lick the drops of water from your skin. I wanted to join you in your pagan nakedness, your sensual abandonment to the night and the moon, and then you turned your head and saw me and—’

‘Fell off my perch and into the river,’ Olivia finished for him shakily. She was glad of the concealing darkness around them, not because Saul had evoked the embarrassment her adolescent self had experienced at being so shamingly discovered by her so much older and more sophisticated male relative cavorting around naked in the river, but because of the sensations, the emotions, his words had aroused in her now.

‘I never knew you could be so poetic,’ she finally managed to say as she struggled to dismiss the surge of heat she could feel invading her body. It would serve no good purpose and only add fuel to embers, which, she suspected, given half a chance, could start to burn very dangerously out of control if she admitted to Saul that if he had done all those years ago any one of the things he had just described, he would have made the magic of the night complete.

Hadn’t she, after all, gone down to the river to fulfil an old local tradition that said a girl should offer a prayer to the midsummer night’s moon to be granted the love of the man of her choice? And in those days, Saul … well, she had certainly had a mammoth crush on him.

Right now, Saul was feeling very vulnerable, she reminded herself. His marriage had broken down and he had turned to her for support and advice as a close family member … her father’s cousin, she reminded herself firmly.

‘It was just as well it was you who caught me and not Gramps,’ she commented lightly, ‘even if I didn’t think so at the time, considering the ticking off you gave me.

‘Is there no way you and Hillary can give your marriage a second chance?’ she asked him, changing the subject as they walked down the path that led through Queensmead’s more formal gardens and through the water meadow bordering the river.

‘A second chance?’ Saul derided cynically. ‘Our marriage has had more second chances than I’ve had hot dinners. No, Meg was the result of our last attempt at a second chance,’ he admitted frankly, ‘and I wish to God she hadn’t been. No child should be conceived as a Band-Aid to fix an ailing marriage.’

‘Oh, Saul,’ Olivia protested, automatically reaching out to touch his arm sympathetically.

The years that separated them no longer seemed the vast gulf they had appeared to her at fifteen when she had been at the height or rather the depths of her mammoth crush on him. Nor did Saul himself really appear to resemble the Godlike remote creature she had built him up in her mind to be in those days. She rather preferred him as the fallible human being he actually was, she admitted ruefully, and whilst the awe in which she had once held him might have gone, her awareness of his sexuality certainly hadn’t.

Quickly she released his arm, causing him to stop and look searchingly at her in the dusky half-light before very firmly taking hold of her hand and gently tucking her arm back through his own.

‘Caspar can’t object,’ he told her, ‘if that’s what you’re worrying about. We are cousins.’

‘It wasn’t and we’re not … cousins,’ she clarified. ‘Well, not first ones, second maybe … heavens, I’m beginning to sound like Gramps. He always makes such a big thing of the fact that he and your father are half-brothers.’

‘Mmm … Well, it’s always amazed me to see the different ways he treats your father and Jon. If I were Jon …’ He stopped and shook his head.

‘What will you do now?’ Olivia asked him, changing the subject again. ‘What will happen to the children if Hillary does go back to America?’

‘If she does? Believe me, there’s no “if” about it. This afternoon she was on the phone organising her flight. I’ve got to go back to work, of course. The parents, or rather Mum, has offered to help out with the kids for the time being but that’s only a temporary solution and it means uprooting them, which I don’t really want to do. I suppose my best option is to take on a nanny to look after them.’

‘Where’s Hillary now?’ Olivia asked him. They had almost reached the river and she could see it gleaming darkly under the shadows of the clouds that raced across the moon.

‘She’s got a dinner date, would you believe it? I don’t know who with.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Trust Hillary. You know it wasn’t very far from here that I saw you on that night,’ he reminded her.

‘I can’t remember, was it …?’ Olivia replied untruthfully, adding as she turned her back on the river, ‘We’d better go back, I—’

‘Livvy …’

‘Yes.’

She knew what was going to happen, of course. She wasn’t fifteen any more and she knew perfectly well what that particular note in a man’s voice meant. She could have ignored it. Ignored Saul, but instead …

Instead, she turned back to him and he stepped towards her, lifting his hands to touch and then cup her face, stroking her skin with those long, lean fingers, learning its contours with delicate and very deliberate sensuality.

‘Saul!’ She reached to catch at his hands and remove them from her face but it was too late to avoid the downward movement of his head, the warm male pressure of his mouth, his kiss.

She ended it as quickly as she could, willing her own lips not to give in to the temptation to respond; stepping back from him quickly and determinedly and starting to walk back down the path they had just come without waiting for him.

‘Livvy, I’m sorry,’ he apologised as he caught up with her. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she agreed lightly.

‘Still friends?’ he asked her.

‘Still friends,’ she repeated, emphasising the second word meaningfully.

Saul laughed as he caught hold of her hand, dropping it again as she tugged it away from him.

‘All right, all right, I get the message,’ he assured her, adding ruefully, ‘Caspar’s a lucky man, although I get the impression that he wasn’t too pleased when you offered to stay on here to help Jon.’

‘Did he tell you that?’ Olivia asked sharply.

‘Not in so many words.’

‘It won’t be for very long. Just a few weeks until Dad gets back on his feet.’ Not even to Saul could she admit that it wasn’t just because of her father that she felt compelled to stay. There was her mother, as well. So far there had been no repeat of the ugly scene Olivia had walked in on. But her mother was so frighteningly vulnerable; look at the way she was clinging to Uncle Jon. She needed someone to be there for her.

But Olivia knew that there was no point in trying to tell Caspar how she felt. He had made his views on her mother’s condition quite plain enough.

‘You wanted to see me, Grandfather?’ Max paused edgily just inside Ben’s study door.

He had just been on the point of leaving for Chester, ostensibly on a self-imposed mission to update the Chester side of the family with the latest news on David’s progress, but in reality, he had planned, after discharging this duty, to spend the rest of the evening indulging in a little R and R away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of Haslewich. He knew of a club where the membership rules were pretty elastic, provided you could afford to break them, and the girls … Then when his mother had informed him that his grandfather wanted to see him, he had been tempted to put off answering Ben’s summons until the morning, but he knew quite well that his mother would refuse to lie for him.

Just what the hell did the old man want? Had that interfering American boyfriend of Olivia’s been dropping hints to him about the chambers vacancy? Max could feel himself starting to sweat slightly. By rights he ought to be back in London finding out who his female competitor was and doing all he could to sabotage her chances of getting what was rightfully his, but until they had had some concrete news about David’s condition, he hadn’t dared to leave. He knew exactly how Ben would view his departure if he did.

He had never seen the old man so off balance. Mentally Max rehearsed his defence. His grandfather was bound to share his view that it was unfair that his right to the tenancy was being challenged—threatened by a woman. Ben’s views on women entering the legal profession were, after all, no secret. It had amused Max to watch Olivia trying to worm herself into Ben’s good graces earlier. Much good it had done her. It was obvious that neither Ben nor Jon wanted her around.

Luckily the fact that he had trained as a barrister and not a solicitor meant that there was no point in his offering to make a similar sacrifice, which was just as well because he had no intention of doing so. The thought of ending up like David, trapped in Haslewich, brought him out in a cold sweat.

Ben had some papers in front of him on his desk and Max’s heart started to thump heavily as Ben beckoned him closer and he realised what they were.

‘I’ve been going through my will,’ Ben told him heavily. ‘At my age it’s a necessary precaution, although …’

He paused and looked from Max to the fire whilst Max tried not to betray his impatience. What the hell did the old man want? Had Caspar spilled the beans or not?

‘As things stand, David, as my eldest son, will inherit Queensmead and the bulk of my personal assets,’ Ben began solemnly. ‘I have, of course, left certain personal bequests—your allowance is one of them. At least until …’

Max gritted his teeth. He knew all this, they all did, so what was the point in the old boy’s going over it again now? Was he going senile or something? Had David’s heart attack affected his brain?

‘However, your uncle’s heart attack changes everything.’ Ben spoke slowly, reluctantly, almost as though the words were physically painful to him. ‘I can’t ignore the fact that David might not …’

He stopped and Max watched dispassionately as Ben tried to control the way his hand shook as he picked up his will. The old man was getting frail. How old exactly was he?

Max was beginning to relax now that he knew Ben hadn’t sent for him because he had found out about the potential problems with his tenancy in chambers. His stance eased, becoming indolently nonchalant as he leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets.

‘I can’t ignore the fact that David could die before me. In the normal course of events, Queensmead would pass to Jack, but the boy is only ten and his mother … well, in my opinion, women and property don’t mix. They never have. It would only take some smooth-talking scoundrel to come along and Queensmead could pass out of the family for ever. I can’t take the risk of that happening.’

‘David isn’t dead yet, Grandfather,’ Max pointed out.

‘No,’ Ben agreed. His eyes suddenly filled with tears as he cried out in a muffled voice, ‘My God, what is it about this family? Why must we lose those … have the best taken from us …? When my father died, I made him a promise that one of my sons would be called to the Bar and fulfil the ambition that was denied to him.’

Max impatiently shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He knew all about Ben’s promise to his father; he had heard the story more times than he cared to remember. The old man really must be going senile to start repeating it all over again.

‘David should have made good that promise for me. His circumstances changed and he couldn’t, but you can. I intend to change my will,’ he told Max abruptly, ‘and leave Queensmead and the bulk of my estate to you, on condition that you are a fully practising barrister at the time of my death.’

Max had difficulty in controlling his shock—and his elation. My God, and to think when he had come in here he had expected … Hastily he pulled himself together. Ben might be suffering from the shock of David’s heart attack at this point, but he was still an extremely shrewd old man; it wouldn’t do for him to guess what was going through his own mind right now, especially his plans for Queensmead once it actually became his.

His grandfather might view the house and its land as some kind of sacred cow, but he most certainly did not. Haslewich was growing and one day Queensmead’s farmland could be a prime development site.

My God. Max could feel the elation singing through his veins. It would make him millions. Forget any paltry potential barrister’s fees. Abruptly he checked himself. Queensmead could be his but first he had to fulfil that one vital condition. He knew his grandfather well enough to know that it would be there, written into the will in an unbreakable clause that could not be got round or overset. He was starting to sweat again.

If securing the tenancy had been important to him before, it was nothing to what it meant to him now. That girl … that female, whoever she was, would have to be removed from the picture and he didn’t care what means he used to make sure she was. He had to have that tenancy; he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. David could have a second fatal heart attack tomorrow. His grandfather could die just as easily.

Swiftly he lowered his head, not wanting Ben to see his expression just in case it betrayed him. ‘That’s very generous of you, Grandfather,’ he said quietly, forcing a solemn expression into his eyes as he lifted his head and looked squarely at him, ‘and I promise you that I’ll do my best to live up to the … trust you’re placing in me.’

‘You’re a good lad, Max,’ Ben told him emotionally. ‘Another David.’

Oh no, he would never be another David, Max determined, exulting as he listened to his grandfather outlining exactly what he planned to do. He would never let himself get trapped the way David had done, his whole future destroyed.

‘Right now I’d give anything to be able to trade places with Olivia and stay on here … be on hand …’ he told Ben untruthfully, ‘but I don’t have that choice, that freedom.’ Cleverly he managed to imply that in having it, Olivia was somehow less dedicated to her career than he was himself, that she was somehow slightly feckless and irresponsible in not having the commitment of a job to return to.

It was a skill of his and one he had honed to perfection over the years, using it ruthlessly whenever he felt the need—and sometimes, if he was honest, just because of the pleasure it gave him to do so—as he did now. He had never really liked Olivia. Miss Goody-goody. Well, if she thought that she was going to impress the old man with what she was doing …

‘I have to go back to London.’ Too right he did and the sooner the better. The sooner he found out just who this woman competing with him for the tenancy was, the better. ‘Queensmead will be safe with me, Grandfather,’ he lied as he clasped the older man’s hand. ‘I can promise you that.’