Читать книгу Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 20

‘Hello … I didn’t expect to see you here today.’ Guy smiled warmly at Jenny as she walked into the shop.

‘No, I’m just on my way back from the hospital,’ she told him.

He studied her covertly. She had lost weight over the past few days and it suited her, emphasising the elegant bone structure of her face and narrowing her waist. She had always had neatly defined wrists and ankles; Guy, to whom such things were important, had noticed them the first time they met.

To him there was a natural elegance about Jenny’s body, about the way she held herself and moved, which far surpassed the more common theatrical mannerisms and poses that Tiggy affected.

In his mind’s eye, Guy could transform her into the woman he knew she could be, the woman she should have been—with her dark hair worn slightly longer and styled differently, its natural curl allowed to emphasise the shape of her face and worn in a soft bob, Italian style, the warm tones of her skin accentuated by clothes in mouth-wateringly delicious shades of honey and cream deepened through to cinnamon.

Guy, unusually perhaps for such a strongly heterosexual male, had an eye for colour and line, a sensitivity for style that caused him to flinch in almost physical pain when he was forced to witness other people’s apparent blindness to the necessity of creating visual harmony.

It amazed him that Jenny, who could pick just the right piece of furniture, just the right fabric and accessories to decorate their window, could fail appallingly to apply that talent to her own wardrobe and person. He had hoped their triumphant excursion to Armani might have changed things, but so far he hadn’t once seen her wearing the trouser suit they had bought.

‘How is David?’ he asked politely as he watched her pushing her hair off her face with fingers on which her wedding ring had become loose.

He had never taken to Jenny’s brother-in-law, whom he privately considered to be both a weak and a rather vain man.

‘He had a bit of a set-back, although he’s stable again now,’ Jenny replied. She frowned a little, remembering that the nurse had told her that David had become upset during Jon and Tiggy’s visit.

‘His wife had been talking to him and he became very agitated, so we had to ask her to leave,’ she’d repeated.

What exactly had Tiggy been saying to him? Jenny wondered, her heart giving a funny little nervous beat.

‘What’s wrong?’ Guy asked her softly.

She gave him a wary look, then shook her head, denying, ‘Nothing.’

To put into words her fears and confusion about the change in Jon’s behaviour would give them a weight and power she couldn’t bear them to have. There had been many times during their marriage when she had felt isolated, and alone and very vulnerable, but never one when she had felt quite like this, when she had known instinctively that her marriage was being threatened by another woman.

Not deliberately, of course. Tiggy could never be so cold-blooded. But … Was it really any wonder that Jon should be so attracted to her? She was all the things she herself was not and she had always known that he had not married her out of love, or at least not out of love for her, she amended mentally; there had never been that wild, passionate flaring of sexual excitement between them. In its place, though, they had shared a harmony she kept hoping would compensate for all that they did not have.

‘I must get back,’ she told Guy. ‘Jon will be home soon and—’

‘I saw him earlier. He was in the Italian restaurant with David’s wife.’

‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed distantly. ‘He would have been.’

Guy looked searchingly at her, wondering if she was aware just how much she had revealed in those sad, almost bitter, words. He had seen for himself the intimacy Jon and Tiggy were sharing, Tiggy putting down her fork to reach across the table and touch him, not perhaps as a lover but in a way that betrayed almost as clearly how she felt about him, and if Jon had not been equally intimate in return, he certainly hadn’t made any attempt to withdraw from her.

Gravely he watched Jenny leaving the shop. It was too soon yet for him to do or say anything. He had waited all these years, he could wait a little longer.

Wearily Jenny made her way home, her heart turning over uncomfortably as she saw Jon’s car parked outside the house. It was unusual for him to be home so early these days and again all her instincts warned her that his presence now was not a good omen.

He was waiting for her as she walked into the kitchen.

‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he said sombrely.

‘Is it very important or can it wait until after dinner?’ Jenny asked with forced brightness.

‘I … I won’t be in for dinner. I’ve got a meeting in Chester.’

It wasn’t true, but Jon knew that there was no way he could sit down and go through the same stifling routine without breaking the promise he had made himself and either saying or doing something that would hurt her.

‘The children,’ she began, but Jon shook his head.

‘The girls are upstairs doing their homework and Joss has gone round to see Ruth.’

‘Oh, well, I’ll just put the kettle on and—’

‘Jenny …’

The stifled impatience in his voice stopped her.

‘I … I can’t stay here any longer … I need to be on my own…. This house, our life …’

You, he might just as well have said, Jenny acknowledged as she listened to him in anguished silence.

‘They … I …’ He stopped and shook his head.

‘What is it you’re trying to tell me, Jon?’ Jenny asked as calmly as she could. ‘That our marriage is over, that you want a divorce?’ Despite all her good intentions, her voice cracked painfully over the last few words and Jon winced as he heard her pain.

‘No … not that. Not a divorce—a separation.’

‘What about the children?’ Jenny protested.

‘They’ll manage. They won’t need us much longer,’ Jon told her, guilt driving him into anger. ‘And anyway, they’ve always related more to you than they have to me.’

Jenny bit her lip. ‘What are you trying to say … that I’ve been too possessive with them, that …?’

‘No,’ Jon denied wearily. ‘Jenny, I don’t want us to argue. If we’re being honest with one another, we both know …’ He paused. ‘I know we married for the best motives but—’

‘But?’ Jenny pressed him determinedly.

Let him say it. Let him say what she had always privately known … feared, but he obviously couldn’t. His glance slid away from hers. He edged closer to the door … to his exit … his escape.

‘Where will you go?’ she asked him and then regretted her question. Now it was her turn to be afraid of what her eyes might reveal, to look directly at him. She knew, of course. He would go to Tiggy, but when he answered, it seemed she was wrong.

‘I … I don’t know. I’m going to look for somewhere to rent. It’s for the best, Jenny,’ he said almost plaintively. She could hear the pleading note in his voice and her heart ached not just for herself but, ridiculously, for him, as well. She wanted to hold him, much as she might have done one of the children, to comfort him and reassure him that she understood, that he was forgiven, but how could she when that wasn’t what she felt at all?

‘When—’ she moistened her dry lips ‘—when will you go?’ she asked him quietly.

‘I don’t know. Just as soon as I can arrange something. There’s no point in drawing things out…. I’ll move my things into the spare room in the meantime.’ He saw the look she gave him and winced a second time.

‘The children,’ she whispered. ‘What are we going to tell them?’

Jon shook his head. ‘I don’t know….’

‘I could tell them that … that it’s just a temporary thing,’ she suggested huskily. ‘They might find that easier to accept.’

‘Tell them whatever you think best,’ Jon replied. He was looking at her almost pityingly, Jenny recognised as she felt the first stirring of something other than pain and shock, the first awareness of the mortality of the blow struck not just at her heart but also at her pride.

You’re the one who’s doing the leaving, she was tempted to say. You explain it to them. But instinct and habit urged her to stay silent. She felt oddly weak and light-headed without either the energy or the will-power to fight or argue with him. ‘I’d better get on with supper,’ she heard herself saying mundanely. ‘Did Joss say what time he would be back?’

She was behaving like someone out of a bad play, she decided as she fought down a near hysterical desire to break into laughter. The stupid, dull, boring, soon-to-be-cast-off wife, too unaware, too caught up in the events of her monotonous daily routine to realise what was happening.

‘No, no, he didn’t,’ Jon was answering her.

She didn’t watch him as he opened the door and walked into the hallway. She couldn’t.

* * *

Max drummed his fingers impatiently of the top of his desk. It was almost seven o’clock, well past the time when he would normally have left chambers, but when five-thirty had come and gone with no sign of Laura getting ready to leave, he had gritted his teeth, cursed his grandfather under his breath and sent Charlotte a warning look when she had started to pout.

‘Still here, Charlotte?’ Laura had commented with a wintry look. ‘That’s not like you.’

‘Charlotte has agreed to work late to finish some typing for me,’ Max had cut in.

‘Really?’ Laura had responded in an even frostier tone. ‘You do surprise me.’

Only by reminding himself of what was at stake had Max been able to prevent himself from retaliating. In the end it had been nearly half past six before she had finally and, he suspected, reluctantly gone.

‘Wait,’ Max had cautioned, shaking his head warningly and taking hold of Charlotte’s arm to restrain her when she would have rushed over to the other woman’s desk virtually the moment she left.

‘Give her another ten minutes,’ he instructed Charlotte, ‘just in case she decides to come back.’

She hadn’t returned, but even so Max had retreated to his own office whilst Charlotte produced her unauthorised set of keys and proceeded to unlock Laura’s desk.

Now it was nearly seven o’clock and she still … Max stiffened as his office door opened.

‘I think I’ve found what you want,’ Charlotte told him. ‘The senior partner has had lunch with a certain Ms Madeleine Browne, that’s Browne with an e, of course. Three times in the past two months and he’s also written her initials in his diary next to the time of the committee meeting.’

Madeleine Browne … Swiftly Max scanned his memory to see if it held any trace of the name and found it didn’t.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ Charlotte informed him with obvious relish, ‘there’s something else you should know. This Madeleine Browne—’ she paused importantly ‘—she only just happens to be the head’s goddaughter. Now,’ she added briskly, ‘about the ball …’

The head of chambers’ goddaughter, he might have known. Max fumed as he made his way back to his flat. Well, at least he now knew who his adversary was. The thing he had to do next was to find a way of eliminating her from the contest, and the easiest way to do that would be to discredit her in the eyes of the committee. As yet he wasn’t sure just how this was going to be accomplished, but there was bound to be a way. There always was—and he would make damn sure that he found it.

It would be essential to find out as much as he could about her. What her strengths were, and her weaknesses, and he did not necessarily have in mind her professional strengths and weaknesses.

Head of chambers’ goddaughter or not, sexual equality laws notwithstanding, he was determined that he would be the one who got the vacant tenancy and not Ms Madeleine Browne, with or without an e.

‘Aunt Ruth.’

Ruth looked down at her great-nephew. She and Joss were walking through the water meadows where, as a girl, she had picked watercress. There were no cress beds here any longer, even though she and Joss had mounted a vigorous and secret campaign to reintroduce the cress to its natural habitat.

‘Why is it, do you suppose, that a person who seems okay … you know, okay, suddenly seems, well … different?’

Ruth frowned as she heard the note of anxious constraint in his voice. ‘Which person in particular are we talking about here, Joss?’ she asked gently. ‘You?’

‘No, not me,’ he replied, shaking his head and causing her to exhale a small sigh of relief. She kept herself reasonably up to date, read papers and magazines, watched news programmes and the like, but she didn’t really think she was up to dealing with any youthful questions about sex or drugs.

‘No, then who?’ she asked.

‘It’s Dad,’ Joss admitted, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the ground.

‘Your father?’ Ruth frowned. ‘Well, I expect he’s very anxious about David.’

‘He spends a lot of time over at Uncle David’s house,’ Joss informed her, studiously casual. ‘With Aunt Tiggy.’

Ruth’s heart sank. ‘Does he? Well, I expect there are a lot of things that Tiggy needs his help with.’

‘Yes, that’s what Mum says,’ Joss agreed.

Ruth hesitated, not sure just what to say. How far to probe. In the end she decided that since he’d brought up the subject, she owed it to him to deal with it responsibly and give him the opportunity to air his obvious concern rather than pretend it did not exist. And so instead of drawing his attention to the fact that several of their plants had at last appeared to have taken root, she prompted, ‘But you don’t agree?’

‘Dad’s different,’ he confessed in a muffled voice. ‘He’s been different for … well, before Uncle David had his heart attack.’

‘Different how, Joss?’ Ruth prodded gently.

‘I don’t know, just different. Not like Dad somehow. Sort of as if … I think he might be having, you know, problems with Mum,’ he stated judiciously. ‘Lots of people at school have parents who are divorced,’ he informed her casually.

Ruth felt her concern turn to alarmed disquiet. ‘Your parents aren’t getting a divorce, Joss,’ she told him. ‘What on earth put that idea into your head?’

He gave a small shrug, his eyes suddenly sombre and very wise. ‘I don’t know … it just came.’

‘Have you talked to them about … about this?’ she asked.

‘No … you see,’ he said earnestly, ‘I don’t think that Mum would want to be divorced and … Aunt Tiggy is very pretty, isn’t she?’

Ruth didn’t try to lie to him. ‘Yes, she is,’ she agreed quietly. ‘But your mother … People don’t always fall in love because of the way the other person looks, Joss,’ she reminded him.

‘No, I know, but Aunt Tiggy needs someone to look after her and now that Uncle David isn’t there … Dad likes it when people need him,’ he added with an almost adult perceptiveness that half shocked Ruth, even though she knew already how intelligent and astute he was.

‘Your Aunt Tiggy is married to David and your father is married to your mother,’ she finally managed to say as she tried to assimilate his words.

Was his fear just the product of some childish imagination, or did it have a deeper and more dangerous cause? Was Jenny and Jon’s marriage in difficulty? Jenny had said nothing to her and to think of Jon considering a divorce as Joss had suggested seemed impossibly far-fetched. If it had been David now …

‘I’m sure there’s nothing for you to worry about, Joss,’ she tried to reassure him gently as they turned round and started to head back.

‘Oh, it’s not me I’m worried for,’ he declared firmly. ‘It’s them, Mum and Dad. He needs Mum. I know he might not think so, but he does. And she needs him. Aunt Ruth, could I stay with you tonight instead of going home? We could go and watch the badgers,’ he coaxed her winsomely.

‘Joss, I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she began and then as she looked at his face, she changed her mind and added, ‘We’ll see what your mother thinks, shall we?’

‘I know that Mum won’t mind. I’ll go and ring her when I get back, shall I?’

Thoughtfully Ruth watched him. She did so hope that he was wrong and that his suspicions were ill-founded.

She had planned to visit Ben tomorrow. Saul and his mother were leaving in the morning and she knew that Ben, despite his claims to the contrary, would miss their company. She dared not think, however, how he would react to the possibility of a relationship, an affair, between Jon and Tiggy. Jon must know himself how fiercely and furiously Ben would oppose any attempt on his part to replace David in Tiggy’s life, and the mere fact that he could, if indeed he actually was even considering doing so, betrayed how very deeply involved Jon was.

Tiggy’s feelings did not worry her nearly so much. Tiggy she likened to a pretty clinging plant that needed constant support, any support, and that would just as happily attach itself and cling to one plant as another, her emotions like roots, safely shallow and easily transferred.

But Jon … Jon was a different matter entirely and that he who had always put David’s needs first should even begin to consider taking his wife from him seemed grossly out of character.

Always supposing, of course, that Joss had not completely misread the situation. He was, after all, only a boy still. He could be wrong. She hoped he was wrong. Ruth admitted her brother could be a very determined man. She hadn’t forgotten the pressure he had put on her when … But that was all in the past now and in the end he and her father had probably been right. She could never have lived with herself, knowing that she was responsible for the break-up of someone else’s marriage no matter how much she had loved the man concerned, and then there was the fact that he had lied to her, deceived her, letting her believe that he was free to love her when all the time he had a wife and child back home in America.

She bit her lip. Why on earth was she thinking about all that now? It was over fifty years ago.

Olivia heard the phone ringing as she was stripping off the clothes she had worn for work. Somehow they felt tainted by what she had discovered, the cloth soiled and grimy, although she suspected in reality it was merely the dust from the office she could feel.

When her mother called up that the phone was for her, her heart started to thud heavily. Caspar. It had to be! As she raced downstairs in her underwear, she was already repeating what she was going to say to him. Only it wasn’t Caspar; it was Saul.

‘Saul,’ she repeated mechanically, her voice dry and empty of enthusiasm.

‘You sound down,’ Saul sympathised. ‘Bad day at the office?’ he teased. ‘Fancy telling me all about it over dinner?’

‘Oh, Saul … it’s very kind of you, but I don’t think …’

‘Look, if what happened the other night is putting you off, don’t let it,’ he told her softly. ‘I meant what I said. I won’t …’

What he had said the other night? What was he talking about? Olivia wondered in confusion.

‘You needn’t worry that I’m going to come on to you, pressure you,’ Saul went on, ‘and besides, I’ve already fixed up a babysitter. Louise has offered to sit with the kids and Mum’s still here, as well.’

Saul thought her hesitation was because she was afraid he might try to flirt with her. Olivia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She couldn’t hurt his feelings by telling him that she had all but forgotten that small brief incident by the river and she certainly could not tell him why.

‘Please …’

Olivia wavered. What was the point in staying at home in case Caspar rang? What was she going to do if he did? What was she going to say? Nothing could alter what she had seen.

‘I … yes … all right,’ she agreed.

‘You might at least try to sound more enthusiastic,’ Saul chided with a mock-aggrieved laugh, adding, ‘I’ll try to be round to pick you up in half an hour.’

‘Mum, where’s Dad?’

‘He’s had to go out,’ Jenny told Louise without turning to look at her. The kitchen smelt of baking, betraying, no doubt, that the mix she had just slid into the oven was Jon’s favourite upside-down apple cake. How silly of her to have made it. The girls wouldn’t eat it—Louise had loftily announced only the previous month that they were far too old now for the childish treat of scraping out the mixing bowl and neither of them had ever been great cake eaters anyway. Perhaps she could give some of it to Ben. Baking soothed her. She could well remember how busily she had baked in those months when her mother was dying and again when … She winced as she accidently burned her wrist on the hot door of the Aga.

‘I don’t suppose you could give me a lift round to Grandad, could you?’ Louise was wheedling. ‘Only I promised Saul I’d babysit and—’

‘You suppose quite rightly,’ Jenny retorted. ‘What’s wrong with using your bike?’ Tiredly she turned to her daughter, her eyes widening as she saw what Louise was wearing.

Surprisingly the Armani trouser suit was only just a little too large for her. She was already taller than Jenny anyway. Even more disconcerting, it looked good on her, which was more than could be said for the make-up she was wearing.

‘You aren’t planning to babysit wearing my suit, are you, Louise?’ Jenny asked with what she felt herself was commendable calm. But then, what was the potential loss of a designer trouser suit when you were faced with the more drastic loss of a husband?

Louise looked at her, opened her mouth to argue, then changed her mind. ‘I was just trying it on, seeing how it would look. After all, it’s wasted hanging there in your wardrobe, and you’ll never wear it, we both know that,’ she finished disparagingly.

‘Louise …’ Jenny began warningly.

‘Oh, all right, then,’ she conceded, sulking. ‘I’ll go and take it off.’

‘I think that would be a very good idea,’ Jenny agreed firmly. ‘Jeans and a T-shirt would be a much more sensible alternative.’

What on earth had motivated Louise to try to get away with going out wearing her trouser suit and not just any trouser suit, but the Armani, which Guy had told her—after she bought it—made her look incredibly sexy. That was nothing to the way it had looked on her daughter, who Jenny was nearly sure had been wearing the jacket with absolutely nothing underneath; there had certainly been more than just a suggestion of provocative thrust of taut, uplifted teenage nipple showing through the supple fabric.

For whose benefit? Surely not Saul’s. He was easily twice her age, and besides, improbable though the idea of Louise falling for Saul was, Jenny decided it would do no harm to discuss her suspicions with Jon—just as a precaution. Then chillingly she remembered that there would be no more long, cosy chats with her husband as she snuggled up in bed beside him and they talked over the joint and separate events of their day. That there would be no more anything with Jon.

Hastily she wiped her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for Louise to come back in the kitchen and find her crying.

‘Young Saul took Olivia out to dinner last night,’ Ben announced abruptly.

Ruth looked at her brother. Only Ben could refer to Saul as ‘young’ as though he were no more than a teenager and Olivia much the same.

Ann had already informed Ruth about the break-up of Saul’s marriage, and Ruth, guessing what was going through her brother’s mind, felt bound to point out to him, ‘Olivia considers herself fully committed to Caspar, Ben.’

‘Pooh, she’ll soon come to her senses. Americans, none of them can be trusted. You know that….’

Ruth could feel herself tensing. No matter how often she promised herself that this time she wouldn’t end up quarrelling with him, Ben almost always managed to provoke her into forgetting her vow and this occasion was no exception.

‘You really are the most ridiculously biased man,’ she told him forthrightly. ‘People are individuals, Ben, no matter where they come from. A hundred or so years ago you’d have been the sort of man who objected to his daughter marrying someone from outside the Cheshire border. Olivia loves Caspar and her relationship with him is a far different affair from mine … I … I made a mistake,’ she countered tautly, ‘but that doesn’t mean that all Americans are—’

‘Lying cheats,’ Ben supplied angrily for her. ‘What about Saul’s wife, then, going off like that and leaving three children? What kind of woman does a thing like that, deserting her own children?’

Ruth winced. ‘Sometimes a woman doesn’t have any option,’ she answered quietly. ‘And the fact that Hillary is American has no bearing whatsoever on her decision to leave Saul. He wanted to keep the children, as you well know. They were all born here, this is their home, and no doubt in leaving them here with Saul, Hillary is trying to put their own interests first.’

‘Rubbish,’ Ben snorted. ‘They’re all the same, the whole lot of them. Young Olivia will soon find out the truth … just like you did.’

‘I hope not,’ Ruth returned. She wouldn’t wish what had happened to her on anyone else, least of all someone like Olivia. ‘The fact that Grant lied to me when he pretended that he wasn’t married, that he was free to …’ She stopped and swallowed fiercely before forcing herself to continue. ‘The fact that he deceived me had nothing at all to do with his nationality. Any man, whether English, Welsh, Scots, French, Polish, Dutch, any man could have done the same. Grant just happened to be American.’

‘They were all the same,’ Ben argued angrily. ‘Coming over here, lying and cheating, seducing innocent young girls, turning their heads … Don’t think I don’t know.’

‘But you don’t know, Ben,’ Ruth contradicted him gently. ‘You see, originally I was the one who chased Grant, not the other way round.’ She smiled sadly as she saw his face. ‘Oh yes, it’s true. I know how much it offends that steely Crighton pride of yours to hear it, but I wanted Grant and I wanted him very badly. He was like a breath of fresh air, an irresistible magnetic force … he was just so different from anyone else I’d ever met….’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ Ben remonstrated gruffly. ‘You were still grieving for Charles.’

‘No,’ Ruth told him firmly, shaking her head. ‘I did grieve for Charles, yes, but as a friend, not as a woman. Oh, I know we were engaged but that was just because it was the done thing. I was young and, I suppose, rather silly. I got caught up in the urgency of the whole war thing. Charles was going away into danger. He wanted the security of having someone to come back to, of reassuring himself that he would come back. I gave him the security, but that was all I gave him. I was sad when he was killed, of course, but I never mourned him as a lover. I never mourned him in the way I did Grant,’ she added under her breath.

‘He seduced you,’ Ben insisted fiercely.

‘No,’ Ruth corrected him with gentle determination. ‘If you must know the truth, Ben, I was the one who seduced him.’ Her mouth curved in a tender, reminiscent smile. ‘He was the one who was reluctant, responsible….’

And he was also the one who was committed to someone else, who was married and not just married but had a child, as well. He’d never told Ruth that, not then, when she had pushed him back into the sweet-smelling long grass of the water meadow and teased him with the soft shape of her breasts, breasts, which they both knew were bare beneath the flimsy covering of her frock, nor later when she had lain beneath him, crying out her joy at the feel of him inside her, surrendering herself to it and to him. No, he had not told her then, nor had he mentioned them at any other time.

It had been left to her father and brother to tell her the truth. For a long time she had thought that the pain of losing him would never leave her, but eventually it had, the sharp agony of her original grief softening to a dully monotonous ache, and that ache, over the years, fading to an occasional twinge of pain whenever she allowed herself the dangerous pleasure of thinking about him. And anyway, by then she had other pains to bear, other hurts to hide. Grant. She had no idea if he was even still alive, and she did not want to know, either, she told herself firmly.

She could see Ben massaging his bad leg. She knew how much David’s heart attack had upset and frightened him and she was filled with remorse for having argued with him. It was not his fault that he was the way he was. He reminded her sometimes of a great, lumbering, clumsy and anachronistic primeval beast on the edge of extinction, bewildered by the fact that he no longer had the power or strength he had taken for granted for so long. To Ben the Crighton name was sacrosanct, the upholding of it a sacred trust. Ruth smiled sadly to herself. He was so badly out of step with the times, it was almost laughable, but somehow she didn’t feel like laughing.

On her way home she intended to call round and see Jenny to find out if there was any real substance to Joss’s fears. Distasteful though the idea of prying into someone else’s private life was to her, she felt she owed it to her great-nephew to at least take his fears seriously enough to make some attempt to alleviate them. If they could be alleviated.