Читать книгу Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 21

Madeleine Browne. A triumphant smile curled Max’s mouth in cynical satisfaction as he looked down at the name he had doodled. In the three relatively short weeks since he had first discovered her name, Max had found out rather a lot about her.

First and foremost, and the most serious hurdle, in his eyes at least, to his ousting her from the race to gain the chambers vacancy was the fact her grandfather on her mother’s side was one of the country’s most prominent Law Lords and her father was a senior High Court judge; moreover, she was not merely Madeleine Browne, but Madeleine Francomb-Browne, although apparently during her time at university she had decided to drop the first half of her double-barrelled surname.

She lived, very appropriately, in a small house in Chelsea down by the river, which belonged to her father and which she shared with a friend—a ‘girl’ friend, her circle of friends predictably in the main ‘girls’ she had been at school with. She was, in short, a typical product of an upper-middle-class background, the type of girl who thirty or even twenty-five years ago would never even have dreamt of having any kind of career other than the pursuit of a suitable husband and Max heartily wished that she had chosen that option now.

However, in the midst of all the unhelpful and predictable information he had gathered about her from various sources, there was one fact that glittered as brilliantly as a cut and polished diamond. And that was quite simply, God alone knew for what reason, that she had, during one summer’s vacation while she was studying, taken a part-time job, no doubt as some kind of general dogsbody, at the chambers headed by Luke Crighton in Chester. Max had no idea why on earth she had chosen to work there when, thanks to her family’s influence, she could have worked anywhere—if indeed she had needed to work, which seemed highly unlikely—but what he did know was that it was a golden nugget of good fortune, which he fully intended to turn into the maximum advantage for himself.

He had done all his homework, checked and double-checked all his information, plotted his strategy carefully and meticulously, and now it was time to put his plan into action.

He left work at his normal time, went home, showered and changed, and then set out for Chelsea. It didn’t take her long to answer the door to his knock. She might have all the social advantages, Max decided chivalrously as he studied her, but she was certainly nothing very remarkable to look at.

Plain brown hair cut into a neat bob, brown eyes, a small round face to go with her equally small and gently rounded body. As she saw him studying her, she flushed deep pink and looked shyly self-conscious.

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, giving her his most charming and winning smile, the one that revealed the delicious dimple in his chin and made him look even more raffishly attractive than he had any right to be, as an adoring ex-girlfriend had once told him. ‘Luke told me that you were only a tiny little thing, but I hadn’t thought …’

‘Luke?’ she questioned, looking both flustered and curious, and reacting to his opening gambit just as he had planned and intended that she should.

‘Yes, Luke Crighton, my cousin,’ he explained, conveniently leap-frogging the interfamily complexities that in reality made Luke something like a fourth or fifth cousin rather than the much closer connection that referring to him as his cousin implied.

‘Luke Crighton?’ She was frowning slightly now and looking both embarrassed and confused.

Max took a couple of steps towards her, causing her to retreat into the house and allowing him to follow her inside. It was a simple enough manoeuvre to master and one he had used to good effect many times in the past.

‘There,’ he explained mock-ruefully, ‘I told Luke that you probably wouldn’t remember him. You worked in chambers with him in Chester some time ago. His father, my uncle was …’

‘Oh yes …’ Her face cleared. ‘Of course, Luke …’

Her colour deepened and she looked both flattered and self-conscious and Max knew perfectly well why. He resisted the temptation to laugh. Did this plain, dull-looking little thing really believe that Luke was likely to have remembered her?

‘So you’re Luke’s cousin … er … please come in.’

A little awkwardly she ushered him into a very Colefax and Fowler furnished sitting room, which Max guessed, as he cast a brief eye over it, probably cost more to decorate than he was likely to earn in a full year, and as for the value of the antiques he could see scattered around the room … Its whole ambience shrieked family wealth and family status and his resentment against her grew. Why the hell couldn’t she have been satisfied with what her type did best? Living in the country and breeding, that was what she was designed for. You only had to look at those softly rounded hips….

‘Er, can I get you a drink?’

‘Thanks,’ Max accepted easily. ‘Dry sherry if you’ve got any.’

She had, of course, and it pleased him to notice that her hand trembled noticeably as she handed him a glass.

‘So, how is Luke?’

‘He’s fine, still based in Chester, of course. I saw him when I went home for a family celebration a few weeks ago. We were both reminiscing about our misspent youth and he happened to mention you and suggested that I call and pass on his regards.’

‘Oh … I see … how kind. I’m surprised he even remembered me, really,’ she told him guilelessly. ‘I was only there the one summer and we didn’t keep in touch. I hadn’t realised … And what do you do?’ she asked him politely.

‘I’m in pupillage at the moment,’ he told her. ‘Or rather, I’m waiting for a vacancy.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I could move straight into chambers in Chester, of course, but I prefer to be independent, to make it on my own rather than rely on family patronage.’ He gave her a crocodile smile and waited.

‘Oh yes,’ she agreed, stammering slightly, ‘I … I couldn’t agree more.’

‘Mmm … good sherry,’ he commented, pointedly studying her legs as she quickly responded to his hint and took his glass away to refill it.

She had the kind of neat, delicate ankles that plumpish girls often had and they looked as though they were rather nicely tanned beneath her sheer stockings.

‘What about you?’ he asked her, accepting his newly filled glass and the comfortable easy chair she indicated. As he slid nonchalantly into his seat, he noticed the way she perched uncomfortably on the edge of hers. ‘Luke mentioned that you were planning to study for the Bar yourself after university.’

‘Did he? I didn’t realise he knew … I didn’t think …’

Max held his breath as he heard the note of uncertainty enter her voice. He was really going to have the ground cut from under him if she came out with some comment about not having made up her mind what she was going to do when she worked in Chester. Max had always preferred the bold manoeuvre over the cautious, preferring to gamble for high stakes rather than low and he guessed that with her family background, her choice of career would be automatic and unquestioning, just like her acceptance of his lies about Luke’s remembering her.

‘Well, yes … I’ve taken my Bar exams and have been in pupillage,’ she acknowledged, allowing him to start to relax, ‘but I’m not sure … that is, as yet I haven’t quite … Mummy and Daddy thought I might like to take a year off before …’ She bit her lip and looked acutely self-conscious.

‘Mummy’s on the committee of a charity that helps homeless children all over the world and she wants me to go with her on her next tour. I’d like to but … Well … I’m the only one, you see, and I feel I owe it to Daddy to … to preserve the family tradition. He and my grandfather would never say anything, of course. They’d never push me, but one does feel that one has some kind of obligation.’

‘Sounds rather like my people, especially my grandfather,’ Max responded with another crocodile smile. ‘It must be something to do with the way they were trained.’

‘Oh … what does he do?’

‘He’s retired now,’ Max told her smoothly. No need to mention at this stage that the elderly man had only made it as a country solicitor. ‘But I do understand what you mean about upholding a family tradition. As a Crighton, it’s expected that one will become involved with law one way or another. As you say, one feels a sense of responsibility and duty.’ He gave her a complacent look, which was rewarded by a shy smile.

‘It’s nice to talk to someone who knows … who understands …’ she started to confide. She broke off and said instead, ‘It isn’t always easy, is it? One seems to be sort of caught in the middle of things, caught between one’s family and—’

‘And those who think that because of your family, your history and connections, that everything is so much easier for you,’ Max suggested sympathetically.

She gave him another smile. ‘Yes, yes, exactly that, and yet in many ways it can be harder because one feels that …’ She spread her hands and admitted, ‘I feel guilty myself sometimes, especially when I see how hard other people have to work. I even feel guilty about … well, it isn’t easy to find a place in chambers, and there are people with outstanding qualifications who just don’t …’

She stopped again and looked at him. She had a habit of leaving her sentences unfinished and waiting for someone else to finish them for her—an indication of the fact that there had always been someone around to complete life’s more mundane chores for her, Max decided resentfully. But he kept that resentment hidden, the expression on his face benignly and deceptively understanding.

‘My … my friend, Claudine, who shares here with me, she has the most wonderful qualifications but because she doesn’t have any family background in the law she has been finding it most awfully difficult to get a place in chambers and yet I know she would make the most wonderful barrister.’

‘Perhaps your father could help her,’ Max suggested carelessly. He didn’t have the remotest interest in her friend, whoever she was, and even less in her problems in getting a toe-hold on their very slippery and steep career ladder. Why the hell should he? He had enough problems of his own.

‘Well, yes …’ she agreed, looking awkwardly uncomfortable. ‘Daddy could do something but …’

But he probably felt disinclined to use his undoubted power for the advancement of someone who was not ‘family’. That was, after all, how the system worked, how life worked, Max acknowledged cynically, but he kept those thoughts to himself, glancing with apparent regret at his now-empty glass and getting to his feet, telling his unsuspecting hostess, ‘I really must go. I’ve taken up more than enough of your time. I hope I haven’t held you up, delayed you on your way out?’

‘No … not at all … I wasn’t going out and … and I really enjoyed talking to you,’ Madeleine told him shyly. ‘Please … please remember me to Luke when you next see him.’

‘Oh no,’ Max told her softly, moving in for the kill. ‘I don’t think I can do that.’

She gave him a startled look.

‘I’ve enjoyed … talking, as well,’ he continued in that same soft, meaningful voice, not giving her the opportunity to speak or question. ‘In fact, I’ve enjoyed it so much that … will you have dinner with me one evening?’

‘Oh … oh yes, I’d like … Yes, that would be very nice,’ she amended quickly.

Got her, Max crowed in silent triumph. Not that he had had any doubts. She wasn’t his type, of course. Too plain, too dull, too ‘nice’. If he could make her blush and tremble simply by looking at her and talking to her, it didn’t say much for her sexual experience, and naïvely awkward, properly brought-up virgins held no sexual appeal for Max. But then, it wasn’t her virginity he was interested in taking from her, was it?

‘Yes … it will be,’ he agreed softly. ‘Very, very nice.’

Whilst she was still blushing and looking confused, he told her, ‘I’m free on Thursday if you are.’

It was only two days away but he didn’t want to give her any time to start having doubts and asking questions and he certainly didn’t want her thinking that he was free at the weekend.

‘Thursday? Yes … yes … that would be lovely.’

Max smiled. ‘Thursday it is, then.’ He frowned as he heard someone opening the door.

‘Maddy … Oh … I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you had a visitor.’

The girl who came in was everything that Madeleine was not. Slender, elegantly narrow-boned and just exactly the right kind of height. Her hair was shoulder length, thick and naturally wavy and a deep rich brown with honey gold highlights around her face, which was smooth-skinned and perfectly shaped, her eyes a deep sea green and her mouth the kind of mouth that automatically made Max think of sex.

‘Oh, Claudine … this is Max … Max Crighton … Max … this is Claudine … my friend.’

‘Max Crighton.’ There was a certain quick, sharp assessment in her eyes as they studied him, a very definite sense of cool withdrawal and hesitation, which Max countered by looking pleasantly through her rather than at her.

She was the kind of woman who took for granted that her looks would make her the focus of any male attention, he decided, and that air of cool withdrawal was no doubt a trick she employed to increase her desirability. Well, in this instance, she was wasting her time, and ignoring her, he turned back to Madeleine.

‘I’ll see you on Thursday,’ he told her warmly. ‘If I pick you up here around seven-thirty …?’

‘Yes, yes, that will be fine,’ she agreed huskily.

* * *

Claudine waited until he had gone before tackling her friend. ‘Max Crighton … you know who he is, don’t you?’ she warned Maddy forthrightly.

‘Yes … Yes. I know,’ Madeleine agreed quietly. ‘But Claudine …’

‘What was he doing here?’

‘He … I know his cousin …’

‘You never said anything.’

‘No … I didn’t think …’

‘You’re sure you want to see him again, then?’

‘Yes … yes, I’m sure …’

‘Be careful, Maddy,’ Claudine warned her. ‘You know he—’

‘I like him, Claudine,’ Madeleine interrupted huskily, turning her back so that Claudine couldn’t see her betraying expression. It was all right for Claudine; men fell for her on sight, and she never felt shy or awkward in their presence. She never had to sit in a corner and feel excluded, unwanted, unattractive. She didn’t have to bear the burden of knowing that her parents were disappointed by her lack of good looks. But Max had made her feel special, different … and he hadn’t even looked properly at Claudine. She knew—she had been watching him, holding her breath, waiting for the familiar male reaction to her friend’s loveliness, only it simply never came. Max just hadn’t seemed to notice how stunningly lovely Claudine was. Instead he had focused on her and it was her he had invited out.

Frowning, Claudine studied her friend’s tense back, torn between wanting to voice her suspicions and warn her friend and knowing that if she did so, she would risk hurting her by implying that Max Crighton could have some ulterior motive in seeking her out.

Madeleine had been a good friend to her and Claudine felt intensely protective towards her; despite all her material and social advantages, she was essentially a rather lonely and shy girl who had allowed others to bully and dominate her.

‘He was nice to me, Claudine, kind …’ Madeleine continued in a muffled voice without turning round.

Claudine stifled her doubts and said bracingly instead, ‘I should think he jolly well ought to be,’ then couldn’t resist double-checking, ‘Who exactly is this cousin of his, by the way? Why haven’t I heard you mention him?’

It was quite depressing how easily and quickly one slipped back into the familiar routine, Guy decided gloomily as he set out for the shop the morning after his return from holiday.

Three weeks sailing in the Greek islands had given his skin an even deeper colour and toned up those muscles that didn’t get daily use in his job.

Well, he might have been away for three weeks but he doubted anything would have changed in Haslewich; it simply wasn’t that kind of town. He was glad, though, that today was one of Jenny’s days in the shop. He had thought about her a lot whilst he was away, but then, what was unusual about that?

He knew there were a lot of people who would have been astonished at the strength of his feelings for her. Sometimes he warned himself about it. After all, she was a woman some years his senior, placidly and happily married, a woman, moreover, who was simply not the type one connected with intense and unrequited feelings of love and lust.

There was a trade fair coming up soon and he wondered, as he had on many similar occasions in the past, what his chances were of persuading her to attend it with him. An overnight stay in some secluded, romantic little hideaway might just … Who the hell was he kidding? he taunted himself as he reached the shop and felt in his pocket for his keys.

He frowned as he started to insert them in the lock and then realised that it was already open. Turning the handle he walked in, his frown deepening as he saw Jenny come through from the back room.

She looked different somehow, thinner, frailer, and she wasn’t smiling her usual warm, generous smile. Instead she looked tired, strained and distinctly on edge.

‘Jenny,’ he exclaimed fondly, ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be here before me. I thought you’d be glad of the opportunity to have some time off after three weeks of covering for me,’ he joked.

‘I had to come into town to drop Joss off for the school bus,’ she told him tersely. ‘So I decided I might just as well come straight here.’

Guy watched her thoughtfully. When Jenny couldn’t drive Joss all the way to school, Jon normally dropped Joss off for the bus, not Jenny.

She had turned away from him and proceeded to dust a small, delicate china figurine, her face averted from him.

‘Did you have a good holiday, Guy?’ he asked himself conversationally, his gaze on her down-bent head. ‘Why, yes, Jenny, I did, thank you.’

He had only meant to tease her a little. It was so unlike her not to make the enquiry, not to be genuinely and keenly interested in others, but instead of laughing and apologising as he had expected, her hands fumbled with the figurine, causing it to slip through her fingers and smash down onto the floor, breaking into several small pieces.

Immediately Guy dropped to his knees to pick them up and then stopped as he looked towards Jenny and saw that she was standing motionlessly beside him, an expression of mingled shock and despair in her eyes as they welled with tears.

Guy contritely rose to his feet and put his hand out to comfort her. ‘Hey, it’s only a piece of china,’ he reminded her gently, ‘and not even a particularly valuable one at that.’ He smiled reassuringly at her. It was so unlike Jenny to be clumsy. He couldn’t remember her ever fumbling with anything before, never mind actually dropping something. She was always so careful and deft.

She was crying now, silent tears flooding down her cheeks. As he watched in distress, she lifted her hands to cover her face, her shoulders heaving as the tears slid through her fingers. Such grief couldn’t possibly be caused by the simple loss of an ornament, Guy knew.

‘Jenny, what is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked.

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to tell him. The sight of her grief, all the more shocking because of its very silence, as though the pain was so great that she couldn’t endure the added agony of giving it voice, made his own stomach muscles clench in angry helplessness. Automatically he moved closer to her, wrapping both arms around her.

He was right. She had lost weight; he could feel her bones through her skin. She seemed tiny and fragile, frighteningly so.

‘Jenny,’ he urged, wanting to hold her even closer and yet afraid to do so in case he hurt her.

‘All right,’ she acquiesced, misunderstanding the reason for the pleading, questioning way he said her name. ‘If you must know, Jon has left me.’

Guy felt his whole body stiffen in surprise and disbelief. ‘Jenny,’ he muttered huskily, totally unable to voice his stunned emotions.

‘Jenny what?’ she demanded tearfully.

‘Jenny, it can’t be true….’

‘Oh, but it is true. You’ll hear all about it soon enough.’

He couldn’t see her face, but he sensed that she had stopped crying although she was trembling in his arms as though her body was unable to contain the intensity of her pain and outrage.

‘The whole town’s been talking about it … and who can blame them? If they think they’ve got something to talk about now, just wait until they find out why he’s gone.’

She began crying again. Great noisy, gulping sobs this time. Guy held her tightly.

‘Why has he gone, Jen?’ he questioned gently, as gently as though he were speaking to a child, somehow knowing that this was what she needed, that possibly for the first time in her life she needed to be allowed to behave instinctively and emotionally instead of sensibly and logically, to put herself first instead of others.

‘He’s fallen in love with Tiggy—Tania,’ she admitted painfully, pushing herself away from him slightly and looking up into his face, her eyes full of misery and despair. ‘And who can blame him? You only have to look at her …’

‘She’s nowhere near the woman that you are, Jen,’ Guy told her roughly. ‘My God, if he’s left you for her, then he’s a fool.’

‘No, not a fool. He’s just doing what he’s always been taught … trained to do. All his life he’s been taking responsibility for David and now that David is so ill, what could be more logical than taking responsibility for David’s wife, as well?’

She started to laugh a wild, dangerous laugh, one on the edge of hysteria, that made Guy’s heart ache unbearably for her.

He wanted to be able to offer her some form of comfort and reassurance but he suspected that there was none that she would accept—or at least not from him. He had always known how much she loved Jon and he assumed that Jon felt the same way about her, yet despite his awareness of her suffering, he could not help wanting to take advantage of the opportunity that fate had given him.

‘Look, why don’t we close the shop for an hour? We aren’t normally that busy on Monday morning. We’ll go and have a cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.’

‘Oh, Guy.’ Fresh tears started to fall. ‘I still can’t really believe that it’s happening, that Jon has actually gone. A temporary separation, to give him time to think, that’s what he’s calling it. The children, everyone else, thinks …’ She bit her lip. ‘Everyone else thinks it’s because of David … the shock of his heart attack and that Jon is … that he will—’

‘That he’s having a mid-life crisis accelerated by David’s illness,’ Guy supplied for her. ‘Perhaps he is.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t know … I don’t know anything any more,’ she told him painfully.

‘It could just be a temporary thing,’ Guy felt bound to comfort her. ‘You’ve been married a long time and—’

‘Jon married me because he felt he had to, not because he loved me,’ she broke in tensely.

Guy stared at her.

It was the first time in all the years he’d known her that she had referred to the fact that she was pregnant when she and Jon had married.

There had been a certain amount of gossip at the time, of course. He, as a schoolboy, had overheard something about it without being particularly interested in what it meant and later he had assumed that the subsequent death of the child shortly after his birth had been so painful that the subject was simply never referred to. It had never occurred to him to question the happiness of the marriage.

‘The two of you may originally have married because you were carrying Jon’s child,’ he agreed, ‘but—’

‘No.’ Jenny shook her head, her eyes darkly sombre as she looked not so much at him as through him, he realised, as though she was looking back into the past. ‘No,’ she continued, ‘I wasn’t carrying Jon’s child. It was David’s….’

Guy willed himself not to betray his shock or to ask her any questions. Instead he simply took one of her hands and, holding it gently between his own, said quietly, ‘Come on … let’s go and have that cup of tea.’

She went with him as docilely as a small child, watching whilst he locked up the shop and then allowing him to guide her down the street.

He knew exactly where he intended taking her—the only place where they could be guaranteed the degree of privacy he knew they, she, needed—but cautiously he took a circuitous route towards it. Generation upon generation of Cookes had learned to value the habits and instincts of stealth and caution and to stake their lives on them. Now it wasn’t so much his life that was at stake as Jenny’s reputation. This was still very much a small country town after all and Jenny was now in the highly invidious position of being a ‘single’ woman.

He felt her tense slightly as he led her along the maze of narrow back streets and then out onto the road that led to his own house, but she didn’t say anything as he drew her arm through his own and walked her towards his home.

‘I’ve never been inside your house before,’ she commented as he led her through the small front door.

‘No,’ he agreed.

He wondered how she would react if he told her how often he had pictured her here, and not just here downstairs in his little living room, but upstairs in the huge old oak four-poster that virtually filled the open-plan upper storey of the house. When he had initially bought the bed he found he had to have the small existing bedrooms knocked into one to accommodate it and a small extension built out over the kitchen to house the bathroom.

The bed had at one time come from the local castle, or so local rumour had it, although how on earth it had ever actually been moved from its original place, Guy had no idea. He had bought it from a farmer’s wife who had complained that she was sick of the huge, ugly old thing. He had had to employ someone to take it apart and rebuild it again but it had been worth it.

From his neat and compact kitchen he could watch Jenny as she stood in the centre of his living room, slowly taking in her surroundings. Did she realise yet what she had told him? Had she meant to tell him or …?

The kettle boiled, he made the tea, poured two cups, put them on a tray and carried it through to the living room.

‘Now,’ he instructed, ‘sit down and tell me everything.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ Jenny said heavily. ‘Jon’s left me, he’s in love with Tiggy….’

‘Where is he living? Has he actually moved in with her?’ Guy frowned, trying to imagine old Ben’s reaction to the news that Jon had usurped his brother David’s place in his own marital bed.

‘No … no, he’s renting somewhere … a house … Oh, he keeps pretending that it isn’t because of Tiggy—he keeps saying that—but I know the truth,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I know it’s just a matter of time before …’

‘What about David? Does he know … is he …?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘No … I don’t think so, unless Tiggy’s told him. He’s out of hospital now but he isn’t at home. He’s staying in a nursing home at the moment. The specialist felt that he needed to rest and avoid any kind of strain, and of course Tiggy agreed. Well, she would, wouldn’t she?’ she added bitterly.

‘So it isn’t just Jon who …? Tiggy feels the same way, does she?’

Guy hated himself for asking such a question when he saw the way Jenny winced and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

‘Yes,’ she agreed hoarsely. ‘Yes … she seems to be as much in love with Jon as he is with her.’

‘Jen …’ Guy paused delicately. ‘In the shop you said that … at least you implied—’

‘That when Jon married me I was pregnant with David’s child,’ she finished tiredly. ‘Yes, it’s true, I was.’ She looked up at the ceiling, trying to control the tears she could feel threatening to fall. This morning the last thing she had intended to do was confide in Guy like this; in fact, she had been dreading his return, passionately wishing that he wasn’t coming back. She had grown unexpectedly adroit at avoiding people recently, at refusing to allow them to get close enough to her to ask questions and offer sympathy. Even Olivia and Ruth had met with a firm rebuff when they tried to sympathise with her.

She didn’t want sympathy. What she wanted was to have her husband back and her life restored to normalcy and no amount of commiseration was going to achieve that for her. She even found, to her shame, far from welcoming people’s concern, she almost actively resented them for it. It made her feel like … like a beggar forced to accept the charity of others and be openly grateful for it.

And she had certainly never intended to tell Guy about David’s baby. She started to shiver slightly. She still had no clear idea of why she had done, apart from the fact that now Jon had gone, there seemed no real point in keeping it a secret any longer. It was as though the guilt and shame she had felt, both then and all through the years of their marriage, not in having conceived David’s child, but in having allowed Jon to sacrifice his own life in order to protect all three of them—herself, the baby and, of course, most importantly of all in Jon’s eyes at any rate, David himself—had finally been forced to a head, which had burst this morning like a suppurating wound expelling its poison.

‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded fiercely as she saw the way Guy was looking at her. ‘Have I shocked you?’

‘No, it’s not that,’ Guy denied quietly. ‘It’s just that I never imagined … you aren’t …’

‘I’m not what … not the type?’ Jenny smiled bitterly. ‘No, I don’t suppose I am, but that doesn’t make it less a fact.

‘David and I had been dating for some time when I found out that what I’d thought was love was in reality nothing more than a silly teenage crush on my part and just a way of passing the time before going to university on David’s. We went our separate ways without any animosity, David to university and me back to school.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘My mother had been unwell for a while and then we discovered that her illness was terminal. I was needed at home to help take care of her. Jon and I were … friends, nothing more … just friends. When I found out I was pregnant …’ She paused and bit her lip a second time.

‘You told him because he was David’s brother …?’

‘Something like that,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Although it was more him who told me. I fainted one day while he was up at the farm. It never occurred to me that I might be pregnant but Jon guessed straight away. When he suggested that we should get married, I was so relieved to have someone take the responsibility off my shoulders, that I agreed.’ She looked at Guy. ‘I know what you must be thinking, that I was selfish … that I used Jon … that I deserve to lose him now, but—’

‘No, I don’t think any of those things,’ Guy assured her gravely.

How old must she have been? Seventeen, eighteen at the most, a very young and very frightened girl whose mother was dying and who had no one she could turn to.

‘I knew that Jon didn’t love me … how could he? But he convinced me that it was the right thing to do, that the baby, David’s baby, had the right to be brought up amongst his own blood relatives. He told his parents that he was the father when his father tried to stop our marrying. I think … I always felt that perhaps their mother knew, but if she did, she never said anything. Sarah was very kind to me throughout and she …’

Jenny swallowed and forced back the aching burn of the tears searing the back of her eyes.

‘I was so well all through the pregnancy that I couldn’t believe it when they told me …’ She took a deep breath, her voice choking with tears. ‘They said it was his heart, that the …’

Jenny had to stop speaking as she relived the pain of hearing the doctor tell her that her baby had died shortly after his birth.

‘It was all for nothing, you see,’ she told Guy in anguish now. ‘All for nothing. Jon need never have married me after all, because in the end there was no baby.’

‘Jen, please, my darling, don’t …’ Guy begged her, unable to endure her suffering, the unguarded words of tender endearment spoken before he could recall them, but Jenny seemed not to notice.

‘Afterwards … after the funeral, I offered Jon his freedom but he wouldn’t take it and I didn’t …’ She raised her head and looked directly at Guy. ‘By then I had fallen in love with him. He was, is … all the things that David could never, ever be and I loved him desperately, but he never really loved me. He never said anything, but I’ve always guessed, always known.’

Guy could think of nothing to say, could find no words to comfort her.

Jenny had finished her tea. She looked at her empty cup and then said quietly, ‘We ought to get back to the shop. It’s almost lunch-time.’

She was curiously light-headed, Jenny realised as she walked towards the door without waiting to see if Guy was following her. She felt empty, purged almost, and strangely separate from herself, as though she had somehow gained the ability to step outside of her body and watch herself as an observer, curiously detached from her own pain, temporarily insulated from it…. Her heart temporarily missed a beat. Temporarily … How apt. Everything in life was, after all, temporary, wasn’t it? Life itself was fleetingly unstable and not to be relied upon.