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

David reached for the remote control switch of his television and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He really ought to be taking more exercise. The specialist had reproved him the previous day when he had called at the nursing home to check up on him. These days, heart attack patients were not encouraged to spend too much time in bed, it seemed, even those who’d had attacks as serious as David’s.

Mr Hayes had been dubious at first when David had insisted that he wanted to go somewhere else to recuperate instead of going straight home from hospital, but ultimately David had managed to talk him round.

‘You’ve had a very lucky escape,’ the specialist had told him.

A lucky escape. If only that was true. He might have earned himself a respite but that was all. Sooner or later he was going to be called to account. By now, Jon would no doubt have discovered what he had been doing. It would probably have been better if he had not survived, David decided morosely. Had Jon said anything to anyone else yet? He got out of the chair and walked over to the window. The nursing home was surrounded by neatly manicured lawns and paths wide enough to take a wheelchair.

Tiggy had been to see him this morning; he had pretended to be asleep. She hadn’t stayed very long, thank God. The main drawback to his present existence was that it gave one too much time to think. And there was one thing he had definitely decided and that was, no matter what the outcome of the financial mess he had got himself into, he could no longer stay married to Tiggy. Didn’t any of them realise the burdens they had placed on him, the way they had controlled his life? His father, his brother, Tiggy, all of them, with their expectations and their demands.

Ben had filled him with such an unbearable mixture of resentment and guilt, weighing him down with the overwhelmingly relentless pressure of his love, his determination that David would be all the things he had not been able to be. God, he shuddered when he thought about the way he had been sacrificed on the family altar, his life mapped out for him virtually from the moment of his birth, no choice allowed, every indulgence given, just so long as he kept his feet immovably placed in the dead men’s shoes his father had created for him.

But he wasn’t his father’s dead twin. He wasn’t his grandfather. Had he been given a choice, the last career he would have chosen would have been the law. Deep down inside himself, soul deep if there was such a thing, he had a craving, a yearning, a need for challenge and change, limitless horizons, excitement and even danger.

In the drug-filled days following his heart attack, he had dreamt of it, travelling storm-swollen rivers through vast jungle terrain, beset by swirling, foaming rapids, huge thundering cataracts, and being swept along almost to the very brink of death—the ultimate adventure.

He had known then that he couldn’t go on with his present life. Oh for the days when a family’s black sheep was shipped out to some far-flung shore. Oh indeed.

And Jon, Jon with his quiet, watchful gaze, his loyalty. Jon should have been the chosen one. If he had … Jon who as a boy had covered for him and taken the blame for so many of his misdemeanours. Jon whom, if the truth were known, he sometimes almost hated for his very generosity towards him and whom he almost always envied because he was not their father’s favoured child. Jon, too, was a burden—a living reminder of all his own fallibilities and weaknesses, of all that he himself could never be.

And last but not least, of course, Tiggy … Tiggy … his wife. She was the greatest burden of them all. There was no way that he could ever live with her again. No way that he could ever go back to his old life. No way at all.

‘Is there still no word from Jemima Harding’s accountants?’ Olivia asked Jon anxiously a few weeks after her discovery of her father’s less than honest actions.

He shook his head. ‘Not as yet. The original meeting had been cancelled and the partner dealing with Jemima’s affairs was apparently on holiday. I called in at the home yesterday to see Jemima. She’s not at all well,’ Jon reported grimly.

‘What will happen if … when she dies?’ Olivia asked worriedly. But she already knew the answer to her own question. ‘Has … has Dad said anything to you about …?’

Again Jon shook his head.

It was incomprehensible to Olivia that her father could so apparently easily dismiss what he had done. Surely he must realise that his fraudulent activities, his theft, were bound to have come to light.

Olivia watched her uncle as he checked through the post. When she had first learned that he and Jenny had decided to separate, she had been stunned. They had always seemed so happy together. She was uneasily aware of how much her mother had started to lean and depend on Jon since her father’s heart attack and she just hoped …

So far, as far as she knew, there had been no recurrence of her mother’s nightmarish eating binge and Olivia had slowly started to relax a little and to tell herself hopefully that it might just have been a one-off incident and that her fears about her mother were groundless.

She had an appointment later on that morning to draw up the will of an old lady who lived several miles outside town and who, because of her incapacitating rheumatism, Olivia was to visit rather than the other way round.

Jon was due to appear in court in Chester that afternoon with one of his clients and Olivia had been slightly disturbed when her mother had announced the previous evening that she intended to travel to Chester with Jon in order to do some shopping.

Saul had returned home, but he had kept in touch, ringing her almost every day. They were light-hearted, amusing telephone calls, outlining the problems he was having in finding a suitable nanny for the children.

‘I don’t suppose you feel like taking pity on me and stepping into the breach,’ he had teased on one occasion.

‘Certainly not,’ Olivia had refused.

‘Ah, so you’ve heard the stories, as well, have you?’ he challenged her.

‘What stories?’ Olivia had asked curiously.

‘Oh, you know, the ones where the father always falls for the nanny,’ he had told her wickedly.

Be careful, Olivia had warned herself after he had rung off. It would be dangerously easy to resurrect her teenage fantasy for Saul, to assuage her damaged emotions and fill the empty space in her life with him.

She had heard nothing from Caspar and no longer expected to even though, ridiculously, her heart still started to beat much too quickly whenever the phone rang at home; and she still rushed to collect the post. But even if he did get in touch with her, what good would it do at this point? She was hardly likely to be granted a work permit in the US now or even an entry visa, not with a father who was soon to become a convicted criminal.

In a world where so much could be determined by human intervention, it came as even more of a shock to discover that fate, nature, destiny, call it what you would, could still have such a devastating and unanticipated effect on human lives.

‘So you’re Jon’s daughter, you say …?’

‘No, David’s,’ Olivia patiently corrected the old lady she had come to see. The niece who looked after her, calling at her cottage every day to check up on her, had been dismissed following Olivia’s arrival.

‘No doubt she’s decided that she wants to leave her bits and pieces to my sister instead of me,’ Margaret had told Olivia dryly. ‘She’s like that. Mind you, if you ask me, they’re all inclined to go a bit that way when they get old. I suppose we’ll be the same if we live that long. She’s ninety-one next time….’

‘Ninety-one …’ Olivia gazed at the tiny, wizened figure on the chair opposite her own.

‘David’s …’ The old lady’s gaze sharpened. ‘Oh yes, I remember now … came home with some young American, didn’t you? So our Margaret told me. What’s happened to him?’

‘He’s gone back to America,’ Olivia replied tersely. ‘Now, about your will …’

‘Gone back, has he? Oh well, he’s not the first to do that by a long chalk. You want to ask your Aunt Ruth about that. A real to-do over her Yank there was, her father up in arms about what was going on, and her mother sending her off to her family in Yorkshire.’

Olivia frowned. Caspar had said something about her great-aunt being involved with an American, but she had forgotten all about it in the turmoil of her father’s heart attack and the discovery that had followed.

‘Not told you about it, has she?’ the old woman asked. ‘Well, dare say she wouldn’t. Never liked the Yanks, her father, and there was a real to-do up at the house when he found out what was going on. My daughter Liza used to work there then and she came home full of it.’ She chuckled. ‘Not that your grandfather had it all his own way. She had plenty of spirit about her, did your Aunt Ruth, but my Liza told me that they’d found out he was married, this American of Ruth’s, and that was that, then. The poor girl was broken-hearted. Had to be sent to Yorkshire to get over it. It’s a long time ago now. Quick, before our Margaret comes back … about my will …’

‘How do you feel about taking pity on me and having dinner with me tonight?’

‘Saul … how can I?’ Olivia protested, laughing after she picked up the telephone and heard Saul’s voice. ‘You’re in—’

‘No, I’m not,’ he interrupted softly. ‘I’m right here in Haslewich, well, almost …’

She could hear the warmth in his voice and a huge wave of desolation and loneliness swept over her. ‘What … what are you doing up here?’ she asked him chokily. ‘I thought—’

‘Business. I’ve got a meeting in Chester in the morning. I’m staying at the Grosvenor. I could drive over and collect you and—’

‘No … no … I’ll drive to Chester,’ Olivia countered. It would do her good to get out. She had spent far too many nights worrying and brooding over problems for which she knew there were no solutions.

‘Good girl,’ Saul said quietly before asking, ‘How soon can you get here?’

The Grosvenor was right in the centre of Chester. The doorman welcomed her with a well-trained smile and a brief admiring glance as she walked past him and to the foyer, where Saul was waiting for her.

He looked dangerously handsome in his elegantly cut dark suit and Olivia noticed the way his glance fell appreciatively on her body as he greeted her, her pulse rate picking up betrayingly as her body registered the interest and responded to it.

‘Mmm … you look good enough to eat,’ Saul told her as he ignored her attempt to hold him at a distance and bent his head to kiss her very firmly and lingeringly on the mouth. ‘So good in fact,’ he murmured wickedly as he lifted his mouth from hers, ‘that I—’

‘Saul,’ Olivia warned him reprovingly.

‘All right,’ he said, laughing, ‘but you can’t blame me for trying. I like the dress, by the way,’ he remarked. ‘Black suits you. Have you heard anything from Caspar?’

Olivia shook her head. ‘What about you? Has Hillary …?’

‘She’s been in touch via her lawyers,’ he replied dryly. ‘Looks like she’s very eager to get the divorce through. I wonder why. Perhaps she’s already lined up her next victim.’

Olivia could feel her heart starting to thump unevenly. Did Saul know about Hillary and Caspar?

‘Saul …’ she began, but before she could ask him, he was leaning forward and whispering to her.

‘Your lipstick’s all smudged.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ Olivia challenged him indignantly. ‘Now I’ll have to go and repair it.’

‘I’ve got a better idea….’ As his thumb pressed gently against her lower lip and his eyes looked deeply into her own, she saw there the unmistakable message of desire; Olivia took a steadying breath and determinedly stepped back from him.

She felt as though she had just drunk a large glass of champagne much, much too quickly and, as a result, had become deliciously light-headed and slightly dizzy. Anticipation delicately threaded with sensual and sexual arousal curled headily through her body and she was tempted to cast aside her cares and behave illogically and, yes, even irresponsibly, to allow herself to imagine what it would be like to feel the warmth of Saul’s arms around her, the heat of his mouth on hers, the hard male pressure of his body.

Be careful, she tried to warn herself. Saul is family, a relative … a friend … and not a potential lover. She had come to Chester simply to have dinner with him and to talk. That was all, she reminded herself firmly, that was all.

‘You’ve hardly touched your meal. Would you prefer to order something else?’

Jenny shook her head and looked apologetically at their waiter as he came to remove their plates, hers barely touched, and Guy’s empty.

‘I’m just not very hungry,’ she admitted and then added untruthfully, ‘I ate with the children before I came out.’

She still wasn’t quite sure exactly what she was doing here in Knutsford’s premier bistro with Guy when she should have been at home doing the ironing and when, after all, she saw him almost every day at the shop as it was. She just knew that when he had telephoned out of the blue and suggested they go out together for a meal, for some reason without really allowing herself time to think, she had agreed.

For some reason … Now she was trying to ignore the truth. She knew perfectly well what had prompted her to accept Guy’s invitation. It had been Olivia who had informed her quite innocently that Jon had taken her mother to Chester with him. Hot tears burned the back of her eyes. There had been many times during the years they had been married when she had ached with the pain, the almost unbearable weight of her love for Jon, knowing that loyal, caring, compassionate though he was, he couldn’t possibly return it, but there had never been a time when she had felt like this, when her whole body seemed to be reflecting the emotional agony of not just her loss, but even more hurtfully, her searing jealousy of Tiggy.

Knowing Jon the way she did, she knew how painful it must be for him to have fallen in love with his brother’s wife. Jon, predictably, denied that his decision to leave had had anything to do with Tiggy but Jenny knew better.

Oh yes, she had seen the covert, pitying looks of other people when they saw her in the street and somehow, most shaming and hurtful of all, the way some women, women whom if anyone had asked her beforehand, she would immediately and confidently have claimed as friends, now seemed to avoid her, almost as though being deserted by one’s husband was akin to having a contagious disease that she might inadvertently pass on to them.

‘I just need some time to myself … some space to think,’ Jon had told her angrily when she tried to persuade him to stay, but he had not told her the whole truth, and not even to Ruth had she been able to admit her sense of failure and hopelessness, her feeling that somehow she had always known this would happen, that one day Jon would suddenly realise all that he had missed out on, all that he had given up for her. No, not for her, she corrected herself tiredly, but for David. It was for David’s sake that he had married her in the first place, not her own. For David’s sake and the sake of the baby she had been carrying. David’s baby …

Jon stared unseeingly out of the large picture window of the house he was renting and into the darkness of the garden beyond it. The house was quiet, too quiet, almost oppressively so, empty of the bustle and clamour he was used to. It was odd how it was the thing he had taken the most for granted; the thing he would, if asked, have said he would miss least of all. He actually found himself yearning for the din of children banging noisily up and down stairs, slamming doors, calling out to one another, playing loud music and having even louder quarrels. And through it all, that never-ending, irritating cacophony, came the gentle, warm, soothing sound of Jenny’s voice.

Jenny … He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the glass. He could still see the look of shock and bewilderment in Jenny’s eyes when he told her that he wanted to leave; could still hear the pain in her voice. She had tried to put up a bold front, even asking him practical questions about his plans. But although he knew he had hurt her terribly, he had been intent only on what he perceived was his own right to satisfy his own needs.

Jenny … He could still see in his mind’s eye the way she had looked when he had guessed that she was pregnant with David’s child, the fear she had tried so bravely to hide, her determination to take sole responsibility for what had happened, her clear-sighted resolution.

He had seen Louise earlier this evening in Haslewich, but when she had seen him she had deliberately crossed the road to avoid him, turning her head away from him. That had been after he had got back from Chester.

Chester. He let out a small groan, inwardly cringing as he relived what had happened there earlier in the day.

It had been his suggestion that he take Tiggy to the Grosvenor’s bistro for lunch and he felt ashamed now to admit that he had enjoyed the envious looks of other men as Tiggy clung to his arm and flirted coquettishly with him. Being with her made him feel like a different person, the person he decided he had always meant to be but whom no one had ever allowed him to be—a different Jon, not good old staid, dependable, reliable, self-effacing Jon, but the kind of Jon who’d quite naturally be with the kind of woman whom other men would watch with appreciative envy, the kind of Jon who would quite naturally lunch in places like the Grosvenor’s bistro instead of snatching a sandwich at his desk.

What a fool he had been creating a fantasy ego for himself, which in the end he simply had not been able to live up to—and worse.

Tiggy hadn’t eaten much lunch, claiming that she wasn’t very hungry, but she had drunk several glasses of wine, which was no doubt why she had whispered to him afterwards that instead of going their separate ways—him to court and her to do her shopping—they should spend the rest of the day together.

At first Jon hadn’t suspected what she had really meant, which just made the whole farcical thing more appalling. It was only when Tiggy had laughed about the fact that they need not even sign the register with a fictitious name since they were in actuality a Mr & Mrs Crighton, that the full impact of what she intended them to do had struck him. And what had he done after all these weeks of behaving like a lovesick adolescent, all these weeks of determinedly denying that his decision to leave Jenny had anything whatsoever to do with Tiggy whilst at the same time secretly revelling in the knowledge of his desire for her?

Had he leaped at the chance she was offering him, his mind, his emotions, his body ablaze with the desire to consummate his love for her?

No, he had not. He groaned again. Even now, he still couldn’t wholly believe how crassly, how cravenly he had behaved, how humiliatingly, how faintheartedly and cowardly.

His body, far from being inflamed with passion, had instead been flooded with terrified fear, and even worse, that part of it that should at the very least have started to stir with rampant sexual excitement had chosen to beat a rather hasty retreat. His mind, instead of encouraging him to seize the opportunity Tiggy had given him, had commanded his tongue to start babbling inanities about the impossibility of their doing any such thing; had produced excuse after excuse whilst Tiggy simply stood and listened, watching him in disbelieving silence. And as for his emotions!

Jon opened his eyes and moved away from the window. That had been the worst blow of all, because instead of feeling the surge of pleasure and excitement, of love and delight that he should have experienced at Tiggy’s suggestion, what he had actually felt was a tidal wave of shocked distaste, acutely aware that the very last thing he wanted to do was to take Tiggy to bed and, equally strongly, that the only body he wanted curled up next to his own in bed was that of his wife.

In the illuminating half-dozen or so seconds it had taken him to absorb all these self-revelations, he had been so stunned and distracted that it hadn’t even occurred to him how Tiggy might be feeling.

He couldn’t really blame her for the hysterical scene that had followed or for her accusations against him, or indeed for her refusal to travel back to Haslewich with him. He winced, remembering some of the things she had said and winced even more as he tried to understand why on earth he had ever imagined himself even remotely attracted to her.

What on earth had he done, and why? It was all so clear now.

Because for years he had been jealous of David, secretly resenting him and having to play a subordinate role. He had been a fool, Jon decided bleakly, a complete and utter fool, and he would give anything…anything to be able to simply wipe out the past few weeks, climb in his car and go home…. Home to Jenny and his children, their children … Home … to Jenny. He looked at the telephone and then frowned as it suddenly started to ring.

‘Uncle Jon?’

‘Yes, Jack,’ he greeted David and Tiggy’s son.

‘It’s Mum. Can you come round? She’s … she’s not very well.’

‘Jack, what is it, what’s wrong with her?’ he demanded urgently, his heart sinking with foreboding, but his nephew had already replaced the receiver.

Quickly reaching for his car keys, Jon headed for the door.

Guy was just on the point of asking Jenny if she wanted a liqueur when she stood up, abruptly pushing her chair back, and said, ‘Guy, I’m sorry … but … I want to go home.’

At first he thought that she mustn’t be feeling well and he immediately called the waiter over and got to his own feet. Once they were outside, Jenny couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she hurried to where he had parked the car. She felt so guilty, but nowhere near as guilty as she knew she would have felt if she had stayed.

‘Jenny, what’s the matter? Are you all right?’ he asked her anxiously as he unlocked the car door for her.

‘I’m fine, really,’ she replied, then added shakily, ‘It’s … it’s … just that this isn’t right … not for me. I’m sorry, Guy,’ she apologised. ‘I know you’re trying to be kind, to help, but …’

How could she explain to him how alien all this was to her, how barren and empty it made her feel to be out with him instead of with Jon and how she just knew that, no matter how lonely the years ahead might be for her on her own, solitude was infinitely preferable to trying to fill the space she had left in her with another man … even a man as kind and caring as Guy?

‘I … I guess I’m just a one-man woman,’ she told him, trying to force a smile, but she could see from Guy’s expression that he wasn’t deceived. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, then turned away from him to look out of the car window.

Guy grimaced to himself … and longed to be able to retort, Not half as sorry as I am, but forced himself to hold back his bitterness and frustration. This wasn’t how he had envisaged the evening ending at all.

In Chester, Olivia and Saul had finished eating. The restaurant was nearly empty with only themselves and another couple lingering over their liqueurs, reluctant to let the evening end.

‘No, I don’t believe you.’ Olivia laughed, shaking her head as Saul finished telling her an amusing story about one of his company’s overseas clients.

‘It’s true,’ he protested, sharing her laughter. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve some photographs in my room I promised I’d let Ruth have. Some are of the kids and the others are of her flower arrangements for the party. Perhaps you could deliver them to her for me?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Olivia agreed willingly, adding warningly, ‘I think the waiters are waiting for us to leave, Saul. There’s no one else in the dining room now.’

‘What …?’ Saul looked round and then shook his head in disbelief. ‘I hadn’t realised it was so late,’ he admitted as they both stood up.

Once outside the restaurant he directed her towards the bank of lifts.

‘I’ve never been entirely happy in these things,’ Olivia confessed as the doors closed and the lift started to rise.

‘Mmm. I know what you mean,’ Saul returned, adding teasingly, ‘Not that I would object to being trapped in one with you, Livvy.’

They both laughed as the lift rocked gently to a standstill on Saul’s floor.

‘It’s this way,’ he told her as they stepped out, removing his key card from his pocket as they reached his room. After he unlocked and opened the door he stood back, allowing Olivia to precede him inside. The room was a good size and pleasantly furnished, but then she wouldn’t have expected anything less from the Grosvenor.

The colours and patterns had been carefully chosen to give the room a warm, welcoming look; the queen-size bed, Olivia noticed, had already been enticingly turned down. As she looked at it, Olivia automatically had to stifle a yawn.

‘Tired?’ Saul asked her sympathetically. ‘These past few weeks can’t have been easy for you.’

His warmth and sympathy were in such direct contrast to Caspar’s attitude. Why on earth couldn’t Caspar have been like Saul … sympathetic … understanding …?

‘Livvy …?’ she heard Saul asking.

She shook her head and told him quickly, ‘It’s getting late. I’d better go. If you’ll give me the photographs …?’

‘The photographs? Yes, yes, of course. Now just where did I put them?’ Saul muttered under his breath as he went over to a chest of drawers and started to open the top one.

He had shrugged off his jacket as they entered the room, dropping it casually on one of the chairs, and now as she watched him, Olivia was suddenly and very dangerously conscious of just how very masculine a man he was … of just how well muscled his back was beneath its fine covering of soft white cotton.

‘Now where the hell did I put them?’ Saul was muttering again to himself as he closed the drawer. ‘I know,’ he announced triumphantly, snapping his fingers and turning round abruptly.

Forgetting that the bed was behind her, Olivia stepped back to avoid him, caught her heel in the fringe of the rug she had been standing on and started to fall.

‘Hey, steady,’ Saul warned her as he reached out to help her, but as his fingers tightened protectively around her upper arm his expression suddenly changed, the good-humoured amusement dying out of his eyes to be replaced by an expression, a look, that made Olivia start to tremble slightly, unable to draw her gaze away from his and from the desire it held.

‘Saul …’ she warned shakily.

Olivia could feel her heart beginning to pound. Her knees were on the verge of giving way as she became aware of how Saul was looking at her mouth.

‘Saul, don’t,’ she protested huskily.

‘Don’t fight it, Livvy,’ he told her softly. ‘It’s what we both want, what we both need.’

‘No,’ Olivia objected hoarsely. ‘You just think that because … because of what’s happened, because … because I’m here.’

Saul was still holding on to her, drawing her closer, and weakly she let him.

Very gently he turned her to face him. ‘Livvy, you know …’ and then he stopped, his eyes suddenly blazing with a fierce hunger as he pulled her even closer and then cupped her face in his hands. ‘I should have done this years ago,’ he murmured as he fanned his fingers through her hair, the warmth of his breath whispering against her skin, her mouth. ‘That night when I saw you in the river, then you wouldn’t have said no, would you, Livvy?’

‘Please don’t,’ she protested again, but it was too late. His mouth was already moving urgently against hers and she was responding to it, to him.

She ached so much for this kind of closeness, this kind of physical intimacy, missed it so much…. It felt so good to be held, touched, kissed, wanted.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around him, savouring his warmth, his desire. Her impatient hands began tugging at his shirt. His body felt hard and hot, so very hot beneath her questing fingertips. She heard him groan, felt the groan, his chest vibrating to the growled masculine sound of his arousal as she touched him. His body hair felt silky soft and somehow …

She frowned, some random thought trying to surface past the first thrust of the sensual pleasure that speared through her. She could feel his hands on her body, touching her firmly and yet at the same time almost hesitantly, so that her senses easily recognised that it was not his expertise or his desire that was holding him back but rather his need to have her physical confirmation that his touch was welcome.

Olivia gave it. The exhalation of her soft breath, the tiny half turn so that the palm of his hand rested against her breast, the deliberate opening of her mouth to his kiss were, she knew, all that was needed, all that he was asking of her, all that it took for him to slowly start kissing her throat and then her collarbone as he exposed it to his seeking mouth and then went on to expose her breasts to his seeking, tender hands. He was making no demands on her, imposing no rules, giving rather than expecting to be given.

‘Mmm, Livvy,’ she heard him mouth against her breast, ‘you don’t know how much I’ve wanted this … how much I’ve wanted you.’

She was trembling violently, as much with shocked excitement as with real desire, floating on a protective cloud, buoyed up by the ego-stroking pleasure of knowing she was wanted—desired. Saul’s thumb stroked her nipple and she shuddered frantically in response.

‘Olivia …’

As she focused on him she saw how desire had turned his eyes almost black, enlarging their pupils, his habitual, faintly cynical expression banished, his skin slightly flushed and hot, so hot that when he buried his face between her breasts and started to kiss the soft hollow between them, she could feel his heat.

And all the time he was kissing her, tasting her, he was still talking to her, praising her, his voice thick and slurred with the desire she could feel so potently pulsing from his body.

It was impossible for her to remain immune to that desire … to him; she could feel her own responsive arousal, see it in the way her nipples hardened and swelled provocatively, inviting the eager caress of his lips, his tongue, his mouth, and eagerly responding to them.

Saul had fully shrugged off his shirt, and with the hand that wasn’t holding her, he was struggling with his belt. ‘Help me,’ he begged her throatily. ‘Undress me, Olivia …’

Dizzily Olivia let him take her hand and place it on his belt, her fingers shaking in her response to the sharpness of his indrawn breath and the way his whole body shuddered as her fingertips grazed the bare flesh about his belt buckle.

She tugged at it ineffectually, her hands trembling too much for her to unfasten it properly, welcoming the hard warmth of Saul’s hand as it covered hers, helped and guided her.

His belly was firm and flat, the crispness of his body hair activating the sensitive nerve endings beneath her skin as she touched him and felt his arms tighten around her in response. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face towards him. She had been feeling so besieged and beleaguered lately. It felt so good to be held like this, to be wanted, to have hostility and anger replaced with laughter and warmth.

She let her thoughts and her senses drift as he continued to kiss her, willing herself to ignore everything but the pleasure they were sharing, but deep down inside her a small mournful, grieving voice could not quite be silenced.

Something was wrong. Oh, her flesh, her body, her physical senses might be responding to Saul, welcoming the loving sensuality of his touch as it stimulated them. A part of her might enjoy seeing the heat and the need in his eyes as he looked down at her partially naked body, just as part of her enjoyed looking at him, but something was not quite right. Something was just not there, and as she tried to force herself to respond passionately to his kiss, Olivia knew what it was.

‘Caspar.’

She didn’t realise she had said his name aloud until she felt Saul gently but so firmly holding her away from him, the look in his eyes no longer aroused and passionate but instead rueful and knowledgeable.

‘I … I’m sorry,’ Olivia faltered. ‘I didn’t think … I didn’t mean …’

‘It’s all right, Olivia,’ Saul reassured her gently. ‘I do understand.’ He glanced down briefly at her still-naked breasts before releasing her and very tenderly tugging her clothes back in place. When he had finished he looked directly at her and smiled into her eyes. ‘It is all right,’ he repeated emphatically, ‘and I do understand.’

‘I didn’t mean … it just …’

‘I know, I know,’ he soothed. ‘But that still doesn’t stop me from wishing,’ he added ruefully.

He touched her face lightly with his fingertips as he started to do up his own clothing.

‘I shouldn’t have …’ Olivia began, feeling guiltier by the minute. Saul was being so nice, so caring. If she had any sense she would make up her mind to forget about Caspar right now and …

It seemed she did not possess that admirable quality because right now the person she wanted more than any other in the world was … Caspar.

‘No, I shouldn’t have,’ she heard Saul correcting her firmly. He took hold of her hands. ‘Let’s both agree that this—’ he glanced around the bedroom ‘—was the result of a little too much good wine and a little too much wishful thinking—on my part at least.’

And then he leaned forward and gave her a determinedly cousinly peck on the cheek before saying briskly, ‘Now, just where did I put those photographs?’

‘Oh, Max …’

Max grimaced in impatience as he heard the emotion in Madeleine’s voice and felt the warmth of her tears on his skin. If there was one thing he particularly loathed, it was women who cried in the aftermath of their orgasm. He might have known that Madeleine would be that type, just as he had known that she would be awkward and inexperienced, fortunately too inexperienced to realise just how manufactured his forced ‘desire’ for her actually was. Unlike her housemate, Claudine … She would have known and she would most definitely not have cried.

Irritably he suppressed the thought. He had never been attracted to brunettes and certainly not ones like her. She was far too assertive and self-assured, far too—

‘Oh, Max! I wish we could always be together….’

Max tensed; this was his cue, the opening he had been angling for, carefully manoeuvring towards. ‘So do I,’ he lied adroitly, reaching to brush away her tears in a gesture of faked tenderness whilst he smiled his crocodile smile down into her tear-wet eyes. ‘But you know the situation. I’m not … I can barely support myself … never mind anyone else….’

He could feel her pulse jump betrayingly beneath his fingers and felt his body start to ease into relaxation and triumph. It had all been so simple. Much, much simpler than even he had anticipated. Madeleine had proved boringly easy to charm and deceive, swallowing every one of the lies he had so cynically told her, gazing at him wide-eyed and adoringly as he relentlessly and ruthlessly manoeuvred his way into her life and her heart.

Prior to meeting her, he had had no clear idea of how best to accomplish his objective, but once he had met her … She was almost too persuadable and malleable, and the contempt he felt for her had now spread to include her parents, especially her father. Did he really believe that she had what it took to make a barrister? Oh, she might have the academic qualifications, but the thought of her ever appearing in a courtroom, even defending a case, never mind prosecuting one … And yet, just because of who she was, or rather who her father was, she still had the power to take that vacancy from him, or rather she thought she could.

Cleverly Max had given her no indication that he knew that she was his rival for the tenancy whilst at the same time apparently openly and disarmingly admitting to her how important getting it was to him. Predictably she had flushed bright red and become self-conscious and flustered, and she had even asked him if he couldn’t find a vacancy with another set of chambers.

He had been tempted then to tell her crudely and bluntly what he really thought and felt, but he had restrained himself. He would get his opportunity to tell her once she had—as he was quite determined that she would—relinquished her claim on the vacancy in favour of him.

‘Oh, there’ll always be a vacancy for me in Chester,’ he had told her carelessly and untruthfully.

In reality, the old man’s pride would never allow him to accept any favours from the Chester branch of the family, even for his favourite grandson. Oh no! It could never be good enough for Max to match the achievements of his Chester cousins. He must supersede them. But Maddy, of course, knew nothing about any of that or about a good many other aspects of his life—and indeed she would never know.

‘Chester?’ Maddy had demurred anxiously. ‘But that would mean you’d have to move there and—’

‘And what?’ Max had teased her, starting to kiss her and keeping on kissing her until her half-hearted protests had subsided.

Oh yes, he had baited his hook very carefully indeed and now tonight he had caught his prize and was starting to reel it—her—in.

Nothing had been left to chance, from the champagne he had left chilling on ice before he had picked her up for their dinner date, to the new bedding he had left instructions for the maid to put on his bed and the flowers he had told her to arrange.

‘Mmm …’ Max murmured, gently nibbling her ear. ‘I’m not really looking forward to meeting your father. He isn’t exactly going to approve of me as prospective son-in-law material, is he? Not when I haven’t even got a proper job …’

He could feel her body going stiff in his arms, and as he raised his head to look down into her eyes, the look of mingled hope, disbelief and adoration he could see so clearly there made him smile in cynical satisfaction.

‘Oh, Max …’ Madeleine whispered. ‘I didn’t know … I didn’t think … Oh, Max, I love you so much.’ She flung her arms around him, holding him tightly as she whispered shakily, ‘Daddy is going to love you … just like I do, and as for your not having a job …’

‘Mmm …’ Max prodded between kisses. ‘As for me not having a job … we can live on love, is that it?’

Madeleine laughed. ‘Well … I … I have some money,’ she told him shyly, ‘and—’

‘No,’ Max countered fiercely, softening his voice and his grip on her arms when he saw her shock. ‘No, my darling, I’m not the kind of man who could ever live off a woman. I know it’s chauvinistic and old-fashioned of me, but, well, that’s just the way I am.’

‘Oh, Max … I do love you,’ Madeleine sighed ecstatically. ‘Don’t worry about the vacancy,’ she urged, giving him a happy, secretive smile. ‘I just know that everything will work out all right….’

Her eyes shone with happiness as she lifted her face up towards his. ‘So please, please stop worrying about it and kiss me instead.’

‘Jack, what is it, what’s wrong, where’s your mother?’ Jon demanded anxiously as his nephew opened the door for him. He had driven straight over to the house after Jack’s phone call, his stomach churning with anxiety and guilt.

‘She’s … she’s in the kitchen,’ Jack replied unhappily, but as Jon headed towards the closed kitchen door he noticed that Jack was hanging back and that he was obviously reluctant to go with him.

As he pushed the kitchen door open, he had no clear idea of what he expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t the sight that greeted him.

Tiggy was squatting in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by what looked like the contents of a rubbish bin. She was wearing a thin diaphanous robe through which he should have been able to see her body but couldn’t because of the way it was smeared with food. At some stage in the evening she had clearly been sick; he could smell the sour, rank stench of it and his own stomach heaved at its foulness.

‘Tiggy …’

As he said her name she focused on him but gave no sign of having recognised him. Her eyes were wild like those of an animal. As Jon studied her more closely, he realised in shocked distaste that it wasn’t just her gown that was smeared with food but her hair and face, as well. Food and what he suspected must be traces of dried vomit.

His stomach curdled and he had to grit his teeth against his own nausea. As he watched her, almost unable to comprehend what he saw, she started to crawl away from him, scuttling into a corner like a … scared animal, her eyes never leaving his face as she reached a clawlike hand towards him with what looked like a half-eaten wedge of cake. To his shock, she started to ram it into her mouth, the whole time peering at him like some kind of feral creature.

Dear God … What was happening? What was she doing to herself? Instinctively, with a feeling of certainty, Jon knew that this was no isolated incident, no single abberation or reaction to outside pressures and the stress of David’s heart attack and everything that had happened since. For the second time in his life, he knew what it was to feel pity for his brother.

The first time had been the night of baby Harry’s birth when he had experienced the privilege and emotional intensity of witnessing the miracle of birth, of feeling his whole being flooding with love for the small, helpless life he had just seen born, of sharing with Jenny the miracle of that birth.

Yes, then he had felt something for his brother but it had been a very different kind of pity to what he felt now.

‘Tiggy!’

‘It’s no good. She can’t hear … she never can when she’s like this….’

The sound of his nephew’s voice made him turn round. Dear God, no child should have to witness this ugliness, yet Jack seemed so composed, so knowing … so adult. Then he remembered the way the boy had hung back from entering the kitchen.

‘Tiggy …’ he tried again, but she was eating something else now, refusing to even look at him, never mind show that she was listening to him.

‘She’ll have eaten everything soon,’ Jack said dispassionately, ‘and … and then it will be all right … unless …’ He paused and looked up at Jon. ‘Sometimes it isn’t enough and she has to have more and then …’

Jon could see the boy’s face starting to crumble as he tried to control his emotions. Automatically he reached for him, held him in his arms and gently rocked him. Dear God, he felt so thin. Far, far thinner surely than Joss.

There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask him, a hundred things he needed to know. He hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to handle this situation. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tiggy starting to creep along the floor. She held a knife in her hand now. His heart started to thud unevenly.

How much of this was his fault … his responsibility …? How much had he contributed to tipping her over the edge and into this dark abyss she was now inhabiting?

He couldn’t deal with this on his own. He needed help … he needed …

His arm around Jack’s shoulders, he started to guide him out of the kitchen. In the hallway he picked up the telephone and punched in a number.

‘Who are you ringing?’ Jack asked anxiously. Jon hugged him reassuringly as he heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

‘Jenny,’ he said huskily before pausing to clear his throat. ‘Jenny, it’s me, Jon.’

As she heard her husband’s voice, Jenny closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, willing herself not to start crying.

‘Jon, yes,’ she replied. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m at David and Tiggy’s,’ Jon told her. He could hear her indrawn breath and added quickly, ‘No, Jen, please don’t hang up. This isn’t … It’s not what you think, Jenny. Please listen,’ he pleaded.

Tensely Jenny gripped the receiver. Dear God, what was it he wanted to say? Why was he ringing her? What did he want? To tell her that he was moving in with Tiggy …?

‘Jen … I … I need your help. Can you come over? Now … please.’

Jon looked down at Jack who was standing stiffly at his side.

‘It’s Tiggy,’ he heard himself saying. ‘She’s … she’s … there’s a bit of a problem,’ he told her. ‘Please come, Jen … now.’

‘Yes … yes … I’ll be there,’ Jenny promised.

Olivia passed the ambulance on the main road as she drove tiredly home. After she left Saul, she had absently got into her car and driven mindlessly though the dark country lanes, the tears pouring down her face as she wept out her pain and despair.

Saul had been so good about everything and so generous, telling her gently that he was the one to blame and not her and that he was a fool for thinking what he had.

‘Of course you still love him,’ he had told her quietly, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes. ‘You’re that kind of person.’

‘Oh, Saul,’ she had wept. ‘I’m so sorry. How could I …?’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he had repeated.

But he was wrong. It was. She should have known. She had known but had tried to ignore that knowledge, to tell herself that if Caspar could so easily replace her, then she could do exactly the same.

Only she couldn’t. She still loved him … still wanted him, still ached for him with her emotions and her body even as her mind acknowledged the impossibility of their ever settling their differences, of his ever being able to accept her as the person she was.

Saul had not wanted her to leave whilst she was so obviously upset, but she had refused to listen to him, and in the end he had been forced to let her go. She had no real idea how far she had actually driven, only that suddenly she realised that she was totally exhausted and needed to get home.

As she turned into the drive, she saw that the house was ablaze with lights. Four cars were parked haphazardly outside, five including her mother’s. Two of them she recognised. Her stomach started to churn as she got shakily out of her car and started to run towards the house.

Jenny had seen her arrive and was at the door waiting for her. Olivia knew the moment she saw her face. ‘It’s Tiggy, isn’t it?’ she demanded, and although five minutes earlier she would have sworn that she had no tears left, all at once she started to cry again.

Jenny wrapped her in her arms and rocked her soothingly in much the same way that Jon had done with Jack earlier.

‘It’s all right, Livvy, everything’s all right,’ Jenny crooned calmingly. ‘Come inside and sit down. Jon, put the kettle on, would you?’ she called out to her husband as he appeared in the hallway, but Olivia shook her head.

‘I’m fine,’ she whispered. ‘I think I know what’s happened.’

Behind Jon she could see two other men. One of whom she guessed, vaguely recognised, was the local doctor.

‘It’s Tiggy, isn’t it? She’s had another …’ She swallowed and bit her lip. ‘Is she …?’

‘Your mother’s got an eating problem, Livvy,’ Jenny told her gently, ‘and Dr Travers feels—’

‘Your mother needs specialised treatment,’ the doctor interjected to tell Olivia. ‘I’ve arranged for her to be hospitalised for tonight. With this kind of disorder there’s always a danger of someone choking to death, either on the food they’ve gorged or on their own vomit.’

‘I knew … I knew what she was doing, but I tried to pretend it was just a one-off. I didn’t … I should have …’ Olivia looked helplessly at Jenny. ‘I wanted to tell you, but …’

‘Livvy, it isn’t your fault,’ Jenny asserted firmly.

‘I saw her,’ Olivia continued despairingly. ‘Just after I came home, I found her in the kitchen one night. Caspar told me then that she needed help … treatment … but I … we … we quarrelled about it. I couldn’t believe … I didn’t want to believe. I should have listened to him … done something then. I should have known….’

‘People like your mother are very skilled at concealing their addiction,’ the doctor informed her sympathetically.

‘Olivia, please believe it isn’t your fault,’ Jenny repeated.

‘What … what will happen to her?’ Olivia asked the doctor uncertainly.

He exchanged a look with Jenny and Jon.

‘We’ve agreed with the doctor that your mother should be admitted into a private clinic that deals in eating disorders,’ Jenny replied quietly.

‘It’s too early to say yet how well she will respond to the treatment. Bulimia isn’t an easy problem to deal with either for the sufferer or her family,’ Dr Travers explained.

‘Your father will have to be told, of course,’ Jenny added, looking at Jon.

‘Yes. I’ll have a word with the specialist first, though,’ Jon agreed.

After the doctor had left, Olivia started to thank Jenny and Jon for what they’d done, but Jenny stopped her. ‘I feel terribly guilty because we didn’t realise what was happening earlier,’ Jenny admitted.

‘There was no way you could have known,’ Olivia comforted her.

Jenny shook her head. ‘Somehow one tends to associate eating disorders with younger people. There must have been signs, though, indications…. We must have been too busy with our own lives to have noticed them. Livvy, are you sure you’re going to be all right here on your own?’ she asked Olivia as she prepared to leave.

It had already been arranged that Jack would go home with Jenny, at his own request.

‘Yes. I’ll be fine,’ Olivia reassured her.