Читать книгу Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 26

CHAPTER TWO

‘JENNY dear, I’m awfully sorry but I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make it on Saturday after all.’

‘Oh, Aunt Ruth,’ Jenny protested into the telephone receiver. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Ruth assured her niece by marriage firmly. ‘It’s just that Olivia and Caspar’s babysitter has let them down at the last minute and so I’ve offered to babysit Amelia for them instead. I don’t think they’ve had a single night out since Amelia arrived eight months ago.’

‘No, they haven’t,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Jon tried to persuade Olivia not to rush back to work, but you know how conscientious she is, she insisted. At least during the summer holiday, Caspar has been at home to look after her.’

‘Mmm... I know she’s beginning to get a bit anxious because they haven’t managed to find another suitable nanny as yet.’

‘Poor girl, it must be so hard for her. I know how much she loves her work but I’d have hated to have to let someone else bring up my children especially when they were babies. When you read these stories of mothers giving up their babies, I often wonder... I know it’s something that I could never bring myself to do. Ruth, are you still there?’ she asked anxiously into the silent receiver.

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ Ruth answered crisply, adding, ‘What you say is all very well, Jenny, but some women just don’t have any option.’

‘No, I realise that,’ Jenny agreed sombrely, catching the faint note of criticism in Ruth’s voice.

She had been lucky both in her marriage and more importantly in her husband, Jenny acknowledged as she replaced the receiver, very lucky.

‘You’re looking very pensive,’ Jon commented as he came into the bedroom where Jenny had just been finishing packing their overnight cases when the phone rang. ‘Not more problems?’

‘Not exactly. Ruth just rang. She isn’t going to be able to make it. She’s offered to babysit for Olivia and Caspar. Apparently their original babysitter has let them down. I rather annoyed her, I think.’

‘You?’ Jon gave his wife an affectionate look as he took her in his arms. ‘I doubt that, my love. You’re far too kind-natured to annoy anyone.’

‘Mmm... I did make rather a sweeping generalisation, I suppose,’ she told him, explaining what had happened.

‘Ah well, you know how hard Aunt Ruth has campaigned to raise funds for the town’s special new mother and baby home.’

‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed. ‘It’s a very innovative idea. Ruth is determined that it won’t be anything like the old unmarried mother and baby homes where girls used to be banished in disgrace if they were pregnant, and where the staff tried to persuade them to give their babies up for adoption.’

‘To be fair, in those days it was generally believed that such children were better off being adopted,’ Jon reminded her fair-mindedly.

‘Mmm ... I realise that. I suppose I just can’t help thinking that if you hadn’t married me when you did...’

‘I know,’ Jon told her gently, holding her tighter, ‘and I know, as well, that you are as dedicated to raising money for this home as Ruth is. I ought to—you’ve persuaded me to part with enough money to help fund it.’

‘Well, it is a good cause,’ Jenny protested. ‘We’ve bought the house and the land, and once it’s been converted into small, private bedsitting rooms, we can give both the girls and their babies a protected environment.’

‘Shall I take these cases down?’ Jon asked, reminding her. ‘You said you wanted to be at the Grosvenor early.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She glanced uncertainly at the telephone. ‘I haven’t rung Queensmead today, and—’

‘Dad will be fine,’ Jon assured her firmly. ‘He’s got Max and Madeleine with him, remember?’

‘I know,’ Jenny replied worriedly, ‘but you know how impatient Max can be.’

‘Yes, I do, but Madeleine will make sure that Dad’s all right. You know how fond of him she is.’

‘And him of her. It’s ironic, really, isn’t it, that the only woman he really approves of is one who isn’t related to him by blood?’

‘That’s because Madeleine is the perfect stereotype of what Dad believes a woman should be,’ Jon told her dryly.

‘She’s a lovely person,’ Jenny countered. ‘Kind, gentle, generous and...’

‘Vulnerable?’ Jon suggested.

They looked at one another in silence.

‘I must admit I was surprised when we first met her after Max announced they were getting married.’

‘Mmm...me, too. I wonder if he’d have been as keen to marry her if her father hadn’t been who he is,’ Jon speculated cynically.

‘Oh, Jon, don’t say that,’ Jenny protested. ‘She loves him so much.’

‘Too much, perhaps?’ Jon asked her.

‘She seems so happy.’

‘She’s happy because Max is happy and Max is happy because at the moment he’s getting what he wanted. Whether or not he’ll continue to be happy is another matter.’

Again they exchanged looks. Max might be their son but in temperament and outlook he was much closer and always had been to his uncle David than to either of them, although it hurt them both to admit it. Jenny knew that Max was a selfish and egotistical man who was ruthlessly determined in whatever he did.

Half past seven. Bobbie glanced up from her secluded position in the hotel lobby. She had tucked herself away in a shadowy corner so that she could see everyone who came into the hotel without being noticed herself—not an easy feat given her height and the colour and luxurious vibrancy of her hair.

She had already seen Joss arrive with another slightly older boy and a couple who must be his parents. Joss’s hair was slicked back and the formality of his clothes made him look younger rather than older. She had hidden a smile.

Now the early arrivals for the party were beginning to gather in the lobby—a cheerful, happy crowd spanning the generations, who quite plainly all seemed to know one another from the greetings they were exchanging.

Joss’s parents arrived back downstairs, his mother looking elegant in a dress that Bobbie’s judicious and expert inspection informed her was very probably an Armani. Nice, very nice, she acknowledged as she watched the way the cream crêpe moved elegantly with Jenny’s body.

The diamonds in her ears and around her neck were quite obviously real, and to judge both from the venue they had chosen for their twin daughters’ birthday celebration and the appearance of their guests, financial hardship was not a problem that afflicted the Crighton family. But then, she had already known that, hadn’t she? Already known all about their pride and arrogance, their belief that they were somehow better than anyone else and most certainly better than... She frowned as a fresh batch of guests arrived, her attention caught, oddly enough, not by the imposing height of the man walking so purposefully into the hotel, but rather the air, the aura of tautly controlled energy and impatience he seemed to bring with him.

‘Luke,’ she heard Joss’s father exclaiming as he went forward to welcome him with a smile and a handshake, ‘and James,’ he added warmly as he turned to the man following behind him.

Luke and James. She had known who he was immediately, of course, Bobbie acknowledged, unaware of the dangerous allocation and use of the word ‘he’ in the singular rather than ‘they’ in the plural.

He was every bit as tall as Joss had told her, she admitted, and as for the rest...certainly he was an extremely physically powerful-looking and charismatically masculine-looking man, but she detected a certain hardness and hauteur...a coldness about him that in her view more than outweighed the appeal of his really too stunning good looks. There was, after all, such a thing as overkill, and rather like a strong perfume the effect of his physical magnetism was too overpowering to be attractive, a turn-off rather than a turn-on, she decided disparagingly.

The tiny, fragile-looking little blonde clinging to his arm obviously didn’t share her view, though. She was gazing up at him adoringly and extremely possessively, Bobbie noticed as Luke turned to introduce her to Joss’s parents, and on closer inspection she was not quite so young as her girlishly feminine silk dress seemed to proclaim. In her thirties rather than her twenties, Bobbie guessed, and very adept at using her delicacy to create the impression of being somewhat younger. He would, of course, go for that type. Bobbie’s contempt for him grew.

Luke was having a hard time keeping the impatience out of his voice as he introduced Fenella to Jon and Jenny. He was still infuriated at the way she’d managed to inveigle herself into being included in their party, tricking James into agreeing to pick her up by giving him the impression, deliberately so, Luke knew, that he had invited her as his partner, when in fact...

‘What is she doing here?’ he had demanded half an hour earlier when, as arranged, James had called round to collect him and he had seen Fenella sitting demurely in the back of James’s car.

‘She rang me up and asked me to collect her,’ James had informed him, looking both upset and uncomfortable when Luke had told him pithily that he had been deceived and that there was no way he had ever intended asking Fenella.

‘Oh, but she said—’ he began, but Luke cut him short.

‘I don’t give a damn what she said, James,’ he snapped testily. ‘I am telling you that she tricked you and that I most certainly did not invite her to come with us. God knows how she even knew about tonight in the first place.’

‘Oh, I think that’s probably my fault,’ James confessed. ‘I bumped into her in town while you were in Brussels and we got talking and I mentioned the party. She said she knew all about it and that you were taking her and...’ James looked uncomfortable. ‘I know that you and she...and I thought... well...’

‘You know that she and I what?’ Luke demanded grimly, answering his own question by continuing, ‘We dated for a while a long time ago, yes, a long time ago,’ he underlined. ‘She approached me for advice about her divorce and that is the only kind of contact I have had with her since her marriage, and that’s the only kind of contact I intend to have with her. She’s poison, James,’ Luke warned his younger brother. ‘Take my word for it.’

Poison she indeed was, and infuriated though he might be by the way she was clinging to him like a piece of ivy, good manners and a very male disinclination to cause a scene prevented Luke from disengaging her arm from his and walking off and disowning her.

‘Fenella...what’s it,’ Jon commented quietly to Jenny after they had disappeared to remove their coats. ‘Isn’t she the one that Luke used to...?’

‘Mmm...I think so,’ Jenny agreed.

‘I thought she was married to Sir Peter Longton,’ Jon remarked.

‘She is,’ Jenny confirmed. ‘Or rather she was. Apparently they’re going to divorce.’

‘Well...I doubt that will please Luke!’

Jenny shot her husband a questioning look. ‘Won’t it? They are here together.’

‘They are certainly both here but, reading Luke’s body language, they are not, definitely not, together,’ Jon informed her. ‘And if she is hoping that Luke will prove as malleable as a man as he was as a boy, I suspect she’s going to be doomed to disappointment.’

As Jon and Jenny gently swept their guests towards the private suite they had reserved for the party, Joss started to search the foyer anxiously. It was eight o’clock.

‘Joss,’ Jenny called out as she saw her youngest child hovering by the entrance.

‘I won’t be a moment,’ Joss told her, excitement giving way to disappointment and anxiety as he searched the foyer a second time for his new friend.

Jenny frowned. She had almost forgotten that Joss had told her that he wanted to invite a friend.

‘Come on, Mum,’ Louise demanded.

Jenny gave Joss an uncertain look. He was, after all, only ten years old, but the lobby of the Grosvenor was surely a safe enough place for him to be allowed to wait for his friend on his own for a few minutes whilst she checked that everything was in order in their private suite.

Bobbie waited until Jon and Jenny had disappeared before standing up and quietly making her way across to where Joss stood anxiously staring towards the main hotel doors. She touched him lightly on the arm, causing him to jump and then turn round, his anxious expression giving way to one of beaming delight as he saw her.

‘You’re here. I thought you must have changed your mind.’

‘No, I haven’t changed my mind,’ Bobbie assured him.

He was so kind and open, so ... so young and vulnerable; the lessons life taught him now would be indelibly etched on his personality. Did she really want it on her conscience that she...?

‘Come on,’ Joss was urging her. ‘It’s this way.’

It was not her job to take on the responsibility for Joss’s emotions, she reminded herself sternly as she turned to follow him. She was here for a different purpose, a very different purpose, which reminded her...

As Joss pushed open the double doors and stood back for her to precede him into the large, well-packed room, she turned to him and commented, ‘My, that sure is a lot of people. I guess all your family must be here.’

‘Almost,’ Joss agreed, his eyes clouding a little as he informed her, ‘Great-Aunt Ruth isn’t here, though.’

‘Great-Aunt Ruth,’ Bobbie marvelled after a second’s pause during which she kept her eyes firmly on the elegantly decorated room with its artistic and impressive swags and garlands of natural greenery and flowers. She had a small gift in that direction herself and because of it was well aware of the time and skill that must have gone into first conceiving the idea for the decorations and then putting it into practical use in order to achieve such an apparently artless and ‘natural’ effect. ‘She sounds very formidable. I guess she’s not a party person....’

‘She was going to come.’ Joss informed her, ‘but she’s babysitting for Olivia and Caspar instead. That’s them over there,’ he told Bobbie helpfully, indicating a couple who stood talking to Joss’s parents.

The woman was about her own age, Bobbie guessed, in her mid- to late twenties, the man with her a little older. She was stylishly dressed, her hair cut in an immaculate shiny bob, and Bobbie studied her carefully before turning back to Joss.

‘I do wish Aunt Ruth were here,’ Joss was telling her. ‘I wanted you to meet her.’

Once again Bobbie found it easier to study her surroundings rather than meet Joss’s eyes. ‘Well, I’d like to meet her, too,’ she returned lightly. ‘I guess we’ll have to try to fix something up before I move on.

‘Oh my,’ she exclaimed, her attention suddenly caught by the man leaning casually against the wall on the opposite side of the room. Handsome simply wasn’t the word to describe him, she acknowledged; if a man could be described as ‘beautiful’ without in any way detracting from the sheer male animal magnetism of him, then this man was.

From the top of his shiny, well-groomed dark hair to the tip of his evening shoes, he epitomised everything that was masculine and good-looking. He would have made a perfect movie star, Bobbie thought, a heartthrob in the true, old-fashioned sense of the word.

‘Who is that?’

‘That’s Max,’ Joss told her in an oddly flat voice, adding reluctantly, ‘He’s my brother.’

His brother. Now Bobbie was surprised and, as she turned from watching Joss’s face close up and his eyes become slightly shadowed to study the handsome six-footer leaning so slouchily against the wall, she asked him ruefully, ‘So why wasn’t he mentioned when you were cataloguing your family’s available males?’

‘Because he isn’t...available, that is,’ Joss answered in that same flat voice. ‘Max is married.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Vainly Bobbie searched the room looking for the woman who would be the kind of mate such a man would undoubtedly choose—the female equivalent of himself. Stunning, almost theatrically good-looking and possessed of that same head-turning charismatic appeal he patently had in such abundance.

‘That’s Madeleine, his wife, over there,’ Joss told her, obviously guessing what she was doing and then adding quickly and almost defensively as Bobbie studied the woman he had indicated, ‘She’s nice. I like her.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ Bobbie agreed gravely as she took in Madeleine’s plain face and slightly dumpy figure, acknowledging two things. One, that Max must either be completely and utterly head over heels in love with her, or two, he must have some other equally powerful and compelling reason for marrying her. Bobbie suspected she knew which.

‘Why don’t we hire someone to make enquiries for us before we do anything?’ Bobbie had suggested when they had first discussed the matter, a little queasily aware of how uncomfortable she would feel prying into other people’s private business, but Samantha had shaken her head forcefully.

‘We can’t ... take the risk of involving anyone else,’ she reminded her sister. ‘We’re going to have to do it ourselves.’

‘You mean I’m going to have to do it,’ Bobbie retorted feelingly. ‘After all, you can’t just take off for Europe. Not now you’re halfway through your master’s.’

‘No, I can’t,’ Samantha agreed cheerfully, then added teasingly, ‘You should have come with me when I took that couple of years out and travelled. We have to go through with this, Bobbie,’ she went on to say more seriously. ‘Remember all those years ago how we said we would?’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Bobbie had agreed. How could she have forgotten the childhood vow she and Sam had made? ‘I just hate the feeling that we’re doing anything underhand...spying...’

‘Us do anything underhand?’ Sam had shouted bitterly.

Silently Bobbie looked down now at Joss.

‘Where are your sisters?’ she asked him conversationally.

‘Over there,’ he replied, indicating the pair of identical twins who stood chatting with what was obviously a large group of shared friends. They were, Bobbie was pleased to note, wearing completely different outfits and had completely different hairstyles, but there was still no mistaking those shared inherited features.

‘My goodness, who on earth is that with Joss?’ Jenny exclaimed, having caught sight of her youngest child for the first time since he had entered the room.

‘She’s certainly not someone you could fail to notice, is she?’ Olivia laughed as she, too, studied the endearingly odd combination of a very youthful Joss and the magnificently eye-catching young woman who was with him.

‘She reminds me of a lioness,’ Jenny murmured, ‘all golden grace and power. I wonder where Joss met her?’

‘I think I know,’ Jon informed them, having turned round to see what was occupying his wife’s attention. ‘Minnie Cooke at the wine bar mentioned that Joss had been in the other day with a tall blonde American.’

‘American, eh... I think I’d just better go over and say hello ... a fellow countrywoman and all that.’

‘Caspar,’ Olivia warned, adding firmly, ‘We’ll both go over.’

As families went, this one certainly liked to give the impression that it was protective of its own. Bobbie reflected cynically as she registered the interest she was beginning to excite amongst certain adult members of Joss’s family.

Max had already prised his shoulders off their resting place on the wall to give her a lazy once-over. Luke, peering past the head of his blonde companion, had sent a look of frowning scrutiny in her direction. Jenny appeared frankly astonished and now here was Olivia with Caspar in tow bearing down on them.

Bobbie held her breath and then counted to ten before easing herself into her chosen role.

‘Hello there.’ Olivia smiled warmly, extending her hand towards Bobbie. ‘You must be Joss’s friend.’

‘I hope so,’ Bobbie responded with equal warmth, shaking Olivia’s hand firmly as she introduced herself. ‘Bobbie Miller. Bobbie being short for Roberta.’

‘I’m Olivia Johnson, Joss’s cousin, and this is Caspar, my husband.’

By the time Caspar had returned with the drinks that Olivia had dispatched him to fetch for them, she had elicited the information that Bobbie, having finished her studies, was taking time out to ‘do’ Europe before returning home to work in her father’s law firm.

‘So your father’s a lawyer... what a coincidence. Our family, the Crightons, are nearly all involved in the law in one form or another.’

‘Dad was an attorney,’ Bobbie informed her carefully. ‘Right now he’s in Congress.’

‘So what exactly brought you to Haslewich?’ Caspar asked cheerfully, handing Bobbie her drink. ‘It’s not exactly on the normal tourist route.’

‘No,’ Bobbie agreed. ‘I guess I just got kinda interested in the place when I overheard someone talking about it in Chester, so I thought I’d drive out and take a look around. That’s when I met Joss.’

‘She was in the churchyard,’ Joss informed them.

‘It feels rather scary to see those headstones with dates going back so far,’ Bobbie cut in... ‘I guess your family must have been in the town for centuries.’

‘Not really,’ Olivia responded. ‘The Crightons came originally from Chester, but our branch of it broke away at the beginning of this century. So far as putting down our roots in Haslewich goes, we’re relative newcomers.’ Then conversationally she asked, ‘Are you planning to stay in the area long?’

‘I wasn’t going to, but I’d booked myself into the Grosvenor as a small treat before I realised how expensive it was and I guess I’m going to have to look around for some kind of temporary work so that I can earn a little money before I move on.’

Olivia listened speculatively as she saw Bobbie’s rueful expression and then frowned as she glanced at her watch and told Caspar, ‘I’d better go and ring Aunt Ruth and check that everything’s okay. Our nanny left us unexpectedly—her mother isn’t very well and since I’m now back at work in the family law practice and Caspar goes back to university next week, we’re desperately trying to find a replacement. I don’t suppose you know anything about child care...?’ Olivia half joked.

Bobbie took a deep breath. ‘Well now, it just so happens that I do,’ she returned lightly. ‘I spent the last year of high school and nearly all of my college vacations helping out at a...at a special local crèche...’

‘Really.’ Olivia gave her a searching glance and asked her, ‘If you were serious about looking for a job, perhaps we could get together and have a chat?’

‘Sure,’ Bobbie agreed warmly.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Olivia promised her as she hurried off to make her telephone call.

‘Wow, that would be great if you did stay on,’ Joss enthused.

‘Well, that’s up to Olivia to decide,’ Bobbie warned him. ‘I’m not a qualified nanny and—’

‘But I could tell that she really liked you and so did Caspar,’ Joss interrupted her enthusiastically.

‘Well, I kinda liked them, as well,’ Bobbie agreed—and meant it—but her conscience was beginning to trouble her a little.

Back home, the plans she and Sam had made had seemed perfectly logical, but now... She had liked Olivia and Caspar, and as for Joss... She frowned as she looked down and saw that he was scowling. A quick glance across the room told her why; Max was walking purposefully towards them.

‘Well now, young Joss, and who exactly is this?’

Bobbie sympathised with Joss as she watched the tip of his ears burning a furious red at his brother’s deliberately condescending manner towards him.

‘Hi, I’m Bobbie,’ Bobbie introduced herself calmly.

The dark eyebrows lifted. ‘An American... Oh dear, Joss, you will be popular with the old man. Our grandfather, I’m afraid to say, has an aversion to Americans,’ he told Bobbie.

Joss, Bobbie could see, was looking miserably embarrassed.

‘That’s okay,’ she responded easily. ‘My grandfather feels exactly the same way about you British.’

Max gave her a narrow-eyed look. ‘Hopefully not an aberration you’ve inherited,’ he suggested softly.

‘Who says it’s an aberration?’ Bobbie replied and had the satisfaction of seeing the extraordinary effect of his amazing physical good looks dimmed by the unpleasant expression in his eyes.

No wonder Joss was so wary around him.

‘Oh, Max, there you are. I—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Maddie, must you follow me around like an idiotic sheepdog?’ Max demanded irritably as he turned towards his wife.

Bobbie felt for her as the other woman’s face burned a painful dark red. Joss was chewing the side of his cheek and Bobbie herself had to suppress an urge to tell Max exactly what she thought of his arrogance and cruelty.

‘Your husband and I were just discussing our respective grandfathers,’ Bobbie informed Madeleine with a genuinely friendly smile.

‘Oh, I see.’ She had a shy, hesitant voice and a very uncertain manner, Bobbie noticed as Madeleine went on to tell her, ‘It’s a shame that Ben can’t be here tonight. He had a fall some years ago and it’s left him with a very painful and rheumaticky hip joint that the doctors say he should have replaced.’

Relief wiped the tense anxiety from Madeleine’s face. Poor soul, she obviously lived in fear and dread of losing her husband. She need not, Bobbie decided. Like the fancy icing on an otherwise repulsively unappealing cake, those good looks were all that there was to him.

She didn’t want to totally alienate Max, though, she acknowledged. He could prove to be a valuable source of information.

So his grandfather had an aversion to Americans, did he? He wasn’t the only member of the Crighton family who felt like that as she had good cause to know.