Читать книгу Perfect Marriage Material - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

‘AND I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the offer you’ve made on the cottage is accepted,’Olivia promised as she gave Tullah a goodbye hug.

As she returned it, Tullah was guiltily aware of the fact that she had not exactly been the perfect weekend guest. It went against her whole credo for living to be manipulative or underhand in any way. She couldn’t pretend to share Olivia’s rose-tinted view of her cousin Saul, but neither5 did she want to leave without at least making some attempt to explain to Olivia why she felt so antagonistic towards his type.

‘Livvy, about last night,’ she began a little awkwardly. ‘I realise that you probably thought I was overreacting with Saul and—’

‘Well, you did rather surprise me,’ Olivia admitted ruefully as she interrupted her. ‘You’re certainly the first woman I’ve ever known to react to Saul in quite that way.’ tullah opened her mouth to point out that at least one other woman must share her animosity towards him, otherwise he wouldn’t be divorced, but before she could say anything, Olivia was continuing cheerfully, ‘Mind you, it’s probably just as well. The situation’s difficult enough at the moment with Louise deep in the throes of an intense crush on him.’

‘Yes,’ Tullah sympathised readily. ‘I appreciate that that must be an awful situation for...for her parents. I could see how distressed Jenny looked last night when Saul asked her when Louise home.’

All the distaste and disapproval she felt about Saul’s be-haviour in not just allowing but actively encouraging Louise’s crush on him showed in Tullah’s voice as she spoke.

‘It’s typical of the kind of man that the Sauls of this world are that he didn’t even think twice about how he might be offending or hurting Jon and Jenny by introducing the subject of Louise. It was obvious that they weren’t at all happy with the situation and who could blame them?

‘I mean, I know he’s your cousin, Livvy,’ Tullah told her fiercely, her emotions darkening her eyes as she remembered how she had felt for the older couple the previous evening. ‘But what kind of man...what kind of decent, caring, mature man who feels good about himself as a man and who feels really at ease with his masculinity, his sexuality, experiences the need to keep on massaging his ego by seducing a string of younger and younger naive girls?’

As Tullah paused for breath, she saw that Olivia was looking rather shocked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised contritely. ‘I know, of course, that you probably don’t share my views and that your opinion of Saul is bound to be different from mine especially in view of the...the relationship you and he—’

‘Tullah, Saul and I—’ Olivia began, only to break off in maternal concern as Amelia, who had been playing quite happily a few yards away in the garden, let out a frightened cry. ‘Oh no! She’s probably trying to catch another bee,’ she told Tullah. ‘Amelia darling...’

‘Oh dear,’ Tullah sympathised as they exchanged another brief hug and stepped back from each other, leaving Olivia free to go and rescue both the indignant bee and her small daughter whilst Tullah got into her car.

‘I think I’ve discovered why Tullah is so antagonistic towards Saul,’ Olivia commented to Caspar over dinner several hours after Tullah had left.

‘Mmm... You mean there is a reason and it isn’t just that she’s a woman of incomparable taste and good sense who couldn’t help but prefer me?’ Caspar joked.

‘No, I’m afraid I cornered the market in that particular brand of good taste and sense.’ Olivia informed him gravely, trying not to giggle.

‘Oh well, go on, then. What deeply traumatic reason lies behind her aversion?’

‘It isn’t funny, Caspar,’ Olivia warned him. ‘At least it isn’t when you know about Tullah’s background. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and very shortly after that an older man...a family friend, in fact, on whom she’d got a massive crush, instead of realising that what she was really looking for was a father substitute, someone to treat her gently and give her the nonsexual love her father had deprived her of, decided instead to use Tullah’s innocence and naivety to boost his own flagging ego.

‘She was only sixteen at the time and she believed he loved her. He told her that his marriage was over, the usual kind of thing, and of course, she fell for it and she now seems to have jumped to the totally wrong conclusion that Saul is doing exactly the same thing to Louise as this man did to her.’

‘Ahh...I’m beginning to see daylight. You put her right, of course,’ Caspar commented as he helped himself to a second helping of pudding.

‘No...Amelia tried her latest bee-catching trick before I could and then by the time I’d rescued the bee and calmed Amelia down, it was too late. Tullah had left. Do you really think you should eat that?’ she asked her husband conversationally. ‘All that cream will be loaded with cholesterol, and you—’

‘I need the energy,’ Caspar told her. ‘Or have you changed your mind about enlivening our incipient bee-keeper’s life with a little bit of sibling rivalry?’

‘Not at all,’ Olivia responded, adding provocatively, ‘but if we’re going to do that, I can think of far better uses to put that cream to....’

‘Such as?’ Caspar invited.

‘I thought you weren’t going to make it,’ Olivia commented warmly to Saul as he and the children joined them in the departures lounge.

The whole family had gathered to wave Ruth and Grant off for their regular biannual visit to the States.

After fifty years apart with each believing the other bad betrayed their love, they were now happily reunited, and in keeping with the spirit of the mock prenuptial agreement both of them constantly teased the other with, they had fallen into a pleasant routine of spending three months in Haslewich followed by three months in Grant’s home town in New England.

It was Bobbie, Ruth’s American granddaughter and her cousin Luke’s wife, who would miss them the most, Olivia acknowledged. For this trip a very special concession was being made for Joss, Jon and Jenny’s younger son who had always been especially close to Ruth, who together with Jack, Olivia’s own brother, was being allowed to go with the older couple and spend some time with the New England side of the family.

‘Mmm...I was afraid we wouldn’t make it,’ Saul responded after he had hugged Ruth warmly and shaken Grant by the hand. ‘Robert had another bad night.’

‘Oh dear, is he...?’

‘He’s fine now,’ Saul assured her, anticipating her question and nodding in the direction of his three children who were huddled in a small group with all the younger members of the family, including Joss and Jack.

‘What with Robert’s sickness and Meg’s nightmares, you can’t be getting much sleep,’ Olivia sympathised.

‘Nowhere near enough,’ Saul agreed ruefully, ‘and not just because of the kids.’

But when Olivia looked questioningly at him he simply shook his head. There was no way he was going to enlighten even someone as close to him as Olivia about the fact that his sleep had been broken not just by the children but far more disturbingly by dreams about her weekend guest, dreams of such intense sensuality and sexuality that if he hadn’t been a mature man in his thirties he would have blushed to even have recalled them.

‘Oh, Gramps...I so wish I was going with you,’ Bobbie wailed, hugging her grandfather tightly as the notice flashed up to say that their plane was boarding.

‘Thanks a lot,’ Luke, her husband, teased her ruefully, looking round for someone to hand their baby daughter to whilst he comforted his wife.

‘Here, let me take her,’ Saul offered, deftly taking the child from him and expertly settling her comfortably against his shoulder as his own Meg sidled up to him and slipped her small hand into his.

‘Can I have a look at Francesca?’ she asked him. As she studied the sleeping baby. Meg informed him chattily, ‘My friend Grace at school, well, her mummy’s going to have a baby. Will we ever have a new baby, Daddy?’ she asked him, crinkling her forehead.

‘Don’t be stupid, Meg. Only mummies can have babies and we...’

Saul grimaced to himself as Robert overheard their conversation and spoke scornfully to his younger sister.

‘I’m not stupid,’ Meg responded heatedly, ‘am I, Daddy?’

Jemima, his elder daughter, eyed them both with disfavour. His little Jem, Saul called her, and in many ways he felt that the break-up of their marriage had been the hardest for her to cope with. At eight, she was mature mentally for her years and just beginning to grasp the concept of the intricacies of adult relationships and to know that adults were not infallible.

He had always felt that she was more her mother’s child than his, and it had surprised him to discover how passionately and intensely she had wanted to return to England and to him.

‘Our mother won’t have any more babies.’ she informed her siblings sharply. ‘She doesn’t like children.’

Saul caught his breath.

What Jemima had said in essence was the truth. Hillary did not like children and she had already informed him that since her new husband did not like them, either, she had decided to be sterilised.

‘Something I should have done before I married you,’ she had told him starkly and more than a little bitterly when she had informed him that she wasn’t going to contest his having full custody of the children.

‘She loves you,’ he told the three of them now as they watched him. And how could it not be true? Hillary might not like children but surely she must love her own. What mother could not do?

At eight, seven and five, their three had, he accepted, been conceived too closely together for a woman who was not particularly maternal. He accepted, too, that the larger part of the responsibility for them in their early years, especially Jemima and Robert, had fallen on Hillary.

With Meg it had been different; their last-ditch attempt to rescue their marriage and cement it together with Meg’s conception had been a sanity-threatening mistake and grossly unfair to Meg herself.

Six weeks after her birth, he had arrived home one afternoon, prompted by heaven alone knew what paternal sixth sense, to find Hillary on the point of leaving for America—without the children and without apparently having any intention of telling him what she was doing.

Later that day, having failed to persuade Hillary to change her mind, he had gone to pick the children up from the child-minder and had promised them mentally then that even if he might have failed as a husband and a lover, he would not fail them as a father...a parent....

‘When is Louise coming to see us again?’ Meg asked later when they were on their way home, ‘I like her.’

‘She doesn’t like you.’ Jemima sniffed disparagingly. ‘She only comes round to see Dad, really.’

‘Jem...’ Saul warned her, glancing in the rear-view mirror to give her a stern look whilst he monitored Meg’s quivering bottom lip.

They were just so vulnerable...all of them in their different ways. Meg with her fear of the dark, clinging to him, Rob who thought that boys shouldn’t cry and who made himself sick instead, and Jem...big, brave, cynical Jemima who wrung his heart with her studied and oh so heartachingly fragile defence of contemptuous disdain mixed with anger.

Listening to Tullah on Saturday night had reminded him of Jemima.

Tullah...

Don’t start that, he warned himself. You’ve got enough problems without going looking for any more.

‘It’s amazing to think Louise and Katie’s first year at college will be over soon,’ Jenny reflected to Jon as they drove home from seeing Ruth and Grant off.

‘I know,’ Jon replied.

‘I was hoping that now Louise is at university she’d start to grow out of this crush she’s got on Saul. He’s been so good about it. She worries me sometimes, Jon. She’s so headstrong and so single-minded.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Jon returned dryly. ‘She’s a Crighton all right, through and through.’

‘I’m afraid she’s going to have a hard life ahead of her if she doesn’t learn to bend a little,’ Jenny sighed. ‘It’s hard to believe that she and Katie are twins. At times they’re so different temperamentally.’

‘Not so hard, surely,’ Jon commented. ‘Look at David and me.’

Jenny glanced at her husband. After all these years and all that David had done, Jon still put his twin ahead of himself even when he spoke about him.

‘Do you think we’ll ever hear from him again?’ she asked, referring to the fact that while recovering from a severe heart attack Jon’s brother and Olivia’s father had simply walked out of their lives without any explanation. That was over three years ago now and they still hadn’t heard anything definite from him.

‘Who knows? For Dad’s sake, I wish and hope we do. He won’t admit it, you know how stubborn the old man is, but I think he suspects that it wasn’t just the pressure of Tiggy’s illness that made David leave. We can’t risk telling him the whole truth, of course, but he’s changed since David left. He’s still as stubborn as he always was, but now it’s as though he’s clinging to that stubbornness like a crutch he needs to support himself with instead of using it like a stick to beat the rest of us.’

Jenny laughed.

‘Ben is getting older,’ she reminded her husband.

‘Aren’t we all,’ Jon retorted feelingly.

‘What are we going to do about Louise?’ Jenny prodded him. ‘The last time she was home she made a positive nuisance of herself with Saul, inviting herself to go and stay with Hugh and Ann like that and then... And now with Saul living so close, it’s going to be even worse.’

‘She’s your daughter,’ Jon told her tongue-in-cheek, adding mock-virtuously, ‘and it’s a mother’s duty.’

‘She’s your daughter, as well,’ Jenny lost no time in retaliating, concluding triumphantly, ‘and as you’ve just said yourself, she is quite definitely a Crighton. All joking aside, Jon, we’re going to have to do something...say something. If it was Katie, for instance, she’d be mortified at the thought of anyone knowing how she felt, but on the other hand she would never pursue anyone the way Louise is pursuing Saul.’

Jon nodded his agreement. ‘It’s a pity Ruth’s going to be away while she’s home. She’s very good at that sort of thing. Of course, the best thing would be for Saul to find himself someone else...get married again.’

‘Saul marry again?’ Jenny frowned. ‘Do you think he would? It hit him very hard when he and Hillary broke up. I remember him telling me at the time that he felt as though he had failed. Not just failed Hillary and himself and the children, but his parents, the family, his upbringing and his beliefs... everything. He as good as said that even knowing he didn’t love Hillary any more he’d have been prepared to continue with the marriage for the sake of the children.

‘What did you think of Olivia’s weekend guest, by the way,’ Jenny asked her husband in amusement. ‘She was very anti Saul, wasn’t she?’

‘Was she?’ Jon asked, a fatuous semi-glazed expression enveloping his face. ‘I didn’t pay much attention to what she said,’ he admitted, grinning at Jenny.

‘It’s just as well you’re the one driving this car,’ Jenny warned him, ‘otherwise I’d be tempted to push you out. Why is it that when a man sees a more than averagely pretty girl he immediately forgets that she’s also a fully functioning, intelligent and equal human being?’

‘I didn’t forget,’ Jon protested in a mock-injured tone. ‘Obviously she’s intelligent...and very highly qualified, but you’ve got to admit that she’s...well, she’s...’

‘Sexy,’ Jenny suggested with dangerous sweetness.

‘Sexy.’ Jon rolled his eyes. ‘That’s like describing the Grand Canyon as a valley. She’s—’

‘Stop drooling, Jon,’ Jenny advised. ‘It makes you look senile. Mind you,’ she added fair-mindedly, ‘I have to say that she came across very much to me as a woman’s woman. Hardly the type to flirt or make use of her, er, assets.’

‘No, she was a bit on the serious side. Still, living in Haslewich will probably help her to ease down a gear or two. By the way, when are Max and Madeleine next due to visit?’ he asked.

Jenny gave him a shrewd look.

Max, their elder son, was a fast-track barrister with a prestigious set of London chambers. He was also the epitome of his uncle David with most of his faults and several more of his own thrown in. Add to that the fact that he was a handsome and highly sexed young man married to a very sweet but rather plain young woman whose sole claim on his affections was the fact that she was the daughter of a prominent High Court judge with a Law Lord for a grandfather.

Include in the recipe the highly volatile ingredients of a young baby, whom Max made no secret of not having wanted, and several rich and well-connected female clients whom, if the gossip they had heard was correct, he had been equally open about not only wanting but actually having and it was no wonder that Jenny should feel her heart start to sink at the thought of Max coming into contact with Tullah.

He would lay seige to her, of course, because quite simply he was that kind of man, but thankfully Tullah had not struck her as the kind of woman who would come anywhere near being tempted to respond.

As he heard her sigh, Jon looked at his wife with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Well, it certainly isn’t from me that your son and your daughter get their high-octane sex drives,’ he told her virtuously.

Jenny’s mouth had started to form a round O of rebuttal before she realised he was teasing her, but once she did she simply smiled at him and said softly, ‘Oh no? What about last night, then?’

‘What about it?’ Jon asked innocently, but he was blushing slightly and Jenny shook her head as she reminded him, ‘I wasn’t the one who had to lie to Joss and Jack that I needed an extra hour in bed because I’d got a headache.’

‘No. But you still came up with me,’ he reminded her.

‘That was my duty as your wife,’ she retaliated firmly. ‘After all, a man of your age...a headache could be...could be...’

‘An excuse to get my wife into bed so that I could make love to her,’ Jon suggested softly, adding, ‘Well, tonight we won’t need an excuse, will we? We’ve got the house to ourselves.’

‘Twice in one week,’ Jenny mock protested.

‘What do you mean, twice in one week,’ Jon growled back. ‘We went past that last night!’

“Well, that’s the last of them.’ Sitting back on her heels, Tullah smiled as she looked across the neatly stacked boxes at her mother. ‘Thanks for coming to help me.’ She shook her head as she added ruefully, ‘I had no idea I owned so much stuff.’

‘Well, you can’t get to nearly thirty without accumulating some possessions,’ her mother responded.

Tullah gave her a wry look. ‘You’re just sorry that I don’t happen to number a husband and a couple of children amongst mine, is that it?’ she teased.

Despite the break-up of her first marriage after Tullah’s father had left her for his secretary, Jean had remained incurably romantic, marrying a second time when Tullah was in her early twenties after a whirlwind courtship with a man she had met whilst on holiday.

Tullah liked her stepfather, who adored and doted on her mother. He was a kind, gentle man whose first wife had died ten years before he and her mother had met, and was nothing like her father.

‘It isn’t that I wish you were married, darling,’ Jean told her now. ‘It’s just...well, I can’t help feeling if your father and I hadn’t divorced and if that dreadful man hadn’t—’

‘The divorce wasn’t your fault,’ Tullah reminded her, ‘and, as for that dreadful man... I should have realised what he really was instead of being so gullible.’

‘Darling, you were sixteen,’ her mother protested. ‘Still, perhaps now you’re moving out of London you might meet someone nice.’

‘I doubt it. Haslewich is Crighton territory and judging by the—’

‘Crighton territory?’ Jean looked puzzled.

Tullah laughed. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Just my little joke. Olivia Crighton as she was then, whom I used to work with, lives in Haslewich. Her family come from the area.’

‘Olivia...oh yes, you went to her wedding.’

‘And her daughter’s christening. She invited me to stay with her last month when I went to Haslewich to meet the relocation agent.’

After getting to her feet, Tullah went into the small kitchen of her soon-to-be ex-flat and started to fill the kettle.

‘Oh? You don’t sound as though you enjoyed it. Didn’t the two of you get on?’

‘Oh, we got on. It’s just that Olivia has this cousin...of a sort. There are so many of them, I’m not quite sure how Saul slots into place.’

Her mother came to join her in the kitchen. ‘Decaff for me, darling, if that’s coffee you’re making,’ she instructed. ‘But who is Saul?’

Tullah hid a small smile. Her mother was, if not subtle, certainly disarmingly difficult to sidetrack.

‘Saul is...Saul,’ she told her uninformatively, pouring the boiling water into the coffee mugs. As she handed one to her mother, she added quietly, ‘He’s another Ralph...only worse.’

Tullah paused and frowned before taking a sip of her coffee, then explained the situation.

‘He’s got children of his own, three of them, two girls and a boy,’ Tullah eventually finished by saying. ‘So you’d think as a parent he’d understand at least some of what Jenny and Jon must be feeling.’