by Penny Jordan
He had actually turned down promotion in America to return to England and take up an inferior job because he loved her! If she hadn’t heard it from a third party with her own ears she doubted if she could have believed it. It destroyed all her preconceived ideas of how he felt about her and their marriage. But…she gnawed worriedly at her bottom lip. Jake himself had said nothing of his reasons for returning to her. Never once had he indicated that he might want her back. Could he have changed his mind? Once he saw her again had he realised perhaps that he didn’t love her after all? Confused and anxious for his safety, Kate continued to pace the room. Dared she ring the station?
At last, unable to bear the enforced inactivity any longer, she picked up the phone. When the switchboard answered she asked to be put through to Jake.
When the ringing stopped it wasn’t Jake’s voice she heard, but his secretary’s. ‘Oh, Mr Harvey’s on his way home,’ she told Kate calmly. ‘Can I take a message?’
Knowing it would be pointless to question the girl, Kate smiled her thanks and said, ‘No.’ When she replaced the receiver her hands were trembling. Jake was coming home. Somehow, before she left this house she had to let him know that the newspaper article had nothing to do with her, and then…if he believed her… She would think about that later, she told herself firmly. First she had to clear herself in Jake’s eyes before she started getting crazily hopeful about the future. Things changed; Jake’s American friend could have caught him at a bad moment. Jake might have bitterly regretted the confidences they had exchanged; and even his decision to come back to Britain. She could hardly ask him outright if he loved her, she thought ruefully, trying not to remember how they had made love. If Jake did love her surely last night had offered him the ideal time to tell her so. But he had not done. He had said nothing to her of love. Her heart sank, and as she glanced down her eye was caught by the newspaper, and apprehension coiled through her stomach. She couldn’t simply launch into an explanation the moment he walked in. He would be tired, unreceptive; probably still mentally involved in whatever had gone wrong at the station. It would be better if she left and then came back later when he was rested.
No sooner had the thought been formulated than Kate heard the now familiar sound of the BMW. Mrs Hillary came in from the kitchen. ‘That’s himself now,’ she pronounced, ‘and I was just on my way to the shops. No doubt he’ll be wanting some breakfast.’ It was plain to Kate that Mrs Hillary was a woman of unshakeable routine, and she offered hesitantly to make whatever breakfast Jake wanted in order that Mrs Hillary need not interrupt it.
‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind? Only if I don’t go now, Reg Philips won’t have a decent piece of meat left in that shop of his.’
Assuring her that she didn’t mind in the slightest, Kate tensed expectantly, hearing Jake’s key in the lock almost at the same moment as Mrs Hillary opened the back door. She saw him before he was aware of her. His hair was ruffled untidily, lines of weariness cutting harsh grooves from nose to mouth, dark shadows rasping along his jaw as he rubbed his skin unconsciously. He looked tired and gaunt, and Kate’s heart went out to him, her body melting with a yearning desire to take him in her arms and smooth away the harsh lines, to see him relax and smile. His head lifted and he saw her, his eyes bleak as he demanded curtly, ‘What the hell are you still doing here?’
‘I stayed because I wanted to talk to you about the newspaper article, but now obviously isn’t the time. Mrs Hillary has gone shopping, I volunteered to make you some breakfast…’
‘Very noble of you!’ He said it harshly, and Kate could discern not the slightest trace of anything approaching love in his cold features as he turned deliberately away from her.
‘Is everything all right? At the station, I mean?’ she asked huskily, moistening suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Her legs had turned to putty, and she felt a cowardly desire to turn and run.
‘Yes. It was a false alarm, thank goodness. Sorry if that disappoints you,’ he added bitterly. ‘I’m afraid you won’t get much newspaper mileage out of a radiation leak that wasn’t. Is that why you were waiting, Kate? Because you thought you might catch me at a vulnerable moment and that I might say something you could use in your campaign against me? Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It isn’t just missiles you resent, is it? It’s me. No,’ he cautioned when she would have interrupted, ‘don’t say anything. I’ve had plenty of time to think this through during the last couple of years. You can deny it all you want,’ he said flatly, ‘but you weren’t just fighting against nuclear warfare, you were fighting against me.’
She longed to deny it, but with new maturity knew that she couldn’t. ‘I did resent you,’ she agreed, ‘I admit it, but Jake…’ She was about to tell him that she had changed, learned to come to terms with her emotions when an unfamiliar car pulled into the drive. Her first jealous thought that it was Rita died when she saw the man emerging from it.
‘Your friend Barnes,’ said Jake, contemptuously from her shoulder. ‘Nice timing. What did you do? Ring him while I was gone?’
Harold Barnes? What on earth was he doing here? He was the last person Kate wanted to see right now.
Jake was at the door before he rang the bell, opening it to him, his tiredness under control, and a smooth polite mask in its place as he invited him in.
‘I hear there’s been some trouble at the station,’ Harold Barnes began without preamble, although Kate noticed that his eyes had widened fractionally when he saw her.
‘A suspected radiation leak,’ Jake confirmed coolly. ‘Suspected, but fortunately it was nothing more than a malfunction in a piece of equipment.’
‘You say that, but, forgive me, how can we be sure it’s true?’ the editor pressed. ‘We already know that there are serious safety defects at the station.’
‘There are certain safety defects which I myself brought to the attention of the safety committee,’ Jake corrected calmly. ‘They are not serious and the station is not, as you have claimed, below the Government safety standards. It is merely that I should like to be able to say that Ebbdale is the safest nuclear power station in the world.’
‘A rather philanthropic attitude for a businessman! Surely your prime purpose is to increase the station’s efficiency and output?’
‘It’s certainly one of my aims,’ Jake agreed, ‘but as I learned during my time in America, there’s no reason why safety and profitability shouldn’t go hand in hand.’
‘Are you saying then that the information we’ve already printed wasn’t correct?’
‘I think I’d like to say something here,’ Kate interrupted. ‘I know I gave you my personal views on nuclear weapons and power when we talked—privately, or so I thought—on Christmas Eve,’ she told Harold Barnes, ‘but the intimation in your paper that I leaked details of the safety standards at the station to you is something I object to. I never at any time discussed them with you.’
Kate could tell that she had caught him off guard. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to bring the subject up; he had certainly looked rather disconcerted when he walked in and saw her in Jake’s living room, but surely Rita had told him about their supposed ‘relationship’?
‘I want you to print a disclaimer,’ she added coolly. ‘You see, I do know where you got your information.’ She saw him blench slightly, although it was quickly controlled.
‘My dear Miss Hargreaves,’ he drawled slowly, ‘you yourself told me how abhorrent you find the entire concept of nuclear warfare. I accept that you might not remember our conversation it its entirety. Alan is a most generous host…’
He was suggesting that she had had so much to drink that she hadn’t known what she was saying to him, and Kate’s eyes blazed her anger as she denied his allegation.
‘Besides,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘it occurs to me that there’s more to this story than meets the eye. I confess you were the last person I expected to find here this morning.’
‘I came
here to…to…’
‘To tell me that she wasn’t responsible for the leak to your paper,’ Jake submitted for her.
‘But why should you bother? You’ve admitted that you’re on opposite sides of the fence. Why should you wish to assure Mr Harvey of anything? The article is good publicity for your cause.’ He was watching her speculatively, and Kate shivered, not liking the questioning look in his eyes. ‘The paper came out yesterday,’ he added, waiting.
‘And Kate came to see me about it last night,’ Jake finished softly. He was standing behind her and she felt his fingers bite deep into her waist as his arm came round her. ‘Didn’t you, darling?’
‘So.’ Harold Barnes was openly curious now. ‘There’s a personal angle to the story as well? That’s very interesting!’
He left ten minutes later, and when Jake came back into the living room having shown him to the door, Kate was shaking with reaction and anger. ‘How could you do that?’ she demanded huskily. ‘How could you let him think that…’
‘That you came here last night and we made love?’ Jake offered coolly, plainly not sharing her dislike of putting her thoughts into words. ‘Why not, that’s what happened isn’t it? You came here…’
‘To explain to you about the article,’ Kate broke in angrily. ‘I…’
‘Had no intention of going to bed with me? I don’t recall you protesting any too much, Kate, in fact…’ he smiled, but the gesture was completely without warmth of feeling, ‘last night was the best it’s ever been between us. Last night, for once in your life, you were a woman, Kate. Why? What were you hoping to discover from me?’
‘Nothing!’ She practically screamed the word at him. Why wouldn’t he believe her? ‘Is it so impossible to accept that I might simply have…’ loved you, she had been going to say, but she held back the betraying admission and submitted instead, ‘wanted you?’
For a moment she held her breath as Jake stared at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed at last. ‘I certainly wanted you. I haven’t touched a woman in the time we’ve been apart—I couldn’t. That’s what you did to me, Kate.’
His admission shivered across her skin, but it wasn’t love she read in his eyes as he turned towards her; they were cold and empty, regarding her as they might a stranger, and all her hopes that he might love her died. He didn’t. He couldn’t and talk so calmly about last night. If anything their lovemaking had simply been a catharsis; and now he was completely free of her. How could it be otherwise when he had virtually given Harold Barnes permission to name them as lovers? He must know what that would do to her standing in the community; to her relationship with her co-antinuclear campaigners.
‘What’s the matter, Kate?’ he asked softly. ‘Realising what will happen to your credibility when Barnes gets round to publishing today’s little revelation? Well, join the club. Have you any idea what it did to me when you persisted in making public your anti-nuclear stance?’ he demanded savagely. ‘When I applied for the job in the States, it was all down there on my record. And do you know what, Kate? They considered your presence in my life was a weakness; that you might bring pressure to bear on me that would make me crack, perhaps even sabotage my work!’
‘But you were soon able to put them right on that score,’ Kate challenged back, refusing to yield to the terrible anguish possessing her. ‘You told them how little my opinions mattered to you. I was just a stupid female!’
She was going to cry, she knew she was, and she whirled round, fleeing before he had time to realise what she was doing, slamming the front door behind her. Jake made no attempt to follow her, but it wasn’t until she was halfway home that she remembered he still hadn’t had any breakfast.
Although Meg witnessed her return she was tactful enough not to ask any questions. A trip to London to show the new spring patterns for their jumpers was a welcome break in her week, although Kate found her thoughts returning time and time again to the Dales while she was away. Her sweaters had now established themselves, and she was more than happy with her orders, her business concluded a day earlier than she had anticipated.
On impulse she telephoned her godmother in the South of France, feeling an absurd desire to weep when she heard Lyla’s familiar girlish tones. ‘Kate darling, how are you?’
When Kate explained that she was in London, Lyla begged her to stay for another day. ‘I’m booked on a flight later this afternoon. You know I always like to spend a few days in London after Christmas before I go to St Moritz.’
Kate knew that her godmother paid an annual visit to a luxury health spa just outside London every year at this time and hid a small grin. Dear Lyla, she was someone who never changed. Promising to meet her at Heathrow, Kate rang down to reception and was lucky enough to be able to extend her stay without any problem.
It was snowing when she went to Heathrow, but it wasn’t the pretty, fresh snow of the Dales, and the coldness had a raw, damp quality to it that invaded every bone.
Lyla emerged into the Arrivals hall dressed in lavish sables, her blonde hair immaculately coiffured, her enviable size ten figure hidden beneath the embracing folds of sable, her face unchanged, as unlined as a wax doll’s. She kissed Kate enthusiastically, chiding her as they walked towards the exit. ‘Kate, you’ve lost weight,’ she reproved.
‘I thought a woman could never be too thin,’ Kate said dryly. Lyla in a maternal mood was something she wasn’t used to.
True to form Lyla had booked a suite at the Dorchester. Kate went there with her, and promised to stay on for dinner. ‘Although I haven’t anything remotely evening-ish with me,’ she warned.
‘I can lend you something. You’ve lost so much weight you’ll be able to fit into it.’
‘Something’ turned out to be a Dior model, and when Kate raised her eyebrows, Lyla said evasively, ‘Yes, I know…but it was a present. Kate… Kate, I’m thinking of getting married again.’
Kate dropped the eyeshadow she had been applying to her lids and turned to stare at her. Although she was used to the procession of men through her godmother’s life, it was several years since her last divorce.
‘Married?’ she echoed.
‘Umm,’ Lyla nodded briskly. ‘You’ll like him. He’s German, fabulously wealthy, but more important than that, very, very kind. I never told you much about my first husband…’ She grimaced faintly. ‘I’m not going to burden you with the details now, but it wasn’t a happy relationship. He was forty when we married, I was eighteen, and a very young eighteen at that. My parents were quite wealthy and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. At first it wasn’t too bad. I had my parents to turn to and your mother, but then my parents died; the money ran out, and Ralph became…violent…’ Her hand was shaking, and Kate, who could never remember her pretty foolish godmother ever betraying any sign of unhappiness or misery in the past, felt an overwhelming protective rush of love for her.
‘It’s all in the past now,’ Lyla continued bravely, ‘but when Ralph died—well, I went a little off the rails.’ She pulled a face, laughing at herself and the old-fashioned expression she had used. ‘Six months after Ralph died, so did a distant cousin of his, and I inherited everything. For a while I went a little mad; perhaps I even used all those nice young men as a means of punishing Ralph for the past, I don’t know, but then I met Jake’s father. He was widowed at the time and he wanted to marry me. I agreed—wrongly, because I didn’t love him. Jake was about fifteen at the time, and I could tell he resented me.’ She paused, and glanced appealingly at Kate. ‘Here comes the bit I least want to tell you, darling. I’m afraid I did a very foolish thing. You see, my…my way of life had rather gone to my head. There’d been so many charming young men that I couldn’t see why Jake shouldn’t succumb just as easily. I wanted to punish him, you see, for showing his contempt of me, only I’m afraid it didn’t work out like that. Jake most emphatically did not want me. In fact at fifteen he was far more assured than many young men of eighteen or twenty. He made me feel so small and cheap, Ka
te. He despised me utterly because of his father…’ She sighed. ‘Of course I left. What else could I do? It was a considerable shock to run across him again like that when you were with me…’
‘You intimated that he wanted to protect me from you,’ Kate interrupted, sympathising with her god-mother, even while she could understand how Jake must have felt.
‘Yes. When he discovered that I was your sole guardian he accused me of corrupting you as I’d tried to do him. Of course by then I was over my wild phase, but arguing with Jake was like arguing with stone, and I’m afraid I still resented him. I let him think that he was right.’
‘And that’s when he decided to marry me?’
‘I used to think so,’ Lyla agreed, ‘and I’m afraid I might be to blame for your marriage breaking up, because I told you about it—you always were such a sensitive child. I could have cut my tongue out afterwards, but it was too late. Instead I went to Jake, and told him what I’d done. We had a long talk, and came much closer to understanding one another. He told me that he loved you, but that he felt that you were too young for marriage—not in years but in terms of experience. He was torn between wanting you and wanting what was best for you. He always did have a painfully active conscience. When you parted we kept in touch and…’
‘You told him where I was living.’
‘Yes,’ Lyla admitted. ‘Did I do wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gradually it all came out and Kate found herself confiding in her godmother, sparing herself nothing, admitting how much her own immaturity had blinded her to reason.
‘I still love him, more than ever if that’s possible, because I’m not blinded by my own prejudice any more. I recognise now that love between two human beings is more important than anything else, but that it has to be nurtured; that it’s possible to love and have differing opinions on outside subjects.’
‘Most women have an instinct that leads them to protect, and to denounce war,’ Lyla comforted her. ‘I’m sure when you explain Jake will understand. The fact that he’s given up his research work for a different type of job must mean something.’