Stronger than Yearning

by Penny Jordan

  Jenna could only agree with him, a picture of the pool house conservatory already unfolding in her mind’s eye. It would have a traditional black and white tiled floor, and white cane furniture, perhaps with green and white patterned cotton covers.

  ‘Come back!’ James mocked lightly, indicating her as yet untouched glass of wine. ‘I suppose I should be flattered that you find my idea so appealing. In the meantime, I agree with you that it would be a good idea to provide a small gym area for Sarah.’ He frowned, and pushed his plate away. ‘I’m concerned about her, Jenna. She ought to be making at least some recovery by now. The doctors assure me that there’s nothing physically wrong with her. I know how she feels about her parent’s death but to keep on punishing herself because of it…’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t herself she’s punishing,’ Jenna said, ‘but you.’

  James looked at her blankly and then comprehension darkened his eyes with pain. ‘Of course…yes…that makes much more sense,’ he said wryly. ‘I wonder why I didn’t think of it first.’

  ‘You’re probably standing too close to the situation to see it as clearly as someone on the outside. You know that Sarah feels that you disliked her mother?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was silent for a moment and then said curtly. ‘The whole situation is extremely complicated, I can’t——’ He broke off as a man walked past their table and then did a double-take.

  ‘Well, well!’ Shrewd blue eyes went from Jenna to James and then back again. ‘What have we here? Two lovebirds, perhaps, hatching a little secret?’

  Jenna recognised him now, a well-known gossip columnist. She heard James swear under his breath and then he said coolly, ‘You may as well be the first to know, Lyons. Jenna and I are getting married at the end of this month.’

  As she listened to him saying the words, Jenna knew that now there was no escape. A tight feeling of panic coiled up inside her, and then, unbelievably, it started to ebb away as James touched her hand. She blinked, totally unable to believe that his touch could have relaxed and reassured her to such an extent.

  ‘Come on, it’s time we left,’ he told her, helping her to her feet, and into her jacket.

  For the first time she did not flinch beneath his touch, saying only as he guided her towards the exit, ‘But what about your godmother?’

  ‘I told her we were getting engaged, but what I said about wanting you to meet her still stands.’ He paused, frowned and then added, ‘I was hoping you would agree to our marriage taking place in her village church—it can be arranged, I’ve already checked.’

  Jenna’s first instinct was to refuse, and then she checked the impulse. Whether she liked it or not she and James were going to be married, and it would be in her own best interests to get along with him as best she could. It was really of little importance to her where they got married, and what was the point in childishly antagonising him now for no purpose?

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  As they stepped outside into the June sunshine, Jenna caught the glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

  ‘You’re unusually docile,’ he mocked, watching her reaction. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘No reason. It’s a matter of indifference to me where we get married.’

  James had a business appointment at two-thirty but he put Jenna in a taxi to take her back to her own office. She was glad of the mountain of work Richard’s abrupt and unexpected departure had brought to her desk. It stopped her from dwelling too much on what lay ahead. She had committed herself to marriage with James now and there was no escape—not without hurting Lucy, and possibly Sarah too. Jenna sensed that James’s step-sister needed someone to confide in and turn to, and she had genuinely felt compassion for the young girl. It was a devastating experience to lose the people you loved most in life—Jenna knew that from her own life. Sarah already had a maturity that Lucy lacked, and Jenna knew that maturity came solely from experiencing emotional pain.

  How strange were the threads that linked and drew lives together. How could she have known that day standing outside the old Hall that soon she would be facing the reality of marriage to the man she had seen then and instantly disliked and despised? She had already learned how foolishly unperceptive she had been in despising him. Would her dislike prove to be as unfounded as her contempt? What a strange thought for her to have, thought Jenna, putting down her pen and walking agitatedly over to her office window. She always stood there when she was disturbed: it was as though looking out of it held a magical power to soothe her in some strange way. But why should the thought of losing her dislike of James upset her so much? Surely it could only be beneficial if they could co-exist in harmony? But it did upset her and, more than that, it alarmed her in some intangible intuitive way, as though by losing her dislike of him she might in some way be making herself vulnerable.

  Shrugging the thought aside she returned to her desk. She had a lot to get through this week, especially if she was going to fit in a visit to Yorkshire. In her mind’s eye she saw the older part of the house and earmarked the room they could use. Sarah could have the downstairs study which had French windows out on to the gardens. There was an attractive sunken garden just outside them with a paved sitting area and an old-fashioned rose arbour. James could occupy the bedroom that had been Sir Alan’s. She shuddered in distaste at the thought of using it herself. As she remembered it there was a dressing-room off it and a private bathroom. She would have the bedroom next door, which, if she remembered correctly, also had access to the dressing-room and had possibly been Sir Alan’s wife’s bedroom. If either of the girls queried their having separate rooms she would make some excuse that she was a poor sleeper—it was, after all, quite true.

  Suddenly and all too vividly she remembered her dream, hurriedly shutting away the mental images as quickly as they formed, trying to deny their force and power. That dream had been a complete mental aberration conjured up by she knew not what—a never-to-be-repeated folly, which she preferred not to think about.

  That evening Lucy rang from school sounding chirpy and bright—and obviously very excited about the wedding. Without meaning to, Jenna found herself telling her about the weekend and before Lucy rang off she had extracted a promise from Jenna that they would most definitely take her out of school on the Saturday afternoon. When she replaced the receiver Jenna admitted rather sadly that Lucy’s present happiness was directly as a result of James’s presence in their lives, and while that thought was in her mind on impulse she dialled the private number James had given her. He answered on the third ring, his voice so calm and easily recognisable that Jenna could not understand why on earth her heart was beating so fast.

  ‘I rang to have a chat with Sarah,’ she told him a little breathlessly. ‘I thought she might be feeling a little bit lonely—even having second thoughts about getting a step-sister-in-law.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you. She is a bit down tonight—nothing to do with you. She just has these bouts of depression from time to time. Hang on a sec…’

  The line went dead, and then within seconds Jenna was talking to Sarah, noting the faint listlessness of the young girl’s voice, which gradually disappeared as they chatted.

  ‘I’d better go now,’ Jenna said after a while. ‘I need an early night after all the excitement of this weekend.’

  ‘I’ll put you back to James, then,’ Sarah told her, doing just that before Jenna could protest.

  ‘Sarah put me back on to you before I could tell her not to.’ Why did she sound so defensive? He already knew quite well that she had no desire to speak to him.

  ‘No doubt she thinks that neither of us will sleep without saying good night to one another,’ James said with irony. ‘Teenagers are like that, or don’t you remember?’

  Her throat closed up and she could not respond. She could remember her own teenage dreams all too well, before reality had smashed and destroyed them beyond any kind of repair.

  ‘Jenna?’

  ‘Y
es…yes, I’m still here.’ She could hear the sharp edge of irritation under his voice. ‘I’m tired, James. I’ll say good night and let you get on with whatever you were doing before I interrupted you.’

  ‘Scrutinising contracts for various franchises connected with the Caribbean complex,’ he told her drily. ‘Very exciting stuff.’

  * * *

  Jenna did not speak to or see James until much later in the week. An item had appeared in the gossip press about them, announcing their engagement, the day after they had been spotted in the wine bar by the reporter, but since James had already sent a formal announcement to The Times it caused very little stir in Jenna’s life, apart from bringing Richard storming into her office one afternoon, to accuse her of outmanoeuvring him and deliberately encouraging Harry Waters to entice him away so that she would have the business to herself.

  ‘No doubt Allingham will put plenty of fat contracts your way,’ Richard sneered. Then added viciously, ‘What’s he got that the rest of us don’t possess, Jenna? It must be something pretty special to thaw out a cold bitch like you!’

  There was more in the same vein, vituperative and distasteful, but, strangely enough, none of it really touched her, and Jenna’s only emotion when Richard finally ran out of steam and stormed out of her office was one of empty tiredness coupled with a faint relief that she was no longer connected, if only professionally, with such a petty and grubby-minded individual. His comments about her own lack of sexual appeal hadn’t touched her. How could they? She knew they were true, but they had little power to hurt. All that did amaze her was that Richard should actually think that she and James were lovers, when he so obviously held an extremely low opinion of her sexual attractiveness.

  Only his last few words had struck home and even then not for the reasons he might have supposed.

  ‘Just you wait,’ he had jeered on finally leaving, ‘he’ll grow tired of you, once he realises what you’re really like. A cold bitch like you will never hold a man like him, and I’m really going to enjoy being around to see you fall to pieces when he walks out on you, Jenna…because a man like that doesn’t give anything for nothing, and when he realises how little you’ve got to offer him as a woman you can be sure he’ll make you pay for his favours in some other way. I shouldn’t be surprised if he takes this whole business that you’re so passionately attached to from you in lieu…’

  She wasn’t worried that James would do as Richard was suggesting, but what did concern her was the truth in Richard’s unspoken suggestion that James was a man with a keenly honed sexual appetite. She didn’t expect him to remain celibate; after all, she hardly had the right, but there was bound to come a time when his relationships outside marriage would catch the public eye and how would that affect Lucy? Already her niece had put him on a pedestal, and not just because she thought of him as her father. She would have to worry about that bridge when the time came to cross it, Jenna decided wearily, managing a reassuring smile for Maggie who came into her office in the wake of Richard’s exit, wide-eyed with anxiety and concern.

  ‘He pushed past me before I could stop him and then the phone rang.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jenna assured her. ‘Who was on the phone?’

  ‘The bank. I said you’d call them back.’

  As Jenna had suspected Gordon Burns was delighted to hear that she was marrying James. ‘I suppose now if I ask you for credit ..?’

  ‘The criteria remain the same,’ he told her firmly. But added with a smile in his voice, ‘However, of course with your husband’s guarantee…’

  Jenna let the matter go, but in her own heart of hearts she knew she had come to a crossroad in her professional life. Originally when she bought the Hall, it had been her intention to keep the London end of the business going with Richard standing in her place. Now, with James’s financial backing behind her, she could afford to take on a fully qualified partner and do exactly that, but the problems she had recently experienced had soured her. If she was totally honest with herself she had preferred her business when it was small and newly emerging and when she herself was responsible for every aspect of a contract. She enjoyed talking to suppliers, buying, spending time combing antique shops for just the right item. She still wanted to specialise as she had planned when she originally bought the old Hall, but possibly on a much smaller scale.

  As James’s wife she had no need to work for a living. He had told her as much, insisting that he intended to make her a generous personal allowance, even when she had told him she did not want it. Now she was beginning to accept that there would be a change of pace and direction to her life: she would need time to spend with Sarah, to spend on the house, to spend, too, with Lucy if she did transfer to a local school. The driving force that had motivated so much of her life—the need to earn sufficient to support Lucy and herself—was gone. She could still work but at a far less intense level. For some reason she had become acutely conscious of all that she had missed from life—all that she was missing. During the week she had spent a day at the old Hall as she had planned to, and she had found the slower pace of life the house itself enforced upon her strangely delightful.

  Up until she and James married she would be very busy, but once they returned from the Caribbean she intended to reassess the situation vis-à-vis her business. Most of her existing contracts were nearing completion and there was no reason really for her to keep the London end of the business running. Even Maggie had mentioned that she fancied a change and that her sister in the States had asked her out there for a visit.

  She was conscious of being carried by an unstoppable tide towards a new life, and instead of fighting against that current, she seemed to be allowing herself to be carried by it.

  For Lucy’s sake she had no real option, she told herself, no alternative at all.

  The day Jenna went to the Hall it rained. She called in briefly on Nancy and Bill in the morning. Both of them were openly thrilled about her engagement, although Nancy clucked over her lack of a ring. She stopped just long enough to have a cup of coffee and then hurried on to the Hall. By lunchtime she had surveyed the rooms she intended to turn into their living quarters, and had made an inventory of what furniture was there that they could use and what would need to be bought.

  The rooms were in the Tudor part of the building and still retained their original panelling and parquet block floors. By the time she left for York later in the afternoon Jenna had a clear picture in her mind of how she intended their temporary apartment to look when they moved in. Although the accommodation there would only be temporary, she wanted to make it look as attractive and homelike as possible. Fortunately, because it was summer, the lack of central heating would not be too much of a problem. New bathrooms would have to be installed, but once again she could see no major difficulty since the room she had selected for Sarah’s bedroom was immediately under James’s room, and could share the drainage already in existence for the ancient bathroom off that room.

  Her head buzzing with ideas, she parked her car in York, and hurried towards the architects’ office to drop off some specifications for the central heating in the Georgian wing that they had sent her, and to return some detailed plans they had submitted for the new larger kitchen and the attractive morning-room off it.

  The partner Jenna had dealt with was not available, but she left the papers with his assistant, enquiring on impulse if he could direct her to a local antique dealer with a good reputation. What she wanted were some pieces of Jacobean oak furniture to supplement the odd bits she had already found scattered around the house. None of what she had found were particularly good pieces but they did have the virtue of being authentic. A rather battered Queen Anne bachelor chest had caught her eye, although the walnut veneer which had been laid on top of the oak from which the chest was made, was in need of some attention.

  Armed with the information she had requested, Jenna set out in the direction she had been told. The antique shop she was looking fo
r was tucked away down one of York’s many attractive narrow alleyways—or wynds as they were called locally. She was just about to push open the door when a man emerged, almost knocking her over as he stepped backwards out of the shop. The moment he was aware of what he had done he began to apologise. Laughter lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, plain ordinary hazel eyes, Jenna noticed, but kind eyes for all that. She guessed he was somewhere around forty, tall, with a lanky, lean frame and the kind of soft brown hair that flopped over his forehead. His smile was wry and very sincere and he had, she reflected, a certain boyish charm that had its own appeal.

  ‘Are you looking for something special, or just browsing?’ he asked Jenna when she had assured him that she was unhurt.

  ‘Jacobean furniture,’ she told him coolly. ‘In particular a bookcase and a gateleg table.’

  ‘Well, I don’t have anything like that in at the moment.’ He frowned, obviously deep in thought which gave Jenna time to study him with renewed interest. She had not realised when he first bumped into her that he was the owner of the shop. He would be quite successful, she conceded, watching him. He had the sort of manner that was reassuring to old ladies and young children.

  ‘I think I know where I might be able to get the gateleg table. The bookcase is something else. We do get them, but they don’t come cheap. What do you want it for?’

  Jenna explained briefly.

  ‘You’ve bought the old Hall? Lucky you,’ he told her enviously. ‘It’s a magnificent house.’

  ‘Yes, and my fiancé wants us to move in in just under two months’ time, so I’m trying to get a small apartment sorted out as quickly as I can.’ She went on to explain to him that they would only be living in it on a temporary basis while the Georgian wing was renovated.