by Penny Jordan
She had known Tony Aimes for many years. She had originally moved to this part of the world following the break-up of her marriage.
Housing here had been relatively cheap then, and as Lacey had been a divorcee with a baby on the way—and very little money—that had been an important consideration.
When Jessica’s father had announced that he didn’t love her any more and that he wanted a divorce, he had told her that she could keep the marital home, that all he wanted was his freedom; but her pride would not allow her to do that, and so after the divorce had become final she had sold the house and scrupulously forwarded to his solicitor half the proceeds of its sale.
She had never received any acknowledgement of his receipt of the money but then she had not expected to do so. From the day he had walked into their kitchen and announced that he no longer loved her he had also walked out of her life, and her only contact with him had been via their solicitors.
People started to clap as she walked towards the small stage. She could feel the hot burn of embarrassed colour sweeping her skin. At thirty-eight she ought to be long past the stage of blushing like a schoolgirl, she told herself ruefully; long, long past it.
It seemed she was the last to arrive—the others were already up on the stage, little Michael squirming excitedly in his chair as she went to join them.
She couldn’t help it; as she saw him smiling at her her eyes filled with tears, not of sadness, but of joy—joy in people’s generosity and warmth, and joy in Michael’s innocent love of life.
At the moment his illness was in remission; he had received a stay of execution, but for how long?
As she bent to hug and kiss him, she prayed that somehow a miracle could happen and that Michael could be saved; but there were so many other Michaels in the world, so many other children who…
She checked her thoughts, reminding herself that emotionalism did nothing to help Michael, that it wasn’t sitting in a corner crying which had raised the money to further research, but other people’s generosity and hard work.
As she took her place with the others she glanced down into the mass of people gathered in the hall. She could see Jessica sitting in the front row, not far from Tony Aimes.
Was it really almost twenty years ago that she had first started working for Tony as his secretary? Where on earth had the years gone?
During that time Tony had been married and then divorced; Jessica had grown from a baby to a woman; and she—what had she done with her life? What had she achieved on a personal level?
She had financial security, a very pleasant lifestyle, and she knew that many people would have envied her. There were others though, she knew, who looked at her and pitied her for her single, manless state.
That had never worried her. Better by far to live alone in contentment and peace than to suffer the kind of anguish which she knew all too well could come from loving another person. Especially when, like her, one had a propensity to love too well…too intensely, perhaps, and certainly too unwisely.
The chairman of their small committee was getting to his feet, explaining for the benefit of the audience the purpose of their fund-raising. Her stomach muscles knotted and tensed as she waited for her own cue, the moment when she would have to get up and hand over the cheque to Ian.
She had rehearsed her few lines over and over again and was surely word-perfect by now. All she really had to do was to add her thanks to those of the chairman, and then hand over the cheque to Ian.
At the back of the hall people from the local radio station and TV company were busily recording the event, and the movement of the camera, catching the light momentarily, distracted her so that she looked away from the stage and into the audience.
Quite how it happened she had no real idea; quite why she should so unerringly pick out one face among so many, and a face she had not seen in twenty years, moreover…Surely it should not have been possible for her to recognise him so instantly, to know with that gut-wrenching, heart-stopping surge of awareness that it was him, even from that one brief glance; but it was.
Lewis was here. Here in the civic hall…here in her home-town…here in the place, the life she had built so determinedly to exclude him…to exclude everything about him.
Everything bar the child he had given her; and the pain he had inflicted upon her.
Lewis Marsh…her husband…her lover. The only man she had ever loved…ever wanted. The man she had thought loved her in the same way…the man who had told her that he did love her, who had begged her to marry him, who had told her that they would always be together, throughout life and throughout eternity.
Eternity! Their marriage had lasted just over a year.
She started to tremble violently, her heart pounding with sick shock as her brain refused to take in what her eyes were telling her.
It must be a mistake; it couldn’t possibly be Lewis.
She had, out of shock and self-protection, already focused her gaze as far away from him as she possibly could, but now, like a child anxiously searching a darkened room for an imagined monster, she looked hesitantly back, searching the packed hall feverishly, praying that she had been mistaken.
Twenty years was, after all, a long time…long enough for mistakes to be made, for her memory to play tricks on her. The Lewis she remembered no longer existed. Like her, he would have changed, grown older.
The sickness returned. If she had recognised him, then had he…? She stopped searching. Her brain was trying to perform impossible acrobatics with far too many confusing thoughts.
What if by some impossible chance it was Lewis? Even if he had recognised her he was hardly likely to walk up on to the stage and announce to the world that she had once been his wife, was he? Why was she so afraid?
She wasn’t afraid, she told herself stoutly. She was just shocked…taken aback…and no doubt she had made a mistake anyway. It couldn’t possibly be Lewis. Why should it be? No; her belief that she had seen him was just a by-product of her nervousness about presenting the cheque.
Presenting the cheque! She tensed, appalled to realise that she had stopped following the chairman’s speech; that, in the space of half a dozen seconds or so, the purpose of her presence on the stage had been totally submerged by the shock of thinking she had seen her ex-husband, and now as she feverishly concentrated on what the chairman was saying she realised that it was almost time for her to stand up and make the presentation.
‘And so now I should like to hand you over to our chief fund-raiser, without whom this whole appeal would never have been launched—Lacey Robinson.’
Lacey stood up. She had reverted to her maiden name after the divorce, and now, for some reason, as she got to her feet her glance darted almost guiltily towards the packed hall, almost as though she expected Lewis to stand up and announce that she was masquerading under a false name; and yet, even if by some extraordinary mischance it was Lewis, why on earth should he object to her reversion to her maiden name? It was he after all, who had brought their marriage to an end…who had announced that it was over, that he no longer loved her…that there was someone else…
This time as she scanned the hall there was no familiar male face, no malely autocratic profile, no sleek, well-groomed dark head—no one in fact who remotely resembled the man she had married, the man who had fathered Jessica, the man she had loved to the point where without him her life had no purpose, no reason other than that somehow she must keep on going for the sake of their child, the child he hadn’t even known she had conceived; the child he had already told her he wouldn’t have wanted.
‘You want domesticity…children…I don’t,’he had told her flatly, ignoring her feeble attempt to interrupt him, to protest that when he had told her how much he had loved her, how much he had wanted her as his wife, he had said how much he wanted her to have his children, how much he shared with her a longing for the domestic family life neither of them had ever really known—she because of her parents’death, and he thr
ough the divorce which had split up his parents while he was still very young.
Somehow or other she managed to make her short speech and hand over the cheque, although her hands were trembling violently when Ian took it from her.
Afterwards, when it was all over, Jessica came hurrying anxiously towards her, asking her if she was all right.
‘You had such an odd look on your face when you were on the stage. I even thought for a moment you were just going to get up and walk out. I know you were nervous, but I hadn’t realised…Anyway, it’s over now,’ she comforted her.
Lacey gave a vague smile.
‘Never mind, Ma, you were brill, despite your nerves,’ Jessica told her, tucking her arm through her mother’s. ‘And now how about that meal you promised me, before one of your admirers pounces on you and persuades you to let him join us?’
Lacey gave her a wan look. In reality the last thing she felt like doing was going out to eat. Her stomach was still performing somersaults and her heart felt as though it had literally been squeezed in a vice.
She felt both sick and shaky, like someone suffering from the aftermath of a nerve-shattering shock. She told herself that she was being ridiculous; that she was a grown woman, and surely long past the stage of reacting like that simply because she thought she had seen a man whose memory she ought to have put behind her years ago.
‘Quickly,’ Jessica hissed. ‘Tony’s heading this way.’As they headed for the exit she added drily, ‘Honestly, Ma, I don’t know why you don’t marry poor Tony. He adores you, you know, and he always has. Think of the life you’d have—he’d spoil you to death.’
‘I like him, but I don’t love him,’ Lacey told her, surprising herself as much as her daughter, who stopped and turned to look at her. ‘Is that so very shocking,’ she asked Jessica defensively, ‘that at my age I should consider love a prerequisite for marriage? I suppose to someone of your age it probably is.’
‘No…you’ve got it all wrong. Of course I don’t think you’re too old to fall in love. I was just surprised that you should want to. I’ve always had the impression that because of what happened with…with my father that we…that you’d written sexual love out of your life so to speak. I thought that you’d actually prefer the kind of relationship you could have with Tony—him spoiling you…pampering you…’
‘That wouldn’t be fair to him,’ Lacey told her quietly.
‘No, I suppose not. But there must be times when you feel lonely…when you want—’
‘Sex,’ Lacey supplied bluntly for her, surprising herself a second time.
Jessica gave her a sideways look. ‘Well…yes…although I wouldn’t have put it quite as directly as that,’ she told her a little defensively.
Lacey shook her head, and then wondered if she was being entirely honest. Weren’t there times even now when she woke up tense and aching, her body reminding her that there had once been a time when she hadn’t slept alone, when she had known the caresses of a lover, when she…
‘What I want right now is my dinner,’ she fibbed, completely redirecting the conversation. ‘I’ve booked a table at that new Italian place. It’s supposed to be very good.’
IT WAS—at least to judge from the enjoyment Jessica was exhibiting. For her part, Lacey found that she just simply didn’t have any appetite.
‘Ma, what’s wrong?’Jessica started to ask her, and then broke off to say admiringly, ‘Mm…now that’s what I call a man! Pity he’s too old for me.’
Lacey turned her head in automatic response to Jessica’s comment.
Three men had just walked into the restaurant, but she only saw one of them. This time there was no possibility of a mistake…no doubt. It was like a massive blow to the heart, numbing her body into complete immobility.
Lewis. It was Lewis!
‘Ma, what is it…what’s wrong? You look as though you’ve just seen a ghost,’ Jessica told her worriedly.
A ghost. She gave a deep shudder, her mouth twisting painfully.
Behind her she could hear Lewis’s voice—deep, masculine, so agonisingly familiar, so shockingly clearly remembered.
‘Jess, I’m not feeling very well,’ she said shakily. ‘Would you mind if we left?’
The men had walked past them now, leaving Lacey free to stand up as she kept her back towards them. Small chance of Lewis’s recognising her; why should he? she reflected with an unfamiliar stab of sharp bitterness.
She meant nothing to him. He probably didn’t even remember that she had ever existed. She wondered if he was still with her, the woman he had left her for, or if she too had suffered her fate; if he had gone on to fall out of love with her as well.
She pushed herself free of the table, shivering sickly, glad of Jessica’s warm protective arm around her shoulders as her daughter came to her side and said anxiously, ‘Ma, something’s wrong. Look, let’s get you home, and then I’m going to call Ian Hanson.’
Behind her she was aware of movement, of someone tensing, turning, but she couldn’t look back, couldn’t do anything other than freeze and shiver, aching to escape, knowing it was impossible to explain to Jessica just what was wrong, hating herself for causing her daughter this anxiety and for spoiling their last evening together…but how could she turn to Jessica now and say ‘You know that man you were just admiring? Well, he’s your father’?
She had always been honest with Jessica about her marriage, and told her when she was in her teens that she would never stand in her way if she ever felt she wanted to contact her father, but Jessica had remained adamant that she didn’t, that she wanted nothing to do with the man who had treated her mother so cruelly, even though Lacey had painstakingly explained to her that Lewis had known nothing of her pregnancy…had not realised that she was already carrying his child when he’d announced that he wanted a divorce.
‘You’d better let me drive,’ Jessica announced when they got to the car. ‘You went so white in there. Is something wrong, Ma?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I know you and how you hate me to worry about anything.’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Lacey fibbed firmly. ‘I think I’m just suffering a bit of over-reaction to this evening. I was dreading giving that speech. You know what a baby I am about public events. I’m sorry I let it spoil our meal, though.’
‘Well, you certainly look a lot better now. Are you sure you don’t want me to call Ian?’
‘Stop fussing! I’m fine. A good night’s sleep and tomorrow morning I’ll be back to normal.’
She knew that it wasn’t true, but thankfully tomorrow morning Jessica was going back to Oxford. For the first time since her daughter had left home, Lacey actually wanted to see her go. Her mouth twisted bitterly.
CHAPTER TWO
TEN o’clock on a fine sunny morning. Lacey had the whole day ahead of her with a hundred and one things she could do, and yet all she felt like doing was crawling back to bed, like an animal seeking protection, oblivion almost, if not from life, then at least from her own thoughts…her tormenting memories.
Half an hour ago she had watched Jessica drive off, having assured her anxious daughter over and over again that she was fine.
She couldn’t blame Jessica for being anxious: one look in her mirror confirmed her daughter’s worried comments.
Her face looked bloodless, even with her make-up, her eyes huge and shadowed, her mouth…She shivered a little, rubbing the goose-flesh on her arms. Her mouth, always a good indicator of her feelings, looked, even to her own eyes, vulnerable, unhappy…shocked.
Dear God, if only she had been wrong. If only it hadn’t been Lewis last night. She knew that she wasn’t wrong. It was Lewis, although what he was doing here in town she had no idea—if he was still here; perhaps he had already gone. Her tension started to ease. She pictured him, driving away from the town, his wife, her successor, at his side. She pictured the back of his head, saw the speeding car, visualised its driving through the town towards the motorway network, felt her tense muscles sta
rting to relax, told herself that she was panicking over nothing, that, horrible though the coincidence of his turning up at the restaurant had been, it meant nothing. He had obviously not recognised her. Why should he, after all? And even if he had…even if he had…
There was something wet on her face. She touched it with her hands and discovered that she was crying.
This simply would not do. She was a supposedly mature woman of thirty-eight with a daughter of nineteen to prove it; what right, what purpose did Lewis have to suddenly appear out of the blue to destroy her contentment?
Stop being so paranoid, she chided herself firmly. How could Lewis’s presence in town have anything to do with her? It was pure chance, that was all; an unfortunate chance, it was true, the sight of him stirring up, as it had done, memories; images; emotions which ought to have stopped hurting her years ago.
She had, after all, only been eighteen when she’d first met him. He had been twenty-one, almost twenty-two. They had both been invited to the same birthday party, he had looked across the room, and she had known then.
What? she asked herself tiredly; that he would break her heart…destroy her life? That he would claim to love her and then turn round and tell her that love no longer existed? That their marriage was a mistake?
It was just as well that she had arranged several days’leave from work to coincide with Jessica’s visit home: the last thing she felt capable of doing right now was dealing with the complexities of her job as Tony’s secretary-cum-PA.
She had a meeting later on in the day at the hospital with Ian; a final sorting out of some paperwork connected with the appeal. Ian had tentatively suggested taking her out for lunch but she had gently refused.
What was wrong with her? she wondered ruefully now. Why couldn’t she abandon the past, let go of her fears and inhibitions and allow herself to grow more intimately involved with another man?