by Penny Jordan
Her original intention had been simply to come home for a couple of days, to apologise to Lacey for upsetting her and to explain why she had contacted her father without consulting Lacey first.
‘It’s incredible to have the two of you together like this,’she told them both over and over again.
Luckily Lewis had the excuse of needing to get back to his business to keep his stay with them mercifully brief, and so Lacey did not have the trauma of facing the possibility of having to share her bed with him for a second night.
She had had the whole day to spend with him and two more after that, when he had driven over to spend, as he put it, as much time has he could with the two most important women in his life.
The past was never mentioned. Jessica’s excited chatter was all about the future, and the more she listened to her daughter the more despairingly guilty Lacey felt. Sooner or later Jessica was going to have to be told the truth.
Initially when Lewis had talked of letting Jessica come to terms with the realisation that the relationship between them wasn’t working out, it had seemed a simple, easy solution; but now that Lacey had time to consider it and to realise that it wasn’t something that could be accomplished overnight, she was beginning to panic that she would do something to betray the strain she was under, the pain she was going through, the agony she was enduring. Because it was agony having to spend so much time with Lewis, having to accept the small physical gestures of intimacy he made towards her, the brief kiss on her forehead, his arm round her shoulders, the small, intimate touches that reaffirmed Jessica’s belief that they were deeply in love.
Deeply in love. Well, it was true of one of them, at least, and the problem was that that one was falling more and more deeply into that love with every day that passed.
No matter how much she tried to remind herself of the past and all that had happened, Lacey knew she was daily becoming more dependent on Lewis…more involved with him, so that she was torn between anguish and self-hatred at her own weakness and inability to face reality.
Fortunately Jessica was only able to spend a few days at home.
To Lacey’s consternation, on their last afternoon together Jessica suggested that Lewis took them both to see his home.
‘After all, I expect that you and Ma will be living there once you’ve finally set a date for the wedding,’ she continued blithely. ‘I mean, your business is there—’
‘Jessica,’ Lacey protested. ‘I don’t think—’
‘That’s all right,’ Lewis interrupted her, ‘and besides, Jess, is right, although I warn you that the house isn’t anything like as…as home-like as this.’
He said it almost bleakly, his face suddenly shuttered, causing Lacey to worry at her bottom lip. He never spoke of her, the woman he had left her for, or of their time together. She knew now that he had never married her, but presumably they must have lived together, shared a home…plans…and she shrank from the thought of even visiting the house he had shared with another woman; a woman he had loved more than he had loved her.
‘I bought the house five years ago,’ he was telling Jessica. ‘In all honesty, it’s too large for one person. Much too large. I don’t know why I bought it really.’
‘Wishful thinking,’ Jessica suggested, smiling at him.
‘Perhaps,’ Lewis agreed. ‘Although I had no idea then that your mother…that you existed.’
‘It’s not too late, you know,’ Jessica told him softly. ‘You and Ma can still have another child…more children. After all, these days a vasectomy can be reversed, and Ma isn’t even forty yet—’
‘Jessica,’ Lacey interrupted her quickly, but Jessica refused to be quelled, telling her firmly,
‘Come on, Ma, you know you’d love another child…and I certainly wouldn’t object to a little sister.’
The knowledge which all three of them shared was mirrored in those words, and, despite the grim look in Lewis’s eyes, Lacey felt the familiar pang inside her, the familiar ache in her womb, reinforcing the knowledge that Jessica was right: that she would like another child, just as long as that child was Lewis’s.
‘If my tests prove positive I shan’t let it stop me from having children,’ Jessica told them both quietly. ‘Not boys—I couldn’t take that risk—but girls.’
Lacey tensed as she saw Lewis walk over to the french windows and step through them into the garden, his back rigid with tension.
‘What is it…what did I say?’ Jessica asked her bewilderedly.
‘He’s worried about you,’ Lacey told her gently. ‘Give him time, Jess. He feels guilty…responsible…for the fact that you will probably never be able to choose to have sons, at least not without the risk of passing on to them his defective gene—’
‘But at least I can choose,’ Jessica interrupted her. ‘What would you have done, Ma, if he’d told you about…about the risk after you knew you were carrying me?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lacey told her honestly. ‘I think I would probably have continued with the pregnancy.’
‘But Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to, would he? He’d have tried to persuade you to have an abortion.’
Lacey bit her lip. ‘Jessica, you’ve seen what’s happening to little Michael. You know what his family has gone through. I’m not trying to say that I agree with Lewis’s attitude, but I do understand it.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know. I just suddenly realised that if you hadn’t…if he hadn’t divorced you when he did, I might never have been born.’
‘But you were born,’Lacey told her, ‘and, thanks to modern technology, you will have the choice of knowing that you can opt to have only girls.’
Jessica went to stand by the window. ‘Dad looks so alone. I think he’s missed you dreadfully. It’s obvious how he feels about you, and I know that you love him…that you’ve always loved him. I’m so glad that you’ve come together again.’
‘Jess, it isn’t as clear-cut as that. Things may not work out,’ Lacey began, but Jessica wasn’t listening to her.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing his house, aren’t you? I wonder what it’s like.’
Lewis was staring towards the house. Jessica opened the french window and ran up to him, hugging him with a love that made Lacey’s eyes sting with tears.
Soon she would have to tell her daughter the truth. Soon, but not yet; not while her relationship with Lewis was still so new and vulnerable.
DRIVING through the once familiar environs of the town where she had once lived with Lewis made Lacey feel increasingly tense and on edge.
The town had changed over the years, had grown and spread out, but its centre was the same.
Lewis now had a much larger office in the town square. He pointed it out to them as they drove through it, responding to Jessica’s excited questions by admitting that he now owned the handsome three-storey Georgian building in which his offices were housed.
He had, he explained to them, bought out his original partner some years previously, and had expanded the business so that he now had several fully qualified staff working for him, as well as an office manager and several clerks.
‘Hear that, Ma? You’re marrying a wealthy man, so hang on to him,’ Jessica teased, but Lacey suspected that it was probably true and that Lewis was indeed very well off.
His car, his clothes and now his offices certainly seemed to bear out that impression. She moved nervously in her seat. Jessica had insisted that her mother sit in the front passenger-seat of the car, next to Lewis, although Lacey would much rather have sat in the back.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the way he flinched a little as he had to brake unexpectedly for someone crossing the road. The removal of the bone marrow he had given for research in addition to temporarily weakening his limb had left a small scar on his upper thigh. Her skin suddenly coloured hotly as she remembered how she had smoothed it, kissed it, tenderly caressing the small wound. She started to tremble inside and hated herself for her weakness. Every ti
me she thought about the way they had made love it affected her like this, making her body start to ache and her senses swim.
Lewis was saying something about its not being far now. She looked at him, focusing briefly on his mouth, her heart turning over inside her as she remembered its delicate friction against her body.
They were clear of the town now, driving through the suburbs and out into the open country, and they were, she recognised with relief—on the opposite side of the town from the area where they had originally set up home.
They turned off the main road into a quiet country lane. Lacey could see a drive ahead of them. Lewis turned into it and she caught her breath in shock as she saw the house.
It was a low white-painted farmhouse with red tiled roofs and lead-paned windows, surrounded by large mature gardens and protected by an encircling ring of trees.
‘Is this it? It’s brilliant!’ Jessica announced. ‘What do you think, Ma?’
Lewis had brought the car to a halt. Both he and Jessica were, she realised, looking at her.
Shakily she told them both, ‘It’s…it’s…very nice.’
‘Very nice!’ Jessica scoffed. ‘Oh, come on, Ma, you can do better than that.’
Lacey gave her a wan smile.
Once long, long ago, on a hot summer afternoon, lying with Lewis on their bed, the heat pressing down on the small, narrow row of houses, she had dreamily described to Lewis the sort of house she dreamed of owning…the sort of house just right for the family she longed to have.
From its exterior this house might have been designed to fit that description, and she was unbearably conscious of the cruel irony that Lewis should own it.
Five years ago, he said he had bought it, plenty of time for him to have forgotten the house she had described to him all those years ago. She reached for the door-handle of the car, suddenly desperate for some fresh air, forgetting that her seatbelt was still fastened.
Jessica was already opening her door and getting out, and Lacey and Lewis were alone in the car.
‘I bought it because of you,’ he told her quietly. ‘I was driving past one day and I saw it.’
‘And it just happened to be for sale…and you thought, Oh, there’s a house like the one Lacey wanted.’ Her voice was choked with tears, bitterness thickening the words.
He was looking towards her, but she couldn’t bear to look at him…couldn’t endure him seeing the misery and unhappiness in her eyes.
‘No, as a matter of fact it wasn’t for sale…but the owners were an elderly couple and thinking about retiring to somewhere more convenient. I told them if they ever did decide to sell to get in touch with me.’
‘You wanted it that much?’ She was puzzled now.
‘I needed it that much,’ he corrected her, bending over her to release her seatbelt.
She could smell the scent of his shampoo, his soap; she could see the male graining of his skin. His head was so close to her that if she moved only slightly she would feel the warmth of his breath against her breast.
A deep shudder ran through her. Beneath her clothes her nipples peaked and hardened.
‘Lacey, I…’
His hand was on her shoulder, his voice low and urgent. She had the oddest feeling that if she looked at him now she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from begging him to kiss her.
‘Come on, you two,’ Jessica urged them from outside. ‘I want to see inside.’
INSIDE, THE HOUSE was perfectly proportioned, a real family home. It should have radiated warmth and welcome but instead it felt empty…cold…unlived in…its rooms bare and austere.
Lacey was appalled. It was like a hotel. No, it was far, far worse than a hotel. It had a lonely, almost institutionalised air about it, a lack of warmth, of life, of love. There were no pictures, no flowers, no small personal belongings. It was sterile…empty.
‘How many bedrooms does it have?’ she heard Jessica asking Lewis.
‘Five,’ he responded as he led the way upstairs. ‘And three bathrooms.’
A large house for a single man. Why had he bought it?
Upstairs the bedrooms were just as barren of any signs of homeliness as those downstairs. Outside the last door Lewis paused, and then said briefly, ‘This last one is my room. I don’t think there’s any need to show you in there.’
The door was slightly open, and as they walked past a current of air caught it, opening it still further, so that Lacey automatically glanced inside.
On the cabinet beside the bed she could see a silver photograph frame. It was turned towards the bed so that she could not see the photograph inside it, but immediately jealousy tore savagely at her. Now she knew why he hadn’t wanted them to see inside his room: it was because he still kept a photograph of her there—the woman he had left her for. His bedroom was obviously still a shrine to her…to his love for her.
As they walked downstairs, Lacey discovered that she was trembling, barely able to contain the intensity of her emotions.
She was a woman, for heaven’s sake, not a girl. It was ridiculous, humiliating…idiotic that she should still feel like this
It was bad enough that Lewis was still able to arouse her sexually, but this jealousy…this despair…this aching, yearning envy of another woman because she possessed his love—surely they did not belong to maturity, to wisdom, to common-sense or all the other things she felt went hand in hand with her age?
The kitchen, though large and well-equipped, was as sterile as the rest of the house. While Lewis made them tea, Lacey tried to exercise her imagination by exchanging the streamlined formica units for something a little less severe and more homely, wooden perhaps with tiled worktops; an Aga replacing the modern split-level cooker; gentle, worn tiles on the floor, covered perhaps by a couple of rugs; a chair in front of the Aga; a large scrubbed table in the middle of the room, so that the whole family could…
She tensed abruptly. What family? she demanded bitterly of herself. The family Lewis had told her he would never have? This was, after all, Lewis’s home and not hers.
And what about her, the other woman? Had she left him when he had told her that he did not intend to have any children? Had he told Lacey that, how would she have reacted? She had always wanted a family—three, hopefully four children. Had Lewis told her in the early days of their marriage that that would not be possible, what would she have done?
Would she have left him to find a man who shared her dream of a family…a man who could give her healthy children? Or would her love for Lewis have been more important to her? Would it have kept her by his side…would she have been prepared to give up her desire to have a family to stay with him? Would her love have been strong enough for that?
She gave a tiny shiver. She thought she knew the answer, but then when she looked at her daughter she wondered…chewing on her bottom lip, worrying at it, as she wondered if over the years her self-denial might not have become corrosive and bitter, eating into the fabric of her love.
Perhaps it was just as well she had never had to make that choice…that Lewis had in effect made it for her, by rejecting her before either of them knew the truth.
‘You’re very quiet.’
Lacey tensed at the soft sound of Lewis’s voice. She hadn’t even realised he was watching her, and she flushed uncomfortably, wondering how long he had been studying her and what he might have read in her unguarded face.
Even now she found it difficult to appear composed when he focused his attention on her, terrified of what she might inadvertently betray.
It was bad enough that sexually he knew how vulnerable she was to him; if he should discover that she loved him as well…
She gave a tiny shiver. Even now, days later, she still woke up in the night, vividly aware of how she had felt when he touched her, aching for him…wanting him, and acutely, bitterly conscious of the fact that she had practically encouraged, if not invited him to make love to her, but making that idiotic admission that there had been no one
else since him.
‘She’s probably redecorating everywhere,’ Jessica told him mischievously, adding, ‘Which room have you chosen for the nursery, Ma?’
‘The house does need a woman’s touch,’ Lewis commented, ignoring the latter part of Jessica’s comment. ‘After I bought it, I…’ He stopped. ‘You still haven’t seen the gardens, and we won’t want to leave it too late getting back. I’ve booked a table for us at eight.’
Since it was Jessica’s last evening at home, Lewis had insisted on taking them out to dinner. Lacey had protested that there was no need, but Jessica had overruled her, assuring her that she would enjoy the treat.
The gardens were well laid out, mainly lawned, with flower beds which were a little too formal for Lacey’s personal taste, although she loved the maturity of the large trees which framed the garden and protected it from view.
While Lewis and Jessica discussed the plausibility of dredging the weed-covered pond and restocking it with koi carp, she walked across the lawn towards the small summer-house at the other side of the garden.
The wisteria which grew over it had finished flowering, but the rose entwined with it had a profusion of pink buds, some of them half-open, the sweet scent surrounding her.
‘Lacey, are you feeling all right?’
She hadn’t heard Lewis approach and she swung round, her face shadowed and pale, her eyes unwittingly revealing the strain she was under.
‘Of course I’m not all right,’ she told him shortly. ‘How could I be? This whole charade…and we don’t seem to be any closer to telling Jessica. Where is she, by the way?’
‘She thought she saw a fish in the pond. She’s still over there looking for it. What would you have preferred? That we told her that we’d simply gone to bed together for old times’ sake?’ He sounded grimly bitter. ‘Is that really the kind of example you want to set her…the impression you want to give her of our relationship?’
‘What relationship? We don’t have a relationship.’