by Penny Jordan
The bride and groom were coming down the aisle towards them. Angelica, blissfully unaware of the fierce undercurrents seething between the two adults, grasped Jenneth’s hand and demanded, ‘Doesn’t she look lovely?’ Then, without realising it, she acquitted Louise of any blame for Luke’s appearance by adding innocently, ‘We weren’t going to come today, but Daddy had to come back from America because he’s got a new job, and I persuaded him to bring me…’ This was accompanied by a wide beam of pleasure, to which Jenneth in her vulnerable and defenceless state found it impossible not to respond.
‘Can we sit with you at the reception?’ Angelica asked eagerly, following up her advantage with innocent swiftness. ‘I don’t have a mummy and I don’t like the way people look at me and Daddy when we’re on our own,’ she confided appealingly to Jenneth, while in the background Jenneth heard Luke snap warningly,
‘Angelica, that’s enough…’
As tears started in the clear green eyes, so like Luke’s that Jenneth acknowledged she ought to have known immediately who she was, she found herself instinctively protecting the child from her father’s anger, saying fiercely, ‘Don’t…’ and then, before she could overcome her own shock, Angelica announced happily,
‘See, Daddy, she doesn’t mind at all. I knew you wouldn’t… ’Cos you’re here on your own, too, aren’t you?’ she said artlessly, adding with a childish forthrightness that struck Jenneth to the heart, ‘You aren’t wearing a wedding ring, so that means that you’re not married, doesn’t it? And I expect you don’t want to sit on your own either. It will be fun,’ she finished, beaming up at Jenneth. ‘We can pretend that we’re a real family…’
And, before Jenneth could make the appalled denial that was choking in her throat, Louise and George drew level with them, and she had a moment’s startled realisation that her friend’s husband looked nothing like George-like, and that Louise was wearing a totally unfamiliar look of blissful bemusement that made her own heart ache treacherously.
Somehow or other she discovered that she was outside with the rest of the guests crowding around the newly married couple, and that Angelica had fixed herself firmly to her side, and was clutching her hand with what almost amounted to possessiveness, chattering brightly to her so that Jenneth hadn’t the heart to reject her and quell the happiness in her eyes by telling her that she wanted nothing to do with her.
It was several moments before they managed to break through the crush to reach Louise, and when her friend saw the little girl clinging firmly to Jenneth’s side, her eyes darkened with dismay and she said uncertainly, ‘Jenneth, I promise you I had no idea…’
Before Jenneth could say anything, Angelica clutched even harder at her hand and announced, not just to Louise, but also to the crowd of people within earshot of her carrying, piping voice, ‘Jenneth’s going to be my pretend mummy, Aunt Louise.’
As Jenneth heard the hard male voice say warningly behind her, ‘Angelica,’ she felt the shock of her body’s awareness of Luke’s tall male presence behind her, and her body trembled so visibly that she was not surprised to see the concern in Louise’s eyes.
If she had felt that the day could hold nothing worse than it had already held, she found she was wrong, when she heard Louise’s mother saying firmly. ‘Luke, Jenneth looks as though she’s about to faint…help her, will you?’
Against her back and arm she felt the hands whose touch had tormented her dreams for far too many years, holding her firmly but dispassionately, as Luke briskly obeyed his aunt’s instructions and manoeuvred her out of the crush of people around the church porch and into the privacy of the churchyard.
Now, when she would have given anything to faint and thereby escape a situation which was fast outstripping the very worst of her nightmares, her body remained stubbornly determined not to allow her that escape.
Instinctively she pulled away from Luke, not surprised that he let her go—he must be loathing this every bit as much as she was, but he could only be suffering revulsion, and not the agonising awareness of feelings she ached to be able to deny which were oppressing her.
‘How are you getting back to the house?’ she heard him asking her distantly, and, too surprised to lie, she told him.
‘Walking? In this heat?’ She watched the dark eyebrows draw together, and saw that the years had not been entirely kind to him and that, although nothing ever could diminish his masculinity, there were hard grooves etched either side of his mouth, and tiny lines fanning out from his eyes, suggesting that his life had not been without pain.
That should have made her feel glad, but it didn’t. She had an appalling, impossible impulse to reach out and touch him. To smooth those lines away…to make him smile, the old, familiar, teasing smile that had once made her stomach curl with pleasure and her body ache with desire.
‘My car’s just round the corner. We’ll give you a lift…’
‘No!’ The panic-stricken denial was out before she could stop it, leaving them both to look at one another in a silence that was impregnated with an emotional hostility Jenneth could almost taste.
In the distance the photographer was busily at work, and she could hear the hum of conversation, but it was a distant, unobtrusive hum, as though she and Luke were sealed into an intimacy that locked out the rest of the human race.
And then Angelica piped up shrilly and uncertainly, ‘But, Jenneth, you promised that you were going to be my pretend mummy…’
Under the sardonic, bitter eyes of her father Jenneth turned towards the little girl, the words of denial burning her throat until she saw the vulnerable look in her eyes and knew that she just could not do it.
CHAPTER THREE
THE rest of the afternoon turned into a nightmare over which Jenneth felt she had no control whatsoever. Angelica had attached herself to her with all the skill and determination of a limpet. Although in other circumstances she might have been able to detach herself sufficiently to feel a certain degree of unkind amusement at Luke’s very obvious frustration with his daughter’s apparent instant rapport with her, at the moment, all her energy was concentrated on simply getting through the appalling ordeal without betraying to anyone just what she was going through. She was only too aware of the curious, knowing eyes on her of people who had watched her grow up and fall in love with the man now seated opposite her at one of the beautifully decorated round tables in the marquee on the vicarage lawn.
It wasn’t just the shock of Luke’s unexpected arrival…it wasn’t just her sharp wariness of the interest and speculation they were causing. No, what she was feeling went deeper than that, and hurt so painfully that even drawing breath made her throat ache… What she was experiencing was an intense bitter-sweet awareness of how easy it would be to let time slip back, and to pretend, as Angelica was so happily doing, that the three of them belonged together…that they were the family unit Angelica had confided to her she wanted so much; and it was this awareness of the extent of her vulnerability that threatened her even more than Luke’s presence.
When, after barely touching the delicious buffet, he excused himself, saying that he must go and make his peace with his aunt and uncle for his late arrival, Jenneth expelled a shaky breath of relief. Her stomach was tied in knots and her throat ached with tension. Angelica, who had demurely refused to go with him, smiled warmly at her and eyed her thoughtfully. Luke returned for the speeches and toasts, and as soon as they were over it was Jenneth’s turn to excuse herself, saying quite truthfully that she had promised to help Louise get changed.
Angelica wanted to go with her, but Luke restrained her, and it was only as she got shakily to her feet to walk away from him that Jenneth realised that they had barely exchanged more than half a dozen grimly polite words in all the time they had been together.
Her heart sank with the acknowledgement, knowing that Luke had found the embarrassment of them being thrown together equally as onerous as she had done herself.
She said as much to Louise when
the two of them were alone in Louise’s bedroom. It was at the side of the house, overlooking an old-fashioned rose garden, and the scent of the bourbon roses came wafting into the room from the open french windows.
Louise’s bedroom had a tiny wrought-iron balcony, with french windows opening on to it, and as teenagers they had both giggled over the possibility of some romantic Lothario climbing up the thorny roses outside to serenade Louise…
Listening to her impassioned outburst, Louise eyed her friend thoughtfully, and then said quietly, ‘I think you’re wrong, Jenneth. After all, if Luke hadn’t wanted to sit with you, he needn’t have…’
‘Angelica didn’t give him any choice in the matter,’ Jenneth told her bitterly.
Louise chuckled. ‘No, she does seem to have taken quite a fancy to you, doesn’t she? Poor kid—I feel sorry for her, I must admit…Luke’s away from home more than he’s there, and his housekeeper, although very efficient, is scarcely warm-hearted…’ She looked thoughtfully at her friend and added quietly, ‘It’s no secret in the family that Angelica would dearly love Luke to marry again. She told Ma last Christmas that all she really wanted was a proper mother. Poor Ma. She told me she was dumbfounded; Luke had bought the kid a bike…’
‘Not a very good mother-substitute,’ Jenneth agreed jerkily. She ached to tell her friend that she didn’t want these confidences, that she wasn’t strong enough to withstand them, and that the mere thought of Luke marrying again made her feel sick with the force of feelings she had thought long ago safely banished from her life.
One glance into his eyes…one second’s realisation of his presence…that was all it had taken to show her that, whatever she had chosen to tell herself, nothing had changed. He still had the power to affect her on such a basic level that she was practically in shock from the intensity of it.
She hadn’t realised that Louise was looking at her, and, as their eyes met in the mirror and she saw the sympathy in her friend’s, she jerked her head away… But Louise had known her too long and cared for her too much to remain silent.
‘You still love him, don’t you?’ she said softly.
Jenneth gave a shudder and a tense, dry sob, shaking her head in a useless denial.
‘Oh, Jen…I’m so sorry. I should have guessed. The way you refused to talk about your engagement to him… The way you’ve avoided him all these years…’ Louise gnawed her bottom lip and said ruefully, ‘Today must have been hell for you.’
Jenneth made a strangled sound in her throat. If what she had already gone through was hell, then this was purgatory itself. She loathed discussing her feelings with other people…even with someone as close to her as Louise.
‘Which reminds me,’ Louise added thoughtfully, ignoring her withdrawal. ‘I meant to tax you with it before, but somehow or other it slipped my mind. Luke asked me the most peculiar question about you last Christmas…’
Jenneth who had been busy unfastening the buttons securing Louise’s wedding dress, tensed, unable to believe that Luke felt enough curiosity about her to ask any questions, never mind peculiar ones.
‘Let’s go and stand by the window,’ Louise suggested. ‘The heat in here’s stifling…’
Obligingly, Jenneth moved with her until they were standing right in front of the open balcony doors.
‘No one will be able to see us,’ she told Jenneth comfortably as she stepped out of her dress. ‘Dad’s banned everyone from going anywhere near his precious roses. Now, where was I? Last Christmas…Luke collared me while I was in the kitchen stacking the dishwasher, and made a derisive comment about the number and stamina of your legion of lovers, and said something about being curious to know whether you were ever likely to deign to marry any of them…’
When Jenneth made no response, she turned round and took hold of her friend’s shoulders, forcing Jenneth to meet her eyes as she said quietly, ‘Jen, you and I both know there hasn’t been one lover, never mind an unending procession of them…’
There was a long, painful pause, and then Jenneth asked unsteadily, ‘Did you tell Luke that?’
‘No,’ Louise assured her. ‘But I must admit I was curious about where he’d got hold of such an erroneous impression of you.’
Another long pause, and then Jenneth said reluctantly, ‘I gave it to him. I…’ Then, knowing that Louise wouldn’t be satisfied until she had dragged the full story from her, she explained, ‘It was that year we spent Christmas with you, and Luke turned up with Angelica. Mum and Dad hadn’t been dead very long then, and I suppose I was feeling emotionally vulnerable. Seeing Luke with Angelica…and being reminded…’ She bit her lip and then, when she had regained control of herself, said quietly, ‘From something the twins said, Luke got the impression that I was having a physical relationship with a man who in actual fact was only a very casual friend. He taxed me with it, making several cutting remarks about how I’d changed…’ She gave a tired shrug. ‘I let him think he was right…and more… Out of pride, I suppose. I didn’t want him to think I was still the same stupid child who had mooned about after him like an idiot…’
‘Mmm…well, you certainly deceived him to good effect,’ Louise told her drily. ‘Odd, that… Luke’s always been almost uncomfortably percipient. I should have thought he’d have seen right through that kind of pretence, especially when…’
‘It’s so obvious that I’m lacking in sexual allure,’ Jenneth finished bitterly for her, but Louise ignored her acid tone and corrected mildly,
‘What I was going to say was when the two of you had been so close.’
‘“Had been” being the operative tense,’ Jenneth reminded her. ‘Anyway, it’s all in the past and totally unimportant now…’
‘If you discount the fact that you still love him,’ Louise reminded her. ‘Remember?’
Jenneth bit her lip, terrified that she was going to break down completely. ‘Don’t, please…’ she managed in a stifled voice that brought a soft sound of regret to her friend’s lips. And then Jenneth said fiercely, ‘I remember all right, Louise. I remember how he came to me and told me that he was breaking off our engagement because another girl was having his child.’
Louise looked at her in compassionate sympathy and said ruefully, ‘I’m so sorry, Jen… I have been blind, haven’t I?’
She would have pursued the subject, but Jenneth couldn’t endure any more.
‘Look at the time,’ she commanded huskily. ‘You’ve got to be at the airport in time for the flight…’
They both moved away from the window as Jenneth went to take Louise’s going-away outfit off the hanger, and neither of them saw the shadow cast by the motionless figure of the man standing directly beneath it.
He had gone into the rose garden intending to have a private and very forthright word with his daughter about the embarrassment she was causing both Jenneth and himself in attaching herself to Jenneth, but, as he was the first to admit, there were times when Angelica could wind him round her little finger. The tears that had immediately sprung to her eyes had only increased the guilt he already felt, and when she pulled away from him, her face streaked with tears of pride and anger, he had let her go.
He hadn’t intended to linger in the garden, but the sound of Jenneth’s voice had drawn him, and then, when he had realised what she was saying…
* * *
Angelica, who had been watching for her father with wary eyes, was astonished when he came up to her and ruffled her hair with a teasing grin, asking her if she had managed to get hold of any confetti.
Hesitantly she told him that Jenneth had promised to share hers with her, half expecting to see his smile banished by a frown, but instead his smile had widened and he had said in a way that made her feel that he was laughing, inside, ‘Well, we’d better make sure that we find her, so that she can keep her promise, hadn’t we?’
He was good as his word, and Jenneth, who had hoped to avoid him in the crush waving the married couple off, was disconcerted when he suddenly
materialised at her side, saying as easily as he might have done nine years ago, when there were no bitter memories between them, ‘Angelica tells me you’ve promised to share your confetti with us.’ And then he picked up the little girl who was standing between them, watching them. Before Jenneth could move he stepped into the space Angelica had left, so that his dark suit-clad shoulder pressed against her as she turned to offer Angelica her box of confetti, and for a moment she was held immobile by the full impact of the green eyes as they studied her openly and thoroughly. Then, as the crowd surged around them and the breeze teased the silken strands of her hair, uncovered now that she had discarded her hat, he reached out and tucked the errant strands behind her ear.
The gesture was as familiar to her as her own face, and it froze her to a tension so obvious that the hand touching her hair stilled, its fingertips resting for the space of a heartbeat against her face in a gesture that, shockingly, seemed to offer comfort.
Jenneth withdrew from it as though scorched, causing Angelica to stare from her father to her new friend with puzzled eyes, sensing the awareness that seethed silently between them but too young to understand the cause of it. Then her attention was caught by the emergence of the bride and groom as they laughingly prepared to run the gamut of friends and relatives, gathered along the path to the front gate.
‘They’re here,’ she told Jenneth excitedly, delving into the box of confetti, and in the ensuing disturbance Jenneth was able to step back and put a safe distance between herself and Luke.
When Louise reached her, she stopped and hugged her affectionately, producing a thin, square tissue-wrapped parcel which she handed to Jenneth with a grin…and a wicked smile which Jenneth only understood later, as she whispered to her, ‘An unofficial thank-you for my unofficial bridesmaid, which reminds me…hold yourself in readiness to become a godmama…’