by Penny Jordan
He reached for his discarded book, and then swore softly under his breath as he saw how unsteady his hands were.
All he had achieved tonight for his impatience and physical need had been a few seconds of solace, followed by the knowledge that he had probably driven Jenneth well and truly behind her protective defences.
As he switched out the kitchen light, he wondered where she had actually spent the evening, and grimaced a little to himself. It might be necessary…but that didn’t mean he had to like what he was doing. How much simpler to just go to her and tell her the truth. But he knew what would happen if he did.
She would hear him out, smile at him with that grave, distancing little smile, and then very coolly and firmly send him on his way. No, that was not the answer…in order to succeed, this battle must be conducted from inside her defences, not from outside them.
* * *
‘Jenneth, is this a weed?’ Angelica asked importantly, holding up a piece of chickweed for Jenneth’s inspection.
Jenneth nodded, smiling a little at the little girl’s absorption in their shared task of weeding the herbaceous border. The twins teased her about the way Angelica had attached herself to her, claiming with the unfair forthrightness of brothers that it only upheld their claim that Jenneth had missed her vocation in not marrying young and producing at least half a dozen children. Jenneth had firmly subdued their banter, because she was aware that beneath Angelica’s fierce attachment to her lay a potentially serious problem.
It would be morally unfair to allow Angelica to become dependent on her emotionally, and yet to rebuff the child might cause equally deep psychological scarring; so Jenneth was fighting hard to maintain an attitude which, while allowing her to respond affectionately to the need she sensed within Luke’s daughter, also allowed her to salve her conscience that she was not encouraging Angelica to form a dependence on her from which the little girl would suffer when inevitably they were parted.
The long-lasting heatwave had played havoc with the garden, and so Jenneth had given herself a well-deserved half-day off, and she and Angelica were spending it companiably attacking the weeds.
‘I wish you and Daddy weren’t both going out tonight,’ she confided artlessly, and then added judiciously, ‘I like Kit and Nick, but I love you and Daddy best…’
Jenneth’s heart twisted. She wanted to remonstrate with her, to warn her that she must not love her, to tell her that such loving could only be dangerous, but she was so young and Jenneth knew she wouldn’t understand…
‘Daddy’s going out with some friends, Jenneth; who are you going out with?’
Jenneth swallowed. It was one thing to lie to Luke in the heat of the moment, but quite another to lie to Angelica and the twins.
‘A friend,’ she said vaguely, directing Angelica’s attention to a large patch of weeds in an attempt to deflect her questions.
The twins were out with some friends, and despite the fact that it was a Saturday, and he didn’t take up his new appointment until the following week, Luke was at the hospital.
He would be a good surgeon, Jenneth reflected. He had the necessary clinical detachment for it. His mother would have been so proud of him. Jenneth remembered long-ago conversations with Luke about his aspirations…about his mother’s deteriorating condition and his very evident frustration at not being able to do anything to halt it. She had been one of the warmest human beings Jenneth had ever known, bravely making light of her illness and the pain it caused her. Unlike Luke’s father…a difficult, rather immature man who saw his wife’s suffering only in terms of how it affected his life.
Jenneth remembered the uneasy relationship that had existed between Luke and his father. Too often she had seen Luke’s mouth tighten as he had explained to her why it was necessary for him to break a date, telling her that his father was out somewhere and that he was reluctant to leave his mother on her own.
Luke’s parents’ marriage could not have been a happy one, but Luke’s mother had never allowed her feelings to show. Even so, there had been whispers in the village about the doctor’s attitude towards his wife: people admired her for her bravery and pitied her for her husband’s weaknesses.
She had asked Luke hesitantly once why his parents stayed together when they were so obviously not happy. His mouth had tightened, and he had told her bitterly, ‘My mother loves him…’
Then she had been too young and naïve to know exactly what that meant…what a terrible burden such a love must be both to his mother and to Luke.
Now, with clearer, distant vision, she could see how Luke had worked savagely to maintain the fiction of his parents’ marital happiness in order to protect his mother, and she also recognised what a tremendous burden that must have been for him.
No child should bear the burden of being responsible for its parents’ happiness… She sighed, angry with herself for permitting herself to feel sympathy for him.
* * *
Eleanor’s dinner party was due to commence at half-past eight, but Jenneth had agreed to be there earlier to give her friend a hand.
At half-past six she was ready to leave, wearing a new dress Eleanor had persuaded her to buy in a moment of madness when she had been shopping for an outfit for Louise’s wedding. The silky black and white fabric had a softly bloused top with cap sleeves that revealed the slenderness of her arms, tanned now from her day in the garden. It had a neat boat-shaped neck, demure, so she had thought, not recognising the allure of the way the fabric revealed the delicacy of her collarbone and the feminine arch of her throat.
The skirt was a fan of swirling knife pleats flaring out at hip-level and emphasised by the provocatively twenties-style way the dress narrowed above the pleats, the fabric tying at the waist in a soft floppy bow.
Angelica was playing dominoes with the twins when Jenneth went downstairs. Her eyes opened wide in pleased appreciation as she studied Jenneth’s appearance, and she said wistfully, ‘I wish you were my real mummy, Jenneth, and not just my pretend one.’ And then she pressed herself close to Jenneth, burying her face in her skirt, while the twins exchanged glances that Jenneth didn’t see.
Neither did she see Luke walking into the room, his suit jacket off, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat.
It was only the sharpness of the way he spoke to Angelica, telling her that Jenneth was going out and that she was not to spoil her dress, that alerted Jenneth to his presence, and as she felt Angelica’s tension she hugged her protectively, looking frigidly at Luke for his unnecessary sharpness, and then said softly into Angelica’s hair, ‘Don’t worry, love…you haven’t done any damage.’
She gave Luke another acid look, her eyes narrowing a little as she recognised the tiredness in his eyes. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, exposing powerful tanned forearms, and along his jaw she could see the beginnings of a day’s growth of beard… Her head lurched suddenly and betrayingly and, across the five or six feet that separated them, she was overpoweringly and acutely aware of the hot male scent of his skin.
Disengaging herself from Angelica, and dropping a quick kiss on her head, she said quickly, ‘I must go…’ Then, snatching up her white linen jacket and her handbag, she hurried to the door, pausing only to remind the twins of their responsibilities toward Angelica.
‘Don’t worry.’ Nick grinned at her. ‘We’ll make sure she’s in bed for eight.’ He laughed as Angelica scowled at him, ruffling her hair and then picking her up, making her shriek with mingled outrage and excitement.
* * *
Eleanor, as Jenneth already knew, was a superb hostess, skilled not only at providing the kind of meal that made her guests envy her her domestic abilities, but also at assembling a blending of guests that kept the conversation and the adrenalin flowing.
‘Who’s coming tonight?’ Jenneth asked her, as they worked together putting the final touches to the elegant mahogany dining-table.
‘The Allisons…’ Eleanor told her, mentioning a couple who were old friend
s, and who knew Jenneth quite well. ‘Adrian Barbary…’ She saw the look Jenneth gave her and grinned unrepentantly. ‘I promise you I am not matchmaking…’ And then, when Jenneth gave her a withering look, she complained, ‘Can I help it if the poor man has a crush on you?’
She laughed as Jenneth went faintly pink, and amended with another grin, ‘Actually I didn’t invite him for your benefit. I know I’d be wasting my time, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. He’s been so alone since his mother died…’
Jenneth gave her another withering look, while Eleanor avoided her eyes, and delicately licked some salmon mousse off her finger.
‘Just testing it,’ she explained, putting the empty bowl into the dishwasher. ‘Mmm…who else? Bill and Mary Seddons…’ She pulled a face. ‘Mary rang me this morning and asked me if they could bring someone with them…a colleague of Bill’s, apparently…’
Bill Seddons was a member of the local council, and Jenneth liked both Bill and Mary, his wife.
‘How are things going at home?’ Eleanor suddenly asked Jenneth quietly, watching with shrewd affection as Jenneth ducked her head so that her hair swung across her jawline, obscuring her expression.
‘Not very well,’ she admitted, breaking off as the doorbell rang.
While Eleanor went to answer it, Jenneth walked out into the pretty conservatory that Eleanor had had added to the house after her husband’s death. Its two sets of double doors were both open, creating a welcome waft of air. Beyond the conservatory was a well-designed paved sitting area with pathways leading off it into the garden. Huge Ali Baba-shape jars filled with masses of tumbling plants broke up the empty space, and the old-fashioned bourbon roses growing on the house wall filled the air with their rich scent as Jenneth walked outside.
She heard footsteps coming through the conservatory, and Adrian Barbary’s voice mingling with that of Eleanor and the Allisons, and, putting as bright a smile as she could on her face, she turned round and went to join the others.
Ten minutes later, when the doorbell went again just as Eleanor was pouring people’s drinks, she exclaimed ruefully, ‘It’s at times like these that I most miss having a resident man. Would you finish these for me while I go and let the others in?’ she asked Jenneth.
Jenneth was just pouring herself a glass of the white wine cooler that was one of Eleanor’s specialities when Eleanor returned with Bill and Mary and their visitor.
Jenneth turned round to greet them, the smile dying on her face, to be replaced by a shocked disbelief as she saw Luke standing easily with Bill and Mary, responding to Eleanor’s greeting.
He hadn’t seen her, or so she thought, but suddenly he turned his head and was looking directly at her, and Eleanor, for once oblivious to the undercurrent running between them, started to introduce him to Jenneth.
It was Luke who stopped her, saying easily, ‘Jenneth and I already know one another… In fact,’ he added, giving the assembled group a smile that made Jenneth clench her fists in fierce resentment, ‘Jenneth is at present my landlady…’
There was a small, confused silence of the kind that occurs when good manners prevent people from giving rein to their real feelings; in this case, quite obviously, feelings of acute astonishment, except in the case of Adrian, who glowered suspiciously at Luke and then said unwisely, ‘Jenneth, surely this isn’t true?’
Adrian was very much the product of his mother’s extremely narrow-minded upbringing and, in addition to her resentment against Luke, Jenneth was equally angry at Adrian’s obvious disapproval.
It was left to her to explain through tightly clenched teeth, ‘Luke is an…an old family friend. He and his daughter are staying with us until he finds a suitable house…’
Everyone apart from Eleanor accepted her statement at face value.
The Allisons, unwittingly protecting her, were questioning Luke about his new appointment, and Eleanor, taking pity on her friend’s white face and tense expression, invited her to join her in the kitchen to make a final check on the meal.
Informality being the theme of the evening, none of the guests objected to being left to their own devices, but Jenneth was conscious of the sharp, shrewd look Luke gave her as she made her escape.
‘So that’s him!’ Eleanor exclaimed once they were in the kitchen. She saw Jenneth’s face and added calmly, ‘No, I promise you I had no idea who he was; Bill and Mary simply asked if they could bring a colleague of Bill’s, and I agreed…’
Jenneth felt a little of the tension ease from her aching muscles.
‘I’ve been so on edge since Luke appeared that I think I’m becoming paranoid,’ she said shakily.
Eleanor looked at her for a moment, and then said seriously, ‘Well, at the risk of making you even more paranoid, I must say that your Luke seems a touch proprietorial towards you for a man who threw you over eight years ago to marry someone else.’
Jenneth stared at her.
‘How can you say that?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve only seen him for about five minutes…’
‘Plenty long enough to interpret the body language,’ Eleanor assured her, ‘and believe me, he was giving off quite definite hands-off signals in Adrian’s direction…’
Jenneth wasn’t listening to her. Now that the shock of Luke’s arrival was beginning to wear off, a new hazard was tormenting her.
‘I’m supposed to be spending the evening on a heavy date,’ she groaned.
‘Well if he questions you about it, tell him you changed your mind,’ said Eleanor calmly.
Jenneth thought her friend was taking a rather frivolous attitude to her problems, but Eleanor had seen the determined, possessive way Luke had looked at Jenneth when she wasn’t aware of his scrutiny, and she was by no means convinced that he was anywhere near as indifferent to her as Jenneth appeared to think.
Dinner was the kind of ordeal that Jenneth had believed only existed in television plays.
When Luke had tired of subtly cross-examining Adrian, and laid bare the paucity of Jenneth’s relationship with the other man, he turned his attention to Jenneth herself, saying with deceptive easiness, ‘I must say it was quite a surprise to see you here this evening, Jen…I thought you had a dinner date à deux…’
Jenneth stared at him, knowing that her skin was turning hot with embarrassment and misery, her mind so blank that she couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and then to her surprise Eleanor came to her rescue, saying lightly, ‘She did, but I begged her to cancel it and help me out with this dinner party…’
Luke’s eyebrows climbed queryingly. ‘Friendship, indeed. There aren’t many women who would cancel an evening with their current man to spend it helping out a friend…’
Jenneth was hot with embarrassment and anger. The other five dinner guests were looking at her with varying degrees of curiosity, no doubt wondering who this mythical man was, she reflected bitterly.
Once again, Eleanor rescued her, saying crisply, ‘You’re out of date, I’m afraid. These days modern women place much more value on their friendships.’
After dinner, escaping into the relative solitude of the garden, Jenneth wondered dismally how quickly she could escape. At least there was no need now for her to stay out late to maintain the fiction that she was with her lover.
Eleanor’s garden was her pride and joy, designed after the style of Gertrude Jekyll, and, as Jenneth plucked restlessly at the petal of a white rose in a manner that would have horrified her hostess, she was oblivious to anyone else’s presence until Luke said quietly to her, ‘What a creature of constant surprises you are, Jenneth—giving up so many precious hours with your lover to help Eleanor. Where is he, by the way?’ he asked blandly.
Jenneth bit into her bottom lip. Why was he persisting in torturing her like this? It was obvious that he knew she had been lying to him.
Furious with him and with herself for allowing him to goad her into such a senseless and humiliating situation, she swung round, dislodging a shower of the pale pe
tals and releasing their musky, provocative scent into the air, her voice low and rough with emotion.
‘All right, Luke… I admit it: I lied to you. There is no lover…’ She turned her back on him, staring out into the velvet dusk of the garden with fixed concentration, willing him to go away as she demanded in a choked voice, ‘Satisfied? You’ve marked me as your quarry… hunted me down…trapped me…’ She turned round, her head tilting proudly as she glared bitterly at him, pride making her rise above the agony of her embarrassment. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me…’
He stepped to one side to let her pass, watching her go with a half-brooding, half-wry weariness, muttering to himself with derisive self-contempt once she was out of sight, ‘Great…you handled that really well, chum.’ He bent down and scooped up a handful of the petals Jenneth had displaced, crushing them in his fist so that their intoxicating scent was immediately released as it had been when they’d fallen.
‘Satisfied…’ He grimaced to himself as he tasted the word, and wondered if Jenneth knew what a powerful weapon she held against him; then, discarding the rose petals, he walked slowly back to the house.
Eleanor found Jenneth in the kitchen, vigorously attacking what was left of the washing-up. She stood watching her for a few minutes before she said drily, ‘That’s quite some effect he has on you…’
‘He’s deliberately trying to torment me!’ Jenneth exploded without turning round, her voice almost savage with all that she was feeling. ‘Well, I’ve told him the truth,’ she said crossly, finishing the glass of white wine cooler she had poured herself on her way in from the garden. Her confrontation with Luke had left her feeling hot and bothered, and the wine cooler was deliciously refreshing.
‘That’s about the fourth of those you’ve had,’ Eleanor reminded her. ‘Plus the Bordeaux with dinner.’