by Penny Jordan
On her way through the bedroom she caught sight of her flushed face and hurriedly averted her eyes. She even looked different—more alive…more feminine somehow.
She was just reaching for the door handle when it turned and the door opened inwards. Confronted by the reality of the man who had been her lover, she blushed a warmer pink, all the mental images she had been trying to blot out from the moment she had woken up now surging into her mind. She almost cringed as she remembered how Jonas had made her say his name and plead for his lovemaking. In the cold light of day she ought to have been wondering how on earth it had ever happened, but even that refuge was denied to her. By admitting her real feelings towards him she was forced also to admit that if he were to touch her now, to take her in his arms…
But he did no such thing. Instead he folded his arms over his chest and stood in front of the door glaring at her in an uncompromising fashion while he demanded curtly, ‘Just where the hell do you think you’re going?’
‘Home,’ she told him coolly. ‘Sam will be expecting me.’
‘Sam will be expecting you when I drive you back after lunch.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now only eleven o’clock. Before you leave here, you and I have some talking to do.’
Fear crawled through her. Had he guessed the truth? Was he going to confront her with it, to make her admit it as last night he had made her…
‘Sara!’ His voice was rough with anger, and something else. Compassion? She looked at him and saw the grimness of his mouth. No, she must have imagined it.
‘For God’s sake stop looking at me like that! I’m not going to hurt you.’
The harshness of his expression was unconvincing.
‘I’d never use force against a woman.’
‘No?’ Somehow she managed to keep her voice light and dry. ‘What about last night?’ She was amazed to see the momentary heat stinging his skin. ‘You forced me to…’
‘To admit that you wanted us to make love? That wasn’t the sort of force I was talking about, and you know it. Sara, for God’s sake why do you fight me like this? You wanted me, I wanted you.’
‘No… No, I didn’t want you. I wanted Rick,’ she lied huskily. ‘I told you that last night but you wouldn’t accept it, so I let you believe you were right, and I let myself believe it was Rick who held me in his arms. The fact that he and I had never actually been lovers made it easier somehow. There were no comparisons I could make. You might have possessed me physically, Jonas, but that was all it was; emotionally, mentally, in all the ways that count, it was Rick who was my lover.’
She said it fiercely, trying to convince herself as much as she tried to convince him, only she knew too much to be able to accept the lie. Jonas, obviously, did not. All the colour drained from his face; his eyes when they focused on her were a blank, opaque grey, his body so tense that her throat suddenly ached with her need to recall her cruel words. But what good would it do?
‘You were right,’ said Jonas flatly, confirming all her own private thoughts. ‘It was just sex between us after all. That’s what I came up here to tell you. I realised last night that the woman I thought you were just doesn’t exist. Still,’ his mouth curled slightly, ‘it has to be admitted that it was very good sex. I’ve never had a virgin before. It was quite an experience; all that pent-up frustration. Perhaps we ought to repeat it some time?’
His crudeness stunned her. It was the very last thing she had expected, but she saw as she stepped past him to walk through the door that, despite his cool voice and rigid stance, inwardly he was ragingly angry. She could see it in his eyes.
She had been right not to let him guess the truth, she decided shakily as she hobbled to the top of the stairs. He would have enjoyed tormenting her with it.
* * *
In the event, none of her plans for making sure she did not need to see him again could be put into effect. The day after Sara’s return to the cottage, Vanessa went down with a ‘flu bug which made it impossible for her to take charge of Carly, and in fact Sara found she was spending a good deal of her time at Jonas’s house nursing her sister-in-law to-be.
Jonas, she noticed, kept well out of sight whenever she was in the house, and in the third week of her convalescence Vanessa complained that she was worried that Jonas was working far too hard.
‘He’s out almost from dawn to dusk,’ she told Sara worriedly, ‘and I know it’s taking its toll on him, because he’s so grim. The one thing you could always rely on Jonas for was his sense of humour, but when I started to tell him about how you almost jumped out of your skin when Peter drove the Land Rover into the yard the other day, he almost bit my head off.’
‘You should be worrying about Sam now, not your brother,’ Sara advised, wanting to get off such a potentially dangerous subject.
‘Mmm. I do wish Jonas would settle down and get married. He needs a wife, and he’d make such a good father. He loves kids, you know. You should have seen him with Carly the other day when Sam brought her round. Do you know, that’s the first time I can remember him taking any time off since I’ve been ill, and it would have to be the day you weren’t here, too. At one time I really hoped that you and he… Sara… what on earth’s wrong?’ Vanessa asked worriedly, as Sara suddenly went pale and clutched on to the back of a chair for support.
She had got up quickly, unable to bear listening to Vanessa talking about Jonas any longer, and had suddenly felt dreadfully faint.
‘It’s nothing. I’m fine now,’ she assured Vanessa as she sat down.
‘Oh, I hope you’re not going to go down with this ‘flu, not with the wedding only a month away.’
Sara smile wanly; she was pretty sure she wasn’t starting with ‘flu. For the past four mornings in succession she had been quite sick on waking, and she was well enough acquainted with her own system to suspect she had met that fate at one time supposed to be the worst possible one that could befall an unmarried woman. If she was pregnant there was no way she could have the baby. How could she? She had no home, no job… The complications arising if she continued with the pregnancy were so potentially convoluted and damaging. Jonas was going to be Sam’s brother-in-law; how on earth could she have his illegitimate child?
These were the logical and reasoned arguments she kept well to the forefront of her mind the next day as she drove into Dorchester. In her handbag was a piece of paper bearing the name and address of a charitable organisation that counselled girls in her position and, if necessary, helped them to arrange a termination. Termination? She shivered tensely, knowing that not even in her own thoughts did she want to admit what she was doing. She was going to arrange for her baby to be aborted, its short life ended almost before it had begun.
Nausea clawed at the pit of her stomach as she tried to stem the flood-tide of her thoughts. Her heart revolted against the idea, but she was trying not to listen to her heart. She had spent all last night, all the last few nights, in fact, telling herself that she mustn’t be emotional and illogical, that she must bear in mind that her decision wouldn’t just affect herself, that she could hardly go away and have her baby in complete secrecy like a heroine in a novelette. Sam would have to know, and being Sam he would want to hear the name of the father. And, knowing her, he would also know that she had not taken him as a lover light-heartedly. No… No, termination was the only way.
But when she had parked the car, she found her footsteps dragging as she made her way to the small, cluttered office belonging to the organisation. Oh God, she thought, I can’t…
The counsellor who saw her was brisk but understanding, not attempting to put pressure on her in any way, but competently outlining the alternatives to her. There were questions Sara had to answer, notes that had to be made, and even when she managed to anounce her decision without wavering, the counsellor suggested firmly, ‘We normally advise people to take two or three days to think over their decison; after all, at this stage it is still reversible… You wouldn’t believe the number of
girls who find that once the immediate anxiety of doing something about their pregnancy has gone, they have second thoughts. I can’t tell you the number of girls we get coming in here to show off their babies—girls who originally were most adamant that they wanted an abortion.’
Forcing her mouth to curl into a polite smile, Sara left.
The street in which the office was housed was a long, busy one cluttered with shoppers on a Thursday afternoon, but Sara reached the end of it without realising how she had done so. Somehow she found her way back to her car and drove home to the cottage.
Mercifully it was empty. Vanessa, she learned later, had taken Sam and Carly to Essex to introduce them to her mother and Jonas’s father.
They came back late, so full of high spirits and chatter that none of them noticed how withdrawn she was.
The discovery of her pregnancy caused a delay in her plans to find herself a flat and a job in London just as soon as she could, and just over a week after her initial interview with her counsellor, as she stood shakily in her bathroom, still slightly weak from the effect of her morning sickness, Sara reflected that it was just as well that Sam’s bedroom was downstairs. If it hadn’t been for that, there was no way she could have kept her condition a secret from her brother. As it was, he had started worrying about her pallor and lack of appetite, and she had also noticed that he had taken to watching her covertly. She had practically made up her mind what she was going to do. Two days ago she had had another meeting with her counsellor who, after talking with her, had quietly made an appointment for her at a small private clinic. She was to attend there this morning, and because her pregnancy was still at a relatively non-advanced stage there would be no necessity for her to stay overnight. Deliberately Sara had forced herself to ignore what was happening. She told herself she must pretend it was all part of some horrible nightmare; that was the only way she could endure what she had to do. Even now, her hand hovered protectively over her stomach, her heart revolting against her decision. But what real alternative did she have?
She had told Sam she was going into Dorchester to do some shopping. Now, when she went downstairs to tell him she was about to leave, he frowned at her, catching hold of her wrist and tugging her towards him when she would have turned away.
‘You don’t look well, Sara,’ he said gently. ‘Something’s wrong. What is it? Surely you can tell me? Is it because Vanessa and I are getting married? Because you think I’m betraying Holly’s memory?’
He saw the answer in her eyes even before she shook her head vigorously. Admitting her love for Jonas had forced her to admit other things she had been reluctant to see. Sam had been right when he said that Holly would not have wanted him and Carly to mourn her for the rest of their lives.
‘It’s Jonas, isn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘No, don’t deny it, Sara.’
‘You haven’t said…’
‘I haven’t said a word to anyone,’ he reassured her firmly. ‘And nor will I do so. Is it because of him that you want to leave and go back to London? Why? He seemed attracted to you.’
‘Attraction isn’t love,’ she broke in hastily. It was too painful to talk to Sam like this. Listening to him brought home to her how impossible it was for her to continue with her pregnancy. If she did, there was no way Sam would not immediately guess the identity of the baby’s father. If the situation wasn’t so tragic it might almost be farcical; put them in period costumes and they could all be actors in one of Congreve’s witty plays on morals and manners.
‘Strange how things work out,’ Sam mused. ‘You came down here determined to believe Jonas the villain of the piece, the cruel landowner intent on hounding Miss Betts; you were convinced that you’d never love anyone but Rick, and…’
‘And I’ve been proved wrong on both counts. Far from hounding Miss Betts, Jonas was actually very kind to her. I know that, Sam, and I also know I was wrong about Rick. My love for him was a young girl’s love, while Jonas… I can’t talk about it,’ she told him painfully. ‘I have to go out; I…’
‘Don’t run away from your feelings, Sara,’ Sam cautioned her gently. ‘You know, you could be wrong. Jonas…’
‘Jonas doesn’t love me,’ she interrupted, trying to stop her mouth from trembling as, with a sense of well and truly having burnt her boats behind her, she added huskily, ‘physically he might want me, Sam, but that’s all there is to it. I know because he told me so himself.’
She couldn’t bear to see the pity she knew would be in her brother’s eyes, and, tugging her wrist free of his grip, she hurried out to her car.
She was in no state to drive, but luckily she had the country road almost entirely to herself until she got nearer to Dorchester. The clinic was housed in a new building, recently constructed but designed to fit in with the architecture of the rest of the town. She had to park five minutes’ walk away from it, but as she drew closer to the building she found her footsteps dragging. Outside she delayed even longer, fumbling in her handbag for her appointment card and holding it in her hand while she took a deep steadying breath. What on earth was she delaying for? Her decision had already been made; there was, after all, no other choice. Surely her talk with Sam only this morning had confirmed that? And yet still she hesitated, drawing a curious stare from a couple of nurses who emerged from the building. A cold sweat gripped her body; beads of perspiration lined her forehead, and her palms were clammy and chilled. She wanted to walk up the steps, but somehow her legs wouldn’t obey her, and then suddenly, as she stared at the closed door, Sara knew that she couldn’t go through with it.
The relief that followed the admission made her feel as giddy as though she had drunk a full glass of wine. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time, and so shaky that it was several seconds before she could turn away from the clinic and walk down the street.
The appointment card still clutched tightly in her hand, she wasn’t even aware that she was crying until her surroundings became so blurred that she realised something was wrong.
She put a shaking hand up to her face, unaware of the curious stares of passers-by as she looked unseeingly at her damp fingers. Someone jostled her as they hurried past, and she collided abruptly with a lamp-post.
‘Sara!’
The shock of hearing her name spoken by the last man on earth she wanted to see, the hard warmth of his fingers on her arm as he steadied her, had the opposite effect from that intended.
The world swung wildly out of focus as Jonas moved closer to her, shielding her from the buffeting bodies and curious eyes, a harshly grim look about his mouth as he said her name again.
But she was beyond hearing it, beyond doing anything other than sinking gratefully into the darkness waiting for her.
When she came round she was lying down in the back of Jonas’s car. He was leaning against the open door, watching her grimly. In his hand…her eyes darted helplessly back to his face as she saw the small, betraying appointment card.
‘It was mine, wasn’t it?’ he demanded harshly. ‘My child and you…’
Something in her face must have given her away, because he suddenly tensed and then drew in a rasping breath with an effort that made his shirt stretch across his chest. Leaning into the car he placed his hand on her stomach, and said thickly, ‘You haven’t done it yet, have you… Have you?’
She shook her head, the tears clogging her throat, making it almost impossible for her to do more than say in a choked whisper, ‘I couldn’t…I meant to, but I couldn’t go through with it,’ and then she was crying in earnest, terrible, racking sobs that tore at her body.
Something in his face seemed to relax a little, although his voice was still harsh as he said, ‘No, and you’re not going to; I intend to make damn sure of that.’
‘But I can’t have it…’ She was beyond reason now, the effect of shock upon shock such that she could barely comprehend that it was actually Jonas she was talking to and not some figment of her imagination sent to play Devil’s a
dvocate. ‘Even if I go away I can’t keep it a secret. Sam will want to know who the father is. I couldn’t lie to him, and anyway he would probably guess. How could I have your child, when Sam’s marrying your sister, and…’
‘Quite easily,’ Jonas told her curtly, interrupting her muddled flow of words. ‘We’ll get married.’
It stemmed her tears and made her struggle to sit up so that she could look at him.
‘But we can’t!’
‘Why not? Because you’re still in love with your precious Rick?’ His mouth twisted. ‘Maybe, but you’re carrying my child. A child I don’t intend to let you abort, and that if you’re honest you don’t want to abort, otherwise you wouldn’t be here now.’
It was so true that she could think of no response other than to bite painfully on her lower lip.
‘But you don’t want to marry me,’ she said at last.
He shrugged, ‘Maybe not, but I’d prefer marrying you to standing by while you destroy our child, and I agree with you. In the circumstances it isn’t on that you could bring it up alone. Even if that was what I wanted, and it isn’t. I’ve always believed that both parents are equally responsible for the conception of a child, and so are equally responsible for its upbringing and care. I’ve no intention or desire to play the role of part-time father.’
‘But we can’t marry, just like that,’ protested Sara weakly. Even to her own ears her protest sounded weak and almost feeble-minded, but the shock of seeing him, the total unexpectedness of his proposal, seemed to have robbed her of the ability to reason properly. With his words, with his assumption of control, he was taking from her the burden of having to worry, and it struck her as ironic that she, who had always prided herself so much on her independence, should be so willing to let herself be dictated to. Sitting here in the back of his car while he frowned down at her with curt impatience was surely the least lover-like of situations, and yet in a way she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling in her life. She wanted to marry him, she acknowledged wryly. No doubt when she felt stronger she would regret giving in to his coercion, and even now some shreds of common sense and logic warned her that nothing but heartbreak could come from the sort of marriage Jonas would have in mind. To marry a man without having his love, when she loved him so desperately, was surely the deepest folly known to womankind. And yet others had done it before her, and she would have his child to love. Even if she hadn’t loved him she would have been grateful to him for providing her with the opportunity to keep her baby. But if she didn’t love him it would all be so much easier, she thought bitterly. If she didn’t love him she wouldn’t be so desperately afraid of betraying herself to him, of…