Cassandra was no longer fooled by her unhappiness today, knew it had nothing to do with her father not being there, nothing to do with Charles not being there either. The reason she had been so troubled and unhappy today came from another reason entirely, from something that had been forcing itself into her consciousness since they visited Peter this morning.
Somewhere, somehow—oh, God, she didn’t know how!—she had fallen in love with Jonas!
How long had she been running away from that knowledge? Since last night when she had told him she wanted the marriage to exist in name only? Since Jonas had told her he wanted to marry her? Before that?
Oh, God, she didn’t know when she had begun to love this man who could be so hard and unyielding with anyone who opposed him, and yet so gentle with a child he knew loved him! Maybe that was when she had begun to love him too. Because she did love him.
Could she have fought him more strongly over his demand that she marry him and give him her shares as a wedding gift, or had she secretly welcomed the excuse to become his wife? Not then, she assured herself heavily; then she had been too busy denying her own feelings for this man to realise what she wanted. But now? Now she wanted to be his wife. Because she loved him—this man who had told her he would run away from any love that was offered to him!
What had contused and deceived her about her feelings towards Jonas was that loving him was nothing like loving Charles had been. Charles, for all that he had been in his forties when they married, had been like a child who needed protecting, from himself as much as anything else. With Jonas it was the opposite: he wanted to protect. And whenever she was with him she felt singingly alive, more alive than she had ever felt in her life before.
Charles…
What would he make of this love she had for his younger half-brother? Whatever animosity there had been between the two men in the past, Charles had tried to bridge the gulf by inviting Jonas to their wedding, a gesture that had been clearly rebuffed. But Charles had tried again, by leaving Jonas such a large portion of his shares on his death, something Jonas hadn’t rejected, although he clearly didn’t need the shares or the headache the company had brought with it—not if his personal wealth was all that he claimed it was, and she had no reason to doubt it. Had Charles realised Jonas was probably the only one who could turn the company around? Even if it was in this way!
And yet she loved Jonas…
‘What are you thinking about?’
She had been so lost in the terrible wonder of her feelings for this man that she hadn’t even realised he was now watching her with narrowed dark eyes, the stilling of her caressing hand against his nape seeming to have been what alerted him to her preoccupied thoughts.
* * *
Cassandra looked up at him with pained eyes, longing for the return of the passionate lover she had known only minutes ago, the man who had wanted only to give to her.
But already the coldly wary Jonas was taking that man’s place, his expression grim as he moved to lie at her side. ‘You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?’ he accused harshly, moving to pull on his clothes with unhurried force.
The blaze of colour that instantly heightened her cheeks gave her away, and she gave a choked cry of protest as Jonas stood up forcefully, disgust etched in every hard line of his face as he looked down at her.
‘It wasn’t like that, Jonas,’ she told him beseechingly, sitting up.
For a moment, a very brief moment, he seemed transfixed by her naked beauty in the golden firelight, and then the coldness returned to his expression. He turned away, fully dressed now, dragging his jacket from the back of the chair where he had thrown it earlier. ‘You can have your “marriage of convenience”, Cassandra,’ he rasped viciously. ‘I have no intention of taking Charles’s place in your sensual imaginings ever again!’
‘But it—’
‘Don’t bother to get up,’ he scorned her lack of clothing as he looked down at her contemptuously. Cassandra instantly felt self-conscious in her nakedness in the face of such angry derision, reaching out to clutch her sweater to her now, a fact Jonas viewed with a scornful twist of his mouth. ‘I can see myself out!’
‘Jonas, please!’ she managed to cry out as he reached the door. ‘Let me explain!’
He turned briefly. ‘There’s nothing to explain. I hope you enjoy your memories of your dead husband, Cassandra,’ he added hardly. ‘Because this one will never share your bed again!’ He slammed out of the room, and she heard him slam out of the house two seconds later.
She rolled over and buried her face in her hands, crying as she hadn’t cried since Charles died. In some ways this pain was even worse than losing Charles had been. And she had years stretching ahead of her as Jonas’s wife, years of loving a man who hated and despised her…!
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘YOU’RE supposed to look like this after the honeymoon, Cassandra, not before,’ Joy taunted softly.
‘Hmm?’ Cassandra looked at her sister vaguely, lost in her own thoughts.
She had just brought Bethany over to spend the afternoon with her grandmother, having an appointment herself this afternoon that she would rather Bethany—and Bethany’s ears, especially!—weren’t present at.
Unfortunately, it seemed she had to run the gauntlet of her sister’s enigmatic remarks before she could make her escape; Bethany had already set off in search of her grandmother, after having been informed she was in the dining-room arranging flowers.
Joy grinned at her knowingly. ‘Dark shadows under the eyes from lack of sleep!’ she supplied suggestively.
Cassandra knew her sister was right about the dark shadows, and Joy was also right about them being caused from lack of sleep—but it wasn’t for the reason she was implying!
The truth of the matter was Cassandra had found little comfort in sleep since Christmas Day. In fact, she had found little comfort in anything since that day, didn’t even know how she had got through the rest of Christmas without actually breaking down!
Jonas seemed to have been at her side every minute of the day, an ominous presence, even the mocking humour gone from him now. He hardly gave the impression of being a newly engaged man! And as such the speed with which he was organising the wedding must hardly seem credible to anyone observing the two of them together; they didn’t so much as touch, let alone seem desperate to ‘be together’!
But Jonas had organised the wedding—not before the New Year, as he had wanted, but for January the second, which was just as good in his eyes—the first working day after the long festive holidays. The day he would make sure the accounts were correct for the year-end audit…
The only time Jonas pointedly left her alone was at night. And it was during those long sleepless nights that Cassandra thought of him, remembering everything about that single time he had made love to her. If he was to be believed—and she had never found a single reason to doubt he always meant what he said!—then it was a memory that was going to have to last her a lifetime.
Joy had been right: Jonas did make an unforgettable lover—so unforgettable that Cassandra ached for him to make love to her again…!
‘Not that I thought for one moment that Jonas would wait for your wedding night,’ Joy dismissed drily. ‘But I’m a little surprised at you, Cassandra,’ she added tauntingly. ‘Couldn’t resist seeing if I was right, hmm?’ She arched dark brows, eagerly inviting confidences.
Considering the two of them had never been close enough for Cassandra to want to confide in her sister in the past, she certainly wasn’t going to break the habit of a lifetime where Jonas was concerned. Especially not when Joy was so near the truth!
‘Tell Mummy I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she told Joy briskly, not willing to get into any sort of conversation about her relationship with Jonas; it was nonexistent at the moment, anyway. Jonas couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge her presence most of the time, giving most of his attention to Bethany. Not that her daughter objected, and neither di
d Cassandra in this instance; it was important that Jonas and Bethany form an emotional bond, and she was feeling too raw herself at the moment to be able to contend with his verbal sparring with any degree of dignity.
‘Off to meet Simeon?’ her sister taunted, obviously piqued now at not getting the reaction from Cassandra that she wanted over her teasing, knowing very well that she hadn’t seen Simeon on a social level since she became engaged to Jonas. ‘Or are you and Jonas sneaking off for a romantic afternoon together?’ she drawled mockingly, both of them knowing Jonas was hardly the type to ‘sneak’ off anywhere, let alone for a romantic afternoon.
‘I should be back before tea,’ Cassandra continued with her own conversation regardless. ‘But if I should happen to be delayed…’
‘I’m sure we can manage to feed Bethany,’ Joy assured her in a disgruntled voice. ‘Great inconvenience these school holidays, aren’t they?’ She frowned.
Cassandra had never thought so, either now or in the past. In fact, she was sure she would have gone insane these last few days without Bethany at home to keep her spirits up. Nothing could seem quite so black and gloomy with her sunny daughter at her side!
‘Bye, Joy,’ she said drily, moving to the open doorway.
‘I’m looking forward to the rehearsal this evening,’ her sister called after her softly.
Cassandra stiffened, turning slowly, knowing she must have paled.
‘At the church, for the blessing,’ Joy added knowingly, blue eyes sparkling mischievously. Only there was nothing in the least amusing or funny to Cassandra about the rehearsal this evening, as she was sure her sister very well knew!
She didn’t make any reply, letting her sister have the last word as she seemed so determined to. And what a last word it was!
Because of the speed with which she and Jonas were to be married the actual marriage was to take place in a register office, but Jonas had been insistent that they should have a blessing performed in the local church, and as they were marrying on a weekday this hadn’t posed any problem for the vicar to fit into his schedule. To Cassandra, having their marriage, a marriage based on distrust, blessed in church seemed like a mockery of everything the marriage ceremony should truly mean.
‘Not that you need the rehearsal,’ Joy continued bitchily. ‘But I suppose Jonas might. At least… I presume that he does?’
‘Goodbye, Joy,’ Cassandra told her firmly, making good her escape this time before her sister could drop any more bombshells.
The truth of the matter was it had never occurred to her to question whether or not Jonas had been married before! But she was sure he couldn’t have been; didn’t he mock the very idea of his ever caring for anyone enough to make such a commitment for love? Although he had also said he had believed himself in love once…
No, she couldn’t believe Jonas had ever been married; it was the sort of thing he would have told her—But would he? Wasn’t Jonas a law unto himself?
But Peter would know if his youngest son had ever been married—and it was Peter she was going to see this afternoon. It hadn’t been easy, organising this time to go and see her father-in-law, with Jonas constantly at her side these last few days—as if he was well aware of her desire to go and see Peter, despite his instruction that she shouldn’t, and he was doing his best to thwart her plans to do so. But after days of being out of the office a meeting had come up today that Jonas just couldn’t avoid going to, giving Cassandra an unexpectedly free afternoon; although he hadn’t told her about the meeting until lunchtime! But luckily Peter was able to see her at almost any time, and he had seemed more than pleased to hear from her when she telephoned after lunch, once Jonas had left for his meeting, and asked to go and visit him. She hated being made to feel slightly underhand like this, but an out-in-the-open confrontation with Jonas was something she didn’t feel strong enough to cope with just now.
As it was, she viewed the following meeting with a mixture of anticipation and fear; she was at last going to hear the truth about the past, and yet at the same time she wasn’t sure she wanted to…!
She would tell Jonas she had seen Peter, of course, had no intention of keeping it from him indefinitely; that just wasn’t her way. But she knew there was going to be an argument over it, an argument she might feel better able to deal with after talking to Peter. It was for her own peace of mind that she was going to see him this afternoon; she had to know more about Jonas before she married him than that she loved him! Maybe if she did there would be some hope for them. She had to believe that!
Peter was once again out in the conservatory when she arrived; in fact he seemed to spend a lot of his time out there nowadays, tending his plants, or just gazing out over the grounds of the house—the gardens where Charles and Jonas had once played as children…?
Cassandra stood in the doorway for several minutes watching the elderly man unobserved, having assured the butler she was more than capable of showing herself through. Peter was staring out across the beautifully tended lawns and towering oak trees, a fine dusting of snow on both.
Bethany had been delighted this morning when she got out of bed to look out of the window and had seen the snow there. In fact, she probably had her poor grandmother out playing snowballs in it right now, Cassandra thought ruefully.
Did Peter see another picture other than the white stillness outside, a time when his two sons had played unconcernedly out in the snow too, laughing as they made snowballs and threw them at anything that moved, including each other? Or had Charles and Jonas never had that sort of close relationship? There had been thirteen years’ difference in their ages, after all.
Jonas as a child. It was hard to envisage. What had he been like then?
Peter turned at that moment, saw her standing wistfully in the doorway, and got slowly to his feet. ‘I hoped you would come,’ he said softly.
She gave him a smile of affection. ‘I told you that I would.’
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged gently, taking one of her hands into his. ‘But I wasn’t sure you would.’
Because of Jonas. He knew his youngest son didn’t want her to visit him.
Cassandra squeezed Peter’s hand understandingly before releasing it. ‘Let’s sit down, shall we?’ she suggested lightly. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t bring Bethany today,’ she apologised ruefully as they both sat down.
‘No,’ he accepted without question. ‘You want to know about Jonas,’ he sighed, his gaze troubled.
She didn’t want to exactly, but she needed to.
Peter was watching her closely now. ‘Do you love him?’ he finally asked.
She swallowed hard, her gaze unwavering on his. ‘Yes.’
‘Does he love you?’
‘No,’ she answered without hesitation; what had happened between them on Christmas Day certainly hadn’t been love on Jonas’s part.
Peter frowned. ‘Then could you possibly tell me why you’re marrying him?’
She wasn’t sure herself of that any more! Which had come first, her inner knowledge that she loved Jonas in spite of herself, or his demand that she marry him? The latter had certainly taken away any difficult probing into her emotions. Until now. She had lain awake these last few nights trying to find the answers, and she still didn’t have any that she felt comfortable with. Which was another one of the reasons she was here today. ‘Isn’t it enough that I love Jonas?’ she answered evasively.
‘With Jonas, no,’ his father sighed resignedly. ‘God knows, Jonas isn’t an easy man to love—and I should know!’ He shook his head. ‘No, that isn’t what I meant at all.’ Peter seemed to be talking to himself now, almost forgetting that Cassandra was in the room with him. ‘Jonas is easy to love; after all, he’s my son. But he doesn’t accept love, he never has. No, that isn’t strictly correct either.’ He was becoming impatient with himself at his inability to explain what he meant.
But Cassandra, of all people, knew exactly what he meant; wasn’t that the reason she was here, to find out
why Jonas rejected love from his life?
‘To understand Jonas at all, I think you have to know the family history too,’ Peter told her now gruffly. ‘I married Kathleen, Charles’s mother, when I was twenty-two and she was just eighteen.’ His voice had softened, his expression gentle with love as he spoke of his first wife. ‘We were young, in love with each other and with life, in no hurry to have children because we were still very much children ourselves. Consequently, by the time we did have Charles, we were both more than ready for the responsibility that comes along with being a parent. He was our golden child—’ He broke off as he saw the way Cassandra flinched at the description, his mouth twisting ruefully. ‘“Golden Boy”, Jonas calls him, I know,’ he nodded.
And Jonas was the opposite: dark, brooding, unapproachable…
Peter shrugged. ‘I accept a lot of the blame for the animosity that existed between my two sons—I spoilt Charles.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘But when Charles was ten Kathleen was killed in a skiing accident. Just one of those inexplicable things, but it robbed me of the woman I loved.’ He seemed lost in memories now. ‘Made our son that much more precious.’
Cassandra could see how the tragedy still haunted him. But he had married again, had Jonas in that second marriage…
Peter looked up, easily reading her puzzled thoughts, his expression once again rueful. ‘I’m sure it seems strange to you that I married again within two years of Kathleen’s death, but—’
‘It shouldn’t,’ she accepted self-derisively; wasn’t she about to do the same thing?
‘I was lonely,’ Peter sighed, resting his head back in the chair. ‘Claire, Jonas’s mother, was someone we had occasionally met at parties, not exactly a friend, but a frequent acquaintance. She was—kind to me after Kathleen died, understanding, always willing to sit and listen, a shoulder for me to cry on, if you like. It’s no excuse, but—I married Claire for all the wrong reasons,’ he breathed shakily. ‘But maybe you could also say she married me knowing I was still grieving for another woman,’ he frowned.
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