by Penny Jordan
Why was she doing this? Why was she laying up more pain for herself by trying to persuade Gwen to wait and see Lucas? Because she loved him so much that if Gwen was what he wanted; then Gwen was what she wanted him to have, she aknowledged forlornly.
'See him? Talk to him?' Gwen laughed harshly.
'To what purpose?' She shook her head. 'No, I've done all my seeing and talking to your precious Lucas.'
Lindsay turned to watch her mount the stairs. At the top she turned not towards Lucas' room but to one of the others. It was perhaps only natural that Lucas should choose to sleep in a room that did not remind him of his ex-wife, Lindsay reflected watching her, her heart aching with pain and love for him.
Gwen wasn't gone long. Within ten minutes she was coming back downstairs carrying several jewelery cases. 'Oh you needn't look like that,' she told Lindsay curtly. 'There's nothing here that
came from Lucas.' She must have betrayed her shock in her face, Lindsay thought afterwards, because Gwen smiled mirthlessly, and said, 'Oh don't look down your nose at me, Miss. It's your precious Lucas whose at fault this time. No woman ... no real woman that is, could live as he forced me to live . . . Like a nun . . .'
Pain tightened round Lindsay's throat like a clamp, but still she felt compelled to speak. 'It's only natural that Lucas wouldn't want his wife to have lovers,' she felt bound to say.
Inwardly she thought it was typical of Gwen and her selfishness to cause Lucas further pain by coming back—not to see him, but to collect the jewellery bestowed upon her by other men.
'Is it? Why?' Gwen demanded tightly. 'So that I should be as celibate as he is himself... as sexless as he is? You think I'm lying,' she added mirthlessly, when Lindsay stared at her in a disbelieving silence. 'Well what else would you call a man who doesn't make love to his wife?'
'You don't believe me? Ask Tom Henry . . . He knows . .. He was the one who found us a solicitor discreet enough to put through the annulment of our marriage quietly. Don't think I don't know why he couldn't make love to me either,' she hissed at Lindsay, the mask of sophistication brutally stripped from her face. 'It was because of you. You ruined my marriage. You with your simpering stupid adolescent ways ... You got under his skin, making him want you. Oh he thought I didn't know why he'd married me. . . that he was using me to hide behind, but I knew all right. What I didn't bargain for was a man so besotted by a teenager that he couldn't bear to
touch me.' Anger and frustration glinted for a second in her eyes and Lindsay realised the older woman was not seeing her, but looking back into the past. Her revelations were both shocking and unbelievable. Lucas? Sexless . . . Lucas . . .?
'Don't get your hopes up though,' Gwen told her savagely. 'He'll never make love to you, never marry you. His duty to your father will see to that .. . It's laughable really, the great Lucas Armitage an impotent hulk of a man incapable of making love to a woman ... a real woman that is not some stupid, mooning teenager.'
That's not true! Lindsay wanted to shout the words at her, but they stuck in her throat.
'You can tell him why I came,' Gwen threw casually over her shoulder at Lindsay as she walked through the open front door, 'and what I told you. Don't hope too hard that he'll deny it, will you? You know, it almost makes up for everything. Knowing how much he wants you and that he can't have you.'
It couldn't possibly be true . . . None of it could be true. Lindsay sat down heavily on the stairs, her numb brain trying to come to terms with all that Gwen had said. By implication she had told her that Lucas had never loved his wife; could not possibly be mourning her as she, Lindsay had thought . . . That quite to the contrary . . . Lucas loved her! But that was impossible. He had never . . . He had made love to her an inner voice reminded her ... he had touched and kissed her like a starving man faced with food ... He had . . . stop|it . . . stop it, she warned herself, not wanting to get too carried away on the euphoria of the moment. Gwen could easily have been lying to her.
wanting to hurt her by holding out false hope to her. Gwen had always known how she felt about Lucas. But surely Gwen would not have mentioned Tom if she had been lying. One way to discover the truth was simply to ask Lucas, she reminded herself, but she quailed from taking such a step. Even if it was true, he would probably deny it, especially if, as Gwen had claimed he felt honour bound to conceal his feelings for her because he knew that her father . . . Sighing faintly Lindsay got to her feet. Was there any way she could find out the truth? Yes, Tom would know .. . but would he tell her? There was only one way to find out.
Filled with a sudden surge of energy that banished the exhaustion and misery from Iky body, she got into her car and drove into Maiden.!
Tom was with a client when she went into his office, but Mary was able to tell her that he should be free within half an hour, and Lindsay elected to wait. A storm of butterflies seemed to have been released into her nervous system. She wasn't going to even let herself hope; it all seemed far too improbable . . . Like something out of a romantic novel, with the hero nobly giving up the girl he loved for some quixotic notion of honour. Fear coiled along her spine. What if it was true? How was she going to persuade Lucas. . .? One step at a time she cautioned herself. It was pointless trying to deal with problems before she encountered them. Tom might tell her that Gwen had been telling her a pack of lies, and then . . .
Only when she contemplated it did she realise how much hope she had pinned on Gwen telling the truth. It frightened her to realise how much her
very ability to live and function normally was dependent on knowing she had Lucas' love. Without it the world was an intolerably cold and inhospitable place. Unknowingly her face took on a sombre, forlorn expression, and it was this that first caught Tom Henry's attention when he came out of his office with his departing client.
'Lindsay, my dear,' he greeted her, hiding his concern. 'Two visits in one week ... I am indeed honoured.'
Lindsay could hardly bear to waste time in preliminaries and polite exchanges, but she forced herself to do so, letting Tom usher her into his office and sit her down opposite himself.
'Well now . . .'
Tom .. . it's about Lucas and Gwen's divorce.' She stumbled into hasty speech, the words tumbling over one another in her anxiety and despair.
Tom Henry listened carefully to what she was saying, his expression betraying nothing, other than a certain sad compassion, as she stumbled through her story.
'Is it true?' she asked quietly at last. 'Was their marriage annulled because...?'
'Because they were never truly man and wife?' 'Tom supplemented for her. 'Yes, Lindsay it is. I couldn't really be discussing any of this with you, you realise that don't you?' he went on to say, 'but since you are so closely involved ...' He sighed, and spoke into his intercom. 'Mary could we have some coffee in here please . . . Try to relax,' he told Lindsay. 'This could take quite some time. Perhaps I'd better begin at the beginning.'
He paused when Mary brought in their coffee.
whilst Lindsay was mentally seething with impatience and agitation. When Mary had closed the door behind her Tom leaned forward, elbows on his desk, finger-tips together, a frown creasing his forehead. Was he doing the right thing? Did he have the right to talk to Lindsay about what, after all, was an intensely private thing? When Lucas had talked to him at the time he had offered the opinion that Lucas should do what he wanted ... not what he thought Lindsay's father had wanted. Then he had chosen to ignore him.
He sighed faintly again.
'Lucas' marriage was annulled—yes. When Gwen told him that she wanted to marry someone else, he approached me for legal advice, As I told you I recommended a friend of mine to him who specialises in family law. There was no problem with the annulment—that was all straightforward, and Lucas was extremely generous in what he settled on Gwen—your father left him in sole charge of the business and itl has progressed extremely profitably under his Chairmanship—Lucas is a comfortably wealthy young man.
; 'However, Gwen was extremely bitter about their marriage. She even threatened to make reasons for their break-up public locally. Fortunately she changed her mind.'
'She said that Lucas married her because of me, because he ...'
'Certainly you were one of his considerations when he married,' Tom interrupted hastily. 'As you already know there was a considerable amount of gossip at the time of your father's death. You were barely seventeen—Lucas older,
but far from old enough to be considered in the light of a guardian. There was no blood tie between you, and as Lucas has since admitted to me, he knew then that he . . . desired you. He married Gwen to safeguard you, Lindsay. As much from himself as from any gossip I suspect.'
'From himself?'
Tom grimaced faintly. 'Yes, Lindsay. Surely you realise that he loved you . . . And still does I suspect. Only his respect and the duty he felt he owed your father stopped him from marrying you himself. I know that much because he told me so. I did tell him at the time that I felt he was carrying loyalty to your father too far . . . but he wouldn't listen .. .'
I knew there was gossip of course,' Lindsay in murmured, barely registering the fact that Tom was still talking. She was back in the past in those early months after her father's death when Lucas had changed from the most approachable and caring person in her life to a distant stranger. 'I even thought that Gwen was deliberately manufacturing half of it. She made it quite plain that she wanted Lucas.'
'Yes I know. As does Lucas. He never made any pretence of loving Gwen. She knew what the position was when she married him, Lucas admitted to me that he had intended the marriage to be a completely viable one. Gwen was and still is an extremely attractive woman, but . . .' He shrugged and looked embarrassed. Poor Tom, Lindsay thought sympathetically. He was obviously finding the whole discussion difficult, and no wonder. She was still having trouble coming to terms with it.
'You said that Lucas still loves me,' she managed to whisper at last.
'Well yes, or at least so I suspect.'
'Why didn't you tell me any of this the last time I was here. You guessed how I feel about him.'
'My dear it was hardly my place,' he cautioned her gently. 'If Lucas has not chosen to tell you himself then . . .'
'Then he still prefers to remain loyal to my father than to admit his love for me, is that what you're trying to say?'
'You must try to understand Lindsay. Lucas feels he owes your father everything. You know yourself how adamant your father was about your marriage, but I will tell you this. There was no one your father liked and respected as much as he did Lucas.'
'All this time I thought he loved Gwen .. . that he was missing her and that, that . ..' Lindsay win lost in her own thoughts, a hectic flush colouring her skin as she remembered how Lucas had touched and caressed her. All the time he had loved her and not Gwen, at least if Tom was to be believed. But what good did his loving her do, when he refused to admit it to her . . . when he refused to treat her as anything other than an annoying responsibility. Lucas was a very stubborn man and it would take greater strength and willpower than she possessed to move him from a course, once he was set upon it.
But he had made love to her, a traitorous voice of hope reminded her. He had wanted her . . . loved her to such an extent that his need has overruled what he considered to be his duty. Surely that must mean something. . .
Something perhaps, but what? Perhaps if she
could just get him to admit how he felt about her .. that he did love her. With an effort Lindsay tried to concentrate on what Tom was saying.
'Do you really think he loves me, Tom?' she asked at length.
Sensing the need behind the question he smiled at her. 'Yes I do Lindsay, but equally as strong as his love for you are his feelings for your father. He's a man torn between two opposing desires. For yearshe 's taken one course ... whether you'll be able to distract him from it, I wouldn't like to say.'
'My father loved and respected Lucas as well,' Lindsay said slowly, 'and I can't honestly and truly believe in my heart of heart's that if he knew how we felt about one another that he would seriously want to keep us apart; to make us both suffer, do you?'
'No,' Tom told her decisively. 'Had your father lived; had he realised how you both felt I feel sure he would have changed his mind, and welcomed Lucas into the family as his son-in-law. In fact I'm convinced of it.'
Lindsay smiled wanly at him. 'You may be, but I suspect it will take a great deal to convince Lucas of it.'
She kissed Tom warmly before leaving, a new strengh slowly growing inside her as she headed for her car. She loved Lucas and he loved her; and surely that love was worth fighting for? As she headed for home she made her plans. It would take guts and nerves of steel, but . . . nothing ventured . . . Compressing her fears, she told herself that nothing would be gained by encouraging doubts. She must think positive. She must first convince herself that she had the power to convince Lucas.
CHAPTER TEN
More than once as the long hours of the afternoon dragged by and she waited for Lucas to come home, Lindsay had doubts. It seemed impossible to believe that he loved her; that he had in fact loved her for years and kept that love hidden from her, but it was true, she reassured herself fiercely. It was true.
Unable to settle, she paced the rooms of the empty house, arguing with herself, trying to see the situation from Lucas' point of view as well as her own. Her father had loved them both. Would he honestly have wanted them to be unhappy and apart? She shook her head tiredly. It didn't matter how much she could reassure herself if she couldn't convince Lucas. She wandered into the kitchen remembering that last night's uneaten casserole was in the fridge. It seemed a singularly unglamorous meal to serve to a man whom she was about to tell she loved.
More to keep herself occupied than anything else she examined the contents of the freezer and larder; mentally planning out a more enticing menu from their contents.
Six o'clock came and went and Lucas still had not returned. Lindsay began to panic that he did not intend to do so. Perhaps he was staying away in the hope that she would leave. Her face grew hot as she remembered how she had touched him betraying her feelings for him. But he had touched
her too, she reminded herself stalwartly . . . the need and longing; the love had not all been on her side.
It was just gone seven when she eventually heard the familiar sound of Lucas' car tyres on the gravel drive.
He came in looking drained; exhausted almost.
'You're late.'
How banal and domesticated she sounded Lindsay thought wryly, but how else could she greet him? Hi Lucas ... by the way I know that you love me? Hardly.
'I had a meeting with our insurers and it dragged on longer than planned. They thought initially there might have been some contributory negligence on the part of the company that caused the lire, but in the end they backed down. It was a long fight though.'
'I thought the purpose of carrying insurance was for protection, not in order to fight,' Lindsay commented wryly.
'Everything in life is a fight, Lindsay,' Lucas retorted. 'Haven't you learned that yet?'
Perhaps he was right. If so, she was certainly going to fight for the right to love him, she decided firmly. She wasn't going to stand tamely aside because his notions of what he owed her father precluded him from loving her.
She forced herself to adopt self-control and withold all that she was aching to say to him until after they had eaten dinner. He raised his eyebrows a little when he saw how she had done the table, using the best crystal and silver, but he stopped short of making any comment.
She managed to concoct a fresh fruit starter
with what she had found in the fridge, and as she watched him eat she was pleased to see the tiredness ebbing out of his face. He had showered and shaved while she was putting the final touches to their meal, and Lindsay was unbearably aware of him despite the length of the table between them.
He was dre
ssed casually in jeans and a thin silk shirt open at the neck and her heart started to pound in heavy uneven thuds as she looked at him.
She waited until after dinner, when they were sitting in the drawing room drinking coffee, to launch her attack, saying casually, 'Oh by the way I had a visitor today.'
'Yes?'
'Gwen,' she informed him as nonchalantly as she could, bending over to fill his coffee cup so that he could not see her face, but she could his. A tiny muscle flickered momentarily in his jaw, but other than that he betrayed no response.
'She came to collect her jewellery,' Lindsay informed him. 'She didn't stay very long.'
She could sense his tension and thought of abandoning her self-imposed task. She couldn't bear to hurt him, and yet so much was at stake.
'I was surprised how little she's changed.' Lindsay added. 'Hardly at all. She's as sophisticated and lovely as ever.'
Lucas made a non-committal sound and picked up his coffee.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised insincerely, 'I know you still love her ... I shouldn't be talking about her to you.'
Lucas replaced his coffee cup and looked at her
His eyes were dark grey and unfathomable, angry chips of steel that warned her that she was treading on very treacherous ground.
'All right Lindsay,' he said tightly. 'I can't pretend to know what game you're playing. Just what are you trying to say.'