by Penny Jordan
v1.5
March 14, 2008
Levelling the Score
Penny Jordan
Panic flared inside her
It was just a reaction to Simon's sudden, close physical proximity, Jenna thought.
'What's wrong?" Simon asked, laughing. "No fierce back chat? That's not like you."
'It's…it's just the shock," she mumbled.
Instantly he frowned, and he moved his hand to cup her chin to make her look at him. "Are you sure you're all right?"
His concern caught Jenna off guard, so accustomed was she to his teasing. No, she was not at all right. And why, oh, why, were her eyes filming with tears?
'Oh, Jen," Simon said. "I'm sorry. I'm the one who got us into this mess, but I—"
'Love to torment me," Jenna supplied shakily. "Sometimes l think you forget I'm not fifteen anymore."
Jenna failed to see Simon's odd look…
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contents
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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Harlequin Presents #1113
Harlequin Presents first edition October 1988
ISBN 0-373-11113-4
Original hardcover edition published in 1987 by Mills & Boon Limited
Copyright © 1987 by Penny Jordan.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
Printed in U.S.A.
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CHAPTER ONE
^ »
'Jenna, please… you've got to help me, there just isn't anyone else. God, if only I'd listened to you years ago… You warned me what sort of brother I've got, but—'
'Susie, come on, you're exaggerating,' Jenna interrupted her volatile friend. 'Simon can't stop you from marrying whoever you wish—nor force you into marrying someone against your will. You're twenty-four, for God's sake, and he is only your elder brother…'
'He's no brother of mine. Not any more,' Susie responded theatrically. 'Machiavelli would be a better name for him. God, to think I never guessed what he was up to, all the time he was shovelling that gross friend of his down my throat… persuading me to make up foursomes for dinner… go to the theatre… All the time I thought I was doing it to help Simon out with an old friend suffering from loneliness, and now I find out that Simon has been trying to marry me off to the guy.'
'What's he like?' Jenna asked curiously.
Susie frowned, her blonde hair with its soft pink streaks standing up on end all round her small head. No matter how outlandish her clothes and hair-style might be, there was an unmistakable soft femininity about Susie that simply couldn't be hidden. She had been having man trouble of one sort or another for as long as Jenna had known her, and that had been since they had both started senior school together when they were eleven years old.
'Who, Simon? Come on, it isn't that long since you last saw him… My twenty-first, wasn't it? And he hasn't changed that much… Men don't, do they, not once they get over thirty… He still looks deliriously distinguished… especially when he's wearing his court gear. He hasn't gone grey, though, or anything like that. Odd, isn't it, that he should have such dark hair, black as a crow's wing really, and mine should be so fair… Ma reckons he inherited his colouring from a Cornish great-grandmother… '
Jenna subdued a faint sigh at her friend's ramblings, and then interrupted firmly, 'No, Susie, not Simon! What's his friend like, the one he wants you to marry?'
'You mean you will help me? Oh, my God, Jenna, I knew you would! I know it will work, the minute he sets eyes on you he's bound to fall for you… It's not fair… why couldn't I be tall and slim, instead of small and round? And your hair, I've always yearned for dark red hair…it's so… so… '
'Red?' Jenna supplied challengingly, with a gleam in her eyes, quite forgetting for the moment that as yet she had most definitely not made any commitment to help her friend rid herself of her unwanted suitor, no matter what Susie might choose to believe.
Her red hair was a constant source of irritation to her. People who didn't know her constantly made reference to the temper they suspected must go with it. Others, normally women, asked her if it was dyed… It was a rather spectacular shade of dense, dark red. It went well with her creamy skin, although untypically her eyes were not gold or green, but a dark, true sapphire-blue.
All her life she had had pinned on her the label of a redhead's infamous temper, and because of it she had cultivated a cool remoteness that outwardly at least she allowed nothing to shake.
The temper was there all right, but she hated being predictable. And if there was one person above all others who had the knack of arousing that temper it was Simon Townsend.
They had first met when she was twelve and he was nineteen. Susie had taken her home with her after school. An only child herself, she had been inclined to stand in awe of the elder brother Susie talked so much about, even before she had met him.
It had been a summer's afternoon, and they had arrived from school, hot and sticky. Simon, home from university, had been playing tennis, but he had come in looking cool and unflappable in his tennis whites, his dark hair slicked smoothly to his masculine skull, his eyes cool and unfathomable, making Jenna feel as though he was looking right into her mind and reading every single little thing that was hidden there.
So powerful was the memory of that first meeting that she actually squirmed uncomfortably in her chair.
Susie, at last realising the whole of her best friend's attention was not focused upon her, broke off in mid-sentence and stared at her, her brown eyes rounded and filling with tears.
'Jenna, please.. .please help me. You don't know what it's like to be in love, the way Peter and I are…'
'No, I don't,' Jenna agreed firmly. 'Nor can I see why you don't simply tell dear brother Simon to forget his empire-building plans, and say you're in love with someone else! Come on, Susie, he can't force you into marriage with this friend of his… Your parents wouldn't let him.'
'You don't know Simon,' Susie responded darkly. 'It's becoming a barrister that's done it—all that power, it's gone to his head. You know how persuasive he can be, Jenna, once he starts talking to me…' She gave a tiny, but effective shiver, making Jenna remember rather wryly the fact that she had been one of the leading lights in their theatrical group when they were at school.
'It's all right for you,' Susie continued miserably. 'You're so strong-willed, so firm in what you want to do. I'm not, and once Simon gets to work on me, I'm terrified that he'll get me to agree to doing something I don't really want to do… The problem is that he detests poor Peter, even though he's only met him once… And just because Peter forgot to put his handbrake on and ran into the back of Simon's car… Such a fuss about a piece of tin! Of course, that made Simon take against him right from the start, but I didn't realise then just what he'd got in mind for me. Ma let it drop the other weekend when I went to see them. I told her that Peter and I were planning to go away on holiday together this year, and Ma said that she thought I would have been going to Canada with John… She got all flustered and het up about it, so I guessed there was something going on, and I got her t
o admit to me that Simon thinks I should marry John…'
'I still can't see why you need my help.'
'You know me, I'm hopeless at confrontation scenes. You know how weak I am.'
Visions of the many disappointed young men she had had to send away from their front door in the days when they had shared university digs together came to Jenna's mind…
'Please, Jen! All I'm asking you to do is to cover for me while Peter and I go away… We need time to be alone… time together without Simon interfering. We're going down to Cornwall. The folks still have the house down there… Remember it?'
Jenna did. Many years ago when she and Susie had both been in their early teens, she, and her grandmother who had brought her up after her parents' death in an avalanche while they were on a skiing holiday, had spent several happy summer holidays with Susie and her parents at their holiday home in Cornwall, holidays made all the more pleasant because Simon had not shared them—he had been away at university, and then later undertaking his training for the bar.
It was a long time since she and Susie had holidayed together; the last time had been the summer they had left university, when they had travelled all through Europe together. On that occasion, too, she remembered Simon raising objections about their plans. Her mouth compressed slightly as she remembered this and other things…
Simon Townsend could sometimes be too sure of himself and the rightness of his own judgement for his own good. She had few fears that scatty, pretty Susie could ever be inveigled into marriage with anyone—she liked to play the field—but Susie was right about one thing. Simon was a very effective verbal opponent, and Susie, who disliked any kind of conversation that did not focus around fashion, was all too likely to give in to him, simply to keep him quiet.
'What exactly is it you want me to do?' she asked, disentangling herself from Susie's fiercely jubilant hug.
'I'm going to tell Simon that I'm staying here with you… He's bound to ring you to check up on me. All I want you to do is to confirm that I'm here!'
'And if my verbal confirmation isn't enough?' Jenna pressed.
It took Susie several seconds to work it out. 'Oh, you mean if he wants to speak to me?' A grin curled her mouth. 'I've thought of the most delicious plan. It will completely fool him… I've made a tape.'
She delved into her huge shoulder-bag and fished out a small recorder complete with tape. 'Look, I'll play it for you. You pretend to be Simon, and then listen… '
Dutifully, Jenna did as she was instructed. When the tape ended she surveyed her friend with mixed feelings and a certain amount of wry resignation.
The tape was an ingenious idea, and Susie knew her brother well enough to be able to anticipate what line his conversation would take. The answers she had dictated on to the tape were vague and Susie-ish enough to be quite convincing.
'See, you'll have no problems,' Susie told her proudly, pressing a button to rewind the machine. 'I've thought of everything!'
'Including Simon descending on me in person?' Jenna asked drily.
'Oh, he won't do that, he'll be on circuit. You know, travelling with the judges and things… how they do. He won't be back in London for simply ages, and I'll be back myself then…'
'You're sure this is only a holiday you and Peter are going on? You're not running away to get married or anything like that, are you?' Jenna demanded ominously.
'Of course not! You know me, I don't want to get married for ages yet.'
Jenna knew when Susie was telling the truth.
'No, I just want time to get to know him properly, Jenna, without Simon popping up all the time and spoiling things. You wouldn't believe what he's been like these last few weeks… I think he must be watching my flat, because the moment Peter comes round, Simon arrives. I'm twenty-four years old, and I've got big brother watching over me as though I was a child. It's ridiculous,' Susie fumed, 'especially when you think of the girlfriends Simon's had. He hasn't exactly lived like a monk,' she finished darkly.
Jenna didn't try to argue with her. Only the other day, there had been a rather spectacular exposé of the latest bright star on the legal world's horizon's involvement with the ex-wife of a government minister.
For intensely personal and private reasons Jenna had studied the article closely and the photographs that went with it.
She hadn't needed her friend's rambling description of the lack of changes in her brother's appearance to know what Simon looked like. Susie had been right, the dark hair was untouched by grey, the firm mouth with its curving, full under lip still curled in the same mocking smile, and his eyes…those chameleon, challenging green eyes that should have belonged to her, still carried their same message of chilly warning.
The woman photographed with him had been like all the other women who had passed through Simon's life; blonde, soignée, sophisticated and very, very beautiful.
Would he marry this one? The gossip press seemed to think so. It wasn't like the high and mighty Simon to marry someone else's cast-off, she thought acidly. If she pictured him with a wife at all, it was with someone young and malleable, someone he could mould to his own desired pattern of what a wife should be.
'What's wrong?' Susie demanded, adding succinctly, 'Your eyes have gone almost black, they only do that when you're fuming with someone. Anyone I know?'
When Jenna shook her head, Susie heaved a faint sigh.
'There must be something wrong with you, Jen,' she accused. 'Look at you, you're the most gorgeous-looking creature,' she said generously. 'Men buzz round you like bees round honey, and yet you ignore them all. When we were kids, I always thought you'd be the one who grew up and got married young… '
'When exactly is it that you're supposed to be going off on this holiday of yours?' Jenna asked, ruthlessly cutting through her friend's reminiscences.
'Today! This afternoon… God, I wish I could see Simon's face if he discovers the bird's flown,' she said with a chuckle.
'Don't laugh too soon,' Jenna advised her darkly. 'It can always be arranged… '
'You won't betray me, Jen, I know that… Once Simon—'
'I can't see why you simply don't tell Simon what you're doing.'
'Because if I do, he'll try to dissuade me. You know what he's like.' Susie gave a heartfelt groan. 'The problem is, I'm so used to doing what he tells me that I'm frightened I'll go on doing it, even when it isn't what I want… Simon can be so—so compelling at times.'
'Hero-worship,' Jenna scoffed. 'You should have grown out of that years ago.'
'You don't know how lucky you are not to have any brothers or sisters. Just you and your grandmother, and she'd never force you into doing anything you don't want to do.'
Jenna could have pointed out to her that there were methods of enforcing one's wishes other than those adopted by Susie's elder brother, but she refrained, sensing that Susie would never understand the gentle, tender pressure one old lady with a longing to see her one grandchild 'settled down', as she called it, could bring to bear on that same grandchild.
Long after Susie had gone, blowing her a string of kisses and promising to get in touch, Jenna remained sitting in her armchair.
Her flat was small and pin-neat, furnished by 'bargains' she had acquired through her job as personal assistant to a very dynamic and go-ahead interior designer.
If she had had any sense, any sense at all, she would have refused to help Susie. Simon Townsend could be a very powerful adversary indeed, as she already had good cause to know. She closed her eyes and lay back in the comfortable chair.
The summer she had been fifteen, she had fallen madly and very obviously in love with Simon Townsend, but it had very plainly been made clear just how impossible were the foolish dreams she had been dreaming…
Her adolescent crush on him had faded as adolescent crushes do, but it had left behind a sense of bitterness and resentment, an antagonism towards him that Jenna had never lost, and which had made her wary and cautious in all her dealings w
ith his sex.
In her heart of hearts she suspected that she had agreed to help Susie in her crazy plan because she would enjoy the opportunity of thwarting Simon.
For all her dizziness, Susie could be extremely astute. If she said that her brother was trying to foist one of his friends off on her, then she was probably quite right. Simon had always had a decided inclination to meddle in the affairs of others, an irritating 'I know best' attitude it would give her a great deal of pleasure to squash.
This time he wouldn't be dealing with an immature, gauche fifteen-year-old, but a woman of twenty-four, well able to use the brain God had given her, and not afraid of meeting any man on equal terms.
The phone call which had preceded Susie's early morning Saturday visit had disrupted her entire day. She had planned to go home to see her grandmother, but now it was too late.
The Gloucestershire village where Susie's parents and Jenna's grandmother lived was a quiet, remote place, but she often missed it. Susie had been right when she claimed that she had always imagined that Jenna would settle down first.
As a teenager, she had wanted nothing more than to fall in love, marry and raise a family in the familiar environment of the village. But teenagers grew up, and now the idea of marriage had lost a good deal of its lustre.
She had seen too many of her friends' marriages dissolve under the pressure of modern-day living, and had grown to cherish her single state. No one in her wide circles of friends knew of the money she was carefully hoarding away, against the day when she could fulfil at least a part of her teenage dream.
When she had saved enough it was her ambition to return home; to buy herself a small cottage close to her grandmother's, and start up her own business, offering a combination of services for which she knew there was a need, such as house-and pet-sitting, book-keeping and typing, gardening and cleaning.