by Penny Jordan
Why had Blake Templeton decided to re-enter Jaime’s life? Could it have anything to do with the attacks on her about the sale of the Abbey? But surely he would not endanger the life of his wife—and daughter? Would he?
CAMPAIGN FOR LOVING
BY
PENNY JORDAN
MILLS & BOON LIMITED
15-16 BROOK’S MEWS LONDON W1A 1DR
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 the incidents are pure invention.
The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwises be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without , the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain 1984 by Mills & Boon Limited
© Penny Jordan 1984
Australian copyright 1984 Philippine copyright 1984 This edition 1984
ISBN o 263 74898 7
Set in Monophoto Plantin 11 on 11% pt. 05-1084 - 45510
Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay {The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
CHAPTER ONE
As she unlocked the door of her Mini, Jaime glanced quickly at her watch, expelling a faint sigh of relief. Three o’clock. She still had plenty of time to pick up her three-year old-daughter, Fern, from playschool.
At first, when her mother had suggested she move back to Dorset, she had been dubious. She and Blake had lived in London during the brief eighteen months of their marriage and she had been reluctant to move away. Now she could acknowledge that her reluctance had stemmed from her hope that Blake would come looking for her and beg her to go back to him. For a girl of twenty-three she had been extremely naive, she thought sardonically. The unflattering alacrity with which Blake had accepted the challenge she had flung at him in the heat of her tempestuous outburst ought to have warned her, but it hadn’t. It had taken Suzy Monteith to do that. Suzy had worked with Blake on the Globe's Foreign Affairs team for several years and Blake had never made any secret of the fact that they had at one time been lovers. Suzy had never liked her Jaime realised with the benefit of hindsight, and no doubt she had thoroughly enjoyed telling her of her husband’s request to his editor that he be sent abroad to cover the war in El Salvador, only twenty-four hours after she had accused him of putting his job before his marriage, more or less giving him an ultimatum to choose between her and working for the Globe.
Suzy had called round on the pretext of inviting them both to a party she was giving. But Jaime hadn’t even waited for Blake to come home that evening, she had simply packed her things and gone round to a friend’s flat where she had stayed for two weeks, willing Blake to appear and beg her to come back to him.
Of course he hadn’t done and by then she had known that the possibility that she might be pregnant was a certainty. She had written to him then, an angry bitter letter to which he didn’t reply, making it obvious that he didn’t want her or their child—she had offered him a choice and he had made one—excluding her completely from his life. Her pregnancy had wrapped her in an anaesthetising shawl which numbed all pain. Blake’s letters she returned unopened, accepting her mother’s suggestion that she return home simply because she had no means of supporting herself, and was determined not to accept any money from Blake. He hadn’t wanted a child—he had made that more than clear to her. His lifestyle could barely accommodate a wife, never mind the responsibility of children, and that had been another subject for contention between them.
The truth was that they should never have married, Jaime thought as she manoeuvred her car down the bumpy lane that led from the old school hall she used for her dance and exercise studio to the village. And it was her fault that they had married. All Blake had wanted was an affair—but she had been naive and very much in love. When he discovered that she was still a virgin he had given in to the subtle pressure she had put on him and, within six months of meeting, they had been married.
Right from the start she had known that she wasn’t really equipped to enter Blake’s world. Shy and rather retiring by nature, she had gone to London at the urgings of a schoolfriend and her mother, and although she quite enjoyed her job as a secretary in a busy advertising agency, she had never really lost her longing for the peace and relative simplicity of the village she had grown up in. She had met Blake at a party, Mattered and slightly bemused that he should single her out for attention. She knew she wasn’t exactly unattractive but she had lived in London long enough by then to realise that London males expected more than a heart-shaped face, deep blue eyes, black hair and a willow-slim body. They wanted women who could converse with them on their own level, sharp witty women who didn’t blush and fumble awkwardly; women who were as sophisticated and worldly as they were themselves.
She had recognised Blake instantly from a current affairs television programme he had participated in, but the effect of his lean, suntanned features and his air of cool cynicism were far more devastating in real life than they were on the television screen. She had had the impression that his green eyes were laughing at her, but when, seconds later, they roved her body with a sensual appraisal that was almost a physical caress, she hadn’t been able to hide her response from him. Blake! Even now, just thinking about him made her pulses race and her mouth go dry. He had been, at first, a patient and then a very passionate lover, drawing her out of her shell of shy reserve, teaching her to please him and find joy in her own pleasure. As befitted a man who lived on the edge of danger, he brought excitement and challenge into her life, but she was constantly worried that she would never be enough for him; that after a while her inability to meet him as an equal would lead him to grow bored with her. Before their marriage he had dated sophisticated, glamorous women, and Jaime had always secretly compared herself to them and found herself wanting. If she hadn’t blurted out to him that she loved him and that he would be her first lover, would he still have wanted to marry her?
‘He married you because that was the only way he could get you into bed,’ Suzy had told her tauntingly, ‘but you’ll never keep him—he’s bored already. You see, Blake’s like that. When he wants something, he goes after it single-mindedly, that’s what makes him such a good reporter. He wanted you because you were a challenge. . . .’
And she, instead of trying to understand him, had begged him to give up his job and find another one that would mean less travel. That had been the cause of their final row. . . . Perhaps, because her own father had died when she was so young, she had always cherished in her mind a clear picture of what she wanted her life to be, and that picture contained herself, her husband and their two children, living cosily in a village very like the one she had been brought up in; a safe, secure little world, a universe away from Blake’s lifestyle.
People thought she had got over him and her marriage to him. She talked openly to Fern about her father; she answered whatever questions people asked her, but only she knew the truth. She still loved Blake as desperately now as she had done the day she left him. But at least in the intervening four years she had achieved some maturity, she reflected as she brought her Mini to a halt outside the playschool building. At least she had finally
accepted that Blake had the right to make his own decisions about his career and his life, but that didn’t stop her regretting her folly in leaving him. If she had stayed, perhaps they could have worked something out . . . perhaps. . . . Angrily, she dragged her mind away from the past. Blake had made it more than clear how much he regretted their marriage. He had never even asked to see Fern. He hadn’t wanted a child and, although he had offered to support them financially, he had made no attempt to get to know his daughter.
Charles had told her she ought to get a divorce. She had known Charles Thomson since her schooldays, and she knew, without any conceit, that he would marry her tomorrow if she gave him any encouragement. It was ironic that Charles was tailormade to fit her childhood image of the perfect husband and father, but he was as exciting as cold rice pudding, and her body, which had been awakened and tutored by Blake’s, instinctively repudiated him as a lover.
She knew why she had never bothered to get a divorce. She had no wish to marry again, but what about Blake? Was it just that he had never had the time between assignments to bring their marriage to a formal end, or was it simply that, having married once, he had no intention of repeating his mistake? Unlike her, Blake did not seem to lack congenial companions of the opposite sex. Over the years, she had seen him featured in several newspaper photographs as the escort of glamorous women.
‘Mummy . . . Mummy. . . .’
The impatient and reproving voice of her daughter checked her thoughts. Fern was all Blake’s child. She had her father’s unruly, dark brown hair and his green eyes. And her personality held echoes of Blake’s as well. A pragmatic, intelligent child, she sometimes gave Jaime the uncomfortable feeling that their roles were reversed and that she was the child. She even seemed to accept her own lack of a father. She had seen his photograph and knew that he lived and worked in London, but seemed to accept that his life lay apart from theirs.
‘. . and Mrs Childs told us a story. . . but I knew it wasn’t real. Frogs can’t turn into princes, not really. . . .’
Jaime glanced into her daughter’s scornful green eyes and sighed. She herself had been at least ten before she had finally and reluctantly abandoned fairy stories.
‘You’re daydreaming again . . .’ the small firm voice accused. ‘Granny says you’ve always got your head up in the clouds. . . .’
When Jaime repeated this comment to her mother later in the evening when Fern was in bed, Sarah Cummings laughed. Married at eighteen, a mother at nineteen, she was, in Jaime’s view, far too young-looking and vigorous to be anyone’s grandmother. A partner in a thriving antique business in the local market town her mother had the knack of drawing people to her, Jaime reflected watching her. Her once fair hair was tinged with grey now, but she still had the same youthful figure she had always had, and she still seemed to radiate that special sort of energy that Jaime always associated with her.
‘Fern’s like me,’ her mother commented pragmatically, ‘a down-to-earth Taurean. . . .’
‘Umm, I was thinking today how like Blake she is. . . .’
‘Don’t tell me you’re worrying about her lack of father again,’ Sarah said drily, correctly interpreting her remark. ‘Well, if you’re thinking of marrying Charles to provide her with one, I shouldn’t bother. She’s already running rings round him.’
That Charles found it difficult to talk to her young daughter Jaime already knew. An only child himself, he was always uneasy in Fern’s presence and she seemed to know it and take advantage of his awkwardness.
‘You’re not worrying about the studio, are you?’ Sara asked her daughter, noticing the frown pleating her fair skin. ‘I thought it was just about beginning to pay its way.’
‘Yes, it is.’ At first on her return to her home Jaime had been wholly dependent on her mother, but once Fern had started playschool, she had trained in exercise and dance, and then, when she was qualified, she had opened her own school which was beginning to get an excellent reputation locally. She was fortunate in being able to rent a now-empty school hall at a very reasonable cost, and the knowledge that she had achieved something for herself through her effort and skill had boosted her self-confidence. Because she always looked so calm and self-possessed, few people guessed at the deep sense of inadequacy she suffered from. Indeed, it was only since she had left Blake that she had come to terms with it herself.
‘So, what’s worrying you?’ her mother probed. ‘Charles came to see me today. He’s heard that Caroline means to sell the Abbey to a property developer and that it’s going to be knocked down and a housing estate built.’
‘Mmm . . . I shouldn’t think she’ll be able to go ahead with the sale. The Abbey is a listed building, you know.’
‘And Caroline can be very determined.’
Jaime had gone to school with Caroline Travers, although they had never been good friends. Caroline’s father had made a fortune in industry and had bought the Abbey and retired there. Caroline had inherited quite a substantial sum from him on his death, but she was a lady with very expensive tastes and she had never liked the Abbey.
‘Charles wants me to go round and have a word with her—try to persuade her to reconsider. . . .’
‘Why doesn’t he go himself?’ Sarah asked forthrightly. ‘Really, the man is a fool. I honestly believe he’s terrified that Caroline would seduce him.’
Jaime grinned at her mother’s percipience. ‘He did say that he thought the initial approach would be better coming from me—a “woman to woman appeal”,’ Jaime quoted.
‘ “Woman to man eater” doesn’t he mean?’ her mother quipped. ‘Really, Charles is impossible. I don’t know why you bother with him.’
‘Because he’s an old friend and he’s my solicitor. . . .’
‘And he’s also a very safe wall to hide behind. Jaime, you’re twenty-six, and a very attractive woman, but you behave as though you’ve voluntarily gone into purdah. . . .’
‘You were even younger when you were widowed. . . .’
‘Yes, but I didn’t eschew all male company because of it. . . .’
‘But you’ve never remarried.’
‘No, because I preferred being single. You don’t. You need marriage, Jaime, I never did. I was too independent to commit myself to the sort of relationship marriage was in my day. I loved your father and I missed him terribly, but I didn’t live like a nun the way you do. Blake. . . .’
‘I don’t want to talk about him. . . .’
Jaime turned away, hoping that her face wouldn’t betray her. Her mother didn’t know that she still loved Blake, and every time she mentioned him, Jaime retreated from the conversation like a flower curling protectively back on itself. Her mother had liked Blake. They had got on well together, chatting with an ease that had left her envious when she heard Blake’s deep laughter mingling with her mother’s. She had been jealous of the ease with which they became at home with one another, just as she had been jealous of anyone who got close to her husband. It was no wonder he had lost his temper with her, she reflected as she went into the kitchen on the pretext of wanting a drink. When she thought about it, it was a miracle he had stayed with her so long as he had. No man likes jealous scenes, and on occasions she had behaved like a spoiled child, demanding more and more of his time and attention because of her deep-rooted insecurity, her inability to believe that he loved and needed her with the same intensity with which she loved and needed him. She had created an atmosphere which must have been claustrophobic, driving him away from her in her frantic attempts to keep him with her. No one would ever know how much she regretted her behaviour, or how much she longed for a second chance, she thought as she reached automatically for the coffee. Her mother thought the subject of Blake was taboo because she hated him. That was what she had claimed when she first came home, driven to say so because she couldn’t admit the truth, and she had never corrected that misconception.
When Charles commiserated with her about her marriage she had to grit her teeth t
o stop herself from telling him the truth—that the faults were all on her side. There had hardly been a night in the three years since Fern’s birth when she hadn’t longed for Blake’s presence, and yet she couldn’t regret Fern who had, in her way, been the reason for that final argument. Knowing that she might be pregnant, and that her pregnancy had been the result of her deliberate carelessness, she had panicked when Blake had declared quite firmly that he didn’t want children. But what was the use of raking over the past?
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said to her mother when she carried the coffee tray back into the small sitting room. ‘Perhaps I ought to tell Charles to start divorce proceedings.’
Because she was bending over the tray, she missed the brief frown that touched her mother’s forehead, and when she looked up it was gone, the older woman’s face enviably serene.
‘Charles is organising a committee to formally protest against any plans to pull down the Abbey,’ Jaime told her mother. ‘He wants me to be the secretary.’
‘Will you do it?’
‘Umm, I think so. It’s a beautiful old building.’
‘Talking of beautiful old buildings, I’ve booked my holiday at last. Ten days in Rome, in a month’s time.’
‘You mean that Henry is actually letting you go on your own?’
Henry Oliver was her mother’s partner in the antique business, and had been her faithful admirer for as long as Jaime could remember.
‘That’s one of the advantages of being independent,’ Sarah pointed out with a smile. ‘I don’t have to ask him.’
A week later, carefully noting down the minutes of the meeting Charles had called to discuss ways and means of preventing the Abbey from being destroyed, Jaime pushed a wayward strand of dark curling hair out of her eyes.
‘You look about sixteen, poring over that notebook,’ an admiring male voice whispered in her ear. ‘How about letting me take you out for dinner when this is over?’