Penny Jordan (26 page)

'David,
why
have you come back?' Jon interrupted him starkly. David looked at him and then shook his head.

'I don't really know. I just felt...' He shrugged.

'That Dad needed you?' Jon suggested.

'No,' David owned truthfully, his voice low.

'No, I came back, Jon, because I needed
you.'

For a moment they just looked at one another and then David saw the tears in Jon's eyes.

Without the least hesitation or uncertainty, he made the first move. The old habits of behaviour, the upbringing their father had given them that said that boys,
men,
never showed their emotions, had been swept away by what he had witnessed and experienced working alongside the priest.

Jon's body felt familiar in his arms, almost a part of himself. 'I've missed you,' David told him gruffly.

Jon held him tightly. He had no words for what he wanted to say or the emotions he was experiencing. How often as a child, a boy, a young man, had he longed for this, for David to be like this.

How often had he had to steel himself against the pain of David's rejection and his own awareness of how lacking in closeness they actually were.

'I've thought about you—often,' Jon said huskily.

'And I you,' David admitted. 'I love you, Jon.

I've missed you so much!' Before Jon could over-come his shock at David's emotional openness or respond to him, David was continuing, 'In Jamaica I dreamed about you, and that was when the priest—'

'The priest?' Jon questioned.

'It's a long story,' David returned ruefully.

'Max and Jack went to Jamaica to look for you,' Jon told him.

David grimaced. 'Yes, I know.'

'Dad's been longing for you to come home. It's virtually all he ever talks about—even more than Max making QC.'

'Max
is a QC?'

'Yes. He works from Chester with Luke, Henry's son. He's living at Queensmead. His wife has been looking after Dad. He and Maddy are here at the moment as it happens and so, too, are Katie and her husband and children.' He paused, then said gruffly, 'I'm so glad you've come back.'

Simple words, but they meant so much.

'Dad's a fool.
You
were always the better one of the two of us. That hasn't changed,' David responded.

'I don't know what your plans are,' Jon continued quietly, 'but so far as the partnership is concerned...' He took a deep breath. There was no easy way of saying this. 'You are my brother, David, and as such you'll always be welcome in my home and in my life, but—'

'But there's no place for me in the partnership,'

David finished grimly for him. For a long moment he held Jon's gaze, then admitted honestly, 'How could there possibly be after what I did? For years I traded on your professional qualifications, letting other people assume that I was the one who was the fully qualified solicitor, happily allowing
you
to cover for me and shield me. Not just allowing but expecting it as my right. I was a liar and a thief, Jon, and I was damn lucky not to be caught and sent to prison. I understand that Aunt Ruth paid back the money I stole.'

These were spoken declarations, but inwardly at another deeper level, the brothers were communing with one another emotionally, the love flowing between them like a fast spring tide breaking down all barriers in its way and carrying away the debris, the hurts, of the past. The simple touch of Jon's hand on David's arm was all they both needed to break off their conversation and look into one another's eyes.

'Yes, she did,' Jon confirmed. 'I wasn't sure I should allow her to do so, but—'

'That isn't why I came back—money, material possessions.' David gave a small shrug. 'In Jamaica...' He hesitated. 'I understand that I've got two grandchildren.'

'Olivia's girls, yes.' A shadow crossed Jon's face as he reflected on Olivia's likely reaction to her father's return. He had recently been watching her more closely, following Jenny's concern, and he had to admit that Jenny was right to be worried. Still, every time he tried to talk to her, Olivia fobbed him off, keeping him at a distance.

'There's a lot we need to discuss,' David was saying. 'But I should go...there's someone waiting for me.'

'Someone?' Jon queried. 'Who?'

'A friend—Honor,' David told him lightly. 'I think you recently met her.'

There were so many questions Jon wanted to ask him, but he was still in a state of shock, not just over David's unheralded arrival but also because of the changes in him. The emotions he was feeling were akin to those he had felt at the birth of his children: Joy, disbelief, a humbling sense of the miracle of human life, an overwhelming feeling of love he couldn't articulate, a sense of a prayer being answered for the safe deliverance from danger of those he loved, coupled with a determination to love and protect them in return.

David—Jon's heart filled with joyous love for his brother.

'Jack's here,' Jon told him. 'I think he'll want to see you.'

'Will he?' David responded. 'I saw him the other day up at Fitzburgh Place. I remember him as a little boy, but he's a young man now.'

'He's a fine boy, David,' Jon assured him.

'Yes—thanks to you,' David replied simply.

'He's
your
son,' Jon insisted as Honor had done.

'Maybe, but you are the one who raised him, Jon, and when he reaches maturity and looks back, it will be you he thanks for everything he has learned, for making him a man, not me.'

In his mind's eye David could still see Jack as he was one day in the kitchen with Tiggy, the mess caused by her binge eating in evidence all around her. Jack's face had been white and set as he looked with accusing eyes from his mother to his father.

'Will any of them
want
to see me?' David asked heavily.

'I'll go and fetch Jack' was all Jon could say.

'WHERE IS HE
? What did he want? Has he gone?

You didn't give him any money, did you?' Voices clamoured for answers.

As Jon walked into the kitchen, the air was thick with questions, but Jon ignored them all, going over to Jack and saying gently, 'David, your
father,
would like to see you, Jack, but he'll understand if you don't...if you feel...'

Jack hesitated. It was over an hour since David had arrived, an hour during which they had all remained in the kitchen looking at one another in between disbelieving and often angry snatches of conversation.

'God, he's got the nerve of the devil,' Max had fumed. 'And if he thinks I'm going to stand by and let him treat Dad the way he used to...'

'I don't know how Olivia is going to react to this,' Katie had remarked uneasily to her husband.

'Uncle David. I can't take it in,' Joss had murmured, shaking his head.

Of all of them, only Jenny had remained silent, her face bleached and set, something about her expression making Jack feel tense and hurt inside.

He had wanted to go over and hug her, but he had been wary of doing so in case she pushed him away for being his father's son. Now Uncle Jon was back in the kitchen delivering the news that his father wanted to see him.

Just for a moment Jack was tempted to refuse.

Not out of malice or self-righteousness, but because, quite simply, he was afraid.

Of what? Of having a father who was a liar and a thief or seeing in his father's eyes that look of dismissal and impatience he could remember so well from his childhood.

Instinctively, he squared his shoulders. Living with Jon and Jenny had taught him a lot about the importance of respect—for other people and for himself. If David, his father, didn't have that respect for him, then that was his loss, Jack told himself firmly.

'He's in my study,' Jon said as Jack followed him out into the hallway.

Outside the study door Jack paused. 'Come with me,' he begged Jon.

Jon hesitated and then nodded his head. 'If that's what you want.' He felt just as protective of Jack as he did his own children, just as ready to respond to his vulnerability and need.

In the study, David was standing looking out through the uncurtained window. Jon could see the defensiveness in the tense set of his shoulders.

'David, here's Jack,' he announced.

As his father turned round, Jack caught his breath. He looked so different, more like his Uncle Jon than Jack remembered, his face so much leaner and pared down with none of the heavy jowliness that Jack recalled. He looked a lot slimmer. Beneath his shirt Jack could see the outline of his muscles. The Jamaican sun had bleached his hair a few degrees fairer at the sides where Jon's was plain English grey, but the similarity between them was still strikingly evident. So much so that for a second Jack caught his breath.

It must, of course, always have been there, but as a child he had taken it for granted. Certainly he could not remember ever having been quite so sharply aware of it.

'Jack,' David was saying, his smile slightly forced and his tension showing.

'David,' Jack responded unbendingly. He wasn't going to call him 'Dad'. He couldn't.

Silently, they measured one another up. Jack was nearly as tall as his father and uncle and would, with maturity, perhaps even be a little taller, like Max, but as yet his body still had a hint of youthfulness about it.

There were years of questions he wanted to ask his father, but he had his pride and facing him was the man who had walked out on them—his mother, his sister and him. Here was the man who had never shown any real paternal interest in him, the man who... Did he have
any
idea what it felt like to wonder why you weren't loved, to question what it was about
you
that made you so unacceptable to your own father? But his parents' failings weren't his responsibility. He knew that. He and Jon had discussed these things at length.

'Jack,' Jon demurred with just a hint of reproach in his voice, but David quickly interrupted him.

'No, he's right, Jon. I don't have any right to call myself his father and he does well to remind me of that.' He turned back to his son. 'You've been lucky, Jack,' he told him drily. 'The parenting you've received from Jon and Jenny, the parenting skills you will have learned in turn from them, are a very special gift and they're certainly skills you would never have received from me.

'Of all the things I've done that I feel most ashamed of, my wilful abdication of my role as your and Olivia's father is the second most important on my list,' David told Jack openly.

'The "second"?' Jack questioned him sharply.

'What's the first?'

Their glances met and clashed and David could see in Jack's eyes how little he liked or trusted him. Well, he deserved no less.

'The first is my inability to see what a precious, irreplaceable gift I was given in the shape of my brother.'

He sounded so genuine, but Jack wasn't sure he was convinced. He
wanted
to believe him, but what if it was just a trick, a ploy?

'You don't have to believe me, Jack,' David was telling him as though he'd read his mind. 'It's
my
task to win your trust and your faith, not yours to give it. All I'm asking for is a chance to begin that task. With Jon's agreement, I hope to stay in the area.'

'At Queensmead?' Jon asked sharply.

David smiled. 'No, I have other plans.'

'Gramps is talking about leaving Queensmead to you,' Jack informed him baldly, 'but Max and Maddy live there and by rights—'

'Jack!' Jon protested with a frown.

'Queensmead is the last place I would want to live in or own,' David acknowledged frankly.

'My memories of it are not ones I want to cherish.'

'You say that now,' Jack challenged him a little mulishly.

Despite his wish that Jack hadn't raised such an emotive subject, Jon couldn't help but feel touched and warmed by his nephew's obvious and unexpected championing of Max with whom he had always had a slightly strained relationship.

'I say it because I mean it,' David told Jack mildly but firmly. 'I haven't come back planning to claim some imagined inheritance, Jack, and if my father is intending to leave Queensmead to me, then I can assure you that I shall tell him that if he does, it will immediately be handed over to its rightful inheritor—Max. Unless...' He turned to Jon with a questioning look.

'I don't want it,' Jon interjected quickly. 'My memories of it are even less fond than yours, although I have to admit that Maddy has made it into a very comfortable home.'

'Then if you haven't come back for Queensmead, why have you come back?' Jack asked him bluntly.

'I...' David began, but this time it was Jon's turn to defend David.

'That's enough, Jack,' he said firmly. 'Your father doesn't have to dot all his i's and cross all his t's to explain his reason for returning home.

It's enough that he's here.'

It might be enough for his uncle Jon, but it wasn't enough for him. Not by a long chalk, Jack decided fiercely.

'I can guess what you're thinking, Jack,' David answered sombrely, 'and I don't blame you. In your shoes I would probably be even less inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. I know of only one other person as saintly as you, Jon,' he told his brother with a wry smile. 'The priest—

and even he—'

'The priest? Who is he?' Jack demanded curiously.

Briefly, David explained.

'You worked with him nursing the sick?' Jack exclaimed in such obvious amazement that David grinned.

'An unlikely task for reparation for my sins, I know,' he agreed. 'But nevertheless that is exactly what I did, although at the time it wasn't so much my sins I was thinking of as my empty belly. No work, no food...that's what the priest told me.'

As he saw the faint beginning of respect for his father dawning in Jack's eyes, Jon felt a pang of loss but quickly quelled it. Jack needed to be able to heal the rift with his father, to be able to question and understand the forces that had motivated David and he needed to hear them from David himself. If no other good came out of David's return, then the benefit it would be to Jack was incalculable—he was at such a very vulnerable stage in his life.