Penny Jordan (30 page)

'I think you've given Dad a bit of a shock,' Jon remarked as he crossed the room to his side.

'Maybe, but it's no more than he deserves. He's much tougher than he likes to make out,' David assured him, 'or so Honor says, and she should know.'

'Mmm...that was rather a surprise,' Jon admitted.

'To us as well as you,' David agreed. 'If you don't want me to stay, Jon, you only have to say,'

David told him seriously. 'Honor and I have agreed that we will move out of the area if necessary.'

'Haslewich is your home,' Jon reminded him.

In the background, David could hear corks pop-ping as Ben insisted that the champagne he had asked Max to buy be opened.

'To my son...to David...' he started to toast when everyone's glass had been filled, but David immediately stopped him.

'No,' he said firmly, and raising his own glass, he announced clearly, 'To my brother. To Jon.'

'I think I'm going to like your father,' Joss admitted quietly to Jack as the two of them drank their champagne. Jack said nothing; he felt too confused. He was proud of his father for what he had said and done and yet, at the same time, he felt that acknowledging that pride was somehow being disloyal to Jon.

A little awkwardly at first, people began to gather round David and Honor, offering them their best wishes, several of them looking thoroughly bemused when they were told that the wedding was not to take place in Haslewich but in Jamaica.

'Jamaica! Goodness,' Jenny said a little uncertainly.

'It's what both of us want,' David told her gently.

LATER THAT NIGHT
when he and Honor were in bed, David asked, 'Are you sure you know what you're letting yourself in for?'

'I'm used to big families,' Honor answered, deliberately misunderstanding him.

'Ah, yes, but you are not the black sheep of yours and your daughters have not refused to see or speak to you.'

'Give Olivia time,' Honor counselled him. 'It can't have been easy for her, growing up in the shadows.'

'It can't have been easy for Jon growing up in my shadow,' David reminded her.

'When she comes back from this wedding, you'll be able to talk with her,' Honor comforted him.

'Talking of weddings...' David murmured.

'Mmm...' Honor encouraged, snuggling closer to him.

'I know we agreed that it would just be us...us and the priest, but...'

'You want Jon to be there,' Honor guessed.

'Would you mind?' he asked.

Honor shook her head.

As he bent his head to kiss her, David wondered what on earth he had ever done to merit such happiness. He himself was convinced that it was totally undeserved.

LYING AT JON'S SIDE
in their bed, Jenny murmured tiredly, 'Well, at least that's over with.'

David had surprised her with his firm championing of Jon, but she still couldn't feel totally relaxed about the situation. Because she was afraid that a new closeness between the two brothers might somehow push
her
into second place in Jon's life?

Now she was being foolish, but still she tensed as she heard Jon saying warmly, 'It really is good to have David back. It's odd but...I've missed him, Jenny, despite everything. Now that he's back...I feel...complete somehow.'

She was happy for Jon in his new-found closeness with his twin, of course she was...of course she was!

IN THEIR LARGE
four-poster bed at Queensmead, Maddy sighed as Max turned over restlessly next to her.

'What's wrong?' she asked gently.

'Nothing. I was just thinking about Olivia,'

Max said. 'I don't know if Uncle David or Dad really appreciate just how strongly she feels about David's coming back.' He paused and then said hesitantly, 'Do you know, it felt a little as though I was almost in the way this evening when Dad and Uncle David were talking to one another.'

Maddy sighed and leaned over, resting her chin on his bare chest. 'Try to be patient,' she urged him wisely. 'They've got a lot of catching up to do with one another. And Jon's not the only one to be drawn to David's side,' Maddy exclaimed as she told her husband she had suddenly realised just who Leo's 'Grampy Man' must have been.

'Leo recognised something of Jon in the man he saw in the garden. It has to have been David. No wonder Leo wasn't frightened.'

'Yes, you must be right,' Max agreed.

Maddy gave another small sigh.

Families! How very complicated and delicately balanced their relationships with one another could be. It would take time for the up-heaval of emotion David's unexpected return had caused to settle down. Hopefully, the arrival of their new baby would take Max's mind off any sense of displacement he might feel over the new closeness between David and Jon. Certainly Ben was already reacting to David's stern refusal to allow him to denigrate Jon. He had been irritable all evening, refusing his medication once they got home, complaining that Jon had taken all David's time and attention, making it impossible for Ben or anyone else to have the chance to talk to him.

'He'll be coming round to see you tomorrow,'

Maddy had reminded him soothingly.

'Yes, and you can make sure that Jon isn't with him,' Ben had charged her crossly. 'I want to have David to myself.'

Families...

Maddy closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Max.

THE LAST OF THE
morning mist was dispersing as they came down off the mountain, walking slowly in single file because that was all the path allowed.

The Jamaican official who had married them took his leave where the path broadened out and his car was waiting, whilst they took the fork that led to the mission.

The priest had insisted on preparing a breakfast for them. Jon and Jenny had looked a little uncertainly at one another when David had broken this news to them.

They had come out from their hotel in Kingston the previous day to see Father Ignatius. David had seen the shock in both their eyes as they witnessed for themselves the way that he had lived.

'It's not as bad as you think,' David had told them both as he saw Jenny looking round the bare rooms and the rolled-up, thin bedding that lay on the baked-mud floors. 'In this kind of climate one's needs are very simple.'

As David had predicted, Honor and the priest had greeted one another like twin souls, talking long into the night after their initial arrival. Jon and Jenny had been greeted warmly, as well. The one and only time Jon had been in Jamaica had been when he had flown out to Max's bedside, fearing to hear that his son was going to die.

Those kinds of memories weren't easy to forget or suppress and he knew exactly why Jenny's hand tightened in his when they drove past the hospital on their way to their hotel.

The ceremony had been simple and short, a mutual exchange of vows as the sun rose over the mountain.

The married couple were to spend a few brief days in Jamaica and then return home. Honor had persuaded the priest to return to Haslewich with them.

'You're doing
what!'
Ellen and Abigail had demanded when she told them of their plans.

'I'm getting married—in Jamaica,' she had repeated calmly. They hadn't met David as yet.

There hadn't been time. They had wanted to get married as quickly as they could.

'For mutual support when we face your disapproving daughters,' David had explained wryly.

Whilst Father Ignatius was now proudly showing Honor and Jenny round his 'pharmacy', David stood outside, looking out to sea. Without having to turn his head, he knew when Jon had joined him.

'I stood here the day I watched your plane leaving for England,' he told Jon emotionally. 'Father Ignatius prayed for Max's recovery. We both did.'

'It's hard to imagine your living here,' Jon admitted, shaking his head.

'Father Ignatius saved my life,' David replied quietly. 'Staying here to help and work alongside him was the only way I had of repaying him.'

'Breakfast,' the priest announced, coming out into the sunshine to beckon them into the shade where a feast of fruits and local delicacies had been prepared for them by the loving, grateful hands of the families of the patients they had nursed and cared for. On one side of the 'table', Honor and the priest were deep in discussion, no doubt exchanging herbal lore, David suspected.

On the other, Jon and Jenny were holding hands like two slightly nervous children.

The next morning they were all returning to England. The priest, though he was loath to admit it, was becoming too frail to carry out his work alone any longer.

'I'm not really needed here any more,' he had informed Honor sadly. 'The government is opening its own hospice.'

"I need you,' Honor had said sincerely, and David had seen the way his eyes brightened and his back straightened. He wondered if she would ever realise just how much he loved her, how immensely and overwhelmingly. He was half-afraid to tell her in case she felt burdened by the intensity of his feelings, just as, in much the same way, he sometimes had to hold himself back from telling Jon how much he loved him.

'Love and harmony and all the blessings they bestow on us,' the priest toasted solemnly.

'Love and harmony.' David raised his glass.

* * * * *