Penny Jordan (8 page)

The previous weekend, just as she was on her way out of the house, she realised that she had forgotten her jacket. Hurrying back upstairs for it, she had rushed into the bedroom to find Caspar on the telephone, his voice soft with a laughter he had stilled the moment he saw her. He had quickly ended the call and hadn't offered her any explanation of whom he had been talking to. She, of course, had been too proud to ask him.

Last night's row was the worst they had had so far. She had come home from work after a particularly gruelling client meeting to be met with a furious accusation from Caspar of being a neglectful mother because she had forgotten to pick Amelia up from her after-school dancing class.

'But I rang the school and explained that I was going to be late and I left a message with Maddy asking if
she
could collect her for me,' Olivia had defended herself.

'You left a
message
?' Caspar had cut across her explanations sharply. 'My God, Livvy, what's happening to you? Being a mother isn't something you can simply delegate to someone else.

Do you realise that Amelia had to ask the teacher to ring me because no one turned up to collect her? You do understand that
anything
could have happened to her if she hadn't had the sense to speak to her teacher...if she had for instance tried to walk home on her own.'

'I did my best,' Olivia had argued defensively.

Through the sick storm of guilt and fear for her daughter that was flooding her, she recognised the truth of what Caspar was saying.

'Did you? Well, you certainly may have done your best for yourself, but you didn't do your best for Amelia,' Caspar told her savagely.

His accusation that she had neglected her daughter's needs in favour of her own had hurt her badly—just as she knew that Caspar must have intended it to. After all, he knew better than anyone else how much the parental disinterest and neglect
she
had suffered as a child had hurt her and how determined she had always been that her children would grow up knowing they were loved.

'You don't
have
to work full time,' Caspar had pointed out to her when she returned to the family practice after Alex's birth. 'We could manage on less.'

'But not here in this house living the way that we do,' Olivia had replied sharply, unable to stop herself from defending her own decision. She was equally unable to explain to Caspar the dark pit of anxiety she knew was waiting to claim her if she broke faith with the pact she had made with herself to prove that she was not her father's daughter.

No one else knew how she felt, of course. She was a woman, an adult, not a child, and whilst the family might discuss anxiously the effect of her father's behaviour on her younger brother Jack and enfold itself protectively around him, no one seemed to feel that
she
might need...

What?

What it was exactly that she
did
need, Olivia wasn't sure. Not any more. Once she would have said that the thing she wanted and needed most was Caspar's love, but that had been a long time ago, and now...

She was glad in a way that Maddy had been out. What good would discussing her problems with her do anyway? She had to face them alone just as she had always done.

The icy cold explosion of fear that rocked through her body stopped her in mid-step as she hurried back to her car.

From the protection of the shrubbery, David watched. Her down-bent head, her frown, the quick, impatient way she moved—all were indicative of a young woman who was not happy either with herself or with her life.

As she passed right by him and got into her car, David had an overwhelming urge to reach out to her, to go and hold her in his arms, to tell her how much he loved her. She was a woman and yet, as he watched her walk unseeingly past him, the expression in her eyes was that of a lost child.

'My going back now can serve no purpose other than to salve my own conscience,' he had told Father Ignatius in frustration when the older man had urged...insisted...that it was time for him to leave the protection of their enclosed world.

'In
your
view,' the priest had agreed. 'But we must never forget that there is another higher authority and His overview overrides the narrowness of ours, just as His will supersedes ours.'

'I am not a religious man,' David had protested.

The priest had chuckled as though enjoying a private joke. He said, 'You don't have to be.'

Not a religious man now, but he had seen enough, learned enough, in the time he had worked alongside Father Ignatius to understand and accept the complexity of the needs and emotions that gave mankind its humanity.

His daughter wasn't happy and David could feel the sharp, aching tug of her distress.

He had felt a similar emotion in Jamaica over his son Jack, who had been caught up in that same vicious attack as Max. Were his children the reason, after all, that he had been compelled in some way to come back?

Olivia had driven away. As he looked towards the house, David could see his father seated in his chair in the library. Outwardly, the two of them had shared a very close bond. He had always been Ben's favourite, but inwardly, their relationship had been based upon Ben's need to re-create the twinship he believed he had lost when his own twin brother died at birth. Ben was as much a victim of his own upbringing and loss as David and Jon had been of theirs.

David wondered where Olivia had gone—back to the solicitor's practice where he'd once been senior partner? The senior partner so far as the world at large was concerned, but in reality it had been Jon who had had the better qualifications and who had handled all the more complicated cases.

Jon on whose overburdened shoulders the full weight of the responsibility for maintaining the family's professional reputation had actually rested, although no one within the family had ever given him credit for it. David himself least of all.

So many debts that he had walked away from and left unpaid...debts that perhaps could never be repaid.

This train of thought reminded him his small store of cash was dwindling away very rapidly.

He needed to earn some money and find himself some proper accommodation. Not in the town itself, of course, where he would be recognised.

No, not there. An outlying farm, perhaps, or better still, Lord Astlegh's estate. Surely he could pick up several days' work there.

It was a good few miles away, but walking that kind of distance meant nothing to David now. He smiled rather wryly to himself, remembering the other David who would have grimaced in disdain at the thought of walking any farther than a few yards unless it was on the golf course!

HONOR WAS WORKING
in her garden when she saw David walking along the bridle path in the direction of Fitzburgh Place. He was, she noticed, moving with the carefully controlled step of someone who was used to walking long distances, yet he did not look like a hiker or a rambler. Although Honor couldn't have said exactly why she thought that something seemed different about him, she sensed acutely that there was something that set him apart from others.

He was dressed ordinarily enough in faded jeans and a worn checked shirt, his feet encased in sturdy boots, and he had a small canvas haversack strapped to his back. Tall, lean-featured and tanned, he quite definitely merited a second look Honor's female instincts informed her approvingly.

Straightening her back, she smiled warmly at him and said hello. David paused to smile back.

Honor wasn't the first person to speak to him on his walk, but she was certainly the most alluring.

His ex-wife throughout their marriage had used every artifice she could find to at first enhance, and then frantically maintain, the beauty she felt she needed to hide behind, to offer as a sacrificial gift to others in exchange for their acceptance and approval.

David couldn't remember ever seeing Tiggy in public, or indeed anywhere other than in bed, without any make-up on, but this woman who was watching him with her head tilted slightly to one side, her luminous enchantress's eyes liquid with laughter, wore no cosmetics at all, nor indeed did she need them.

She wasn't young; he could see the tiny fan of lines around her eyes and the wisdom and maturity that etched her smile. All the same, David suspected that in a room full of much younger and more conventionally pretty girls,
she
would still be the woman everyone would look at.

'Are you thirsty?' Honor asked him. 'I was just about to stop for a drink.'

Thirsty! David's expression showed his surprise.

As she watched him, Honor wondered if he knew how much his expression gave him away.

In it she could see not just surprise but also a faint touch of male disapproval, even protectiveness.

'That's very kind of you,' David began, 'but—'

'But a woman of my age should have more sense than to invite a strange man into her garden.' Honor chuckled. 'Ah, but you see,' she teased him, 'I have special magical powers that enable me to tell what a person is really like. I'm a witch, you see,' she added mock solemnly, her eyes dancing with laughter as she put down her spade and walked over to the gate, opening it invitingly. 'So...dare you come in?'

'A witch?'

The smile David gave her, a flash of white teeth in his sun-browned face, made Honor's heart flip over in a double somersault of heady excitement.

Careful, she warned herself chidingly as David walked towards her. He really was a quite devastatingly attractive man with an air of unconventionality and uniqueness about him that made her pulse race. She felt secure in her judgement that it was safe to let this stranger enter her home.

'Well, no, not really,' Honor admitted with a smile as she led the way towards the kitchen. 'I'm actually a herbalist.'

'A herbalist...?'

As she heard the interest in David's voice, Honor paused to turn and look at him.

'Is herbalism something that interests you?'

Honor asked as she pushed open the kitchen door.

The room inside was low-ceilinged and dark, too much so for practicality, Honor knew, but she was loath to attempt by herself to cut back the large overgrown hedge that shadowed the kitchen windows. Perhaps when she found her builder, he might be able to recommend a tree surgeon to her.

'It isn't a subject I know very much about,'

David admitted honesdy, 'but I have a friend who believes very strongly that the answer to all our modern diseases can be just as effectively found within nature as it can within a laboratory.'

'I completely agree,' Honor responded warmly, then asked, 'Does your friend live locally? I'm Honor Jessop, by the way. I'm new to the area and as yet I haven't had much time to meet any kindred spirits.'

David hesitated and shook his head. 'No, he lives in Jamaica.' He paused and then said quickly, 'I'm David—Lawrence.'

Yes, she liked his name even though he had obviously been reluctant to give it to her.

'Jamaica... I wondered where you'd got your enviable tan. Do you go out to visit him often?'

'No,' David told her shortly, then realising how rude and almost aggressive he must have sounded, he softened his denial a little by explaining, 'I lived out there for...for some time. That was how he and I met. But now...' He frowned as he turned his head in the direction of Honor's dripping kitchen tap.

'Aggravating, isn't it?' Honor agreed. 'I've tried to unfasten it to replace the washer, but the wretched thing just won't budge.'

"It probably needs greasing first,' David suggested, glad of the opportunity to change the subject. 'I'll have a look at it for you if you like.'

Half an hour later as David unrolled his shirt-sleeves, having not only fixed the dripping tap but also emptied the waste trap, he pointed out a little severely to Honor that the lead piping leading into her kitchen ought to be replaced and the outside pipes lagged if she wanted to avoid the risk of their freezing during the winter.

As she watched David moving about her kitchen, Honor had recognised how complete he made the place look and how right it seemed to have him there. She felt comfortable around him, and his presence made her sweetly aware of herself as a woman. A small smile touched her mouth at this last thought. Her daughters would be shocked if they knew what she was thinking right now.

She had always been a faithful wife, but she knew that there was a strong sexual side to her nature that her current circumstances and lifestyle had caused her to contain and repress. Good sex was one of life's pleasures, a life-enhancing experience that everyone had the right to enjoy. Bad sex, on the other hand, was like bad food—poi-sonous to the human system, destructive, sometimes even fatally so.

Honor was both a realist and a fatalist. Life offered many opportunities, but one had to know how to recognise them and take advantage of them.

Without saying a word, whilst David washed his hands, she went to the fridge and opened it, removing the chilli she had made the previous day.

'This won't take long to reheat,' she told him conversationally. 'I ought to warn you, though, that you may find it a little on the hot side. My daughters complain that—'

'You have children?'

'Mmm...two girls. Well, they're adult women now. And you, do you have any family?'

'I have two children as well.'

'But no wife?' Honor asked quietly.

'No wife,' David agreed. 'And you?'

'I'm partnerless, too,' Honor acknowledged.

'I take it you live here alone?' David questioned a little later when they were seated opposite one another at the kitchen table eating Honor's chilli.

From the hunger with which he had tucked into the meal, eating it with absorbed concentration, Honor guessed that it had been a while since he had last eaten. He was an educated man, well-spoken and well-mannered, and he certainly wasn't someone she felt uneasy about being with on her own—quite the opposite—but she was beginning to recognise that he was no mere walker out for an afternoon's hike. Although he had answered all her questions, she sensed how carefully he was editing his responses and patrolling his privacy.