Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Man of Stone
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Concept Page

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

End Page

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO THERE’S NO money, then; no money, no house, no anything.’

Her stepsister’s light voice had hardened fractionally, and Sara winced as she looked up and saw a matching hardening in Cressy’s pale blue eyes.

This was so difficult for Cressy, she acknowledged painfully. She herself had been more prepared. Her father had warned her only a few months ago about the precariousness of his financial position.

Once a fashionable and sought-after painter, he had no illusions about himself or his talent. In the days when he had commanded large sums for his paintings, he had spent lavishly. Now those days were gone, and it seemed that even the Chelsea house had not actually been owned by him, but was on a lease from someone else.

With his death that lease was cancelled, which meant… Which meant that from the end of the month they would all three of them be homeless, Sara recognised bleakly.

For herself, she could perhaps have managed. Although she had always been the one to run the house, to do her father’s books and take charge of the household, she had had a secretarial training that, with a little polishing, could equip her to earn her own living. But there were other things to be taken into consideration.

‘So what are you going to do about Tom?’ Cressy asked her in a hard voice. ‘There’s no way I can take charge of him, and he won’t be able to stay on at school. There won’t be any money for private school fees now.’

Tom, the eight-year-old half-brother born of the marriage between her father and Cressy’s mother. Tom, with his delicate constitution and his tendency towards asthma attacks. Tom, who, she had known since they first gave her the news of the accident, would be her responsibility.

It was pointless wishing that Cressy was different; Cressy was Cressy.

She looked across the kitchen at her beautiful stepsister and sighed.

‘I never understood why on earth my mother married your father,’ Cressy complained. ‘Mother was so beautiful. She could have married anyone.’

By anyone, Cressy meant a man with money, and Sara neglected to point out that when they had first married her father had been comparatively wealthy. Instead, she said softly, ‘They were in love, Cressy.’

‘Oh, love…’ She tossed her head, making shimmering beams of light dance off the carefully lightened curls. ‘Who cares about that? When I marry, it will be to a wealthy man. You’ll have to take charge of Tom, of course.’

Sara didn’t question her abruptness, nor the hard determination in her voice. She knew Cressy too well. Others were so easily deceived by Cressy’s sugar-sweet façade, she thought sadly. They saw the blonde hair and the blue eyes, the fragile bone structure and the deliciously curved body, and they didn’t look any further.

It wasn’t that she was jealous. Well, at least, not totally, she admitted painfully, unable to deny that it would have been rather nice to look as femininely precious as Cressy. She felt that she was plain in comparison, five foot four, with hair the colour of polished hazelnuts when the sun shone on it, and at other times a rather dull brown. Likewise, her eyes reflected the chameleon quality of her personality, green one moment, hazel another.

She was a quiet, rather shy girl, used to effacing herself, used to standing in the shadow of her far more self-assured stepsister, even though Cressy was her junior by two years.

Cressy’s father had been an actor, and Cressy was determined to follow in his footsteps. She had just left drama school, and had actually been cast in a very minor role in a West End play.

They had all gone to see it. Even Tom, who had been home from the private boarding-school he attended in Berkshire. Cressy had been very good. Her father had been very proud of her, Sara remembered with a faint tinge of loneliness.

There were times when she had thought that her father wished that Cressy had been his daughter, rather than herself. She took after her mother, apparently, but she had no real way of knowing if this was true, because Lucy Rodney had died when Sara was born.

She had got on well enough with Laura, Cressy’s mother. She and her father had been a well-matched pair, both of them enjoying the luxurious and rather fast-paced life that James Rodney embraced.

That was one of the reasons that there was no money. Her father must have thought himself immortal, Sara thought wryly. He had certainly never thought to make any provision for a tragedy such as the one which had just overwhelmed them.

She had read about the avalanche that had buried an alpine village in her morning paper. It had been lunch time before she learned that her father and Laura had been killed in it.

Now there were just the three of them; an odd and very disparate family unit, consisting of two young women and one half-grown child. But Cressy was already making it plain that she was going to opt out of that unit, and so it would just be the two of them. Tom and herself.

Sara wanted to protest, to remind her stepsister that Tom was their shared responsibility, but she thought of Tom’s strained, pale face, and the way he always shied away from the often acerbic Cressy and instead she said quietly, ‘Perhaps that would be best.’

She had to turn away to avoid seeing the relieved satisfaction in Cressy’s eyes.

‘Well, it is the most sensible solution, darling. After all, looking after a small and rather sickly child is hardly my scene, is it? Besides, I may get a chance at a role in an American soap. I could hardly take Tom out to California with me. Not with his asthma.’

Sara forbore to comment that, on the contrary, the hot, dry climate would probably do their half-brother a world of good. She had far more weighty things on her mind than Cressy’s selfishness. For one thing, where on earth were they going to live? Without the house, the small salary she could bring in was hardly going to provide comfortable accommodation for a young woman and an eight-year-old child.

‘Darling, I must fly. I’m due out tonight…’

‘Cressy, we still haven’t discussed where we’re going to live,’ Sara protested. ‘We lose this house at the end of the month.’

‘Oh, haven’t I told you? Jenneth has a spare room in her flat, which she offered me.’ The blue eyes hardened. ‘Look, Sara, be practical for once in your life. Why on earth don’t you get in touch with your mother’s family?’

‘My mother’s family?’ Sara repeated stupidly. ‘But…’

‘Oh, come on, darling. Use your head. Your mother came from a wealthy Cheshire family. We all know that! All right, so they refused to have anything to do with her when she defied her parents and ran away to marry your father, but that’s years ago now. If you turn up on their doorstep, destitute, with a small child in tow, they’re bound to take you in.’

‘Cressy!’ Sara was horrified, and it showed. She was also bewildered. From the pat way Cressy was voicing it, it was obvious that this wasn’t the first time that such a solution had occurred to her stepsister. She herself had never for one moment thought of contacting her mother’s family. She didn’t even know how to. She had heard the story of her parents’ run-away marriage so often that she simply accepted it as one might a fairy story.

‘Cressy, we don’t know that my mother’s people are wealthy. Dad could…’

‘They were… they are,’ Cressy interrupted her grimly. ‘I’ve been checking up on them.’ She ignored Sara’s gasp of shock. ‘I’ve been thinking about this ever since the funeral, Sara. It’s the ideal solution. You can’t stay in London. How could you support yourself, never mind Tom?’

‘My secretarial training…’

‘Oh, that!’ Cressy brushed her stammered words aside. ‘That wouldn’t bring in enough to keep you both. Face it, darling, the parents used you as a drudge. You kept house for them and answered Pop’s post, but that was about all. You’d never get a proper job with those qualifications. Really, darling, you don’t have any alternative… You have to contact your mother’s family. Look, I’ll even drive you up to see them,’ Cressy offered magnanimously.

‘To see them? But, Cressy, if I do get in touch with them… surely a letter would be more…’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t have time to get involved in letters. You need somewhere to live, Sara. Tom needs somewhere to live,’ Cressy pointed out.

Tom… A tiny shaft of fear shook Sara. There were times when Tom seemed such a fragile, delicate child. She thought of him being cooped up in a tiny London bedsit, and her mouth went dry.

But what Cressy was suggesting was so… so… so calculating, she admitted unhappily. There had been no contact between her father and his first wife’s family from the date of their marriage. Even after their daughter’s death, they had evinced no interest in their grandchild.

‘Look,’ Cressy interrupted, ‘what have you got to lose? What alternative do you have?’

‘They might not want me,’ Sara told her through stiff lips.

She missed the hard, rather unkind look her stepsister gave her.

‘Well, we’ll just have to make sure that they do, won’t we? We’ll collect Tom from school on Monday, and then I’ll drive you straight up there. I might as well have Dad’s car,’ she added, carelessly appropriating the one asset that remained. ‘You won’t need it…’

Sara opened her mouth to object, and then closed it again. She felt too tired, too emotionally weary to quarrel with Cressy. Besides, she was probably right.

But the car could have been sold, a tiny voice reminded her, and that money… But there were other more important questions that demanded answers, and she voiced them uncertainly.

‘Cressy, my mother’s family… You seem to know so much about them…’

All her doubt and distaste of the venture her stepsister was suggesting was there in her voice, but Cressy ignored them.

‘Well, one of us had to do something. Actually, Pop told me all about them. It seems they offered to take you off his hands when he and Ma married, but you were such a clinging little thing, he knew you wouldn’t want to go.’

How could one describe such sensations? Sara thought wanly as she struggled to come to terms with the shock of her stepsister’s revelation. She felt betrayed, abandoned, almost; she had never even known that her father had had any contact with her mother’s family, that he had even been approached by them. She had always had the impression from her father that her grandparents hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with her.

‘Heaven knows why he didn’t let you go,’ Cressy said carelessly. ‘And I suppose Ma would have farmed me out, too, if she could. To be honest, you’d probably have been better off if he had sent you to them, Sara,’ she added cynically. ‘They’re very well off. I suppose it was always at the back of Pop’s mind that he could turn to them if things ever got really desperate.’

Sara wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She had received so many crushing blows recently and survived them, so why was it that this, the lightest of them all, should have such a paralysing effect?

She had always known that her father’s love for her was at best lukewarm. If he genuinely loved any of them, it was Cressy. Cressy, who made him laugh, who flirted with him and teased him, Cressy, who was exactly the sort of vibrant daughter he would have wanted.

‘It wasn’t hard to get old Hobbs to do some discreet checking up,’ Cressy continued.

Sara stared at her.

‘You asked Dad’s solicitor to do that?’

‘Why not?’ Cressy demanded carelessly, ignoring Sara’s distress. ‘Oh, come on!’ Suddenly she was impatient and showing it. ‘What other options do you have, Sara? You’ve always claimed to love Tom. Are you going to deny him the one chance he has of living a reasonably comfortable life? Starving in noble poverty is all very well in theory, but in practice…’

Sara knew that Cressy was right, and yet her pride recoiled instinctively from the thought of throwing herself on the mercy of the family who had so cruelly abandoned her mother. And as for Cressy’s suggestion that she and Tom just turn up on their doorstep, so to speak…

‘Don’t you want to hear what Hobbsy found out?’

Cressy had always known how to torment her. It was almost as though she actually knew of all those lonely childhood nights when Sara had lain awake, imagining what it would be like to have a real mother, a real family. That had been before her father married Laura, of course. But, kind though Laura had been, she had never come anywhere near to filling the empty space inside her, Sara acknowledged.

It was a shock to discover that her grandparents had actually offered to have her, and even more of a shock to know that her father had kept this information from her. Why? And then, unkindly, she was reminded of how, whenever she suggested that it was time she left home to train properly for a job, her father would remind her of all the small tasks she performed which were so essential to the smooth running of the household. Tasks which no single employee could ever be asked to perform. She was allowing Cressy’s cynicism to infect her, she thought miserably. Her father had loved her, in his way, but Cressy, being Cressy, hadn’t been able to bypass an opportunity to torment her. She had always been like that. Loving and affectionate one minute, and then clawing and spitting spitefully the next. It was difficult for Sara to know what motivated her; they were such very different people.

‘My little Martha,’ her father had sometimes called her, and she shivered in the coldness of the unheated kitchen, remembering that the words had not always been delivered kindly.

The trouble was that she had always been too pedestrian, too ordinary to appeal to her larger-than-life parent.

‘Sara, you aren’t listening to me,’ Cressy complained, dragging her back from the melancholy of her thoughts. ‘I was going to tell you about your relatives. They live in Cheshire—your father met your mother when he was visiting Chester. Hobbsy didn’t know much about their property, other than that it had been in the family for over three hundred years.’ Cressy made a face. ‘God, can you imagine? No wonder your mother ran away. Your grandmother’s still alive, but your grandfather died four years ago. Hobbsy says that your aunt and uncle lived in Sydney, and that your cousin Louise married an Australian. Your uncle and your cousin were killed in a car accident over there.’

Sara sank down into one of the kitchen chairs. Her brain felt numb, assaulted by far too much information for it to take it all in at once. She had a family. Strange, when for so many years she had longed and ached to know more about her mother and her grandparents, that now that she did there was this curious emptiness inside her.

‘So that’s all you’ve got to face, Sara. One old lady.’

She took a deep breath and swallowed.

‘Cressy, I know you mean well, but I just can’t dump myself on them… her. You must see that?’ Sara appealed frantically.

The younger girl’s eyes were hard and calculating.

‘So what do you intend to do? Stay here until you’re forcibly evicted? How do you think that will affect Tom? I’m leaving for the States at the end of the month, Sara, and nothing’s going to stop me.’

Why on earth did she feel that her stepsister had delivered a threat rather than a warning? Sara wondered miserably, concealing her shock at the swiftness with which Cressy had made her arrangements.

‘I can’t think,’ she protested. ‘Cressy, I can’t just go up there. I’ll write to them first.’

She knew without looking at her that Cressy was furious with her. How could she make the younger girl understand that she still had her pride, that she just could not throw herself on her grandmother’s charity? And yet, hours later, when Cressy had stormed out in a vicious temper, telling her that she was being criminally stubborn and selfish, she found herself standing in her father’s book-lined study in front of the shelves containing all his maps and reference books.

Her hand seemed to reach automatically for what she wanted. She lifted the book down and flicked through it, stopping when she reached Chester.

She read what was written there, and tried to subdue the tiny flicker of emotion that touched her. It had been so long since she had felt anything other than weary exhaustion, that it took her minutes to recognise it as hope.

She studied a map of the county, wondering just which part of it her family inhabited. As a child, a natural reticence and over-sensitivity for the feelings of others had stopped her from questioning her father about his in-laws. She had assumed that he found talking about her mother painful, and therefore that any mention of her parents must be doubly so. And yet, apparently, he had discussed them quite freely with Cressy.

Pointless now to feel cheated, to feel that something very precious had been denied to her.

Her family had lived in the same house for three hundred years, her father’s solicitor had discovered. What sort of house? Again that curl of sensation, this time aligned to a quivering inner excitement that brought a soft flush to her too-pale face.

The strain of the last few weeks had robbed her of much-needed weight. Unlike Cressy, she was not fashion-conscious, and her clothes had started to hang loosely on her slender frame. Even her hair, which was her one real claim to beauty, with its shiny, silky texture, seemed to have become dull and lifeless.

Suppose she was to write to her grandmother and that lady proposed a visit? The excitement grew. She felt like a child again, confronted with the beginnings of an especially exciting adventure. Her eyes sparkled, her air of plain dowdiness dropping away from her as hope took the place of misery.

There was no way she could do what Cressy was suggesting and simply inflict herself upon her grandmother, but a letter, explaining what could be explained without betraying her father…

The tiny seed of hope grew, and for the first time in weeks she slept peacefully and deeply.

Cressy believed in very late nights, and mornings that did not begin until close to twelve o’clock unless she was auditioning.

Sara took her a light breakfast tray at eleven, and wondered a little enviously how on earth her stepsister managed to look so good, even with most of last night’s make-up still round her eyes and her forehead creased in a bad-tempered frown.

‘God, my head’s splitting this morning! Whoever said that you couldn’t get drunk on champagne was a liar. What’s this?’ she demanded, grimacing as she saw the tray. ‘Breakfast? Oh, for God’s sake, Sara, don’t be such a fool. Phone’s ringing,’ she added unnecessarily. ‘If it’s for me, take a number and say I’ll ring back.’

It wasn’t, and, when she had listened to the voice on the other end of the line, Sara felt that tiny seed of hope wither and die.

She walked back to Cressy’s room slowly.

‘Who was it?’ Cressy demanded carelessly.

‘Tom’s school. Apparently, he had a very bad attack of asthma yesterday. Dr Robbins was very kind about it, but he feels that Tom’s health is too precarious for him to continue to stay on at school. We must go and see him, Cressy—now!’ She was shaking so much, she had to sit down, but Cressy ignored her obvious shock and said angrily, ‘Now?’

It was only an hour’s drive to the small, well-run prep school Tom was attending.

They were shown immediately into the headmaster’s study. Dr Paul Robbins was a tall, confidence-inspiring man in his late forties and, a little to Sara’s surprise and Cressy’s obvious resentment, it was Sara whom he led to the chair in front of his desk, and to whom he addressed his remarks, leaving Cressy to take a very much disliked back seat.

Paul Robbins wasn’t particularly impressed by pretty faces. He had enough experience of them to know they weren’t worth very much without something to back them up. The pretty, pouting blonde he had recognised as one of the world’s takers straight away. The other one, the quiet, hesitant girl, with the air of fragile vulnerability, she was the one who would be burdened with the care of the young boy at present lying in one of the ‘San beds’, being worriedly cared for by his wife.

‘How is he, Dr Robbins?’ Sara asked without preamble. ‘Can we see him?’

‘He’s doing quite well now that the attack’s over,’ he assured her. ‘And you can see him later. I wanted to have a talk with you… with both of you first. I’m afraid that the loss of his parents has had a very bad effect on Tom. We’ve taken the advice of a specialist on asthma and related problems, because this isn’t the first attack he’s had in the last few weeks. Of course, it’s only natural that Tom should feel insecure and vulnerable at the moment, and that this vulnerability should lead to asthma attacks, but in Tom’s case our specialist feels that Tom needs the security of his family around him. Some boys just do not take to a boarding-school life. Tom hasn’t been unhappy here, but he has always been a little withdrawn. This withdrawal has increased since his parents’ death, and we feel that, for Tom’s sake, if nothing else, he would be better off at home.’

He looked down at his blotter and fiddled with his pen.

‘I believe at the moment you live in London?’

The question was addressed to Sara alone, as though he was well aware that it was she and not Cressy who would bear the burden of Tom’s welfare.

‘Yes,’ Sara agreed weakly.

He looked gravely at her. ‘One of the reasons Tom was sent here to school was because it was thought that city life was not good for his health. Our specialist has corroborated that view. He feels that Tom would fare best in a quiet country environment, at least until he is old enough and strong enough to combat his asthma with other means. I don’t need to tell you, I know, that he is a very frail little boy.’

Made frailer by the fact that he had received so little attention from his parents, Dr Robbins acknowledged, without saying as much. He knew quite well from his talks with Tom that it was his sister to whom the child most readily related, a sister who, by the looks of her, was almost at the end of her own fragile reserves of strength.

Sara’s body tensed, her heart beating rapidly. Was Dr Robbins trying to tell her… to prepare her… He saw her face, and instantly reassured her.

‘No… no, on this occasion, I assure you that he has pulled through the attack very well, but you know how weakening they are, how severely they restrict his life. Tom needs a quiet, secure background, Miss Rodney, at least for the next few years.’

He offered them tea, but Sara refused it. She was desperately anxious to see Tom and to assure herself that he was not more seriously ill than she had been told.

The little school sanatorium was bright and cheerful, but that could surely not lessen the loneliness for the little boy who was its sole occupant, Sara thought achingly as they were taken to see him.

He was sedated and drowsy with medication, but the smile he gave her made her heart turn over. He was her brother, and yet in many ways he was also her child. His parents had loved him in their careless way, but he was like her, vulnerable and in need of much more than the casual affection that was all they had time to give. She kneeled to kiss him, her throat closing up with love and fear. He was so thin, so pale, so much smaller surely than other boys his age.

They weren’t allowed to stay with him for very long. Dr Robbins had arranged for them to see the specialist, who merely repeated what he had already told them. By this time, Cressy was exhibiting obvious signs of impatience and, when they were finally free to walk out to the car, she complained irately, ‘Honestly, there was no need for him to go through it all again! I’m going out tonight, and now I’m going to be late.’

Sara couldn’t speak. She was too shocked and worried. How could Cressy even think about going out when Tom… She bit into her bottom lip, unaware that she had torn the tender flesh until she tasted blood.

‘It’s just as well you’ve got your grandmother to turn to,’ Cressy said casually as she started the car. ‘There’s no way you could stay in London now, is there?’

Hard eyes locked with Sara’s pained, bewildered ones, and all the objections she wanted to voice died unsaid.

‘I’ll write to my grandmother tonight,’ she said quietly, but Cressy shook her head and stopped the car.

‘Sara, don’t be such a fool. There isn’t time for that. You heard what that fool Robbins said. He wants to get rid of Tom. He wants you to take him away. And I thought you loved him,’ she added cruelly. ‘If you really did, you wouldn’t hesitate. Is your pride really so much more important than Tom’s health?’

There was nothing Sara could say. Numbly, she shook her head, while one part of her cried out in desperation that she could not simply turn up on her grandmother’s doorstep without an invitation.

She tried to reason, even to argue with Cressy, but the other girl wouldn’t listen.

‘Look, we’ll drive down and collect Tom on Friday, and then go straight up to Cheshire.’

Sara was too exhausted to protest. All she could think of was Tom’s white face; all she could hear was the specialist’s dire warnings about the necessity for a quiet, secure country life.

If her grandmother wasn’t wealthy, if there had been some past contact between them… But what was the point of ‘ifs’? She was caught in a situation not of her own making, and the strong sense of loyalty and responsibility bred deep in her wouldn’t allow her to abandon Tom now, when he needed her most.

‘Almost there.’

For the first time in weeks, Cressy sounded cheerful. Sara averted her head and stared blindly out of the window. She felt sick with nerves, desperately afraid of what was to come, and she wished she had done anything other than agree to Cressy’s plans.

She had even suggested telephoning her grandmother, but Cressy had forced her to concede that a telephone call was not the best way to introduce herself to a grandmother whom she had never seen.

In the back seat, Tom was humming cheerfully. Even today, she might have found an alternative but, when they arrived at the school to collect Tom, Dr Robbins had detained her to tell her than Tom’s school fees had been paid for the year, and that there would be a refund to come to her. It was as though he knew how desperately short of money they were, Sara had reflected unhappily.

By the time she got to Tom’s bedside, Cressy was already sitting there, and she had been greeted with Tom’s excited, ‘We’re going to live in the country, Sara, with your grandma, and Cressy says that I might be able to have a dog…’

Sara had been appalled. She had been literally shaking with anger and fear as she sat down on the other chair. Cressy had had no right to tell him such things! Her grandmother might turn them away, and as for a dog… She grimaced to herself. There was no way that Tom, with his asthmatic condition, could have such a pet.

All the way up the motorway, Tom had been asking eager questions about their destination. Questions which she was completely incapable of answering.

‘Ah! Here’s our turn-off…’

As Cressy slowed down for the motorway exit, Sara found she was actually pressing her body back into her seat, as though she could will the car to turn round and drive back down to London.

The countryside around them was flat, with hills to the east and the west. The fields were full of early summer crops, the landscape broken up by the sprawls of half-timbered farmhouses and outbuildings.

It was easy to see why this part of the country had once been so rich in arable wealth.

‘Not far now…’

They drove into a small, picturesque village, and past large, turn-of-the-century houses with privet hedges and curling driveways. There were more trees here, and they grew denser as the road narrowed. Their directions had come from her father’s solicitor’s office, like all Cressy’s information.

They approached a pair of wrought-iron gates guarded by a small, obviously empty lodge. Tom’s eyes widened as Cressy turned in between the open gates.

The drive skirted a large, informal pond, green lawns stretched away into the shade of massive trees, and then Sara saw the house.

Tudor, without a doubt, it was larger than she had expected, and older. Its small, mullioned windows reflected the sunshine, and as she wound down the car window the harsh cry of a peacock made her jump.

‘What’s that?’ Tom demanded nervously.

She told him, watching his eyes, round with excitement, as he tried to catch a glimpse of the shrieking bird.

Cressy stopped the car.

With legs that felt as though they had turned to cotton wool, Sara got out, taking Tom by the hand.

The front entrance looked formidable, a heavy oak door, closed and studded against intruders. Before she could reach for the bellpull, the door opened, and a man strode out, almost knocking her over. She had an impression of angry, dark blue eyes and a very tanned face. A firm male hand grasped her, steadying her, and just for a moment she clung to the supportive weight of his arm, aware of its strength beneath the immaculate darkness of his expensive suit.

‘What the devil…’ His voice was crisp, authoritative and faintly irritated. ‘The house isn’t open to tourists,’ he told her, brusquely releasing her. ‘You’re probably looking for Gawsworth.’

He had already released her, and she stepped back from him, sensing his impatience. He had dark hair, very dark, and there was something about him that made her shiver slightly, some frisson of awareness that passed through her body as she watched him.

‘We aren’t looking for Gawsworth.’

Ah, now there was no impatience, Sara acknowledged, observing his entirely male reaction to Cressy’s blonde prettiness. She walked towards him, all smiling confidence, sure in her ability to draw and hold his attention.

‘Luke, you forgot your briefcase.’

Sara looked eagerly at the woman who had opened the door. Although well into her sixties, she was tall and upright, her silver hair immaculately groomed, her clothes elegant and understated.

This, then, must be her grandmother!

She smiled at them politely and then checked, the blood draining from her face.

‘Sara… Sara, it is you, isn’t it?’

Sara could only nod, dry-mouthed. Her grandmother had recognised her. But how?

And then all hell seemed to break loose around her as the man turned to study her, his eyes frozen chips of winter sky, his whole body emanating dislike and contempt as he asked savagely, ‘Is this true? Are you Sara Rodney?’

Too confused to speak, Sara nodded again.

Somewhere in the background she could hear Cressy speaking, her voice unfamiliar with its husky, faintly uncertain tone. Cressy had never sounded uncertain in her life. But she had forgotten that Cressy was an actress, and little chills of disbelief mingled with her shock as she heard Cressy saying uncomfortably, ‘Oh, Sara, I told you you should have written first… I’m so sorry about this—er—Luke. But Sara insisted… I think she felt that she could hardly be turned away if she just turned up on your—her grandmother’s doorstep. Of course, things have been hard for her lately.’

‘You must come inside.’

A gentle hand touched her wrist, and Sara looked painfully into her grandmother’s face.

At her side, Tom clung desperately to her hand.

‘And who is this?’

‘It’s Tom, my half-brother…’

Somehow she was inside a comfortable, half-panelled hall. Rich jewel-coloured rugs glowed on the well-polished parquet floor. The room was full of the scent of beeswax, and of fresh flowers from the vases on the table.

Outside, she could still hear Cressy talking. Why was she saying those things? It had been her idea, hers… and yet now she was saying…

‘Are you all right?’

Again that anxious, faded-blue-eyed look. Sara summoned a reassuring smile.

‘A little tired. I’m sorry to arrive like this, without any warning…’

‘My dear, I’m your grandmother. You’re so like your mother—I recognized you immediately!’ Tears shimmered in the pale blue depths for a moment. ‘You can’t know how much I’ve longed for this moment, how often I’ve imagined opening the door and finding you there. Luke…’

‘I must go, otherwise I’ll miss my flight.’

As the tall, dark-haired man embraced her grandmother and then looked coldly at her, Sara wondered what his relationship to her grandmother was. Too close to be merely a friend, to judge from the way he had embraced her. He had not struck her as a man who was free with his affections.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cressy walk towards the car with him, talking earnestly to him. What was Cressy telling him? she wondered worriedly.

She knew her stepsister well enough to realise that the younger girl was hardly likely to want to paint herself in a bad light in the eyes of a personable male, and a tiny thread of fear spiralled inside her.

She dismissed it quickly. Luke, whoever he was, was not important. It was her grandmother whom she had to convince that she had come here only under duress and out of concern for Tom.

‘I shouldn’t have turned up like this,’ she whispered as she was led into an elegantly comfortable sitting-room. How could her mother have endured to turn her back on this house of sunshine? she wondered, blinking in the golden dazzle of it as it poured in through the mullioned windows.

A portrait above the fireplace caught her eye, and she stared at it, transfixed.

‘Your mother,’ her grandmother told her quietly. ‘Painted just before her eighteenth birthday. It wasn’t long afterwards that she… she left us. Come and sit down. I want to hear all about you.’ She saw the concern and apprehension cloud the hazel eyes which were so like her own late husband’s, and said gently, ‘Sara, something’s wrong. What is it?’

How quickly and easily it all tumbled out! Her father, Cressy… and Tom. Most of all, Tom… Her love for him, and also her fear.

She badly wanted to cry, but she was so used to controlling her feelings for the benefit of others that she wouldn’t allow tears to fall.

‘Cressy is right,’ her grandmother said when she had finished. ‘You had to come here. And I’m so pleased that you have.’

Later, she would try to find out why this grandchild of hers had never responded to her constant pleas that she at least agree to see her… Her late son-in-law had a good deal to answer for, she suspected. She had never liked him, never considered him good enough for her daughter. But selfishness was not something that was restricted to other people’s families, as she had good cause to know. For now, it was enough that Sara had come home. And home was where she was going to stay.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE TOLD SARA as much over dinner, and was shocked by the look of agonised relief in her granddaughter’s eyes. Alice Fitton had spent many long hours wondering about this grandchild of hers, trying to understand why it was that she had rejected their every overture of love and regret.

She had thought that Sara must be like her father: strong-willed, self-centred, uncaring of the emotional needs of others through a lack of ever having experienced them for herself. But less than half an hour in Sara’s company had been enough to show her how wrong she was.

The other girl, now—Cressida… But Cressida was no concern of hers, other than that Sara seemed to be overly concerned about her welfare. Sara was speaking to her now.

‘Cressy, why don’t you stay the night?’ she urged her stepsister. ‘Gran is right. It’s a long journey back at this time of the evening. And, besides, if you stay, it will help Tom to feel a little more settled.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Cressy frowned, an acid sharpening of her eyes and mouth dimming her normal prettiness.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop fussing, Sara. Tom will be perfectly all right. Anyway, I have to leave. I have an appointment first thing in the morning, and then there’s an audition for a day-time soap.’

Cressy had quickly realised that there was no way she would ever be able to charm Alice Fitton. The older woman had seen right through her, but Luke…

She smiled secretly to herself.

‘I could always drive up at the weekend,’ she offered tentatively.

‘Oh, yes…’

Sighing faintly to herself, Alice said nothing. Perhaps she was being very uncharitable, but there was something about Cressy that she just didn’t like or trust. But Sara, her heart full of happiness and relief, could only remember that if it hadn’t been for Cressy’s insistence she would not be here. And Cressy had been right to urge her to come; her grandmother had made her welcome. Already there was a rapport between them that Sara had never known with anyone else. Already she felt at home in a way she had never experienced before. Unlike her father, her grandmother did not despise her.

‘After we’ve finished eating, I’ll take you and Tom upstairs, and you can choose your own bedrooms. Luke will be pleased when he knows you’re going to stay. He’s always telling me I’m too old to be on my own.’ The way she smiled robbed the words of any unkind intent, but Sara could not help feeling resentful on behalf of her grandmother. Who was this Luke to dare to tell her what she should and should not do?

‘What’s the matter?’ her grandmother asked perceptively.

‘Who exactly is Luke?’ Sara asked her uncertainly.

‘Of course, how could you know? Silly of me! It’s just that he’s been a part of the family for so long now that I forgot that you wouldn’t realise. Luke Gallagher was married to your cousin Louise.’

Her cousin? Of course, Luke was the widowed husband of the cousin Cressy had told her about.

‘He has very many business interests, both here and in Australia, which keep him very busy,’ her grandmother sighed. ‘Too busy, I sometimes think.’

It was becoming increasingly plain to Sara that her grandmother held this Luke in the greatest affection, and she was equally sure, from that one hard, encompassing look he had given her, that Luke was not going to be inclined to favour her arrival.

What her grandmother chose to do was no concern of Luke’s, Sara told herself staunchly, and yet she was left with the lowering feeling that, if Luke chose to do so, he could make her life acutely uncomfortable for her. But why should he? He probably only visited her grandmother at irregular intervals, when he was in the country.

Sara didn’t care for all this talk about Luke. It was making her feel acutely edgy. She didn’t know why the very thought of the man had such an unwarranted effect on her; she was normally the calmest of creatures. Men had never figured very largely in her life. At twenty-three, her experience of them was limited to the odd date, mainly with sons of friends of her father’s, young men she had always felt uncomfortably sure had been dragooned into taking her out, and for that reason she had usually ended up tongue-tied and awkward in their company, knowing that given the choice they must surely have preferred to take out someone like her stepsister.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the opposite sex, it was simply that there had never been much time for her to get to know any of them on her own terms.

‘Well, my dear, if you really do want to leave this evening, we mustn’t delay you.’

She realised that her grandmother was inviting Cressy to leave. She and Tom went out to the car with her. Even though she and Cressy did not always see eye-to-eye, she was reluctant to see her go.

Harrison, her grandmother’s chauffeur-cum-handyman, had already removed their luggage from the car.

‘Well, with a bit of luck I’ll see you both next weekend.’

Sara stepped forward to hug her, but Cressy moved back, grimacing faintly.

Unlike her, she had always been sparing with her gestures of affection, especially to Tom and herself, Sara acknowledged a little unhappily.

‘I thought you were going to be busy getting ready for your trip to America,’ she reminded Cressy, a tiny frown puckering her forehead as she remembered her stepsister’s glib explanation for the unseemly haste with which she had insisted they all come up here.

Tom had moved away from them and they were virtually standing alone. Sara felt her skin burn as Cressy taunted unkindly, ‘What’s wrong? Would you prefer to have Luke all to yourself, is that it?’ She had driven off before Sara could make any response. She didn’t usually let Cressy’s bitterness upset her so much, but for some reason her final comment had made her eyes sting with hot tears.

‘Come inside. It’s getting quite cool. I think we’ll get Harrison to light the sitting-room fire.’

There was a firm dependability about her grandmother, Sara recognised, and a gentleness that made her aware of all that she had missed in not knowing her while she was growing up. It would have meant so much to her to have this woman, this house, as a bolt-hole during the often turbulent and uncomfortable days of her teens; days when she had felt so at odds with her father and his values; days when she had felt so alone and unloved.

She knew instinctively that here she would not have experienced those feelings, and that she and her grandmother would have been attuned to one another.

‘Sara, you are so different from what I’d imagined,’ her grandmother commented as she led her upstairs. ‘When you never replied to any of our letters—’

Sara stopped and stared at her.

‘There were no letters,’ she told her, shocked into unguarded speech.

‘But, my dear, there were… Every birthday, every Christmas, at holiday time… Up until the day you were eighteen. They were sent to your father, of course.’ She paused diplomatically, while Sara clung to the polished wood of the banister, trying to take in what she had just heard.

‘You wrote? But…’

‘But your father never told you!’ Alice Fitton guessed intuitively. ‘Well, perhaps he had his reasons. I must confess that there was a good deal of bitterness between him and my husband, especially when he refused to allow your mother to come home to have you… We knew how fragile she was, you see, but he insisted on taking her to Italy with him.’

‘He was in the middle of his first book,’ Sara whispered, her eyes dark with shock.

She had heard the story so often. How her father had been working on his first book, how he had needed to do research in Italy, and how she had been born there. She had never once heard him say that her mother had been invited to stay with her parents. Quite the contrary. Without saying so in as many words, he had nevertheless implied that his in-laws had cruelly refused to have anything to do with their daughter, even when they knew she was carrying their grandchild.

She looked into her grandmother’s eyes, and knew that she was telling her the truth.

‘But why?’ she asked painfully. ‘Why not tell me?’

‘Perhaps partially to punish your grandfather and I, my dear. You see, I don’t think your father ever really forgave us for not considering him the right husband for our daughter.’ There was sorrow and pain in her voice, and Sara couldn’t help thinking her father’s resentment must surely have been fuelled by the knowledge that they were probably right. No one liked to admit that their judgement was surpassed by some other’s, especially not a man like her father. But even understanding what had motivated him did not make it entirely easy for her to forgive him. It would have meant so little to him, and so much to her. She thought of all the holidays she had spent, either alone, or farmed out with friends, because her father had better things to do than to entertain a small child.

It was those memories of pain that made her so protective of Tom, she acknowledged, glancing at her half-brother now.

‘Yes, he looks tired,’ her grandmother agreed.

‘It was for his sake that I allowed Cressy to persuade me to come here,’ Sara told her. ‘He suffers from an asthmatic condition that makes a quiet country life-style imperative.’

‘Don’t worry, Sara. This house is more than big enough to accommodate one extra child. I’m sure we shall hardly notice that Tom is here. My dear, did you really think for a moment that you would be turned away? Oh, Sara! How guilty you make me feel that we didn’t try harder to make contact with you.’

Tom chose a small room with a dormer window and a sloping roof. The window looked out on to a patchwork of fields, stretching away into the purple distance of the hills.

Already he seemed happier, more relaxed, more the way a boy his age should look, thought Sara, watching him covertly.

She elected to have the room next to Tom’s.

‘This is mine,’ her grandmother told her, indicating a further door. ‘And this one is Luke’s. He insists on sleeping close at hand, in case I need anything during the night.’ She pulled a wry but indulgent face. ‘I keep telling him that I’m far from that decrepit yet.’ And then her smile faded as she turned and caught Sara’s rebellious expression.

‘What is it, Sara?’ she asked gently. ‘Every time I mention Luke’s name, you almost flinch.’

‘I didn’t realise he actually lived here.’ Sara bit her lip, aware of how breathless and nervy her voice sounded. ‘I suppose it’s just that I’m not used to such overpoweringly male men,’ she added in a brief attempt at humor, trying to cover her obvious dismay. She didn’t want to upset her grandmother by seeming to dislike a man she clearly held in high esteem.

‘Yes, Luke is very male, which makes it all the more surprising…’ Her grandmother broke off and grimaced faintly. ‘Well, I can tell you, Sara. After all, you are my granddaughter. I’m worried about Luke. He should marry again…’

‘Perhaps he prefers not to put someone else in his first wife’s place,’ Sara suggested gently, and earned herself a rather odd look from her grandmother. At first she thought the old lady was going to say something else, but obviously she had changed her mind, because she gave a small shrug and turned back to return downstairs.

Privately, Sara suspected there would be any number of women only too willing to fill the empty place left in Luke’s life by the death of his wife, with or without a wedding ring.

Of course, she herself was immune to his brand of raw sexuality.

‘Luke might be a very wealthy, very intelligent man, but he’s still human, and still vulnerable,’ her grandmother told her, shrewdly reading her mind. ‘Let’s go downstairs and have some coffee. Anna normally brings me a tray about this time.’

Anna was her grandmother’s housekeeper and cook, a pretty, plump woman in her late forties.

Anna and Harrison both apparently had their own flats in the converted mews building over what had once been the stables and were now garages.

‘When Luke comes back, he can show you the grounds properly. I don’t walk as much these days as I used to.’

‘Tell me about the house,’ Sara asked impulsively when they were sitting down. Instinctively, her glance went to the portrait of her mother above the mantelpiece. Seeing it, her grandmother said gently, ‘Another day, perhaps, when I can show you round, and then you’ll find it more interesting. After all,’ she teased, ‘it’s been here for close on four hundred years—it isn’t going to disappear overnight!’

‘I don’t know,’ Sara laughed. ‘It even looks like something out of a fairy-tale to me. I had no idea…’

‘There have been Fittons in this part of the country for many, many years. Shakespeare even wrote about one.’

‘Mary Fitton, of course,’ Sara supplied, remembering the tragic story of Shakespeare’s dark lady of the sonnets.

‘Why don’t I tell you about your mother, instead?’

‘Well, if you’re sure you won’t find it painful…’

Her grandmother shook her head.

‘No, my dear. After all, I’ve had over twenty-three years in which to accustom myself to the loss of your mother. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, in my darkest moments, I wonder if it’s true that the Fitton name is cursed—there have been so many small tragedies. But then your grandfather would remind me that in any family with a history stretching a long way into the past there are similar sorrows and worse.

‘Your mother was a delightful child—headstrong, pretty, very like you, physically.’ And although she didn’t say it, she acknowledged that her daughter had had an inner light, a brightness that had either been quenched in her granddaughter or never allowed to be lit.

Now that she had the full story of the tragedy that had struck the small family, she was doubly appalled at her son-in-law’s selfishness. To have made no provision for his family, especially when it contained such a young and physically vulnerable child…

‘It’s time I was in bed,’ she told Sara with a smile. ‘It’s been a very exciting day for me. Don’t worry about getting up in the morning.’

‘You mustn’t spoil me,’ Sara protested. ‘I ought to be thinking about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I should try and find out about some sort of training. I’ve got my secretarial qualifications. Do you think I might be able to find a job in Chester?’

‘That’s something we can talk about later,’ she was told firmly. ‘For the moment, you need to rest and relax. Goodnight, my dear.’

She had been so lucky, Sara marvelled as she prepared for bed; so much, much more lucky than she had ever dreamed she might be. That her grandmother should have welcomed both her and Tom so generously; that she should be so prepared to take them in and love them… She could hardly believe it was true.

There was only one thing to mar her happiness. Or, rather, one person.

Luke!

She shivered slightly beneath the fine linen sheets, reliving the sensation of his hands on her skin as he supported her. That he had been totally unaware of her as a woman she didn’t need telling. It had been there in the brief, dismissive glance he gave her before turning his attention to Cressy.

But then that indifference had changed to a fierce, biting contempt that had blasted her fragile self-confidence, leaving her acutely vulnerable to the dislike she had felt emanating from him.

Was it just because Cressy had misrepresented her to him? She told herself that a man who could be so easily deceived by her stepsister’s pretty face wasn’t worth bothering about, but she couldn’t dismiss him so easily.

If she stayed here, he was going to be part of the fabric of her life. Her grandmother plainly adored him. Sara was dangerously tempted to leave, but how could she? She had Tom to think about. Tom, who already seemed to have settled into his new environment.

At least Luke wasn’t there all the time, if he constantly came and went on business. And if he really disliked her as much as she believed, he would be as anxious to avoid her as she was to avoid him.

So why did she feel this nagging sense of danger? Why did she find herself thinking of him as the serpent in her new-found Eden?

Although she hadn’t intended to, she did oversleep. Tom woke her up, announcing that he had had his breakfast and that he was ready to explore.

‘Harrison is going to show me everything,’ he told her importantly.

Did Harrison know not to take him near anything furred or feathered? Anxiously, Sara got up, instructing him to stay inside until she was ready to go out with him.

She donned her usual uniform of jeans and sweater, pausing only for a moment to admire the view from her bedroom window.

Her grandmother, she learned from Anna, always had breakfast in her own room.

‘It’s her heart,’ the housekeeper told her. ‘She must rest as much as she can, but she does not always do so. Although Luke does what he can to remove most of the burden from her shoulders, there is still much work involved in organising the maintenance and running of a house such as this one.’

Listening to her, Sara made a vow there and then that she would do as much as she could to remove that burden from her grandmother’s shoulders.

After breakfast, Harrison showed them round the gardens. How easy it would be to allow oneself to slip back in time here, if only in the imagination, Sara thought, marvelling at the intricacy and cleverness of a cleverly fashioned knot garden.

There was an avenue of clipped yews and quiet, shadowed pathways that led to small, secret, enclosed gardens with old-fashioned, wrought-iron benches. In one was a sundial, engraved with quotations from Shakespeare’s sonnets, and in another a white-painted summer-house, shaped like a small pavilion.

How could her mother have endured to leave all this? Sara could only marvel at the power of human emotions. Had she been brought up here, could she have turned her back on it and the love of her parents to go off with a man like her father?

Perhaps it was the insecurity of her own childhood from which had grown this deep-rooted need for security. Her mother, the child of such security, might not have experienced its need quite so sharply. It was true that familiarity could breed contempt.

The gardens had such serenity, such a sense of time and timelessness. She listened as Harrison told her how each individual garden had come into being.

He had been with her parents for many years. His family came from the village, he told her. He was in his sixties, a wiry, weathered man with a quiet voice and very sharp eyes.

Tom had taken to him immediately. Like her, Tom craved security… and love.

‘Do you have any dogs here?’ Tom asked earnestly, and Sara quailed a little, remembering Cressy’s unkind promise to him.

‘Not now,’ Harrison told him, shaking his head. ‘We did once, but your grandmother says she’s too old now for a young dog.’

They saw the peacocks and their wives, strutting beside the lake, fanning their tales in rage as humans invaded their domain. Tom stared at them in awe, fascinated by the iridescent ‘eyes’ in their tails.

‘A present from Queen Victoria, they was,’ Harrison told them, and Sara knew that he referred to the birds’ original antecedents. How many stories this house must hold, how many secrets! But it lacked the brooding quality that hung like a miasma over so many old houses.

With very little imagination she could almost believe she could hear the sound of children’s laughter; almost believe she could see all those long-ago children who must once have played in these gardens. As her children might, perhaps, one day play here.

It was an odd thought to have, and one that made her suddenly immensely aware of a deep inner loneliness she had been experiencing for some time.

She loved Tom and she loved Cressy. She knew she would love her grandmother as well, but Sara knew that that was not enough. She wanted to experience the same kind of love her mother must once have felt for her father; the kind of love that transcended everything else; the kind of love that was shared between a man and a woman.

Tom dragged slightly on her hand and she checked herself immediately. He must be tired, although already there was more colour in his face, a new happiness in his eyes.

‘I don’t know about Harrison and you, Tom, but I’m ready for some of Anna’s coffee,’ she said diplomatically, knowing how sensitive Tom was about his fragility.

She saw from the relief in his eyes that she was right, and that he was tired.

‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ she suggested.

‘Do you know, Sara, I’m very glad we came here,’ he pronounced when they were sitting at Anna’s kitchen table, munching home-made biscuits and drinking coffee in Sara’s case and lemonade in Tom’s. ‘It makes me feel sort of happy inside being here.’

Sara knew exactly what he meant.

CHAPTER THREE

FIVE DAYS PASSED, a calm oasis of time, during which Sara grew to accept that she was not living in some impossible daydream, but that this was reality.

It was like watching a small, delicate flower bloom, Alice Fitton thought, watching her. She was too old now to harbour unforgiving feelings for anyone; life had taught her that it was too precious to be wasted in such fruitless emotions, but watching Sara exclaim over the beauty of a newly opened rose, seeing how hungrily she responded to every tiny gesture of affection, seeing her confidence grow almost in front of her eyes, she found it very hard indeed to understand her dead son-in-law.

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