Phantom Marriage
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IF she didn’t hurry she was going to be late picking the twins up again, Tara acknowledged, glancing in resignation at the heavy-duty watch which looked so incongruous against the fragility of her wrist.

Today Chas has been more difficult than ever. Twice he had had the model in tears, and only her own deft soothing had enabled them to carry on.

It was not merely luck and knowing the right people that had taken Chas to the top as a fashion photographer, and even when she was appalled at the brutal, uncaring way he treated his models, Tara still found it possible to admire his skill, and the driving desire for perfection his unyeilding determination evidenced.

Today he had been particularly savage, and not just with the model, and Tara knew the reason why. Ever since she had started working for him as his personal assistant he had made his desire for her very evident. In a way she knew she ought to be flattered that he wanted her when so many beautiful girls were only too ready to share his bed, but then Chas was cynical and hardbitten enough to know that his models were only too happy to sleep with him if it meant it would further their career, whereas she… She stifled an impatient sigh as he gave terse instructions to her regarding the development of some of the shots he had taken. Photography had always been one of her interests, and when she had been left alone after the twins were born she had turned to it as a means of earning a living. Eventually she hoped to have a studio of her own, and this she had made plain to Chas when she first went to work with him. As far as work went she couldn’t fault him. He was marvellously patient in showing her all the tricks of the trade and helping her with her own photography; unstinting with both genuine praise and genuine criticism, and was now allowing her to take on some of their more routine work entirely unsupervised. An ad they had done for stockings several weeks ago had brought a positive paean of praise from the client, and Chas had given her full credit for her work. No, it was not where work was concerned that Chas was becoming impossible. In a way it was almost ludicrous that he should find her desirable; at twenty-four and the mother of six-year-old twins she had long ago ceased thinking of herself as the object of any man’s desire.

‘And don’t forget, we’ve got that weekend assignment coming up,’ were Chas’s final words as she hurried to where her car was parked.

It was an assignment Tara was privately dreading. They had received a commission to take some fashion shots at Leeds Castle which would take up an entire weekend. Tara had protested that she couldn’t possibly leave the twins, but Chas had overruled her, saying that his housekeeper would be delighted to look after them for her. The real reason she didn’t want to go was that she sensed that Chas would use the weekend to force her into an affair with him—an affair she didn’t want, but offending him might ultimately mean losing her job, which she enjoyed very much and which was extremely well paid.

Sighing, she eased herself into her ancient Mini, adjusting the driving mirror as she did so, pausing as she caught sight of her own reflection. Twenty-four; she grimaced wryly. She didn’t look it, which was ridiculous when she remembered that at eighteen she had looked older. Eighteen… She grimaced, tossing the thick length of her brown-blonde hair off her shoulders. Normally she wore it in one single plait for work but this morning they had overslept and there hadn’t been time. Her face free of make-up belied her years, freckles standing out plainly across the bridge of her nose. Her hair had a natural tendency to curl, tiny tendrils feathering across her forehead. Her eyes were an unusual mixture of hazel-green; hazel one moment, jade green the next, in accordance with her mood. As a child she had been volatile, given to impulsive gestures, but age and experience had cured her of that.

She switched on her engine, swearing mildly as she glanced again at her watch. Her skin was faintly tanned still from a trip she had made to Greece with Chas earlier in the year. Her mother had looked after the twins for her, but grudgingly. She had never really got over the fact that they had been born illegitimate. Tara grimaced as she pulled out into the main stream of traffic. It had not been purely for the twins’ sake that she had invented a ‘deceased husband’ for herself when she moved to London shortly after their birth. As she had quickly discovered in the months following their arrival, while some areas of ‘sophisticated’ society now quite happily condoned the birth of children outside marriage, in male eyes there was still an element of the ‘fallen woman’ attached to girls who admitted to fatherless children, and Tara had grown sick of the men who had offered friendship and affection merely because they assumed her unmarried mother status meant they would quickly gain access to her bed. They had soon learned their mistake, just as she had quickly learned from hers. She had left the small town where she had gone to stay with her aunt and uncle to await the birth of the twins, and started anew in the safe anonymity of London where no one cared enough to question her youthfully widowed status.

It had been a lucky move. She had managed to get the twins enrolled at an excellent nursery, while she herself had gone to college to complete the education so rudely shattered by the discovery of her pregnancy. It had been impossible for her to go to university, but she had gained a sound grounding in secretarial work, which had meant that at least she had been able to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads. An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the money for the deposit on the small terraced house she had bought in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fast moving up-market as more and more young couples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the small private kindergarten the twins were attending. This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother. Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, complaining bitterly that she could no longer stand the shame of living in the same place that had witnessed her daughter’s disgrace. Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known. All three of them now felt uncomfortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent. Her mother considered private education to be morally wrong, but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins.

When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t. There had been no possibility of marriage to their father, of course. Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white. Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound. It wasn’t even as though he had the excuse of being a young innocent as she had been herself. An unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was something she could have understood and accepted in a boy of eighteen, but in a man of twenty-seven… As always when she thought of James bitterness welled up inside her. The first time they met she hadn’t realised what was to come. He had simply been the father of a younger school friend.

Memories suddenly threatened to come crowding back, and with the skill of long experience, she dammed them up, concentrating on her driving and the evening ahead.

It wasn’t far from the studio to the kindergarten, which was one of the reasons she had chosen it.

To her relief there were still other cars parked outside when she arrived; mothers waiting to collect their offspring, and she smiled in wry amusement, acknowledging the incongruity of her shabby Mini amongst so many luxuriously expensive boxes on wheels.

An elegant blonde woman smiled at her as she eased herself from the Mini. Tara smiled back vaguely, eyes searching the playground for the twins’ familiar dark heads, and a small pent-up sigh escaped the full warmth of her lips when she spotted them playing on the slide.

Outwardly neither twin bore the slightest resemblance to her; both had inherited their father’s darkly attractive looks, softened by baby chubbiness, and an undeniably coquettish femininity in the case of Mandy.

Tara grimaced a little as she thought of her pretty, wilful little daughter. Already the little girl seemed to exhibit a perverse delight in thwarting her mother, and Tara recognised unwillingly in the little girl’s behaviour a need for the firm and loving hand of a father. Mandy was all female and had been from the moment of her birth, just as Simon was a sturdy miniature replica of his father. Like Mandy he too suffered the lack of a father, although in Simon it showed more in the pensive seriousness of his eyes and his tendency to cling a little too much to the protection afforded by Tara.

Simon as always saw her first and came running over to her, flinging his arms round her jean-clad knees, while Mandy followed in his wake, dark curls flying.

‘You’re late,’ Simon accused when she had kissed them both.

Tara sighed. ‘I know, darling.’

‘Is Uncle Chas coming round tonight?’ Mandy demanded. Chas occasionally popped round in the evening to discuss work, and Mandy tended to disapprove of his visits.

As Tara was explaining to them that it was unlikely, the blonde woman who had smiled so tentatively at her before suddenly approached with a toddler, her smile deepening to recognition as she came closer.

‘Tara!’ she exclaimed in pleased accents. ‘I thought it was you.’

She mustn’t have looked at her properly the first time, Tara decided, suddenly feeling ill, otherwise she would have recognised her instantly, despite the sophistication that seven years and the apparent addition of a wealthy husband had given.

‘Susan.’

Did her voice sound as weak as she felt?

‘What a fantastic coincidence,’ the other girl chattered on blithely, obviously unaware that Tara wasn’t sharing her pleasure. ‘It must be at least seven years since I last saw you. You never even told me that you were leaving Hillingdon,’ she added reproachfully. ‘Are these your children?’

‘Yes.’

Tara was desperate to escape, but it was impossible while Susan admired the twins, and picked up her own toddler, who, she informed Tara, was just three and was called Piers.

‘After his grandfather,’ she added, pulling a slight face. ‘Do you know, I just can’t get over meeting you like this. Of course the chauffeur normally collects Piers from school. What are you doing with yourself…’ Her eyes slid to the betrayingly ancient state of Tara’s Mini in comparison to her own elegant BMW. ‘You married, of course… Your husband…’

‘John died before the twins were born,’ Tara lied huskily, bending down to check the fastening on Simon’s shoes, glad of the excuse to hide her expression from the girl who had once been one of her closest friends. Dear God, why did this have to happen? Why did she have to run into Susan of all people like this?

Susan was instantly sympathetic.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she exclaimed, glancing significantly at the twins as she added, ‘No problems there, I hope? I can still remember what the lack of a father did to me, although it wasn’t the same thing. Mother divorced my real father when I was four. I don’t suppose I ever mentioned that to you before—I hated people knowing. She’s remarried again, you know,’ she added conversationally, patently unaware of the sudden tensing of Tara’s body. ‘The older she gets the younger her husbands get. She’s living in the States now. I think of all the fathers she provided me with James was my favourite. In the old days I never used to admit he wasn’t my father. He was wonderful fun, do you remember…?’

Did she? Tara forced a smile from a face that felt as though it would crack apart and expose her anguish to the world and managed to croak, ‘Yes…’

‘Look, we must get together,’ Susan announced enthusiastically. ‘We’ve so much to catch up on. We’ve just bought a house in the country—for Piers mainly. At the moment we can only use it at weekends, although his father is hoping to transfer his business down there eventually. We’re going down this weekend, why not come with us? The twins would love it, I’m sure.’

‘I…’

‘Don’t refuse,’ Susan begged. ‘Think about it. Here’s my phone number.’ She scribbled it down on a piece of paper and handed it to Tara. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you left Hillingdon like that, although I suppose at fourteen I was really too young for you to take me into your confidence. But you’d been so marvellous to me at school; like the sister I’d never had. Do you remember? You seemed to know instinctively how I felt about the problems I was having with Mother. I suppose that was something we shared, although for different reasons. Do you, like me, want to give your two all the love and affection we never had?’ She broke off as she realised that her car was blocking an exit, hurrying Piers towards it, calling over her shoulder to Tara, ‘Now don’t forget—you’re spending next weekend with us!’

All the way back to the house Tara felt completely numb. Susan of all people! She had spoken the truth when she said that they had had much in common. Susan had been one of the juniors at school when Tara was a prefect. She was always in trouble; stubborn, rebellious, undisciplined, but beneath her outward brashness, her seeming precocity, Tara had recognised the same inner despair and vulnerability she felt herself. It hadn’t been an easy task breaking down the barriers of years to discover the real Susan. The supposed sexual exploits which had so shocked one of her form teachers had, as Tara had suspected, been no more than fabrication; but there had been a great danger that Susan would fall into the trap of promiscuity in the intensity of her search for someone to give her the love and security she craved. To nullify the effect of a mother who was too distant and wrapped up in her own needs and desires to see what was happening to her child.

They had grown very close; as close as sisters, as Susan had claimed. When she had discovered that Susan was often left completely alone in the huge barn of a house which was only one of Mrs Harvey’s homes, Tara had taken to spending the occasional weekend with her. She herself had been studying for A-levels then, and following her example Susan had started to take a much keener interest in her own work. ‘A miniature do-gooder,’ had been one of the less cruel tags Susan’s mother had applied to her, because despite her lack of interest in her child, Mrs Harvey had been bitterly resentful of Susan’s friendship with her.

In those days she had known very little about Susan’s background. Her mother and father were seldom at home; in fact the first time she had met Susan’s father she hadn’t realised who he was. It had been during one of the weekends she had spent at Susan’s home. She had woken in the night and wanted a drink. Downstairs in the kitchen she had been on the point of opening the fridge when she realised she wasn’t alone. Fear had been quickly followed by curiosity when she had realised that the tired, gaunt- looking man slumped over the kitchen table was the fabled father Susan adored, and an oddly maternal wave had swamped her when he raised his head and looked at her with exhausted eyes.

She had cooked him a meal; she recalled it vividly. He had eaten without appetite, and it was only years later, suffering from jet lag herself, that she had realised just how unwelcome her ministrations and cooking had probably been, but he had been too kind to let her see it. James had a weakness for children and lame dogs, but the trouble had been that she hadn’t been a child, although neither of them had realised it until too late.

‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’

Mandy’s imperative cry broke through her thoughts. Tiredly she switched off the car and helped them out. The casserole she had prepared that morning before leaving for work smelled appetising as they walked into the kitchen. Sending both twins upstairs to change their clothes and wash, Tara set about preparing their meal. Although five o’clock was rather early for her to eat, she preferred to share her meals with the twins rather than eat alone; vivid memories of lonely meals eaten in solitude at the kitchen table while her mother looked on a strong deterrent against subjecting her own children to the same thing.

Mealtimes were normally the highlight of her day. Over their food the twins normally regaled her with the happenings of their day, and she made a point of listening seriously. Simon normally spoke with wide-eyed solemnity but Mandy, almost too quick for her own good, could easily spot when an adult was simply indulging her.

They came downstairs together dressed in identical dungarees.

‘Simon couldn’t fasten his sneakers,’ Mandy told her, ‘so I had to do it for him.’

Suppressing a sigh, Tara inspected their newly washed hands. It was quite normal for Mandy to be more advanced than her brother at this stage, she knew, but she was concerned that Mandy’s possessively maternal attitude to her brother, although delightful, might prevent Simon from learning to stand on his own two feet.

Both children ate hungrily. Tara was an excellent cook and mainly through firm insistence in their early years, neither twin was faddy about food. Her budget might not stretch to luxury items, Tara reflected, but at least the twins had a well balanced and healthy diet; and as far as she was concerned they were far better off without too many sweets and chocolates.

Mandy promised to have her own slender build, but already Simon was heavier, and she suspected he would grow up to resemble his father.

After dinner she always set aside an hour to play with the twins and read to them. Mandy with quicksilver impatience grew bored with reading, but Simon was always anxious for more. Almost identical in looks, by nature they were vastly different, Tara reflected.

Her mother had started a campaign obviously intended to steer her towards marriage; its benefits to the twins always stressed whenever she went home, but so far Tara had resisted. For, one thing, marriage would mean telling someone about the twins’ paternity, which she had no desire to do; for another it meant exposing herself once more to their rejection.

Other girls, she knew, suffered the same experience she had done without the same results, but then she had always been acutely sensitive; too sensitive, she acknowledged, recognising that some of her fear for Simon sprang from the fact that she feared he had inherited this vulnerability from her.

It seemed almost incredible now that her body had ever experienced the aching pleasure which was now only a dim memory, but which had once driven her to forget all her principles and scruples to the extent that nothing mattered save for James’s possession of her, even though she had known quite well that at the time his actions were blurred and his mind dazed by a lethal combination of exhaustion and jet lag.

Not a pretty memory, and one which had served to help her keep a cool control over her emotions ever since. He loved her, James had said, but his later actions had not borne out those words. What he had felt for her had simply been a momentary desire, and she, fathoms deep in love with him, had encouraged and incited him into making love to her. The twins were the result of that careless lovemaking, and on them Tara had poured out all the love she had been forced to bottle up inside her.

Casual affairs were just not her thing, and while there had been plenty of men who had made it plain that they desired her, Tara had always held them at a distance. So far Chas had been the most determined, but Tara had held her ground, and it gave her no pleasure to know that Chas’s sudden spurts of temper against the models were fuelled by sexual frustration caused by her refusal to sleep with him.

So far she had managed to walk the dangerously fine line of keeping their personal relationship completely separate from work. As a photographer Chas was a professional down to his fingertips, but Tara worried that one day he would break what was obviously a self-imposed rule, and remind her that he had it in his power to make her unemployed. So far he had not used that weapon, and she honoured him for it. However, there was this weekend job coming up involving taking some fashion shots at Leeds Castle. She had racked her brains for a legitimate excuse for not going, but so far none had been forthcoming. The twins could go with them, Chas had said easily when she commented that she could not simply abandon them for an entire weekend.

It came to her that Susan’s invitation would provide a cast-iron excuse for refusing to go; it would also prevent Chas from guessing her fear that if she simply refused the assignment he would press his suit even harder, forcing the confrontation she had so far managed to avoid.

CHAPTER TWO

THE morning didn’t get off to a good start. For one thing, Tara’s alarm failed to go off on time, and she was eventually woken up by Mandy tugging impatiently at the bedclothes.

Tara normally got up an hour before the twins, using the time to wash her hair and do her make-up. Although far from vain she considered presenting the right image an important part of her job, although sometimes it was hard to strike the narrow dividing line between appearing too glamorous or too staid. Normally she settled for simply keeping her hair clean and glossy, using the minimum amount of make-up and dressing in clothes that didn’t impede her work and yet still looked smart.

This morning there was no time to wash her hair, and she plaited it quickly while she supervised the twins’ breakfasts.

Simon for some reason had decided that he loathed boiled egg and was morosely engaged in pushing his sulkily round his plate.

‘Simon, eat up!’ Exasperation sharpened her voice and she sighed when the little boy’s face crumpled.

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ A swift hug and a kiss banished the threatening tears, although Simon was obviously not going to let her off easily.

‘My tummy hurts,’ he complained. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to go to school. Why can’t I stay at home with you?’

‘Because I have to go out to work,’ Tara told him firmly, surreptitiously checking his pulse and temperature. Both seemed normal. Simon’s pain was more imaginary than real, she suspected, and sympathised with him, remembering how often she had suffered similar afflictions.

‘Are we going to stay with that lady for the weekend?’ Mandy demanded as Tara bustled them outside to the Mini. ‘Where does she live?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tara was forced to admit. ‘In the country somewhere.’

‘The country?’ Simon perked up immediately. ‘On a farm?’ he breathed hopefully.

Although it was ridiculously early to be worrying about careers for the twins, Simon’s very evident love of the countryside and its inhabitants led Tara to believe that he would be happiest in some sort of outdoor life connected with farming.

‘Not a farm, I don’t think,’ Tara told him.

‘But we can go, can’t we?’ Mandy pleaded. ‘We never go anywhere. Everyone else in our class is always going away.’

Allowing for childish exaggeration, Tara knew the criticism was well founded. The twins’ school fees meant that there was very little money left over for luxuries such as holidays, although they did spend weekends with her mother and aunt and uncle occasionally. These visits were not always a great success; her mother had never been able to fully conceal her disapproval of the twins’ birth, and all the time they were in her company Tara was on tenterhooks in case her mother made some unguarded reference to James.

As disapproving as she had been of Tara herself, it was for James that she had reserved a bitter, intense hatred which had not waned with the years.

And yet in many ways she was more to blame than James, Tara reflected tiredly. By the time she had realised the true nature of her feelings for him it had been too late for her to turn back. Susan’s mother was rarely at home; she had a partnership in a business in New York and spent much of her time there, and Tara with adolescent logic, fathoms deep in love, had somehow managed to dismiss her almost entirely from her mind, not attempting to hide her love for James.

With the added wisdom the intervening years had brought Tara could see things more objectively from James’ point of view; married to a woman several years his elder, a woman who spent most of her time away from home leaving him alone, a taxing, struggle business to run—was it so very surprising that he had given in to the impulse to take the solace she had so innocently offered?

Perhaps not, but surely he must have known so much better than she had that there was no future for them? Surely he should have had the sophistication and worldly wisdom to call a halt before matters finally got out of hand? That was what she could not forgive him—that he had carelessly disregarded the consequences of allowing a mixture of boredom and sexual desire to overcome the barriers which should have existed between them.

She had been seventeen to his twenty-six—not a vast difference in terms of years, but in terms of experience…

‘Mummy, we’re here!’ Mandy announced shrilly, drawing her attention to the fact that she had been about to drive past the school.

After leaving the twins Tara drove straight to the studio. The moment she walked in she sensed that Chas was in one of his difficult moods. He grunted without looking up from the camera he was engrossed in. A model Tara recognised from previous sessions was sitting tensely on a bentwood chair, the atmosphere in the hot studio thick with tension.

Summing up the situation at a glance, Tara shrugged out of her coat and filled the kettle in the small kitchen attached to the studio. Without saying a word she placed a mug of coffee in front of Chas and went across to chat to the model. She was nineteen, with several successful ad campaigns behind her, and Tara knew from the schedules that she had come in to sit for some practice shots for a Vogue feature.

‘Is he always like this?’ she asked Tara in an agonised whisper. ‘I remember last time I came here…’

‘It’s just his way,’ Tara soothed her. ‘He’s an artist with the camera and a perfectionist.’

The other girl grimaced. ‘It’s at times like these that I wish I’d done as my parents wanted me to and gone on to university!’

Chas’s brusque, ‘If you two have quite finished on the girl talk, perhaps we can get some work done,’ put an end to their conversation.

It was lunchtime before Tara even had time to draw breath. Chas was in the kind of mood where he seemed almost driven, and it was both mentally and physically exhausting trying to keep pace with him.

At two o’clock Chas finally announced irritably that he supposed they ought to break for lunch, and Tara went thankfully to buy them some sandwiches before he changed his mind. It wasn’t unusual for him to insist on working right through the day without stopping, and the hungry grumbling of her stomach had been distracting her attention for almost an hour.

When she got back to the studio the model had gone and the phone was ringing. The ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the darkroom door meant exactly what it said, as she knew from experience, and reaching for the phone she dumped her sandwiches on the table.

The crisp, cool tones of the twins’ headmistress sent tremors of fear jangling along her nerves.

‘The twins—–’ she began urgently, but Mrs Ledbetter was obviously used to dealing with anxious parents, because she said soothingly, ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Bellamy, it’s just that Simon has been complaining of stomach ache all morning. Our Matron has checked him over and we can’t find anything wrong. He probably just wants a bit of coddling.’

A thin flush of colour ran up under Tara’s fine skin as she tried to dissect the calming words to discover if they held an implied rebuke. One of her greatest burdens in bringing up the twins alone was that she couldn’t be at home with them. She had never tried to contact James after that first time when Susan’s mother had laughed in her face at her naïveté, and there was no one to support the twins apart from herself, so work was a basic necessity. But that didn’t stop the guilt, she thought shakily as she hung up, having assured Mrs Ledbetter that she was leaving immediately for the school.

Did every working mother experience this knife-sharp anguish every time her child cried for her and she couldn’t be there? Guilt was a burden women seemed fashioned by nature to bear.

Not daring to risk disturbing Chas, she wrote a brief note displaying it prominently on his desk, then hurried outside to her Mini.

Simon was waiting for her in the school’s sick bay, looking pale and lethargic. Mandy was with him, and she leaped off her chair and rushed towards Tara, crying importantly, ‘Simon’s been sick, and he was crying, but I’ve been looking after him’

Tara praised her warmly; for all her ebullience and apparent resilience Mandy was still vulnerable, as all children were vulnerable when they lacked the love of one parent.

‘I don’t think there’s really anything much Wrong,’ Mrs Staines, the Matron assured her with a kind smile. ‘A couple of days in bed and some spoiling will probably work wonders.’

A couple of days in bed! Tara groaned, fighting back her dismay. That meant taking two more precious days from her holiday allowance. Chas would be furious. Normally during school holidays she managed to come to an arrangement with a neighbour who lived close to her and who was willing to look after the twins for her, but she was away visiting her parents, and anyway Tara doubted that Simon in his present mood would accept anyone apart from herself.

‘Some country air, that will bring the roses back to his cheeks,’ Matron pronounced.

‘Can we go to the country, Mummy?’ Simon pleaded on the way home. He had perked up when he saw her, but he was still listless, and Tara’s heart smote her. Poor little scrap; his sickness was no less real for being caused by emotional rather than physical malaise.

‘All right,’ she gave in, ‘but remember, Susan might have changed her mind.’

‘She said we could,’ Mandy pointed out with irrefutable logic, ‘and people should always do things when they say they will.’

Tara suppressed another sigh. Right now she did not feel up to explaining to her daughter the ethics governing adult behaviour, and it sank still further when she reached home to discover Chas’s car parked outside.

He saw her drive up and came striding across to the Mini.

‘So, how’s the wounded soldier?’ he asked Simon affably but with narrowed eyes and a certain grimness that alerted Tara’s defence mechanisms.

His cool, ‘You fuss too much,’ as she unlocked the front door and bustled the twins into the kitchen, reinforced her feelings. ‘He looks as right as rain to me.’

‘Matron said I was to have two days at home,’ Simon told Chas informatively. ‘Mummy is going to stay with me, and then we’re going to spend the weekend in the country.’

‘Are you now? Is that true, “Mummy"?’ Chas demanded bitterly. ‘Funny, but I had the distinct impression that you and I had a date for this weekend.’

‘I never promised I would come, Chas,’ Tara reminded him. ‘As it happens, we’ve been invited away for the weekend,’ she crossed her fingers childishly behind her back, ‘and in view of Simon’s sickness I feel it would do them both good to get away from London.’

‘Really?’ Anger kindled in his eyes. ‘Now isn’t that just a dandy get-out? Well, let me lay it on the line for you, Tara. I want you and you damn well know it. I’m not prepared to play games either.’

Tara felt sick. Here came the crunch; the inevitable catastrophe she had been trying to avoid for weeks.

‘Meaning?’ she forced herself to say.

‘You know what I mean,’ Chas replied in a low voice.

‘And if I don’t agree?’

His answer was simply to glower at her before flinging the door open and striding angrily through it.

She had known it had to come, and Chas’s attitude had only reinforced all her own doubts about the feasibility of her continuing to work for him, but she could not deny that giving up her job at this particular minute in time was something she simply could not afford to do.

‘Why are you looking like that, Mummy?’ Simon demanded suddenly. ‘Does your tummy feel funny too?’

‘Sort of,’ she agreed wryly. ‘Now come on, you’d better go and lie down if you aren’t feeling well.’

It was early evening when she finally decided to ring Susan to accept her invitation for the weekend. They had nothing to lose by going, Tara decided, and besides, she felt totally unable to cope with the twins’ disappointment were she to refuse.

Susan sounded ecstatic when she thanked her for the invitation and accepted it.

‘You’ll have to give me directions on how to find the place, though,’ Tara warned her. ‘Where did you say it was?’

‘In the Cotswolds,’ Susan told her airily. ‘But don’t worry about getting there. I’ll send someone to pick you up if you just tell me what time would be convenient, and give me your address.’

On the point of refusing, Tara remembered the luxurious BMW she had seen outside the school, and contemplated the luxury of being driven in such a vehicle. Susan had mentioned her chauffeur and doubtless this task would be given to him.

They chatted for several minutes, and when Tara mentioned her job Susan was obviously impressed. ‘Chas Saunders?’ she exclaimed in tones of awe. ‘You lucky thing! He’s incredibly sexy, isn’t he? I’ve never met him myself, but I’ve heard about him.’

‘Who hasn’t?’ Tara agreed drily. Chas and his female companion of the moment were popular gossip column fodder.

‘You’re not involved there yourself, are you?’ Susan asked, obviously picking up the undertone in her voice.

Tara’s wry, ‘Chas is strictly a one-night-stand man,’ was an evasive answer, but it seemed to satisfy her friend, who laughed and said teasingly, ‘Yeah, but what a night!’ before announcing that she had to go as she could hear Piers crying.

With the mercurial resilience of children the world over, Simon declared in the morning that he felt well enough to return to school and Tara was able to go back to the studio.

She drove there with mounting dread. Chas was alone in the huge room when she opened the door. He looked up, scowled, and then ignored her as she removed her jacket and hung it on the coat-stand. They were supposed to be doing some outdoor shots, so she had dressed comfortably in jeans, and a checked shirt worn underneath a thick, sleveless sheepskin waistcoat.

When she had removed her coat she turned round to find Chas assessing her slim jean-clad body thoughtfully. Despite her resolve colour rose in her cheeks. She turned away, intending to put the kettle on, but Chas’s ‘Tara,’ halted her in her tracks.

‘Look,’ he began irately, ‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I lost my cool, a fatal tactical error.’ He grimaced wryly, running lean fingers through his sun-streaked fair hair. ‘God, I thought I’d learned years ago not to stampede my prey, but it seems I was wrong. You’re determined to spend this weekend with your friend?’

Dry-mouthed, Tara nodded her head. What was he going to do? Fire her?

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he surprised her by saying in a harsh voice. ‘I thought you knew me better than that. I’ve never had to apply pressure to get a woman into bed with me in the past, and I’m damned well not starting now. I want you, Tara,’ he said frankly, ‘but I want you willingly. Sex should be a mutual pleasure, not something to be endured. Why?’ he asked helplessly. ‘Is it just me who revolts you, or is it men in general? You’ve been married, had kids—hell…’

‘I’m sorry, Chas,’ Tara broke in quietly. ‘And no, it isn’t you.’ A small smile tugged at her mouth as she remembered how Sue had described him. ‘You know better than that,’ she teased lightly. ‘It’s just that you’re a one-night-stand man, and I’m a woman with two children dependent on her who…’

‘Wants the opposite sex to keep its distance from her,’ Chas finished astutely for her. ‘Even if I offered permanency, it wouldn’t make any difference, would it?’ he pressed. ‘You’re still too involved with the guy you married—the twins’ father, that’s the straight up and down of it, isn’t it? For God’s sake,’ he muttered with suppressed violence, ‘when are you going to come out of mourning and realise that life is passing you by? Okay,’ he said wearily when he saw the stubborn set of her lips, ‘I can see I’m battering my head against a brick wall, but if you ever change your mind…’

‘You still want me to keep on working with you?’ Tara asked shakily.

His eyebrows rose, mockery in the brown eyes. ‘Sure I do,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s good for my ego having such a sexy lady about the place, and besides,’ he paused and grinned, ‘you’re the best assistant I’ve ever had.’

It was with a much lighter heart that Tara went about her work, and she accepted with pleasure when Chas suggested that she take the Friday afternoon off in order to prepare for the weekend away.

‘This doesn’t mean I’ve given up,’ he warned her, ‘simply that I’m declaring a cease-fire, okay?’

She was still smiling when she reached home, even though she was now entertaining grave doubts about the wisdom of agreeing to Sue’s invitation. As the Monday was a Bank Holiday Susan had insisted that the three of them stay over for the extra day, and knowing the twins’ propensity for getting themselves and their clothes grubby, Tara was kept busy washing and ironing prior to their visit.

Neither of the twins would have much in common with Sue’s toddler, she reflected as she packed their cases, but as they prepared for bed on the Friday night, both of them were so excited about the weekend ahead that Tara’s heart smote her.

They got so few treats of this nature, it would have been grossly unfair of her to deprive them of it simply because she couldn’t face up to the past.

Her mother and James were now divorced, or so Sue had said. What had happened to him? Tara wondered. She had learned from her own mother after the twins’ birth that Sue’s mother had had a considerable shareholding in the company James had inherited from his father. He had rarely discussed business with her; their time together had been too precious, too highly emotionally charged for Tara to want to waste any of it discussing business.

Forget James, forget the past, she told herself sternly, unwilling to acknowledge the small ache which threatened to flare into agonising pain if she let it. Why had she never been able to free herself from the spell of the past? Other girls suffered similar mishaps and went on to make successful marriages elsewhere; to forge loving relationships with other men—why hadn’t she been able to? Was it because she had felt guilty about what had happened? Guilty and besmirched. The attitudes of the small village in which they lived were very narrow, and as well as the burden of James’s rejection she had also had to bear the bitter anger of her mother.

If she had not woven such romantic daydreams around James none of it would have happened; but she had refused to see the truth, that he was simply a man trapped in an unhappy marriage who had turned to her for sexual solace and had never for one moment felt a tithe of the love for her that burned within her for him.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE woke up with a headache; a heavy unrelenting pressure behind her eyes and a lethargic disinclination to do anything, much less spend an entire weekend having to be polite to virtual strangers. But she couldn’t disappoint the twins, neither could she run the risk of Chas catching her out in a lie. She wished desperately that he would cease his pursuit of her. In other circumstances she would simply have given him a cool rebuff, but he was her employer and she could not afford to lose her job.

The twins were wildly excited, making her feel guilty about her own dread of the weekend ahead. For some perverse reason Mandy, who normally disdained feminine frills in favour of jeans and sweat-shirts, decided that she wanted to wear a pretty cotton pinafore Tara had bought for her several weeks previously, and by the time the requisite underskirt and spotless white blouse had been found to wear with it Tara’s head was thumping nauseously.

Susan had arranged for her chauffuer to pick them up at ten o’clock, and by a miracle by ten to the packing was done and the twins ready, which was more than could be said for her, Tara decided feverishly, tugging a comb through her hair and applying lipstick deftly to the soft curves of her mouth.

The unexpected sunshine had prompted her into a new outfit she had bought for work and not yet worn She had seen it in a small boutique off South Moulton Street, reduced because of its small size, and had bought it knowing that it would be just right for the receptions Chas sometimes held in the evening as a publicity exercise.

A rich, vivid blue, it was a three-piece in pure silk with a camisole top which just skimmed the curves of her breasts, and a softly shaped skirt gathered into a deep waistband and topped with a matching jacket, whose sleeves she rolled back in the fashion she had seen adopted by the models who came to the studio.

Working in such an environment meant that she had developed a keen eye for adapting prevalent trends to her own personality. The silk brushed sensuously against her skin; she had left her hair in a soft cloud against her shoulders, and the sample of the new Armarni scent the Vogue Beauty Editor had given her had been used to good effect. Such samples were her one and only perk. At Christmas she had been presented with what amounted to almost a full trousseau of luxurious Italian underwear by the manufacturer; a gesture of his gratitude for the effect of advertisements Chas had photographed, although such munificence was relatively rare.

Today she was wearing some of it; the briefest of satin bras trimmed with handmade lace to match the dainty suspender belt and briefs that were part of the set.

Vanity was largely responsible for today’s primping, she decided, giving herself a last brief look in her mirror. Even though at one time she and Susan had once been as close as sisters a wide gulf yawned between them now.

Susan was a rich man’s wife, and it showed, and although she would never be guilty of patronising a less fortunate friend, Tara had no wish to earn her pity by arriving in inexpensive chain-store casuals.

First impressions always counted, Tara reminded herself and when she and the twins stepped out of Susan’s Rolls she didn’t want them to look like the poor relations.

Susan had explained to her that she and her husband would be driving down to the country ahead of them, which was why the Rolls was free to transport Tara, but despite the knowledge that her appearance was both chic and sophisticated she couldn’t stop the tiny bubbles of anxiety forming in the pit of her stomach when the twins’ joint shrieks announced the arrival of their transport.

Not wanting to keep the chauffeur waiting, Tara sped downstairs, picking up their case with one hand and ushering the twins through the front door with the other. Outside she told them to wait while she checked her handbag for keys and money, and carefully locked the door.

The sight of the immaculate Rolls seemed to have a subduing effect upon the twins, because they clung uncertainly to Tara’s side as she hustled them towards the waiting car.

As they approached it the driver’s door opened and a man emerged. Her first thought was that he wasn’t wearing a uniform, but this was quickly submerged by a sickening wave of recognition mingled with stunned disbelief.

‘Tara!’

He said her name evenly, the inflection which in the past had sent her weak-kneed with pleasure totally banished. He had changed; or was it simply that her perception of him had changed from that of a bemused teenager to that of a disillusioned woman?

‘James.’ Somehow she managed to force a stiff smile from features as tautly fragile as eggshells. Now she was the one clinging to the twins, filled by an overwhelming impulse to turn on her heel and seek the sanctuary of her home.

James barely glanced at his children, and watching his cool disregard of them, Tara forced back an hysterical impulse to laugh. So much for all those daydreams she had woven during the long lonely months of her pregnancy when she had fantasised about James appearing to discover that she was the mother of his child and being overcome by love for both of them.

‘Quite a surprise,’ she managed to say calmly. ‘Susan never mentioned that you would be picking us up.’

‘A last minute arrangement,’ James told her briefly Without looking at her. ‘I’ve just returned from the States and when I invited myself down to Dovecote for the weekend they suggested that I give you a lift so that they could give their chauffeur a weekend off.’

‘Susan should have telephoned, I could have used my own car.’

Tara flushed when his eyes suddenly fastened on her face; no longer the warm, teasing dark blue she remembered but as hard and flat as river pebbles and totally without expression as they surveyed her heightened-colour and defensive grip on the twins.

‘Mummy, you’re hurting me!’ Mandy protested, casting an upward glance at the tall, dark-haired man watching them; a glance which Tara noticed was full of coquettishly innocent appeal.

‘Why don’t we all get in the car!’ James suggested, bending to relieve Tara of the weight of the case. Their fingers touched accidentally, and Tara withdrew as though she had been burned by live coals.

‘Explicit but unnecessary,’ James told her crisply, stowing her case away, ‘I got the message the first time round.’

Tara assumed that he was referring to the shock which must have been apparent when she saw him step out of the car. This meeting must be as unwelcome to him as it was to her, she reflected miserably as she followed the children to the waiting car, but at least he had had the advantage of being forearmed.

The first ten minutes of their journey passed easily enough as the twins exclaimed over the luxury of their transport; Tara couldn’t help wishing that James had not ushered her into the front passenger seat, but it seemed gauche to make a fuss about it. After all, he could scarcely have any more desire for her company than she had for his!

He was both the same and yet different, she decided, stealing a brief glance at his impassive profile. There was a total and unrelenting male hardness about him now that she did not remember; when she was seventeen he had seemed the epitome of all her adolescent dreams; gentle, understanding, tender. No one would ever dream of attributing those virtues to the man now seated next to her.

His dark hair was still untouched by grey; and although he was wearing a discreetly expensive suit she suspected that physically he had changed little in the seven years they had been apart. There had been a supple arrogance about the way he had walked towards her which suggested that he was a man at the peak of physical perfection. She remembered the cataclysmic night he had returned from California; then his skin had had the silky sheen of a sun tan, his body a rich bronze. Her palms tingled as though she could still feel the soft suppleness of his flesh against them, and she shuddered deeply, wrenching her thoughts away from the past.

In the back seat the twins were playing a game, vying with one another in their attempts to count as many cars of a particular type as they could.

‘Susan tells me you’re a widow.’

He hadn’t taken his eyes off the road. Tara felt as though a huge boulder were stuck in her throat.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, forcing out the lie.

‘I’m sorry.’ The words were a formality. ‘What happened?’

‘John was killed abroad,’ Tara said huskily, repeating the fabrication which had become familiar to her over the years. ‘Before the twins were born. They never knew him, nor he them.’

‘A mutual loss,’ James said quietly. ‘You’ve never thought of remarrying?’

‘One has to be asked,’ Tara heard herself saying drily, to her own surprise. ‘Besides,’ she moved restlessly in her deep hide-covered seat, ‘I believe one parent who really cares is more important than two who quarrel.’

‘You yourself lost your father, if I remember rightly,’ James commented. ‘At least with your own experience to call upon you’ll be able to ensure that your own daughter doesn’t fall into the same traps.’

‘People normally make their own mistakes,’ Tara said tiredly. Although the comment had been delivered in a perfectly flat emotionless voice she had been vividly reminded of one occasion when they had been together and he had accused her of trying to turn him into a father-substitute. She had been furious, reminding him that it was eight years that separated them, not eighteen.

‘You’ve been working in America?’ she asked him, deliberately trying to change the subject.

‘I have various business interests there, some jointly with Susan’s mother. Susan will have told you that she’s married again?’

‘Yes. Actually I didn’t realise…’ Tara broke off and moistened her suddenly dry lips. She had been going to say that the had not realised they were divorced, but the remark had provocative undertones she wanted to avoid.

‘That Hilary would venture into marriage again?’ He shrugged. ‘Like many women of her wealth and generation she tends to make a career of it. This one’s number four.’

‘Four!’ It was too late for her to hide her surprise. As far as she knew James had been Hilary’s second husband.

‘You sound surprised?’

‘I hadn’t realised you’d been divorced long enough for her to have remarried twice. I…’

‘You didn’t stay around long enough to find out.’ The cool comment nonplussed her. It was almost an accusation, but what did James possibly have to accuse her about? He had been the one who had rejected her; who had laughed with Hilary about her foolish love for him, and who had coldly turned his back on her, leaving her to face the trauma of the twins’ birth alone.

‘What was I supposed to do?’ she asked in a bitter, low voice. ‘I couldn’t put the clock back, I…’

‘So you scuttled off into a nice, safe marriage?’

Colour burned along her cheekbones, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. She would never, never have agreed to this weekend if she had had the slightest suspicion that James was going to be there. How on earth was she going to endure it? Especially if he was going to keep taunting her with these barbed remarks.

Simon distracted her attention excitedly, pointing out some sheep grazing in a field. They had turned on to the M4 and were travelling west.

To Tara’s surprise, just after twelve James pulled off the motorway and took a minor road which wound its way down a narrow B-road bordered by high hedges laced with early summer flowers.

‘I told Sue that I’d give you lunch,’ he explained, answering Tara’s unspoken question. ‘The house is a large one and although she does have some help she and Alec go down there primarily to relax.’

Before Tara could object he turned into an immaculate drive, marked ‘Country Club—members only.’

‘Relax,’ she was instructed. ‘I’m a member and they’ve been warned to expect us. I own a house locally myself, although at the moment it’s occupied by some American friends of mine.’

The country club had once been a farmhouse and the large barn had been converted into an attractive restaurant with high oriel windows set along the length of it and a separate bar inside which occupied a galleried landing.

The twins were entranced, as much by the novelty of eating out as by their surroundings. Mandy gravely confided to James, as she attached herself to his side, that it was just as well she had worn her best dress.

The comment invited a response, and Tara’s unwary heart lurched when James bent his head equally gravely and said, ‘You look very pretty in it. Blue suits you.’

‘Mummy chose it,’ Mandy informed him, visibly expanding. ‘I normally wear jeans ‘cos they’re more fun to play in. Have you got any children?’ she asked him forthrightly. She was at that stage when the niceties of curbing personal questions were ignored and seemed to have developed a thirst for knowledge about other people’s private lives.

‘Mandy…’ Tara warned, but James silenced her, lifting his eyebrows and saying smoothly. ‘Regrettably, no.’

Hypocrite, Tara thought resentfully as they were escorted to a table. He didn’t want any children, any responsibility for lives other than his own.

However, despite his lack of parental experience he was very adroit at ordering suitable food for the twins and keeping them occupied while they waited for their meal to arrive. Like Tara herself, their school believed strongly in the importance of good manners, and Tara felt a small thrill of pride at the way Simon and Mandy adapted to their surroundings. They were drawing admiring smiles from other diners, and one woman en route to her table stopped off to speak to James, whom she obviously knew, staring rather hard at Tara and the twins.

‘Margot, let me introduce Tara and the twins to you. Tara is an old schoolfriend of Sue’s. Margot is one of Sue’s neighbours,’ James explained. ‘Like you, she’s a widow.’

‘Only I don’t have any children, darling,’ the other woman pointed out, eyeing the twins unfavourably.

She was somewhere in her late thirties, Tara estimated, although she concealed the fact well, but in her job Tara had become adept at judging what lay beneath the most skilfully applied make-up. She was also subtly warning her that James was strictly private property, Tara acknowledged. She could have him, she thought vehemently, pushing away her sweet untouched and refusing to acknowledge the swiftly stabbing pain their relationship brought, and dismissing the nauseous feeling in her stomach as the result of too much to eat.

Watching the waiter’s deferential attitude towards James, Tara was vividly reminded of the one and only occasion they had dined out together. It had been Sue’s fifteenth birthday; and she had been dizzy with delight when he announced that he had booked a table at a locally acclaimed restaurant. Even the knowledge that Sue was to accompany them had done nothing to dissipate her mother’s disapproval, Tara remembered. She also remembered the brief kiss James had pressed on her untried lips before pushing her out of the car when he took her home. That kiss had changed everything between them.

‘Physically the twins aren’t like you at all.’ James’s cool observation cut across the disturbing memories of the past. ‘They must take after their father.’

Her fork clattered noisily on to the floor as an abrupt movement dislodged it. Her face the colour of the tablecloth, Tara bent to retrieve it, glad of the opportunity to escape James’s too seeing eyes.

‘Do they?’

Was he blind? she wondered hysterically. Could he really not see in the twins’ features the many resemblances to himself that struck her every day?

‘Strange,’ he mused, frowning a little. ‘They remind me of someone.’

Tara thought her heart would stop beating, but somehow she managed to shrug noncommittally, turning away to urge the children to finish their meal.

‘Did I know him?’ There was a terse urgency in the question that caught her off guard.

‘I…’

‘You met him when you went to stay with your aunt and uncle, or so I heard in the village. It must have been a whirlwind courtship,’ he sneered, glancing meaningfully at the twins. ‘Or did you afford him the same privileges I once thought belonged exclusively to me?’

If they hadn’t been in public there was no way she could have prevented herself from hitting him. As it was, it was only by a supreme effort of will that she was able to prevent herself from screaming the truth at him.

With that one sentence he had managed to destroy the last fragile, lingering remnants of her romantic daydreams; beliefs she had clung to without even being aware that she was doing so. His words forced her to admit that what for her had been the experience of a lifetime had for him been nothing more than the gratification of momentary lust, otherwise he could never have spoken to her as he just had.

From somewhere she mustered the dignity to say calmly, ‘The personal relationship I enjoyed with the twins’ father is something very precious to me, and I don’t discuss it with anyone.’

‘Including your children,’ James pointed out astutely. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard them mention him once. Did you love him so much that you can’t even bear to share his memory with his children? You did love him, I suppose? Unless my memory deceives me you were an extremely sensual creature; hot-blooded, shall we say,’ he added drily, his mouth twisting, ‘but with a certain prudishness curiously at odds with your real personality. I suppose in those circumstances it wouldn’t have been impossible for you to marry young; to legalise those desires of which your mother had taught you to be so ashamed.’

Tara was relieved that the twins were too engrossed in their own conversation and their surroundings to pay any attention to them. Where her face had been pale, now it was hotly flushed, words of bitter denial trembling on her lips, but all she could manage was a fierce, choked, ‘I did love him, and you have no right to say such things!’

‘No right?’ His laughter was bitterly harsh. ‘My God, you can say that, when…’ He broke off as Mandy suddenly claimed his attention, and not wanting to prolong the conversation, Tara hustled both children out of their seats, saying feverishly that it was time they were on their way.

James unlocked the car and made sure the twins were comfortable in the back, but when Tara would have joined them he forestalled her again, firmly closing the door and then reaching past her to unlock the passenger door.

His arm brushed against the thin silk of her jacket and she froze, as physically aware of the hardness of his flesh as she would have been had their contact been skin upon skin. She always had been acutely aware of him, and that at least had not changed. He was a disturbingly sensual man and her body, no longer that of a girl, naïve about the opposite sex, responded instinctively to him, the bones in her skull clenching against the knowledge of her vulnerability to him. Being close to him was like losing a toughened outer layer of skin; a physically painful process leaving nerve endings far too close to the surface and every one of them reacting to his proximity. Even so, she refused to move away, telling herself that to do so would be stupidly selfconscious, but all her hard-learned composure was not enough to slow the hurried thudding of her heart or stop the aching tension of her throat.

His fingers gripped the door handle; lean and brown, a discreet sheen of gold at his cuff, the immaculate shirt protruding exactly half an inch below the expensive wool of his suit jacket. The door opened and his free hand was on her elbow; an automatic gesture of assistance, and yet somehow Tara sensed that it had been deliberate, although it was impossible to know why, especially when, risking an upward glance into his face, she surprised upon it a look of acute dislike, reinforced by the swiftness with which his hand was withdrawn.

At best she should have felt nothing; at worst relief, but instead what she did feel was a bleak and terrifying sense of rejection.

Old habits died hard, she told herself cynically as he closed the door on her and walked round the front of the car; and somehow she had never recovered from the habit of being rejected by James.

Her flesh still tingled where he had touched it, and although the twins were soon drowsy and on the verge of sleep, Tara herself found it almost impossible to relax.

It was a relief when the Rolls finally turned into the cobbled forecourt of what James explained to her had once been a Cotswold farmhouse. Now the cream stone was weathered with age, and early flowering pale yellow roses smothered the front south-facing wall.

The farmhouse, although large and rambling, had a comfortable, welcoming ambience that helped to soothe a little of Tara’s taut anxiety, especially when Sue came hurrying out to greet them the moment she heard the Rolls. James and Tara were hugged unceremoniously. ‘This is lovely!’ Sue exclaimed with genuine warmth as she led them inside.

A copper bowl full of the same roses Tara had seen outside gleamed on a polished mahogany table. The hall was square with warm panelling and a parquet floor. An intricately carved banister curved upwards and out of sight, a tall window on the half landing flooding the hall with light and trapping dusty motes in its golden gleam.

A cream labrador had materialised from outside, throughly enjoying the fuss the twins were making of her. Firmly detaching them, Tara followed Sue towards the stairs.

‘I’ll just show you to your rooms and then we’ll have a cup of tea and a chat. Oh, it’s all right,’ she smiled when she saw the $$twins’ disappointed faces. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony down here, and although Alec tends to disapprove Misty is allowed upstairs.’

‘Where is Alec?’ James asked.

‘In the study. He had to bring some work up with him. I think he’ll appreciate a helping hand. Alec manages one of James’s companies,’ Sue explained to Tara with a grin. ‘That’s how I met him.’ She grimaced as a thin childish cry pierced the warmth of the afternoon. ‘There’s Piers—furious! I put him down for a sleep after lunch. It’s a miracle he’s slept this long really. I keep telling myself it’s time we provided him with a brother or sister—at the moment he tends to be the centre of attention and he knows it. Remember,’ she commented to Tara taking the next flight of stairs, ‘how we used to say that neither of us would settle for just one child after our own experiences?’ She laughed. ‘I knew you meant it, but I didn’t guess how you were going to achieve it!’

‘I’ve put the twins next to you,’ she added. ‘The rooms have a connecting door. Oh, and by the way, the plumbing arrangements are somewhat archaic as yet, so you and James will be sharing a bathroom. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘She doesn’t mean literally,’ James murmured jokingly, so that only Tara could hear, adding, ‘Don’t worry, you’re quite safe. I’ve reached the age where I restrict my indulgence in water sports to swimming and sailing.’

‘You’re in your normal room, James,’ Sue told him as they reached the landing. ‘And these are your rooms,’ she told Tara, pausing outside a heavy oak door. ‘This part of the house was once the barn, but it’s been converted into living space.’

James had disappeared, into his own room, Tara presumed, and she felt free to echo Mandy’s sigh of pleasure when Sue opened the door to reveal an attractive bedroom with open beams and a tiny mullioned window.

‘We’ve tried to keep as much of the country atmosphere as possible without being too earnestly authentic,’ she explained.

‘It’s lovely!’ Tara enthused admiringly. The room was decorated in pastels and soft greens; pretty fresh cotton curtains at the windows and a traditional American patchwork quilt on the bed.

‘James brought that back from one of his trips,’ Sue told her. ‘Do you find him very changed?’

‘A little older,’ Tara said cautiously.

‘I was thrilled when he called to say he was back in England. We don’t see as much of him as we’d like— the companies take up most of his time. It’s funny really, in many ways he means more to me than my mother, although he’s scarcely the traditional father figure.’

‘You must have been very sorry when their marriage broke up,’ Tara said, hoping that her voice wouldn’t betray her.

Sue shrugged. ‘Not really. I could never understand why James married my mother.’ She frowned. ‘There was always something odd about it, and not just because he was younger than her. You know, when I look back I can’t believe that he ever loved her or that she loved him.’

‘There are other reasons for marriage,’ Tara said emotionlessly.

‘I know, but somehow I could never imagine James marrying without a deep emotional commitment—he just doesn’t strike me as that kind of man. Look, I’ll go downstairs and ask Mrs B., our treasure, to make us a pot of tea and some orange for the kids, and you come down when you’re ready and I’ll introduce you to Alec. We’ll be in the sitting room. It looks out over the gardens, first left in the hall.’ She walked towards the door, paused and then said impulsively, ‘I’m so glad you and James could both be here together. It’s almost like old times…’

They viewed ‘old times’ differently, Tara thought tiredly as she unpacked for the twins and herself; Simon and Mandy had made themselves at home almost immediately, and within twenty minutes of Sue leaving them they were ready to return downstairs with Tara; their hands and faces washed and the clothes they had travelled in exchanged for dungarees and tee-shirts.

Everyone else was already in the sitting room, as Sue had called it, but what in actual fact was a generously proportioned room furnished in tones of pale lemon and soft blue, with huge french windows opening on to the gardens.

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