Saul wasn’t looking forward to what he had to do,

and Olivia’s uninhibited pleasure at seeing him made him feel even worse.

He waited until she had made them both a drink before starting to speak.

“Livvy, there isn’t any easy way to do this,” he began quietly, whilst Olivia’s heart turned over at the ominous tone of his voice.

“What is it? What’s happened? Caspar …” she demanded and then stopped, her face flushing as she realized from Saul’s surprised expression just how wrong and revealing her reaction was.

“No. This doesn’t have anything to do with Caspar,” Saul said.

He took a deep breath.

“It’s David …”

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 a 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.

The Crightons

A Perfect Family

The Perfect Seduction

Perfect Marriage Material

Figgy Pudding

The Perfect Lover

The Perfect Sinner

The Perfect Father

A Perfect Night

Coming Home

Starting Over

Starting Over
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

The Crightons

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘HAVE YOU ANY idea just how long it is since we last had sex?’ Caspar knew the moment the words were spoken that they were the wrong ones, not just for Olivia’s own mood but as an expression of what he himself was truly feeling, but it was too late to recall them. He could see that from Olivia’s expression.

‘Sex! Sex! Is that all you can think about?’ she demanded furiously.

‘We’re married. We’re supposed to have sex,’ Caspar told her recklessly, his own anger and sense of ill-usage picking up from hers as he compounded his original folly.

‘We’re supposed to do an awful lot of things,’ Olivia couldn’t resist pointing out sharply. ‘Yesterday for instance you were supposed to take the girls out to the park, but instead you went playing golf with your brother.’

‘Oh, I see, so that’s what all this is about is it?’ Caspar challenged her. ‘No sex, because yesterday I was out having a bit of R and R with my brother.’

‘Your half-brother actually,’ Olivia corrected him coldly.

Her heart was thudding frantically fast, trying to push its way through her ribs, her skin. She felt sick, breathless, overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of her own emotions and the effort it was taking for her to control them.

Any minute now she would start breaking out in a sweat and then … then … But no she wasn’t going to allow herself to feel sick never mind be sick; doing that brought her far too close to the shadow of her own mother and the neuroses that drove her. The perpetual cycle of binging and then purging which had dominated her life and the lives of those around her.

They had been in the States for a number of weeks, initially to attend the wedding of one of Caspar’s half-brothers, but also so that Caspar could spend some time with his large and extended family and introduce his English wife and their daughters to them.

Olivia had never wanted to attend the wedding in the first place; right now she was so busy at work that taking a few days off never mind a few weeks made her feel sick with anxiety, and she and Caspar had quarreled bitterly over her refusal.

The fact that she had at the very last minute changed her mind, was not out of a desire to please Caspar, but because of her point-blank refusal to join the rest of her family in welcoming her father, David, back to his home town. Her total boycott of the family celebration, not just of his return, but also of his marriage to Honor, had caused the existing rift between Caspar and herself to deepen into a very dangerous hostile resentment.

Why had she ever deceived herself into thinking that Caspar was different, she asked herself bitterly now. That he would put her first? He was just like all the others, just like everyone else in her life. Oh, they might pretend they loved her; that she mattered to them, but the truth was … the truth was …

She closed her eyes shivering despite the warmth of their hotel room. The pressure inside her skull increased as she fought not to remember the expression in her uncle Jon’s eyes when he had talked about his twin brother … her father … How could he possibly still love him like that after what her father had done?

Some days ago Jon had telephoned her urging her to return home so that she could attend the party being thrown at Fitzburgh Place to celebrate her father’s marriage to Lord Astlegh’s cousin Honor, but Olivia had refused.

Olivia couldn’t explain to herself or even begin to unravel the complex twisting and contorting of emotions which were causing the increasingly hard to control surges of panic she was experiencing. The knife-sharp fear. The horrifying sense of dislocation, of distance from the rest of the human race.

Caspar was getting out of the bed now, his face tight with anger. Had she really once believed she loved him? It seemed extraordinary to her that she could have done. Blank numbness filled her now whenever she tried to recall the feelings she had once had.

‘Danny has invited us to join his family at the cabin in Colorado. We can ski and—’

‘No,’ Olivia refused without allowing Caspar to finish.

As she watched her husband Olivia was filled with a sense of despair and hopelessness. The love which had once tied them together and created their two daughters had gone. They were strangers to one another now. So much strangers that Caspar couldn’t even seem to appreciate the kind of back-log of work she was going to have to face once they returned, as it was.

The tension in her head reached a screaming crescendo. All her life she had had to fight against the opposition of her grandfather to her desire to follow in the family tradition and qualify as a solicitor. How he would enjoy crowing over her now if she failed.

‘I have to go home. My work …’

‘Your work. What about our marriage?’

Their marriage. Distantly Olivia looked at him.

‘We don’t have a marriage any more, Caspar,’ she told him. The sense of relief that filled her as she spoke was so intoxicating that it was almost as heady as drinking champagne. She could feel her spirits lightening, the tension leaving her body.

‘What … what the hell are you saying?’ she could hear Caspar demanding but she was already turning away from him, her decision made.

‘I think we should separate,’ she heard herself telling him.

‘Separate …?’

She discovered she was holding her breath as she detected the shock in his voice as though she were waiting … but waiting for what?

‘Yes,’ she continued calmly. ‘We will have to do everything properly, of course … legally …’

‘Of course that would be the first thing you would think about—as a Crighton,’ Caspar told her bitterly.

Olivia looked away from him.

‘You’ve always resented that, haven’t you?’ she demanded quietly.

‘What I’ve resented, Livvy, is the fact that this marriage of ours has never contained just the two of us.’

‘You wanted children as much as I did,’ Olivia retorted, stung by the unfairness of his accusation.

‘It isn’t the girls I’m talking about,’ Caspar snapped. ‘It’s your damned family. You’re like a little girl, Livvy, living in the past, clinging to it.’

‘That’s not true.’ Her face had gone paper-white. ‘Who’s the one who’s supported us … who’s—’

‘I’m tired of having to carry the can for other people’s imagined sins against you, Livvy. I’m tired of being held responsible for them just because I’m a man like your father and your grandfather and Max. I’m tired of having to carry all that emotional baggage you insist on dragging around … that “I’m a victim” attitude of yours.’

‘How dare you say that?’

‘I dare because it’s true,’ Caspar told her coldly. ‘But as of now I’m through with playing surrogate grandfather, father and cousin to you, Livvy … and I’m sure as hell tired of playing surrogate punch ball. It’s time I got a little something out of life, wrote that book I’ve been promising myself, got that Harley and rode around this country … chilled out and lived …’

Olivia stared at him as though he were a stranger. This wasn’t the Caspar she thought she had known so well, this selfish insensitive stranger with his adolescent fantasies and his total lack of regard for the needs of either his children or her.

‘I can’t imagine why I ever thought I loved you, Caspar,’ she told him, her throat raw. ‘Or why I married you,’ she added as she wondered if he could hear the sound of her dreams, her ideals, her love, splintering around them into a million tiny painful shards.

‘No? Then you’ve got one hell of a short memory. You married me because you wanted to escape from your childhood,’ Caspar told her.

Her childhood. As he strode out of the room Olivia closed her eyes, her body tight with tension.

There was a bitter taste in her mouth. She had never really had a childhood. Sometimes she felt she had almost been born knowing that she wasn’t the child—the son—her father, and more importantly her grandfather, had wanted.

Because of them Olivia had grown up determined to prove herself, to prove her worth … her value. Because of them she had pushed herself these last months to meet self-imposed work targets that increasingly made her feel as though she were walking a tightrope stretched across a sickeningly deep chasm. All it would take to send her crashing down would be one wrong step … one missed breath … but she had had to do it. Not just for her own sake but even more importantly for her daughters. There was no way she was going to have them growing up under the burden, the taint of being her father’s grandchildren. Ever since David had disappeared and the truth about him had come to light, Olivia had been haunted by what he had done, haunted by it … shamed by it … tormented by it.

And now he was back and instead of being shunned as he rightly deserved he was being feted, lauded, whilst she …

The pain inside her head intensified and with it her panic and despair.

She would be better once she was back home she promised herself, once she was back at work. Back in control….

CHAPTER TWO

HASLEWICH.

Sara Lanyon still didn’t know what she was doing here. She had certainly not intended to turn off the motorway en route home to Brighton from her visit to her old university friend, so some unknown power must surely be responsible for her being here.

Haslewich … Crighton land …

Crighton land. Her mouth with its deliciously full upper lip curled into a line of angry contempt.

She had heard all about the Crightons from her stepgrandmamma, poor Tania.

She had been so very damaged and fragile when her grandfather had rescued her, gently building up her confidence and her life for her.

‘There are always two sides to a situation like this, Sara,’ her father had cautioned her when once she had exploded with anger against the Crightons for what they had done to Tania.

‘But, Dad, she’s so vulnerable, so helpless … there can’t be any excuse for the way they abandoned her. It was heartless … cruel….’

Her dark-green eyes had filled with tears and her father had shaken his head ruefully.

She had been eighteen at the time then and perhaps a little inclined to judge everything in black or white. She was older now and more able to apply a little of Richard Lanyon’s admirable dispassion to her judgements, but deep down inside she still was reluctant to give up her antipathy towards the Crightons. Over-emotional of her—illogical. She shook her head. No, they were plainly an insensitive brutish lot, motivated only by preserving their own interests and sticking together in a clannish fashion.

‘The Crightons practically are Haslewich,’ Tania had once told her in her soft pretty girlish voice. ‘Locally everyone admires them and looks up to them, but …’ She had stopped and shivered. ‘They used to make me feel so … so intimidated and … and unwanted. Even my own children …’

As her eyes had filled with tears so had Sara’s and now, here she was, her car parked just off the town’s main square as she walked curiously across it.

It was almost lunch time and she was hungry—very hungry. She looked uncertainly round the square and then decided to investigate the possibility of a narrow, interesting-looking lane that ran off it.

A signpost at the top of the street read To the River.

The river. Sara loved water. Her father was a keen sailor and Sara had crewed for him as a girl.

She was halfway down the street when she saw the restaurant. A quick glance inside showed that it was busy and the smells wafting from the kitchen were certainly enticing.

Making up her mind Sara pushed open the door and then stopped in bemusement as a harassed-looking middle-aged woman pounced on her asking anxiously, ‘Sara …?’

‘Er, yes,’ she replied automatically, frantically wondering how on earth the woman could possibly know her.

‘Oh, thank goodness for that,’ the older woman exclaimed. ‘The agency have let us down so many times but they promised me this time … It’s this way,’ she added beckoning to Sara to follow her as she wound her way through the busy tables.

Feeling rather as though she had stepped straight into a page from Alice Through the Looking Glass, Sara followed in her wake.

Once they had reached the rear of the restaurant the woman pushed open the door telling Sara as she indicated for her to precede her into the room it led into, ‘I must apologise for the mess. We’ve been so hectic. I’ve tried to keep up to date with the paperwork, but it just hasn’t been possible. Still, now that you’re here … Oh, and the computer’s working again, thank goodness. I think the news that we’d got our Michelin threw it into as much of a state of excitement as it did us. Of course, now we’re being inundated with requests for tables which is marvellous. Or at least it would be if we weren’t committed for the next three Saturdays to weddings. Not that we don’t want them, we do … but …’ As she paused for breath Sara looked round the small cluttered office.

Rather oddly it had French windows that gave onto an attractive little town garden and when the woman saw her looking at it she smiled.

‘We only moved into these premises a little while ago. It was originally a café and we bought the house next door. The office was the house’s back parlour and we decided we’d leave the French windows….’

‘It’s very pretty.’ Sara smiled.

‘Well, yes, and hopefully next summer we shall be able to make better use of it. I’m Frances Sorter, by the way,’ she introduced herself. ‘I expect the agency will have told you that my husband and I own the restaurant. Our chef is so keen on organic produce my husband grows as much as he can himself.

‘Now, I don’t know whether or not the agency discussed terms with you.’

‘Er, no, they haven’t,’ Sara replied truthfully.

Now was the time to tell Frances Sorter that there had been a mistake and that she wasn’t the person the woman thought she was but for some reason Sara discovered instead that she was actually listening whilst she was told the surprisingly generous terms of her ‘employment.’

‘It will only be for a few months, of course,’ she was told a shade anxiously. ‘You do know that, don’t you? Only Mary, our regular office manageress, is having a baby and she says she will want to come back, but …’

A few months … Sara started to frown. She had decided to move on from the school where she had been working as a supply teacher at the end of the previous school year. She had several options she was considering, including working abroad and her father had even suggested she could have her old university holiday job back with him working as his assistant if she wished. There was really no earthly reason why she should want to come and work here in ‘Crightonville.’ In fact, there was every reason why she shouldn’t. So why was she nodding her head and assuring Frances Sorter that yes, the salary they were paying was fine?

She had always been inclined to be impulsive, a trait which had got her into plenty of trouble as a girl but even she was surprised to hear herself accepting the job whilst saying, ‘There’s one problem though. I … er … don’t actually have anywhere to live locally as yet and—’

‘Oh, that’s no problem.’ Frances Sorter beamed. ‘There’s a flat upstairs that you could have rent free. In fact, if you did you would be solving another of our problems. The insurance company are insisting that the flat is tenanted. Apparently they consider that an empty property is more at risk from thieves and vandals. It’s only small but the previous owners had it completely refurbished since they lived “over the shop” and, well, let me take you up and you can see for yourself.’

Well, Sara reflected ruefully half an hour after she said goodbye to Frances. This morning as she left her friend the last thing on her mind had been coming to Haslewich, never mind accepting a job here, and yet here she was … Sara was a firm believer in fate and in taking the kind of chances other people more cautious and less imaginative would give very wary distance to. Life was an adventure—or at least it should be. Her eyes began to sparkle. Who knew, she might even get the opportunity to even the score a bit for her sweet vulnerable little stepgrandmamma and put some of those powerful lordly Crightons in their place. Now that was a challenge she would accept with relish!

Nick Crighton stifled a small sigh. It had been very kind of his brother Saul and his wife Tullah to offer him a room in their home to recuperate in following the injuries he had sustained whilst visiting one of his clients who was incarcerated in a Thai jail.

Another inmate had attacked Nick’s client in a drug-crazed frenzy and when Nick had gone to help him, he had ended up being knifed.

Luckily the knife had missed all his major internal organs, even if his recovery was taking longer than expected thanks to an infection that had developed in the site of the wound. That had cleared up now but he had been told by his doctor to take things easy until the wound had completely healed.

Yes, it was kind of Saul and Tullah to insist that he stay with them, but the truth was that he was beginning to get rather bored by all the cosseting he was receiving.

He was a grown man, after all, a man used to spending his spare time on the outdoor pursuits he enjoyed: rock climbing and sailing, white water rafting … anything with just that little touch of exhilaration and excitement about it—not that he ever took foolhardy or dangerous risks…. Well, not often!

The last time he had had a medical check-up he had tried to persuade his doctor that he was well enough to return to work. After all, as a lawyer he was hardly likely to be overtaxing himself physically he had suggested slyly to his GP.

‘Mmm … I take your point,’ the other man had agreed. ‘Sitting at an office desk or even standing in court certainly aren’t going to do you too much harm now that the wound has actually started to heal….’

‘Great! So I can go back to work then?’ he had pounced eagerly.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Nick,’ the doctor had refused affably. ‘You may be a lawyer but I happen to know that your job is very much a hands-on affair. You run a business that involves taking the kinds of risks that no sane man with a healthy respect for his own physical safety would ever take.’

Nick had shrugged, knowing that there was nothing he could say. His work as a negotiator for people caught up in the legal systems of other countries often took him into situations that were physically dangerous. It hadn’t been unknown for him when dealing with a particularly corrupt government to bribe his ‘client’ out of gaol and then have to make a quick and sometimes dangerous getaway over the border with him or her.

As a newly qualified solicitor he had volunteered to help the parents of a university friend to make an application to a far Eastern government for their daughter to be released from prison where she was being held on drug smuggling charges.

After he had successfully won the case he had been besieged by other parents requesting his help with similar cases.

It appalled Nick that even now when surely the most naive of travellers must be aware of the dangers, young people, especially young girls, fell into the trap of allowing themselves to be used—sometimes knowingly but more often than not as mules—by drug traffickers.

He did other work, of course, as a locum which allowed him plenty of time to travel. Work to Nick was a means to an end, not an end in itself.

‘I’ve booked us a table at the Sorters’ new restaurant for tonight,’ Tullah had announced this morning over breakfast. ‘They’ve got their Michelin now and I must say I’m looking forward to sampling their latest menu. You’ll enjoy it, Nick.’

Well, yes, he would enjoy it, but … but what he was hankering after right now was something a little bit more adventurous than domesticity of the type enjoyed by his brother Saul and his wife and family. It was all very well … all very cosy, but it was not for him … not yet. This mating, nesting instinct that seemed to have affected so many members of his generation of Crighton males was not one he shared. Not that he was against commitment or marriage per se … he wasn’t; he just didn’t want it for himself—not now—not ever! He valued and needed his freedom far too much.

‘Do you think he’ll like it?’ David asked his wife as they stood arm in arm studying the just finished small suite of rooms they had had converted from a loft over what had once been stables but which were now a garage.

‘He’ll love it,’ Honor assured him with a smile, her breath racing in her lungs as he turned to kiss her.

‘You two!’ the elder of her daughters from her first marriage had complained the last time she had visited them. ‘I’ve never known a couple so besotted with one another.’

‘Mmm—are you besotted with me?’ David had asked her whimsically after Abigail had gone back to London.

‘Certainly not,’ Honor had denied sternly, her voice softening as she added, ‘Only just totally crazily head over heels in love with you—that’s all!’

‘I wonder when he’s going to arrive?’

They had been married a few short weeks ago and had known one another less than a year but Honor had never for one moment doubted that she was doing the right thing. She knew the story of David’s past with its shadows and secrets, its shame, and she knew too of his glorious resurrection, his rebirth from the shell of his own past. Now she was looking forward to welcoming into their home the man who had played such a large part in that rebirth—Father Ignatius—the Irish priest turned missionary who was presently in Ireland on a visit. David and Honor were pleased that they had managed to persuade him to leave Jamaica and make his home permanently with them.

‘He’s due to fly to Manchester from Dublin tomorrow,’ David said with concern. ‘I wanted to meet him off the plane but he wouldn’t let me. He said there were things he had to do.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Honor agreed patiently as though she hadn’t heard all of this a dozen or more times already.

‘And then he said that he wanted to make his own way here and not have me drive over to Dublin to collect him.’

Honor smiled soothingly again.

‘I just hope he’s going to be happy here with us.’

‘He will be,’ Honor told him positively, adding softly as she leaned close to him, ‘It’s you he’s coming here for, David … you he wants to be with….’

Honor had met the priest briefly when she and David had married in Jamaica and she had discovered that he was everything David had told her he was and more. They shared an understanding, a belief in the dignity of nature and a respect for the world.

A rueful smile lit David’s eyes and he laughed. ‘All right, so I’m fussing,’ he agreed.

There were still days when he had to pinch himself to make sure that he was really awake and not merely dreaming. It humbled him unbearably to reflect on how lucky he was—and how undeserving. He had said as much to Jon, but his brother had shaken his head in denial of his claim.

David had been given so many precious gifts in this fifth decade of his life. His friendship with the priest. The love he shared with Honor, his acceptance back into the hearts and lives of his family. David’s eyes became slightly shadowed because, of course, there was one member of his family who had not accepted him back, Olivia, his daughter. She had every reason not to do so. David understood that. He had not been a good father to her and she had been forced at a very young age to take charge not just of her own life but those of her younger brother and their mother as well. When you allied to that his own father’s dismissive attitude towards her whilst Jon’s son Max was praised, it was no wonder that she should feel so hostile towards the father who had failed to take her part.

But the pain he felt at their continued estrangement was not just for himself, it was for her as well. He was a different David from the one who had simply walked out of his old life because he wasn’t able to face up to what he had done. Now he knew and understood the power negative emotions had to hurt their owner even more than those they were directed against. And Olivia was hurting—David knew that.

‘Give her time,’ Jon had counselled him.

There was David’s son as well, but Jack had had the benefit of getting the parenting from Jon and Jenny that David and his ex-wife Tania had not been there to give him. Jack, unlike Olivia, was secure in himself … happy in himself. Jack might watch him with a certain wariness … waiting, judging … but there was none of the fury or the fear in Jack’s reaction to his return that there had been in Olivia’s.

Her point-blank refusal to see him or speak to him was perhaps understandable. Her father’s return had come as a shock to her—he knew that and he knew, too, that he had hardly given her any reason to either love or respect him; but he had hoped that she would mellow a little towards him and at least attend the wedding party he and Honor had given at Fitzburgh Place. He was desperate to make some kind of reparation to her, to talk to her, to explain … apologise.

He had no right to expect her love; he acknowledged that. But it was her pain that made him hurt more than his own … her pain, his blame.

Every time he looked at Max and saw what Jon’s son had become he reminded himself that Max had the very best parents any child could possibly have had, just as whenever he thought of Olivia he knew that she had not and that he and his selfishness were to blame for that.

As Honor saw the sadness in his eyes she guessed what had put it there—Olivia … She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if one of her daughters were to reject her … to feel so hurt by her and detached from her that they refused to let her into their lives; or rather she could, and it was so untenable that it made her shiver.

Honor was a good listener and she had heard a lot about Olivia from other members of the family, not because they had gossiped about her or criticised her. No, the Crightons if they were nothing else, were fiercely loyal to each other. No. What she had learned was how very concerned in their different ways all her relatives were for her.

‘She was so happy when she and Caspar married,’ Jenny had said. ‘And when the girls arrived …’

And her inference had been that the happiness had gone.

‘She works too hard,’ someone else had said and there had been other comments, all made with loving anxious concern which Honor had correctly interpreted as meaning that Olivia’s life was shadowed and unhappy.

‘Sometimes she seems almost … afraid to let herself relax and have fun….’ had been the most telling statement of all made by Tullah, Saul’s wife, her magnificent eyes darkening as she spoke. There had been, Honor guessed, enough damage done to Olivia as a child for her to feel a need to take refuge in controlling and pushing herself to reach self-imposed targets. And to have a very fragile sense of self worth.

Leaning over to nibble on David’s ear Honor whispered enticingly, ‘Let’s go to bed.’

‘What!’ David pretended to be shocked. ‘It’s still afternoon….’

‘Mmm … siesta time.’ Honor smiled seductively.

Arm in arm they made their way across the gravelled space that separated the house proper from the outbuildings.

Honor was looking forward to the arrival of David’s old friend and mentor and as she walked past the lavender she paused to brush her free hand against its leaves and breathed in the scent she had released.

It was her plan to grow a wide variety of herbs here and to make her own herbals and potions from them.

Olivia reminded her a little of her lavender … outwardly sturdy and tough but inwardly so sensitive that the merest touch could bruise and damage.

CHAPTER THREE

BOBBIE, LUKE CRIGHTON’S wife, was the first member of the family to hear Olivia’s news. She had called at the house knowing that Olivia, Caspar and the girls would have arrived home, eager to learn all about their trip and to see if there was any shopping she could get for Olivia whilst she did her own.

‘Mummy’s upstairs,’ Amelia informed Bobbie as she knocked on the open kitchen door and then walked in.

‘Yes, she’s packing Daddy’s things,’ Alex added innocently.

‘Dad’s staying in Philly … in America….’ Amelia supplied and both of them stood and looked at her with such grave-eyed sadness that Bobbie ached to sweep them up into her arms and hold them tight.

‘Olivia,’ she called out from the bottom of the stairs, ‘It’s me—Bobbie. Can I come up?’

When Olivia appeared on the landing Bobbie saw from her expression that she hadn’t been able to conceal the shock the sight of Olivia had caused her. She had lost weight and her skin looked grey, lifeless, like her eyes. She looked … she looked … Bobbie swallowed painfully. Now it was Olivia herself she wanted to hold and comfort.

‘The girls have told you, have they?’ Olivia guessed tiredly.

‘They said something about Caspar staying on in Philadelphia,’ Bobbie agreed awkwardly.

‘You’d better come up,’ Olivia said. ‘Caspar and I are separating,’ she informed her when Bobbie got to the top of the stairs. ‘It’s for the best, for all of us. Things haven’t been good between us for a long time and … he isn’t the man I married, Bobbie … and I …’ Olivia’s voice thickened and Bobbie could see the tears standing out in her eyes as sharp as broken glass.

‘No,’ Olivia denied as Bobbie reached out towards her. ‘No. Don’t sympathise with me … I don’t need it … I’m not sorry. I’m glad. Our marriage just wasn’t working,’ she told the other woman tensely. ‘I think once he got over his initial shock of hearing that I wanted to end it, Caspar was actually relieved.’

As she heard the pain in her own voice Olivia started to frown. Why should she feel pain? She didn’t love Caspar any more. It was a relief not to have him standing at her shoulder complaining that she spent far too much time at work and far too little with him and the girls. It was a relief, too, to only have her relationship with them to worry about. Now that her father had come back people would be watching her even more closely, waiting to see her fail … fall …

‘I know sometimes things happen between a couple that can seem to be very aggravating, small issues really but like a stone in a shoe they can—’ Bobbie was saying quietly.

‘Small issues?’ Olivia interrupted her with a bitter laugh. ‘This isn’t about small issues, Bobbie. The last time Caspar and I had sex was months ago….’

For a moment Bobbie thought that Olivia was complaining that Caspar would not have sex with her but then when Olivia continued angrily, ‘I just didn’t … I just couldn’t …’ Bobbie realised her mistake.

‘Caspar seemed to think I was just being bloody minded … just withholding myself from him to score points. That’s how far apart we’ve grown,’ Olivia burst out. She had started to tremble visibly, her hands moving in quick agitation. ‘We had the most awful rows about it. It was so destructive and damaging for the girls. I tried but Caspar …’

‘Did you think of trying counselling?’ Bobbie asked her softly.

Olivia’s pain and despair were almost a visible physical presence in the room with them. She was normally such a calm, contained sort of person, so controlled that Bobbie was shocked by the change in her.

‘Counselling!’ Olivia gave a mirthless bitter laugh. ‘You mean like my mother ought to have had? I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Bobbie. ‘I know …’ She stopped speaking, pressing her hand against her mouth as though she were trying to silence herself, Bobbie recognised compassionately.

‘It’s too late for that now,’ Olivia told her. ‘Our marriage is over.’

‘What will Caspar do?’ Bobbie asked her.

‘He’s taking a sabbatical. He’s had it approved by the university that he can take time out from lecturing. He says he’s going to ride around America on a bike, a Harley-Davidson,’ Olivia told her derisively. ‘It’s something he’s wanted to do since he was a boy.’

To her own shock she suddenly discovered that she was crying without knowing why.

‘Oh, Livvy, Livvy,’ she heard Bobbie saying emotionally; but as Bobbie stepped towards her holding out her arms, Olivia backed away shaking her head.

There was so much she needed to do, so many arrangements she needed to make. She wanted to be in her office before eight when she started work on Monday. That would give her an extra hour to start going through the post that would be waiting for her and then, if she brought the rest of it home with her on Monday night, she could read it whilst the girls were in bed. At least now that she didn’t have Caspar to consider she would have more time in the evenings to work.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Bobbie told Luke that evening after she had broken the news about Olivia to him.

‘Of course something’s wrong,’ he agreed dryly. ‘She’s left Caspar.’

‘No, I mean apart from that … something’s wrong with Livvy,’ Bobbie persisted. ‘She was … different somehow….’

‘She’s upset. That’s only natural.’

Bobbie sighed under her breath. Much as she loved her husband there were times when they just weren’t on the same wavelength. Another woman would have understood immediately what she meant.

‘I wonder if Jenny knows yet?’ Bobbie said. ‘She must do, surely. She and Olivia have always been so close.’

Jenny was Jon’s wife and she had acted as surrogate mother for Olivia through all her difficult childhood. Olivia was now a partner in the family legal practice of which Jon was the head.

Quickly Bobbie reached for the phone and dialled Jenny’s number.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Jon asked Jenny when she walked into the study looking worried.

‘Bobbie’s just been on the phone. She went over to see Livvy this afternoon. I would have gone myself but I had a Mums and Babes committee meeting. Livvy and Caspar have separated. Livvy’s come home without him.’

‘What!’

Jon’s reaction mirrored Jenny’s own shock. He started to shake his head.

‘I thought they were so happy.’

‘They were,’ Jenny agreed, ‘until David came home….’ Try as she might she could not keep the accusatory note out of her voice.

She could see from Jon’s face that her words had upset him and she knew, too, that they were unjustified and unfair but she couldn’t make herself call them back.

Jon had changed since his brother’s return. He seemed almost to live, breathe and think David these days. So much so that she felt that she was being shut out, excluded almost from his life, which was ridiculous, of course. They had been married for over thirty years and these last years of their marriage had brought them very close, brought a new depth to their marriage … their love…. These last years … the years without David.

But now David was back and Jon wasn’t exclusively hers any longer. It was David this and David that. Jenny could see his love for his brother in his eyes, hear it in his voice, every time he spoke his name.

‘David isn’t responsible for the breakdown of Livvy’s marriage. He can’t possibly be,’ Jon objected.

‘Maybe not,’ Jenny was forced to concede. ‘But he is responsible for what Livvy is, Jon … you’ve said so yourself often enough.’

‘Livvy didn’t have a very happy childhood,’ Jon agreed. ‘But that wasn’t just down to David….’

Jenny gave a small impatient sigh.

‘Before David came home you said yourself that you were concerned about her, that you felt she was working too hard.’

‘Yes. She was … is,’ Jon acknowledged.

It had disturbed him to discover in her absence just how much extra work Olivia had taken on and quite unnecessarily. Had she said that she needed help, Jon would have seen to it she got some. But she had insisted that she did not, becoming almost angrily defensive. With that kind of workload it was no wonder her marriage was under stress. The locum he had hired to cover the period she was away had not come anywhere near being able to cope and Jon had had to take on some of the extra workload himself and share the rest between Tullah who worked part-time and his daughter Katie who was also part of the family practice.

As Jenny walked past the back of his head without bothering to stop and kiss the top of it as she normally did he hesitated, wanting to reach for her but before he could do so she had gone.

Since David had come back Jon was so involved with him that he hardly seemed to notice she existed, Jenny reflected crossly as he let her walk out of the study without sliding his arm around her waist to give her his usual hug.

She knew how much he loved his elder brother. Did he perhaps envy him a little as well? Did he compare their own staid comfortable marriage with the excitement of David’s obviously passionate relationship with his new wife Honor? Honor who was so much more glamorous and exciting than she was herself.

Stop that, Jenny warned herself as she walked into the kitchen. She might have felt inferior to David’s first wife, nicknamed Tiggy, the glamorous model, but there was no way she was going to allow history to repeat itself.

The large kitchen seemed so empty now that their family had virtually all grown up.

Of their four children only Joss, the youngest, still lived at home, although soon he would be following Jack to university.

Of course Maddy and the children, her grandchildren, were regular visitors—there was scarcely a day when she didn’t see them, but …

Empty nest syndrome they called it, didn’t they, when a woman began to suffer the pangs of missing her grown-up children.

Firmly Jenny reminded herself of how fortunate she was—unlike her niece-in-law.

Poor Livvy. Jenny’s heart ached for her.

‘Maddy. Are you all right?’ Max queried anxiously as he caught her indrawn breath and saw the way her hand lifted to the pregnant mound of her belly.

‘It’s nothing,’ Maddy assured him. ‘I just felt a bit nauseous.’

‘Come and sit down,’ Max instructed her, shaking his head when she insisted that she was all right.

This fourth pregnancy which they had both greeted with such joy was tiring her far more than Max remembered the previous three doing and he cursed himself for allowing her to become pregnant again when she already had three children to look after plus his elderly grandfather.

He would have a quiet word with his mother and ask her to keep an eye on Maddy for him, make sure she wasn’t overdoing things.

‘Livvy was due home today,’ Maddy commented. The sickness had subsided now, thank goodness. The last thing she wanted was for Max to start worrying, fussing.

‘I know they’ve only been away for a matter of weeks but so much has happened that it feels as though it’s been much longer,’ Maddy continued.

‘Mmm …’

‘I wonder how she’s going to cope with having her father back? Honor says that David is desperate to heal the breach between them but that he feels he owes it to Livvy not to force anything on her.’

‘Give it time,’ Max counselled her. ‘David’s return has been a shock for all of us but especially so for Olivia.’

Maddy was just about to remark that her concern for Olivia, his cousin, wasn’t limited to her troubled relationship with her father. She was also uncomfortably aware of the sentiments and grievances about his marriage that Caspar had once revealed to her—but just as she was about to speak a fresh sickening wave of nausea struck her.

It was probably nothing, she assured herself. She was due to visit the antenatal clinic—an overdue visit, in fact, since she had had to miss her last appointment because Ben had not been feeling well. Her swollen ankles and the fact that she felt so nauseous and tired were nothing to worry about. Why should they be? She had not experienced any problems with her other three pregnancies.

‘You’ve done what?’ Sara’s father laughed as she held the telephone receiver closer to her ear and explained to him just what had happened.

‘… and you’ll never guess what,’ she continued. ‘Some of the Crighton clan are booked in for dinner tonight so I shall get a first-hand view of the “enemy.”’

‘I’ve told you before, you’ve only heard one side of the story,’ her father reminded her forthrightly.

‘I don’t care. If only half what Grandmamma Tania has told me is true then they treated her abominably.’

On the other end of the telephone line Richard Lanyon suppressed a rueful sigh. His daughter was very much inclined to champion lost causes and underdogs and he just hoped that life wouldn’t strip her of too many of her ideals and illusions.

Privately he considered his father’s second wife to be an almost naively childlike but totally selfish woman. His father adored her and protected her but he sometimes found her irritating and exasperating.

‘Well, I’d caution you against trying to slay too many dragons,’ he warned Sara drolly now.

‘I won’t,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s time someone took the Crightons down a peg or two. Enjoy your holiday,’ she added warmly.

Her father was an architect and he and her mother owned a villa on a luxury complex in the Caribbean which he had helped to design. Sara knew she could have gone with them and enjoyed a long holiday at their expense but she had too much pride and independence to do so. She had chosen teaching as her career because she wanted to help others and in her book the gift of education was one of the most precious that could be given; but the realities of modern day teaching were eroding her ideals and dreams.

Now, she was dauntingly aware that she was having second thoughts about her professional future. A short spell of working here in Haslewich would give her time to think through her options—as well as taking up cudgels on behalf of Grandmamma Tania?

Sara wasn’t going to deny that she felt that the Crightons had treated Tania badly despite what her father had said.

Having put away her few belongings in the pleasant accommodation Frances Sorter had shown her, Sara made her way back to the restaurant where Frances greeted her arrival with a warm smile.

‘We wouldn’t normally expect you to work in the evening,’ Frances told her, ‘but if you were prepared to make a start now …’

‘I’d be glad to,’ Sara told her and meant it, grimacing as her stomach suddenly gave an embarrassingly loud rumble.

‘Oh, good heavens, you must be starving,’ Frances exclaimed. ‘Normally staff meals are eaten when we’ve finished serving but I can arrange for something to be sent into the office for you.’

‘A sandwich would be fine,’ Sara told her.

‘A sandwich!’ Frances looked horrified. ‘This is an award-winning restaurant,’ she told Sara mock primly, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘How do you feel about chargrilled vegetables and wild salmon?’

‘I’m in love with it already,’ Sara told her solemnly, her eyes full of laughter. She was going to enjoy working here. Frances had a good sense of humour even if she was slightly frazzled at the moment.

Nearly an hour later Sara grimaced as she took her eyes off the computer screen to take a final mouthful of the delicious meal she had been served. She had become so engrossed in what she was doing her food had gone cold—not that she was still hungry! The more than generous portion she had been served would easily have satisfied two people.

She frowned as the computer refused to give her the information she needed to complete the task she was working on. She would need to have a word with Frances about this.

Getting up she opened the office door and walked down the short corridor that separated it from the restaurant, hesitantly going inside.

Frances had told her that she was ‘fronting’ the restaurant tonight but Sara couldn’t see her anywhere. The restaurant was very busy, every table taken.

‘Bobbie rang me earlier,’ Tullah told Saul as the waiter filled their wine glasses.

‘Livvy’s back but Caspar hasn’t come with her. He’s staying on in America and according to Livvy the marriage is over.’

Tullah frowned a little. At one time Saul and Livvy had been very close and Saul himself had admitted to her that he had been very attracted to his second cousin, but that was all in the past now. She was Saul’s wife.

‘It’s the girls I feel sorry for,’ she continued.

‘It’s so hard for children when their parents split up.’

Saul had three children from his first marriage and Tullah could still remember how fragile and lost they had seemed when she had first met him and them.

Saul’s first wife had abandoned not only her husband but her three children as well, claiming that there was no place for her son and daughters in her second marriage to a man who was not family oriented.

It had not been easy for any of them when she and Saul had first fallen in love and married, Tullah acknowledged, even though now the children totally accepted her. A child of their own had completed their family but Tullah knew she felt a fierce extra protective love for Saul’s eldest three children, especially his daughter Meg, and her heart went out to Amelia and Alex.

‘If you ask me, men and women should be kept strictly apart except for purposes which are purely recreational,’ Nick told them both tongue-in-cheek, his eyes dancing with wicked amusement.

Like all the Crighton men he was outstandingly good-looking, but Nick had an added air of excitement and danger, an added aura, a certain very challenging maleness about him Tullah recognised as she gave a small admonishing shake of her head and told him, ‘You’re incorrigible, Nick, you really are.’

‘Nope, I’m just determined never to fall into the trap of allowing my emotions to ruin my life,’ Nick told her firmly.

Saul said nothing. He was thoroughly familiar with his younger brother’s antipathy towards marriage and commitment.

‘One day you’ll change your mind,’ Tullah warned him. ‘You’ll see someone and fall in love with her….’

‘What is it?’ she asked anxiously as Nick suddenly yelped in pain. A girl was standing next to his chair, her face flushed and pink as she started to apologise. She had obviously bumped into him accidentally as she crossed the dimly lit room. She was extremely pretty, Tullah recognised, amused to realise that Nick was receiving her apology with something less than his normal savoir faire. He might spurn marriage and commitment but that did not mean that her brother-in-law was averse to female company—far from it. Although to be fair to him, so far as Tullah knew his ‘relationships’ were limited to women who shared his views on the advantages of their short shelf life.

Her face crimson with mortification, Sara stammered an apology to the man she had inadvertently bumped into, but her embarrassment was replaced by indignation as he gave her a look of biting scorn instead of accepting her apology in the spirit in which she had given it.

She was still trying to find Frances and having seen her on the other side of the room had been attempting to make her way through the packed restaurant, her eyes on her quarry instead of what was in front of her.

Was it really her fault anyway, she asked herself indignantly as she returned Nick’s angry glare with one of her own. He had been sitting at the table at an odd angle with the chair pulled out more than was surely necessary.

‘You look cross. Is everything all right?’ Frances asked in concern when Sara eventually caught up with her.

‘I’ve just had a bit of a run-in with one of your diners,’ Sara admitted ruefully. ‘I bumped into him but when I tried to apologise—’

‘Which one?’ Frances interrupted her.

‘That table over there,’ Sara replied, showing her.

‘Oh, Tullah and Saul Crighton’s table.’

Crightons!

Immediately Sara twisted round to stare at the trio. As luck would have it the couple, obviously Tullah and Saul, were seated with their backs towards her. But the man she’d bumped into …

Sara’s breath rattled in her throat as he lifted his head and glared at her.

‘Oh, poor Nick,’ Frances was saying. ‘He’s not been very well.’

‘You mean like a bear with a sore head not well,’ Sara responded pseudo sweetly.

Frances’s eyebrows rose.

‘Oh, dear, he really has upset you, hasn’t he?’ she sympathised before continuing briskly, ‘No, actually he was involved in a very unpleasant incident. Like nearly all the Crightons he’s a qualified solicitor but the work he does is extremely specialised and often rather dangerous. Although in this case …’ Quickly she explained just how Nick had come to be hurt, but stubbornly Sara refused to be impressed.

‘Perhaps it might help if he carried a sign warning people not to get too close to him,’ she suggested through gritted teeth.

Frances forbore to comment. Sara was a gorgeous-looking girl and Nick was a singularly handsome man. Therefore, it seemed logical to Frances that the two of them should be attracted to one another. As the mother of young adults she was also well aware that sometimes such attraction presented itself disguised as hostility.

‘It’s nine o’clock. You’ve been working all evening,’ she told Sara with a smile. ‘Why don’t you call it a day.’

‘Not yet,’ Sara refused determinedly. Armed with the information Frances had given her she was sure she could solve her problem with the recalcitrant computer.

Frances smiled ruefully as she watched Sara walk away, this time giving the Crighton table a wide berth.

She had liked Sara on sight, sensing within her a gutsy determination allied to a warm sense of humour. Her stunning good looks would cause havoc, of course!

‘Nick,’ Tullah expostulated as she saw the grim way her brother-in-law was watching the woman’s determined circumnavigation of their table.

‘Little madam,’ Nick seethed without taking his eyes off her departing back. ‘Did you see the look she gave me?’

‘Well, I certainly saw the one you gave her,’ Tullah told him dryly.

‘Yes,’ Saul corroborated. ‘You were hardly your normal charming smooth self with her, Nick,’ he pointed out. ‘Pretty girl,’ he added appreciatively, laughing when Tullah gave him a mock glare whilst saying with wifely warning, ‘Saul …’

‘Very pretty,’ Nick agreed sourly. He wasn’t even sure himself just why he had reacted so badly to her. Common sense told him that the painful jolt she had given his still aching wound had been completely accidental and he knew that normally he would not only have accepted her embarrassed apology gracefully but that he would probably have done everything he could to create a good impression and set her at her ease.

So why hadn’t he?

Not surely because of that sharp little jolt of male sensual electricity, that more than a mere frisson of sensation that had seized him at their accidental bodily contact. After all, he had experienced physical desire for plenty of other women before her.

Physical desire, yes, but not that swift pang of dangerous knowledge, that unwanted awareness, that instinct that … that what?

That nothing, he told himself firmly.

‘You’re right,’ he announced, even though neither Saul nor Tullah had said anything. ‘I behaved very boorishly … and by rights I should apologise. I wonder where she’s gone.’

‘Frances will probably know,’ Tullah informed him. ‘She was talking to her.’

Ruefully Nick pushed back his chair and got up.

‘Sara?’ Frances responded in answer to his question. ‘Oh, she’ll be in the office. She’s standing in for our office manager….’

Thoughtfully she watched as Nick made his way through the tables.

Sara gave a small crow of satisfaction as she finally got the computer to do as she wished. Nick heard it as he pushed open the door of the office. Sara was standing looking at the computer screen, her eyes alight with triumph and pleasure. She was more than just pretty Nick acknowledged as he felt his heart jolt fiercely against his ribs.

Sensing someone’s presence Sara turned her head away from the screen, the breath rushing out of her lungs on a shocked whoosh as she realised who the intruder was.

‘Frances said I’d find you in here,’ Nick told her. Her body had stiffened and the look in her eyes was both wary and hostile.

Immediately his own body—and emotions—reacted.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he began tersely.

‘Yes, you do,’ Sara agreed spiritedly, ‘But you’re a Crighton and of course Crightons never apologise, especially to women….’

Nick stared at her. Her reaction was so unexpected and so extraordinary that it had taken him completely by surprise.

‘What on earth …’ he began, but to his fury he saw that Sara was ignoring him, concentrating instead on the screen in front of her, blanking him so totally and completely that he might just as well not have existed. Women never blanked Nick. Never! Whilst a part of him was distantly relishing his shock the rest of him was sharply and furiously angry that she could dare to both speak and act as she had.

‘Now look here,’ he said grimly, ‘there’s no way you can make that kind of statement without explaining just what it’s supposed to mean.’

As he spoke he moved closer to the desk, so close in fact that Sara could feel the angry heat coming off his body. This close he was overpoweringly male. Tall, broad, his eyes so dark that they could almost have been black, not the navy-blue she knew they were. Excitement and fear raced through her veins like rocket fuel. Caution told her that she had gone too far, but the voice of caution wasn’t one Sara wanted to listen to. No, she would much rather listen to the siren lure of the exultation egging her on, telling her she was giving Nick what he deserved.

Ignoring him she continued to work.

Nick had had enough. Irritably he reached out towards her, merely intending to cover her hand to stop her working the keyboard, but the moment his fingers brushed her skin a surge of such powerful sexual immediacy coursed through his veins that the original cause of his physical contact with her was forgotten.

‘Just let go of me,’ Sara snapped at him, her face as white now as it had been flushed when she had bumped into him earlier in the restaurant, her eyes brilliant with the intensity of what she was feeling. And what she was feeling was … Instinctively Nick knew that she was as aware of the sexual chemistry between them as he was himself.

For a man who was used to being totally in control of himself and his emotions, what he was experiencing was totally unwanted, so incomprehensible.

‘I came in here to apologise,’ he reminded Sara sharply.

Angrily Sara raised her head to look at him but the sarcastic response she had been about to make died on her lips unspoken, as for some inconceivable reason her gaze was drawn to his mouth and then his eyes and then back to his mouth again.

Almost as though he were standing outside of himself watching what he was doing Nick was aware of his own actions and his inability to stop them. It seemed to take an aeon of time for him to lean forward closing the gap between Sara and himself and then to cover her mouth with his, but in reality he knew it could only have been seconds. Her mouth tasted velvety warm, sweet salt sexy and the pressure of his own against it intensified.

Beneath the hot crushing sexuality of Nick’s kiss Sara’s senses reeled. This was the kind of kiss she had dreamed of as a young awkward girl … the kind of man … the kind of sensual immediacy that could not be contained or controlled. Instinctively her mouth softened beneath Nick’s and then outside in the corridor she heard someone laughing.

Immediately reality intruded, breaking the spell she was under. In the same second that she pulled back from him Nick released her. Wordlessly they glared at one another. Two pairs of eyes both reflecting the same furious resentment, both reflecting the same hot aching desire.

‘Everything all right now?’ Tullah asked Nick when he rejoined them. Saul had gone to pay the bill so only she was there to see the shattered, shocked expression in Nick’s eyes.

‘Everything’s fine,’ he lied as he guided her towards the exit where Saul was waiting for them both.

Crighton men! Sara seethed, her emotions in chaotic turmoil, her body equally disturbed. Tania had been so right about them.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘GOOD LORD, IS that really the time?’ Frederick de Voysey exclaimed as he glanced at his watch. ‘I had no idea. Can’t remember when I last enjoyed m’self so much … excellent dinner, m’dear,’ he praised Honor.

‘I’ll drive you back to Fitzburgh Place.’ David smiled. He had deliberately not had any wine with his meal, knowing that he would be driving Honor’s cousin home afterwards.

He had been a little bit uncertain about the wisdom of inviting Freddy round for dinner the same day that the priest was arriving, but as always Honor’s judgement had proved better than his and the two men both in their seventies had got on famously together. So much so that Lord Astlegh had already invited the priest to join him in a game of chess later in the week.

‘In terms of religion they may be poles apart,’ Honor had agreed when David had raised that issue. ‘But in terms of their desire to help their fellow man they are very similar and surely that matters more.’

And so it had proved to be. From the tone of Freddy’s conversation David suspected that it wouldn’t be too long before the priest found himself involved in one or other of the peer’s ‘good works,’ but right now he could see that the older man was looking tired. He had, after all, only arrived from Ireland a few hours earlier.

‘I think I’m ready to call it a night as well,’ Father Ignatius agreed.

At the front door Honor kissed her elderly cousin fondly.

‘I’ve had the plans back for the orangery,’ he reminded her. ‘You’d better come up and see them.’

‘I shall,’ Honor assured him affectionately.

Closing the front door behind him she smiled at the priest. ‘Would you like to wait here until David comes back or would you prefer to go straight to your bed?’

‘Straight to bed if you don’t mind,’ he confirmed.

It had been a tiring journey from Ireland but it was a peaceful kind of tiredness. He had gone there for a purpose, back to the place where his ministry had begun. Now he could settle to a life in the Cheshire countryside. Father Ignatius was at the place that he knew would be his final home on earth.

He allowed Honor to walk with him to the small self-contained apartment they had prepared for him. Its rooms had a stark almost cell-like bareness that he knew was deliberate. David’s decision or Honor’s? It didn’t really matter. He felt comfortable here. At home … and was appreciative of whichever of them it was that had had the sensitivity to know that this would be what he wanted.

The books on the simple bookshelves were David’s choice—he knew that—and would have known it even if Honor had not whispered to him that David had spent days combing antiquarian booksellers lists for them.

They were books they had talked of in Jamaica. He reached for one, smoothing the aged leather cover, opening it and breathing in the familiar smell of its pages. There had been books like this at the Jesuit college where he had been educated. How long ago that seemed now.

‘Do you think Father Ignatius is all right?’ David asked Honor an hour later. They were in bed lovingly curled up together like two spoons. Whilst he waited for her response David started to nibble tenderly at the exposed curve of Honor’s neck. There was something uniquely adorable and almost absurdly youthful about the back of her neck. Closing his eyes he breathed in the unmatchable Honor scent of her. He was lucky, so undeservably blessed.

‘He’s tired after his journey, that’s all,’ Honor reassured him. ‘He certainly enjoyed Freddy’s company.’

‘Okay, I concede, you were right about them getting on well together,’ David laughed.

‘Olivia and Caspar were due back today, weren’t they?’ Honor said quietly.

‘Yes,’ David agreed. There was no laughter in his voice now.

Immediately Honor turned round to look at him.

‘Give her time, David,’ she counselled him. ‘I know how much you want to show her what she means to you, but—’

‘She hates me, Honor,’ David interrupted her sadly. ‘I can feel it….’

‘No, it isn’t you she hates,’ Honor told him wisely. ‘It’s herself. Poor Olivia …’

‘It’s my fault that she is suffering so much,’ David told her.

‘In part, yes,’ Honor agreed steadily.

‘I was a bad father,’ he said heavily.

‘Yes,’ Honor acknowledged. ‘You were a bad father, David,’ she told him truthfully.

‘I just want to make it up to her but she won’t let me get near her….’

‘Give her time,’ Honor repeated.

She could hear the pain and frustration in his voice and see it in his eyes.

‘Somehow it’s easier with Jack,’ David continued. ‘He’s—’

‘… male?’ Honor supplied.

‘No,’ David denied immediately.

Honor shook her head and told him truthfully, ‘That’s what Olivia’s going to think, David. The blame doesn’t all lie with you, though. Your father …’ She stopped.

‘Olivia is my daughter. I should have protected her from my father’s prejudices.’ David closed his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t burden you with all this.’

‘Of course you should,’ Honor told him immediately. ‘That’s part of what loving someone is all about … sharing … the bad as well as the good.’

Smiling she reached out and cupped his face and then very gently and slowly started to kiss him.

‘Mmm … more,’ David coaxed hopefully as he gathered her into his arms and started to kiss her back.

Jenny frowned over her shopping list. It seemed pathetically brief, but now, after all, she was only shopping for two. Joss had flown out to America to visit Jon’s aunt Ruth who was living there with her American husband, his last chance to do so before he started focussing on his school exams.

Joss and Ruth had always been particularly close and Jenny smiled as she thought about her aunt-in-law and her youngest son. Both of them were blessed with a special temperament, a serenity and wisdom that had a gentling effect on everyone they came in contact with.

The telephone started to ring and she went to answer it.

‘Jen, it’s me,’ she heard Jon saying. ‘Look, don’t wait for me for dinner tonight. David’s asked me to go up to Fitzburgh Place to see Lord Freddy. He’s got some business he wants to discuss with me.’

‘Is David going to be there as well?’ Jenny couldn’t stop herself from asking tersely.

‘David?’ She could hear the confusion in Jon’s voice. ‘I don’t know. He could be. Why?’

‘Nothing,’ Jenny fibbed. She could imagine how Jon was likely to react if she gave in to the childish desire to complain that just lately he seemed to be spending more time with his brother than he was with her. He had gone out earlier to play golf and she had been expecting him to return within the hour.

On her way back from her shopping she would call and see Olivia, she decided, to see if there was anything she could do to help.

‘Mumee … Mumee … Wake up. I’m hungry.’

Olivia opened her eyes as she heard Alex’s voice, her heart pounding as she saw the time. Ten o’clock. She was always up at six. She could feel the now familiar ice-cold nausea rising up inside her as fear flooded her veins. Her skin felt clammy but icy cold.

More than anything else she wanted to stay where she was, here in bed, to pull the duvet over her head and shut out the world and her problems but she couldn’t. She had responsibilities … duties … two children … a job…. Mentally she started to list the day’s tasks. There was the washing, the girls’ school uniforms for tomorrow, her own case notes to read … food to buy … meals to cook … the house needed cleaning. Her heart was thudding even more frantically now as anxiety-induced adrenaline shot through her veins.

‘Mummee …’ Alex persisted. ‘I’m hungry … I’m starving.’

Olivia could feel the scream building up inside her but she knew she must not give voice to it. It wasn’t Alex’s fault she was feeling like this. She had no right to be feeling like this. She was a woman … a mother … a wife … No, not a wife any more … not now …

Caspar … Suddenly her whole body started to tremble.

‘Mummy,’ Alex had started to cry and Olivia could see the fear in her eyes. More than anything else children needed security and love. No one knew that better than Olivia herself.

‘It’s all right darling,’ she reassured her. ‘I’m going to get up now. You go downstairs and wait for me.’

Caspar … Caspar … Why hadn’t he understood …? Why hadn’t he helped her …? Why hadn’t he loved her …? No one had ever loved her….

As she walked into her bathroom Olivia raised an unsteady hand to her face to wipe away her tears. Her—crying? But she never cried …

It was five o’clock in the morning and still dark outside. Caspar lifted his head from his pillow. Next to him lay a small toy, one of Alex’s. He had found it after she had gone. Gently he touched it with his fingertips. He ached with the pain of missing his daughters—and his wife? His mouth compressed grimly. Olivia might be his wife but she wasn’t the woman he had married, the woman he had fallen in love with and who he had believed loved him.

Ultimately they were going to have to sit down and talk. There was no way he intended to be merely a weekend father to his kids, but right now … right now, locked up in the garage of his half-brother’s house where he was spending the night was the gleaming Harley-Davidson motorbike he had bought the previous day and tomorrow he was going to start out on the journey he had first promised himself he would make when he was still in high school, right across America from coast to coast.

‘You’re going to do what?’ his father had asked in disbelief, adding, ‘Hell, Caspar, a man of your age can’t ride something like that. It’s for kids.’

He shifted uncomfortably in the too soft, too big bed that felt even bigger and emptier without Olivia’s presence at his side, her body tucked close to his.

Tucked close to his. It was one hell of a long time since they had shared that kind of night-time intimacy.

Closing his eyes he tried to think back to exactly when it had been, certainly before Alex’s birth. She had been a colicky, light-sleeping baby causing Olivia to get up so many times during the night to her in the first weeks after her birth that eventually Olivia had started sleeping in the nursery with her. They had both agreed that it would be unfair to Amelia to bring Alex’s cot into their room. And after that? After that Olivia had spent so much time working that when she did go to bed it was purely and simply to sleep.

Was that when sex had ceased to become a shared pleasure between them, turning instead into a reluctant exchange on Olivia’s part which he had had to barter for?

Caspar started to frown. Loving someone wasn’t just about sex. But Olivia didn’t want his love any more than she wanted his body. Bleakly he closed his eyes.

‘Jon …’

Jon smiled as he saw his twin waiting for him when he got out of his car at Fitzburgh Place.

‘I had to come up to collect some plants from the greenhouses for Honor so I thought I might as well hang around and wait for you,’ David explained as they exchanged affectionate hugs.

‘Olivia and Caspar were due back yesterday, weren’t they?’ David asked with such deliberate studied carelessness that Jon’s heart went out to him. ‘I expect she’s already been round to see Jenny to tell her all about their trip….’

Jon frowned.

‘No … she hasn’t.’ There was no easy way for him to tell David what had happened.

‘Livvy’s come back David, but Caspar hasn’t. They’ve separated,’ he told his twin bluntly.

‘What …?’

Jon could see the shocked disbelief in David’s eyes. ‘But I thought they were so happy together.’

‘They were,’ Jon agreed heavily, ‘But … look, I don’t know the full details.’

‘I’m going to go and see her,’ David announced starkly, ‘She’s my daughter … I’m …’ He stopped, his face twisting with unhappiness. ‘I was going to say that I’m her father but of course, I don’t deserve to be considered fitting for that role—not really.’

‘Look, I know how you must feel,’ Jon tried to comfort him. ‘But why don’t you wait until Jenny’s been to see her?’

‘Has she brought the girls back with her, do you know?’ David asked him.

‘Yes,’ Jon confirmed.

David let out his breath in a leaky sigh. He ached to get closer to his granddaughters, to be for them all that he had not been able to be for their mother. Just watching Jon with Max and Maddy’s children brought out such a yearning in him to hold his own granddaughters in his arms that it was almost a physical pain. Right now he felt that same urge, that same need, to hold Olivia—adult though she was.

‘Oh, by the way, I ought to warn you that Dad isn’t too pleased about the fact that you’ve invited Father Ignatius to live with you,’ Jon told him ruefully.

‘I know, he told me,’ David acknowledged without adding that Ben had actually hinted to David that if he and Honor were to move into Queensmead with him he would make the house over to him.

‘Queensmead! You’ve already promised Queensmead to Max,’ David had reminded his father grimly. ‘Maddy has spent a fortune of time and effort on the place and—’

‘More fool her. I never asked her to,’ Ben had returned surlily.

Honor had been both shocked and angry when David had told her what Ben had said.

‘When I think of the way Maddy has looked after him,’ she had exclaimed. ‘He really is the most thoughtless, chauvinistic man….’

‘All that and more,’ David had agreed wryly. He was working himself up into a real royal fury. ‘What’s wrong?’ he had questioned when Honor had started to frown.

‘Well, although for his age he’s relatively healthy, he does have a heart condition. He told me and I checked with Maddy,’ Honor informed him.

‘Just how serious is it?’ David had asked her.

‘Well, it isn’t going to do him any good if he overdoes things and that includes working himself up into a furious temper. He’s well into his eighties, David,’ she had added gently.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ David had agreed, ‘But just because he’s got a heart condition that doesn’t mean he can be allowed to get away with hurting other people, especially someone like Maddy.’

‘He can’t hurt Maddy,’ Honor had assured him gently. ‘She’s far too well protected by Max’s love.’

No, he couldn’t hurt Maddy but he had hurt Olivia. Olivia who should have had his, her father’s love, to protect her.

‘I won’t come up to the house with you if you don’t mind,’ David told Jon abruptly.

Jon shook his head guessing that David wanted to talk over what he had told him about Olivia with Honor.

David found Honor in the kitchen with Father Ignatius who was peeling the potatoes for their meal.

‘I went to early communion this morning,’ the priest told him. ‘I like your church.’

David waited for him to finish before turning to Honor to tell her, ‘I’ve just seen Jon up at Fitzburgh Place. Olivia and Caspar have separated.’

‘Oh, David!’ Honor exclaimed, coming over to him.

‘I want to go and see her, Honor … talk to her … help her …’

‘Oh, David,’ Honor protested in a different tone. ‘I don’t think …’

‘She won’t want me. Jon’s already told me that,’ David agreed flatly.

‘Perhaps I could go and see her,’ the priest suggested gently.

David laughed mirthlessly and shook his head.

‘She’d be as reluctant to see you as she would me. You’re tainted by association,’ he told him. ‘Your association with me. I’m sorry,’ he apologised to them both. ‘I know I’m over-reacting.’

‘Give her time,’ Honor had counselled him earlier, but suddenly as she listened to him Honor sensed intuitively that Olivia no longer had that time.

Her heart ached for the woman who was now her stepdaughter and she longed to be able to help her for Olivia’s own sake just as much as David’s.

Like the priest, she too had a need; a mission to heal and repair the damage that life could inflict on her fellow men and women, but she suspected that Olivia was dangerously close to shutting herself away from anyone’s help.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘BUT I CAN’T stay in hospital, I’ve got a family, three children, a husband and my father-in-law….’

Maddy’s shocked outburst broke the silence of the small consulting room.

‘I’m afraid there is no other option—not at this stage,’ the obstetrician told her gently. ‘Your blood pressure is high and there is protein already showing in the tests we’ve done.’

He and the nurse exchanged glances.

‘It’s a pity you weren’t able to make your last appointment. Had we discovered what was happening then …’

Maddy bit her lip. She could hardly take in what she had been told. Of course she had been aware that she was putting on more weight with this pregnancy than she had with her others and that she was suffering badly with swollen ankles and legs, but this … the appalling news the doctor had just given her that she was exhibiting all the classic early signs of pre-eclampsia and that for her own and the baby’s sake she would have to stay in hospital whilst they brought her blood pressure back down to normal had shocked her rigid.

‘Why don’t you ring your husband?’ the nurse suggested gently.

Max was in the middle of a conference meeting with a client’s solicitor when Maddy’s call came through.

As she tried to tell him what had happened he could hear in her voice her fear and distress. He felt as though a knife were being turned in his heart. Maddy was ill … his Maddy, and she was frightened as well.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told the solicitor swiftly. ‘But I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave. My wife isn’t well.’

The solicitor, a sophisticatedly elegant thirty-something with a high-profile reputation and a prestigious client list, thinned her carefully made up mouth. She had travelled up especially from London for this meeting and she was not accustomed to dealing with Counsel who put their wives before their clients.

At the back of her mind was something a little more than professional irritation. Max was stunningly attractive and even more stunningly male. She was certainly not the sort to indulge in seedy one-night stands with good-looking business associates but the thought of suggesting to Max that they share dinner together after their meeting had crossed her mind. As had her mentally wondering if she possibly had the time to pay a visit to that very chic designer store she had just happened to notice as she walked through Chester this morning before her appointment with Max. Now, though, she wouldn’t need to pick up something alluring to wear this evening.

It took Max twenty minutes to reach the hospital. He found Maddy sitting anxiously on her bed in a small private room off the main ward.

As he crossed the room and took her in his arms she burst into tears.

‘What is it? What’s happened? What’s wrong?’ Max asked her anxiously as he smoothed her hair back off her face and cupped it, his gaze searching hers as his heart hammered against his ribs.

She was so precious to him, so very much beloved, the bedrock on which his life was now built.

Whilst Maddy tried haltingly to explain the situation Max tried and failed to comprehend how he could possibly endure his own life if he were to lose her. All the sins of his own past came back to him; this was his deepest and most secret dread; this fear that somehow the same fate which had given him so much, forgiven him so much, should choose with savage and inescapable malignancy to punish not him but those he loved most; and of all those that he did love, Maddy was his most beloved.

In his more logical moments he knew his fears were unfounded and illogical, but the same change of heart which had shown him the error of his old ways and opened the locked door in his heart to show him the true meaning of love, had also opened that same door to show him fear; fear, not for himself but for those he loved.

He could hear Maddy telling him something.

Above the fierce pounding of his own heartbeat he could hear Maddy’s voice. Determinedly he focused on it and on what she was saying.

The obstetrician had told her that she was suffering from pre-eclampsia, a condition which could, if left untreated, threaten the life of both her and her baby. In order for them to treat it she would have to stay in hospital where her progress could be monitored and she would not be allowed to return home until they were satisfied that she was well enough to do so.

A nurse appeared in the room giving Max a frowning look as she reminded Maddy that she must try to keep calm.

‘Can I see Mr Lewis?’ Max asked her.

She pursed her lips.

‘He’s with another patient at the moment and I don’t know how long he will be.’

‘I’ll wait,’ Max told her in a tone of voice that said he wasn’t going anywhere until he had spoken to the consultant.

‘Oh, Max, I’m so afraid,’ Maddy confessed. ‘And I feel so guilty. If I hadn’t missed my last antenatal appointment they would have found out then what was happening but Ben wasn’t well and—’

His grandfather! Max closed his eyes and willed himself not to over-react.

‘You’re going to be fine,’ he tried to reassure Maddy as he held her tightly, ‘Both you and the baby.’

Ten minutes later, having told her that she wasn’t to worry about anything and having promised that, yes, he would get in touch with Jenny and, yes, he would pick the children up from school and bring a bag of things into the hospital for her, Max kissed his wife and followed the nurse who had come to tell him that the consultant was ready to see him.

‘… and there’s nothing you can do?’

‘In the sense of making the condition completely disappear, no,’ the man agreed. ‘But in the sense of getting it under control, yes. Our first priority is to bring your wife’s blood pressure down and for that we need to keep her here in hospital. Once we are satisfied that it is safely under control then she will be allowed to return home but only on the understanding that she does not overdo things.’

‘And if you can’t bring her blood pressure down?’ Max pressed.

The consultant stood up and walked over to the tiny window of his office, keeping his back towards Max as he said quietly, ‘That shouldn’t happen….’

‘But if it does?’ Max persisted.

There was a long pause before the consultant replied.

‘If the condition runs its course unchecked in the final three months of pregnancy it can lead to the mother suffering from fits and to the deterioration of the placenta which obviously affects the baby. Ultimately—” he paused and looked at Max “—when this happens the mother can suffer from convulsions which in a worst-case scenario causes brain damage for mother and child and potentially death.’

Max stared at him in white-faced disbelief, and sensing his feelings the other man assured him, ‘These days the risk of that happening is minimal. As I’ve explained, now that we’ve detected the problem we should be able to bring your wife’s blood pressure back to normal and keep it there.’

‘You say should,’ Max interrupted him grimly. ‘What if you can’t?’ he demanded, his heart hammering against his ribs.

There was a long pause before the doctor told him carefully, ‘If we were to consider that there was any threat to your wife’s life then we should need to discuss with her terminating her pregnancy.’

‘Have you told Maddy any of this?’ Max asked him grimly.

The consultant shook his head.

‘At this stage I do not believe it is either necessary or constructive to add to your wife’s anxiety. And I must reiterate to you that we are talking about a worst-case scenario.’

‘There is no way I would ever countenance anything that would put Maddy’s life at risk,’ Max started to tell him. ‘Even if that meant that … the baby … that a termination …’

The consultant looked at him with sympathy. ‘We’ll advise you and your wife of the best course of action as her pregnancy progresses.’

Max closed his eyes in mute despair. He knew full well just how Maddy would react. She was the kind of person who would always put the needs of others before her own, all the more so when that other was their unborn child.

Behind his closed eyelids Max cursed himself for the fact that she was pregnant. They already had a family, three children. He found himself wishing passionately that the coming baby had never been conceived, hating it almost for the danger it represented to Maddy, and hating himself even more for what he was feeling. Surely the best thing that could happen now for all their sakes would be for this pregnancy to end.

Couldn’t nature step in on Maddy’s behalf and remove from her the danger to her life?

Guilt burned like bitter gall in Max’s throat and belly as he acknowledged the grim horror of what he was thinking. The death of his own child before it had even known life.

‘Surely if Maddy’s life was at risk you could just act,’ he began, but the consultant was shaking his head.

‘We would strongly recommend a termination if your wife’s life were in jeopardy, but we would need to consult with her first,’ he told Max sternly.

He felt sorry for Max, but the needs of his patient were his prime concern. His patients, in this case—both Maddy and her unborn child. And there was another problem that he still had to raise with Max.

A little brusquely he did so. ‘Your wife is eighteen weeks pregnant,’ the consultant reminded Max steepling his fingertips together. ‘Twenty weeks is the latest time I personally would want to perform a termination. After that …’

After that, what?’ Max could hear the raw fear in his own voice, taste it in his mouth. ‘That only leaves two weeks to bring Maddy’s blood pressure down.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ the obstetrician conceded quietly. ‘It is unfortunate that your wife missed her earlier antenatal appointments. Had she not done so we could have picked up the problems that much earlier.’ He glanced away from Max before looking back at him to tell him bluntly, ‘I do understand how you must be feeling, but I’ve had prem babies under my care who have survived birth at twenty-three weeks. To abort—’ He stopped compassionately as he saw the emotion Max was struggling to keep under control.

‘Maddy will never agree to sacrifice her baby,’ Max told him. ‘She’d sacrifice herself first.’ When the consultant said nothing, Max protested furiously, ‘For God’s sake, in all humanity you can’t expect … I should be the one to make the decision, to take responsibility. She’s my wife. We already have three children.’

Max could feel the burn of his own emotions stinging the backs of his eyes. Was this then fate’s punishment for him? That in celebrating their love, in his reaffirmation of his vows to love her, he had quite literally sowed the seed of Maddy’s death?

‘We’re talking about a situation that may never occur,’ the consultant reminded Max firmly. ‘If your wife responds well and quickly to treatment, then all will be well. It is, of course, essential at the moment that she is not subjected to any kind of … upset or … pressure.’ He gave Max a long look. ‘I hope I make myself clear.’

Max made a terse nod of his head. He knew that the obstetrician was warning him not to discuss the situation with Maddy or allow her to see his own distress. ‘I understand,’ he confirmed. ‘I have to go home now … to collect our children from school, but I’d like your permission to bring them in to see her.’

He paused and waited.

‘Yes, I can agree to that,’ the doctor told him.

‘… and for me to be able to stay the night here with her,’ Max continued swiftly.

With a small sigh the consultant nodded his head.

‘But I must warn you, any sign that your wife is being upset or distressed in any way by either the presence of her children or her husband and I shall have to ask you to leave.’

Grimly Max inclined his head.

Jenny’s mobile rang just as she was about to leave the supermarket and drive to Olivia’s. When she answered it she heard Max’s voice.

‘Mum …’

‘Max.’ She could detect the tension in his one word.

‘I’m at the hospital.’

‘The hospital?’ Jenny gripped the mobile. ‘What’s wrong … Ben?’

‘No, it isn’t Ben, it’s Maddy,’ Max told her tersely. ‘She’s suffering from pre-eclampsia. I don’t know what’s going to happen yet,’ he continued, overriding Jenny’s anxious questions, ‘but they’re keeping her in. That’s one of the reasons why I’m ringing you. Could you go over to Queensmead and check up on Ben and—Mum—we’re going to need your help not just with Ben but with the kids as well.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jenny reassured him. ‘You know I’ll do whatever you need me to do.’

‘I’m on my way to collect them from school now. I’m taking them straight to the hospital to see Maddy, but if you could come and take them home, I’m going to stay overnight at the General with her but the kids need …’

‘Of course,’ Jenny agreed immediately. ‘I’ll drive over to Queensmead now and check on Ben.’

She could hear the relief in Max’s voice as he thanked her. When she started the car her hands were shaking. They all took Maddy so much for granted, her sunny nature, her calm gentleness, her ability to find room in her generous heart for even someone as irascible and difficult as Ben.

Virtually singlehandedly she had turned Queensmead from a cold unwelcoming barn of a house that no one had ever liked to visit into a warm welcoming haven which increasingly had become the hub of Crighton family life. The work she did for the Mums and Babes charity was of incalculable value. She had surprised everyone, including herself, not just with her administrative talents but even more so with her flair for fund raising. No matter how busy she was she still always found time for those who asked for it.

Max adored her and if anything were to happen to her … Jenny knew how potentially serious her condition was—how dangerous.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel of the car. The first thing she did when she reached Queensmead was ring Jon but all she could reach was his message service. Her mouth compressing, Jenny dropped the phone into her handbag without bothering to leave any message.

Ben was asleep in his arm chair when she walked into the library. Gently she woke him up.

‘Where’s Maddy?’ he demanded irritably. ‘I’m hungry. Gone off gadding somewhere with Max, I suppose. She’s supposed to be here looking after me. Acting like this house is their own. Huh … we shall see about that….’

Squashing her irritation, Jenny explained what had happened. The whole family made allowances for the often irascible Ben who had never reconciled himself to the death of his twin brother. But, increasingly, he was making challenging and hurtful comments about both Maddy and Max and about their future tenure of the house.

Jenny knew that Max felt concerned enough to have bought a large piece of land on the other side of town on which he hoped he would be able to build a new house for himself, Maddy and the children if Ben ever did carry out his threat to disinherit him.

‘David has promised that if Dad should leave Queensmead to him he will immediately hand it over to you,’ Jon had tried to reassure Max.

When Jenny reached the hospital, Max and the children were in the waiting room. Max hurried towards her and she could tell from his expression just how anxious he was about Maddy.

‘Can I see her?’ she asked him once she had hugged and kissed the children.

Shaking his head Max told her, ‘She’s asleep at the moment. This is all my fault,’ he added emotionally. The bleakness in his eyes tore at Jenny’s heart. Silently she hugged him, trying to offer him some comfort but inwardly she was as frightened for Maddy as she could see he was.

‘They can do so much these days,’ she tried to reassure him.

‘I should have guessed—seen—I know she hasn’t been feeling well.’ His voice was torn with pain. ‘Where’s Dad?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I thought he would come with you.’

‘He’s up at Fitzburgh Place. Apparently David rang him whilst he was playing golf to tell him that Lord Astlegh wanted to see him.’

She gave Max a forced smile. With all that he had to worry about the last thing she wanted to do was to have him guess how she was feeling.

‘I’ll take the children home with me now and don’t worry about having to get home tonight, Max. I’ll stay at Queensmead with them and make sure they get to school in the morning.’

From the small room at home she used as an office Olivia could see Amelia and Alex playing in the garden. At the moment they seemed happy to accept that Caspar had stayed behind in America whilst they had come home but soon she knew they would start to miss their father and ask questions. They would be upset she knew. They both adored Caspar. But surely they were better off living with her in a loving happy atmosphere than enduring the kind of misery she had known as a child knowing that her parents were not happy together. Her agitation increased, her heart starting to pound with a now familiar sickening speed and intensity. She hated the fear she felt threatening to flood over her, hated the sense of loss of self-control it brought.

Pushing her hands into her hair she tried to massage the tight band of pain out of her skull. She had just spent the last hour reading through the work notes she had made before leaving for America but instead of calming her, easing her anxiety, they had only served to increase it.

She thought of Jenny and looked anxiously towards her silent telephone. Her aunt hadn’t even rung to welcome her home. But then why should she? Olivia was only a niece to her. Jenny had sons and daughters of her own who were far more important to her than Olivia ever could be and Jenny had grandchildren, too…. Far more loved by her than Olivia’s children could be. Fiercely Olivia swallowed against the tight ball of angry pain stuck in her throat.

Tania, her own mother, had never even seen her grandchildren.

‘Darling, I’d love to see the new baby,’ she had announced over the telephone after Amelia had been born, ‘But there’s just no way I could ever come back to Haslewich….’ Olivia had been able to visualise the shudder which would have run through her mother’s fragile body as she listened to her. ‘And even if I could, I know that my darling Tom would never allow me to do so. He can’t believe how cruel your father was to me. And I’m afraid we couldn’t invite you to come down here. We just don’t have the room….’

And of course her mother didn’t want to make room. Olivia had known that, but to offset that pain there had been Jenny. Jenny ready to open her arms to Olivia and her new baby and to become the loving wise surrogate grandmother Olivia had ached for them to have.

But then, one after the other, Jenny’s own children had married and produced grandchildren for her, and Olivia had started to distance herself from Jenny a little, out of a fierce maternal desire to protect her own daughters from being hurt as she had been.

Everywhere she turned it seemed to Olivia that she was not as valued as other people were. Neither of her own parents had truly loved her—she knew that—and as for Ben, her grandfather, he had made his preference for Max as plain as his contempt for her.

At work she had tried to prove that she could work as hard, do as much, as any man. Even Caspar, who she had thought loved her, had chosen his family over her.

Outside the sun was shining brightly but all Olivia could see was the bleak future that stretched ahead of her.

Jon frowned as he let himself into the unlit empty house. Where was Jenny? He knew she had planned to visit Olivia but he had expected her to be back at home. No familiar Sunday dinner smells were wafting appetisingly from the large family kitchen, empty now like the rest of the house of the busy noisiness of their growing children and their friends. Ruefully he remembered how often once they were teenagers, he had looked forward to quieter times. Times when he and Jenny would be able to have moments to themselves. Now that they had … He frowned. If the early years of their marriage had been difficult, these latter few years had more than compensated for that with the happiness and love they had brought him. The discovery that Jenny, who he had married believing she could never love him, had in fact done so right from the start, had brought a sensual late blooming to their relationship which he had quite frankly relished.

Now, though, Jenny seemed not to want him sexually any more. He appreciated that life had become increasingly busy for her. She might have sold her half share in her antique shop to her partner Guy Cooke, but she now played an increasingly demanding role in the Mums and Babes charity his aunt Ruth had established as well as being very involved with their local community and the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Still frowning he dialled the number of her mobile phone. It was out of character for her to go out without leaving any indication of where she was or when she would be back.

‘Jenny?’

Answering her mobile, Jenny quickly scanned Queensmead’s kitchen table, making sure that her grandchildren were eating the meal she had prepared for them.

‘Where are you?’ she heard Jon demanding.

‘I’m at Queensmead,’ she told him.

‘Oh … When will you be back?’

Quickly she explained to him what had happened, adding, ‘I shall have to stay here until Maddy is well enough to come home, and even then …’

She could tell from the sound of his voice how shocked he was by the news she had given him.

‘I’ll come over,’ he was telling her, adding, ‘Why on earth didn’t you ring me straight away?’

‘I tried to,’ Jenny informed him crisply, ‘but you didn’t pick up. I dare say the business David had arranged for you to discuss with Lord Astlegh was too important to be interrupted.’

As he heard the sharp note in her voice Jon sighed. He hated there being any kind of disharmony between them and it hurt him that Jenny, whom he loved so very much, could not be as pleased by David’s return as he was himself.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, I did switch it off,’ he acknowledged. ‘Freddy loathes them according to David.’

Jenny tensed. Here it was, even now, with Maddy so poorly, Jon was still thinking about putting David first …

‘I’ve got to go,’ she fibbed, quickly ending the call before Jon could object.

‘Mummy, this isn’t the way to school,’ Amelia protested.

‘No darling, I know it isn’t,’ Olivia agreed as she checked the traffic. ‘I want to call and see Auntie Jenny before I take you to school.’ She wanted to see Jenny to ask if she would pick up the girls from school for her and to see if it was possible for her to have them until she, Olivia, got home from work. Ultimately she was going to have to make proper child-care arrangements but that would take time and until then she would desperately need Jenny’s help.

Frantically she tried to run through everything she had to do. The school would have to be told that Jenny would be picking the girls up, of course. It ran an after-school crèche which she could book them into if necessary and until she had sorted out a reliable nanny perhaps Jon would agree to her doing her paper work from home.

It would mean rearranging her appointments. Some of her clients weren’t always free to see her until after they themselves had finished work which was one of the reasons she was home so late so many evenings.

Jon would have to be told about her and Caspar’s separation, if he didn’t already know about it, which Olivia suspected he must. She could well imagine how it would be received by certain members of the family. No doubt Ben would once again compare her with Max—to her detriment! Max, of course, had the perfect marriage, just as he had the perfect everything else.

‘Mummy,’ Amelia cried out in alarm and just in time Olivia saw the cyclist she had previously been oblivious to, swerving out to avoid him.

‘Wait in the car for me,’ she instructed the girls when she pulled up on the forecourt to Jon and Jenny’s home.

Running as quickly as she could over the gravel, which wasn’t an easy feat in her office court shoes and straight-skirted business suit, she pushed open the kitchen door calling out, ‘Jenny, it’s me, Olivia.’

‘Livvy!’

Olivia frowned as she saw not Jenny come hurrying into the kitchen but Jon.

‘I—I’m just on my way to work,’ Olivia told him defensively, ‘I wanted to see Jenny to ask if she could pick the girls up for me this afternoon.’

‘Oh dear, I’m afraid she’s at Queensmead,’ Jon told her.

Queensmead. Olivia’s heart sank. It would take her a good ten minutes to drive to the other house. But she had to see Jenny. Without giving Jon time to say any more she hurried back to her car.

Jon grimaced as Olivia left. He’d had no chance to explain to her what had happened. He was already late for a very early client meeting. He had missed Jenny’s familiar presence in their bed last night and hadn’t slept well.

Angrily Olivia stabbed her foot on the car’s accelerator. She was going to be late for the office, a fact which Jon would have already noted. That was a great start to her new life as a single parent she reflected bitterly.

Her awareness of her own exposure, her vulnerability, increased her defensive anger. By the time she had negotiated the fast-building traffic and was turning into Queensmead’s drive she had worked herself up into a state of furious anxiety.

Stopping her car she got out and hurried towards Queensmead’s back door and opened it.

In Maddy’s kitchen Jenny was trying to answer her grandchildren’s increasingly anxious questions about their mother’s absence.

‘Livvy,’ she exclaimed guiltily as Olivia walked in, her heart sinking as she realised that in her panic over Maddy she had not found time to get in touch with her niece.

To Livvy’s eyes the orderly scene in Maddy’s kitchen where Maddy’s children were being given their breakfast by their doting grandmother was one that made her sharply aware of the difference in these children’s circumstances and her own.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,’ Jenny began to apologise, ‘But as you can see—’ She stopped as they both heard Maddy’s youngest child crying for her grandmother from upstairs.

Olivia could practically feel Jenny’s desire for her to leave. Distraught, with no one to turn to and overwhelmed by a fierce surge of protective maternal love for her own children, Olivia lost her temper and interrupted Jenny angrily.

‘Yes I can see that you’re very busy Aunt Jenny … far too busy obviously to have time for me!’

The strength of her feelings was making her shake.

‘I’m sorry to have bothered you. Of course, I should have realised that you’ve got far more important things to do than help me…. Without giving Jenny the chance to say anything to her Olivia stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the kitchen door behind her as she left.

Helplessly Jenny watched her, torn between going after her and responding to the increasingly voluble cries from upstairs. But Olivia was already opening her car door and getting in.

As she started her car Olivia was shaking with anger and distress. She had been relying on Jenny, not just for practical help but as someone she could unburden herself to … someone she could confide in, but Jenny didn’t have time to listen to her…. Her feelings were threatening to overwhelm her but she had to get the girls to school and then she had to go to work. What had she expected Jenny to do, anyway—throw her arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be all right?

A tear trickled down her face. Bitterly she brushed it away. Nothing had ever been all right in her life and nothing was ever going to be!

At the school, whilst the girls went up to join their friends, she went in search of the head teacher to ask if she could enrol them both for the after-school crèche.

It was almost nine o’clock and normally she was at her desk far earlier. The now all too familiar sensation of her own anxiety tensed the whole of her body.

‘Livvy, my dear …’

Jon frowned as Livvy turned away from him as she said curtly, ‘I’m sorry I’m so late. I had to drop the girls off at school.’

‘Good heavens, Livvy, I was expecting you wouldn’t come in at all today…. We’ve heard about Caspar … I’m so sorry.’

‘Why?’ she questioned sharply. ‘The marriage wasn’t working … it’s a mutual decision.’

Jon’s frown deepened. She looked far too thin, her face pinched and pale but it was her attitude that was giving him the most cause for concern. He had expected her to be upset. He knew how hard she strived for perfection in every aspect of her life, how sensitive she was; but this edginess, this angry aggression almost was so unlike what he knew of her and it disturbed him.

When Olivia walked into the office several minutes later the phone had already started to ring. Quickly she answered it. One of her clients was on the other end of the line wanting to make an urgent appointment. Tensely she reached for her diary.

Shaking his head Jon made his way to his own office. Normally the first thing he would have done right now would have been to ring Jenny so that he could discuss what had happened and the best way to help Livvy, but of course Jenny was at Queensmead and he didn’t want to add to her problems.

The look of haunted bitterness in Olivia’s eyes had shocked him, though. It was almost as though she thought he was her enemy. He was imagining it, he told himself firmly. Naturally she was not herself. How could she be? Her marriage had broken up compounding the distress she had already suffered with David’s return.

It was such a pity that she was so antagonistic towards her father. Jon could understand her point of view, of course, but things were different now. David was different and Jon knew how much he longed to make reparation to her. But he still could not shake off the feeling that Livvy had erected a barrier between them.

His phone rang just as his secretary brought in his post and morning coffee. ‘David!’ he exclaimed with genuine pleasure as he heard his twin’s voice on the other end of the line.

‘We’ve just heard about Maddy,’ David told him. Then he asked gravely, ‘How is she?’

‘We don’t know—as yet—but they’re going to keep her in for the time being. Jenny’s staying at Queensmead to look after the children and Ben.’

‘Well, that answers my next question. Honor wanted to know if there was anything she could do to help.’

‘Well perhaps a magic potion to keep Dad quiet might be a good idea,’ Jon suggested wryly.

There was a brief pause before David asked hesitantly, ‘And Livvy … she’s … she’s all right?’ David questioned him. Jon’s heart sank. He knew he couldn’t lie to him.

‘She’s … she’s going through a very difficult time and obviously it’s bound to be affecting her,’ was all he felt he could say.

It was lunch time before Jon saw Livvy again, their paths crossing in the reception area of the practice.

‘Oh, Livvy, I forgot to say this morning,’ Jon told her, ‘obviously you’re going to need to spend more time at home at the moment. I’ll have a word with the agency and see if Mark, our locum, can stay on for a few more weeks to give you a bit of breathing space. If you do have to see any clients you could schedule those appointments during school hours which will leave you free to arrive later in the morning and go home midafternoon …’

Olivia stiffened. It didn’t matter that what Jon was suggesting was exactly what she had known she would have to do. She sensed a cautious air about him. Did he doubt her ability to cope? Where had the old closeness between them gone?

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she told him sharply. ‘I’ve already made arrangements for the girls.’

It wasn’t entirely true of course, but with all the professional agencies that were in existence surely it wouldn’t take her too long to find the right person to look after them when she couldn’t be there.

‘The assizes are coming up,’ Jon reminded her gently, ‘and if any of your cases run over you could find yourself having to stay over in Chester….’

‘Chester is hardly the other end of the universe,’ Livvy snapped. Worriedly Jon watched her walk away. He hated seeing her like this, so prickly and defensive. She had been such a loving little girl. Shy and reluctant to put herself forward. That was Ben’s doing, of course, and her parents’. But once she had been coaxed out of her shell she had been a joy and Jenny, he knew, had a special place in her heart for her.

‘Livvy … how are you …?’

From the concern she could hear in Tullah’s voice, Olivia knew immediately that Tullah had heard about her separation from Caspar. Normally she would have been happy to see the other woman, but right now all she could think of was how lucky Tullah was to be married to a man like Saul who loved and supported and valued her. ‘I’m fine,’ Livvy responded dismissively and untruthfully, starting to turn away and then stopping as Tullah asked tentatively, ‘Have you spoken to Jenny today?’

‘Only briefly,’ Livvy responded, once again making to leave the practice’s reception area and head for her own office, but before she could do so Tullah was continuing anxiously, ‘Did she say anything about Maddy … or how long they’re going to keep her in hospital? Max must be going out of his mind….’ ‘Maddy’s in hospital?’ Olivia couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice, the work waiting for her on her desk forgotten.

‘Yes, she is. Didn’t you know?’ Tullah looked confused. ‘Oh, well, when she went to hospital for her normal check-up they told her that she would have to stay in because she’s suffering from pre-eclampsia,’ she started to explain. ‘Saul had to ring Max about something, that’s how we know. I tried to ring Jenny earlier but I couldn’t get through and I thought …’

Olivia wasn’t concentrating fully on what Tullah was saying. In her confusion, she was too busy dealing with the sickening sense of disbelief and guilt that was filling her. Jenny had been looking after her grandchildren because Maddy was in hospital seriously ill—and she had said … The burning sensation, a combination of guilt, shock and anxiety which had stormed her face before spreading to the backs of her eyes now ached emotionally in her throat, shocking her out of the black misery of her own despair.

‘I—I didn’t know,’ she acknowledged shakily. ‘What has the hospital said? How long …’

‘I don’t know any of the details,’ Tullah interrupted her as they shared eloquent looks, both of them united as women and as mothers in their shared feelings for Maddy herself as an individual, a friend and a relative whom they both loved.

‘I tried to catch Jon earlier before he left,’ Tullah confided, ‘But I missed him and I knew you would have seen Jenny….’ Her voice tailed away.

‘It was just a quick call … this morning … on my way here,’ Olivia responded uncomfortably.

She looked so shocked and anguished that Tullah felt guilty for having raised the subject.

During the afternoon when Olivia should have been concentrating on her work she was desperately wondering what she should do—what she could do to put things right. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to go straight round to Queensmead and throw herself on Jenny’s mercy, to beg her for her forgiveness, her understanding. But what if Jenny refused to listen to her? What if she was so disgusted, so appalled by Olivia’s selfish behaviour that she refused to accept her apology and explanation and refused to have anything further to do with her? She would be perfectly within her rights to do so; Livvy knew that she had been unpardonably selfish and rude. Olivia’s face went grey-white with guilt as she recalled her own sharply accusing bitter words.

And what about Maddy? How must she be feeling? Olivia looked at the telephone on her desk.

Before she could change her mind she reached for it. Less than two minutes later she was through to the hospital.

‘We are unable to put you through to Mrs Madeleine Crighton,’ the anonymous voice on the other end of the line announced, enquiring politely, ‘Are you a close relative?’

‘No … not really,’ Olivia responded. ‘I’m her cousin by marriage … Is she …’ As her anxiety started to overwhelm her, her voice began to tremble.

‘She’s resting at the moment,’ she was told calmly. ‘But if you want us to pass a message to her …’

‘Just tell her that I’m thinking of her, please,’ Olivia responded having given her name.

Would it help Maddy to know that she was being thought about or would it only add to her distress and fear?

As she replaced the telephone receiver Olivia ached to be able to talk to Jenny. Taking a deep breath she quickly punched into the keypad Queensmead’s number.

‘Jenny is staying at Queensmead to look after the children,’ Tullah had said.

When only the answering machine responded to her call Olivia put down the receiver in silence.

Bad as her own problems were they were nothing compared to what she knew Maddy and those closest to her must be going through.

Nick sighed as he drove into Haslewich. Much as he appreciated the company and the hospitality of Saul and Tullah he was itching to return to his own life … his own home.

‘No way, little brother.’ Saul had shaken his head when Nick had suggested doing so. ‘I know you, with Mum and Dad away at the moment once you get back to that remote den of yours you’ll be back at work, taking heaven alone knows what kind of risks and if anything should happen there’s no one there….’

‘Okay … okay,’ Nick had given in.

His Welsh farmhouse was remote, two miles down a narrow track with no neighbours nearby. Saul was right, within days if not hours of returning he would be back at work.

He had been approached to take a potentially fascinating case just before his accident. A young woman was threatening to sue her family for snatching her away from the cult with which she had become involved. Nick had been approached by a friend of the family for his advice.

But it wasn’t his work that was on his mind right now. It was Sara!

He was fully aware that his behaviour in the restaurant and more specifically in the restaurant office had been far from exemplary or gentlemanly. It didn’t matter that he had been provoked. He still should not have allowed things, matters, to get so out of hand. An apology was quite plainly in order, or so he had reasoned.

It was early afternoon and Frances was just seeing the last lunch-time diner off the premises when he walked in. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with Sara?’ Nick asked once they had exchanged greetings.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, she isn’t here at the moment,’ Frances told him. ‘She’s taking a late lunch hour. I insisted that she ought to get out and enjoy this unseasonal sunshine we’re having whilst she could. Do you want me to pass on a message?’

Shaking his head Nick left the restaurant. It was true that the weather was mild, sunny and warm. From where he stood he could see the bright light glinting on the river. He paused to study it. Nick had always loved water. His farmhouse was on a hill overlooking the sea off the Pembrokeshire coast.

He didn’t own a boat himself but he sometimes crewed for a friend who did. Automatically he started to head for the river.

Sara paused to laugh at the antics of some ducks as they dived into the water for unseen food. Further downstream she had seen some swans, their stately elegant progress so at odds with the frantic paddling that must be going on beneath their gently floating bodies. Like galleons in full sail they seemed to glide effortlessly over the water. Hers was the only human presence here on the river path and Frances had urged her not to rush back.

‘I can’t believe how much work you’ve done already. You really are a marvel … I’m so grateful to you,’ she had praised Sara. Sara reflected on the telephone call she had taken earlier from the frantically apologetic employment agency explaining they had been let down by the girl they had intended to send to the restaurant. It didn’t matter now Sara had told them—the job had been filled. Why had she decided to stay on? She liked Frances yes, but … Unbidden a mental picture of Nick Crighton came into her head. She was not staying because of him! She loathed him. He was arrogant, humourless, contemptible—and worse! Angrily she sucked in her breath.

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