Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

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

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

Loving
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

‘MUMMY, CAN HEATHER come home and play with me and then stay for tea?’

Looking down into the pleading blue eyes of her six-year-old daughter, Claire once again blessed the totally unexpected inheritance from her unknown great-aunt that had made possible her move away from the centre of London to the small village of Chadbury St John.

Lucy had blossomed out unbelievably in the short month they had been here. Already she seemed plumper, healthier, and now she had made her first ‘best friend’. The huge block of council flats they had lived in before had not led to any friendships for either mother or daughter. They had been living an existence that had virtually been hand to mouth, and with no way out of the dull misery of such poverty.

And then, miraculously, almost overnight everything had changed. How on earth her great-aunt’s solicitors had been able to track her down was a miracle in itself, but to learn that she had inherited her cottage, and with it a small but very, very precious private income, had been such a miraculous event that even now Claire sometimes thought she was dreaming.

‘Not today, Lucy,’ she told her daughter indulgently. ‘Heather’s mummy won’t know where she is if she comes home with us now, will she?’ she reminded her crestfallen child gently.

‘Heather hasn’t got a mummy,’ Lucy informed her quickly, speaking for the brown-eyed little girl clinging to her side. ‘She only has a daddy, and he goes away a lot.’

Another quick look at the little girl standing close to her own daughter made Claire aware of several things she hadn’t noticed before. Unlike Lucy’s clothes, although expensive, Heather’s were old-fashioned, and too large. Her fine brown hair was scraped back into plaits, and the brown eyes held a defensive, worried look.

Another victim of the growing divorce rate? Claire wondered wryly. Even here in this quiet, almost idyllic village twenty miles from Bath, they were not immune to the pressures of civilisation.

Everyone in the village seemed to accept her own status as that of a young widow. Her great-aunt had apparently not been born locally but had retired to the village after her many years as a schoolteacher, and had, according to what gossip Claire had picked up in the local post office, been the sort of person who believed in keeping herself very much to herself.

Would she have approved of her? Claire’s soft mouth twisted in a tight grimace. Probably not. She had learned over the years that people drew their own conclusions about young girls alone with a baby to support, and that they were not always the right ones. It had been hard work bringing Lucy up alone, but once she had been born there was nothing that could have induced her to part with her. The love she felt for her child was the last thing she had expected … especially …

‘Mummy, please let Heather come back with us.’ Lucy tugged on her jeans, demanding her attention.

‘Not today,’ she responded firmly, smiling at Heather to show the little girl that her refusal held nothing personal. ‘I’m sure that there’s someone at home waiting for Heather who would be very worried if she didn’t arrive, isn’t there, Heather?’

‘Only Mrs Roberts,’ the little girl responded miserably. ‘And she won’t let me have soldiers with my boiled egg. She says it’s babyish.’

Compassion mingled with amusement as Claire surveyed the childish pout. Boiled eggs and soldiers were one of Lucy’s favourite treats.

‘Mrs Roberts is Heather’s daddy’s housekeeper,’ Lucy told her mother importantly. ‘He has to go away a lot on—on business—and Mrs Roberts looks after Heather.’

‘She doesn’t like me.’

The flat statement was somehow more pathetic than an emotional outburst would have been. And the little girl did look unloved. Oh, not in any obvious way—her clothes were expensive and clean, and she was obviously healthy—but she was equally obviously unhappy. But surely the blame for that rested with the child’s father, and not with the housekeeper? Perhaps he was too involved in his business—whatever it was—to notice that his child was miserable.

It was the look of stoic acceptance on the child’s face as she took Lucy’s hand and started to walk away that decided her.

‘Perhaps, if Heather doesn’t live too far away, we could walk home with her and ask Mrs Roberts if she could come to tea,’ she suggested.

Two small faces turned up towards her, both wearing beaming smiles.

What manner of father was it who would allow his five-year-old daughter to walk home unescorted? Chadbury St John was only a small village, but it was also a remote one. Children disappeared in Britain every day … were attacked in the most bestial and horrible of ways … She … Claire shivered suddenly, things she didn’t want to remember obliterating the warm autumn sun. She had been eighteen when Lucy was conceived. An adult legally, but a child still in so many ways, the adored and protected daughter of older parents who had never taught her that the world could be a cruel and hard place.

They had been killed in a road accident shortly after her eighteenth birthday. She had lost everything then—parents, security—everything.

It had been their intention that she would go on to university after school, but her father’s pension had died with him, and the small house they lived in had had to be sold to pay off their small debts. There hadn’t been much left. Certainly not enough for her to go to university, even if that had still been possible, but an eighteen-year-old girl struggling with the knowledge that she was an orphan and pregnant doesn’t have much time or energy to expend on studying.

Of course she could have had an abortion. That was the first thing the doctor had told her after he had got the truth from her. She had wanted to agree—had intended to—but somehow, when it came to it, she couldn’t.

And she had never once regretted her decision to bear and then keep Lucy. Of course, pressure had been put on her to give her up, but she had withstood it. In those early days she had still had some money left from the sale of the house, but that hadn’t lasted longer than the first twelve months of Lucy’s life.

The council flat they had been given, its walls running with damp, its reputation for violence and vandalism so frightening that some days Claire had barely dared to go out—these were all in the past now. She felt as though she had stepped out from darkness into light, and perhaps it was her own awareness of what suffering could be that made her so sensitive to the misery of the little girl standing at her side.

The three of them walked to the end of the village, Heather hesitating noticeably once they had left the main road behind.

‘Heather lives in that big house with the white gates,’ Lucy informed her mother importantly.

Claire knew which one Lucy meant. They had walked past it on Sunday afternoons when they explored their new environment. It was a lovely house, Tudor in part with tiny mullioned windows and an air of peace and sanctuary. One glance into Heather’s shuttered, tight face told her that the little girl obviously didn’t find those qualities there.

They walked up the drive together, but once they were standing outside the rose-gold front of the house, Heather tugged on Claire’s sleeve and whispered uncertainly, ‘We have to go round the back. Mrs Roberts doesn’t let me use the front door.’

There could be any number of reasons for that, but even so, Claire frowned slightly. It was, after all, the child’s home.

They had to skirt well-tended, traditional flower borders and walk along a pretty flagged path to reach the back door.

There was a bell which Claire rang. They waited several minutes before it was answered by a frowning, grey-haired woman, her lips pursed into a grimace of disapproval as she opened the door.

‘Mrs Roberts?’ Claire began before the other woman could speak. ‘I’m Claire Richards. I’ve come to ask if it would be all right for Heather to come home with us and stay for tea.’

The frown relaxed slightly. ‘I suppose it will be all right,’ she agreed grudgingly, summing up Claire’s appearance. Her faded jeans and well-worn tee-shirt didn’t make her look very motherly, Claire thought wryly. She had been working in their small garden this morning, and she suspected that some of the dirt still clung to her jeans. ‘Mind you, her father’s expected back this evening, so she mustn’t be late.’

‘Oh no … of course not. He’ll want her to be here when he gets home.’

‘Oh, it isn’t that,’ the housekeeper contradicted with what Claire thought was an appallingly callous lack of regard for Heather’s feelings. ‘No, he’ll be bound to be busy when he gets back and he won’t want to be bothered with her …’ her head jerked in the direction of Heather. ‘Course, her mother should have taken her really, but her new husband didn’t want her it seems, so Mr Fraser got lumbered with her. I’ve told him more than once that she’s too much for me to cope with, what with the house as well. He should get married again, that’s what he should do. He needs a wife, a man like him. All that money …’ she sniffed and glowered at Heather. ‘Still, I suppose it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy. Nuts about that wife of his, he was. Neither of them had much time for her …’ Again she jerked her head in Heather’s direction, and Claire, who had been too appalled by her revelations to silence her before, placed an arm protectively around each child and stepped back from the door.

‘I’ll bring her back after tea. If her father returns before then I live at number five, the New Cottages.’

She was shaking slightly as she bustled the girls away. Both of them were subdued. Claire glanced briefly at Heather. The little girl’s head was turned away from her, but Claire was sure she could see tears in her eyes.

Of all the thoughtless, cruel women! And by all accounts Heather’s father was no better. Oh, she could imagine that it was hard for a man to be left alone to bring up his child, but that did not excuse his apparent lack of love for her. Mrs Roberts had described him as wealthy, and certainly Heather’s home had borne out that assertion. If that was the case, why on earth didn’t he hire someone who was properly qualified to look after the child?

They were half way back towards the village when Heather said suddenly in a wobbly little voice, ‘It isn’t true what Mrs Roberts said. My daddy does love me. She only says that because she doesn’t like me. My mummy didn’t love me, though. She left me.’

Claire had absolutely no idea what to say. All she could do was to squeeze the small hand comfortingly and say bracingly, ‘Well, you and Lucy are in the same boat, aren’t you? You don’t have a mummy and she doesn’t have a daddy.’

She had little idea, when she made the comforting remark, of the repercussions it was to have, and if she had she would have recalled it instantly. Instead, she saw to her relief that Heather seemed to have taken comfort from her words, and by the time they had reached the cottage both little girls were chattering away so enthusiastically that she couldn’t get so much as a single word in.

She let them play in the pretty back garden while she watched from inside. A bank statement which had arrived that morning lay opened on the kitchen table, and she frowned as she glanced at it. Her inheritance meant that she was no longer eligible for state benefits, and her small income barely stretched to cover their day-to-day living requirements. Next year she would have rates to pay, and the old stone cottage needed new window frames; there was also, according to her next-door neighbour, a problem with the roof. If only she could get a part-time job? But doing what exactly? She was not trained for anything, and even if she had been, there were no jobs locally; she would have to travel to Bath.

Pushing her worries to one side, she started preparing the girls’ meal. Her small garden boasted several fruit trees, and she had spent the weekend preserving as much of it as she could. Now, when she had least expected it, she was finding a use for the old-fashioned homely skills her mother had taught her. Her mother. Claire stilled and stared unseeingly out of the window. What would she think if she could see her now?

Claire had not arrived until her mother was in her early forties and her father even older. They had surrounded her in their love, and then with one blow fate had robbed her of that love. When the police came to tell her about her parents’ accident she had hardly been able to take it in. They had been going out to dinner with some friends and the car which ran into them and caused the accident had been driven by a drunken driver.

She thought that she had endured as much pain as life could sustain, but six months later she had learned better.

‘Mum, we’re hungry …’

Lucy’s imperious little voice was a welcome interruption, and although she pretended to frown, Claire soon got both girls seated at the kitchen table and watched in amusement as they demolished the boiled eggs and thin strips of bread and butter.

Real nursery fare. Her mother had made it for her, too. Just as she had made the deliciously light scones and the home-made jam that Claire too had prepared to follow their first course.

‘Mrs Roberts never makes any cakes,’ Heather complained, happily accepting a second scone. ‘She doesn’t even buy them. She says sweet things are bad for me.’

Mrs Roberts was quite right, Claire thought wryly, but she prided herself on the methods she used to adapt her mother’s recipes to fit in with her own more up-to-date awareness of what was healthy and what wasn’t.

She considered that children at six years old still needed the calcium supplied by unskimmed milk, and she poured them both full glasses, watching the childishly eager way they gulped it down. Heather spilt some and instantly her small body froze, her eyes widening in fright and tension, fixed on Claire’s face.

‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll soon wipe up,’ she told her cheerfully, trying to hide her shock at the little girl’s frightened reaction. Wasn’t she ever allowed to spill anything? She was, after all, only a very little girl, but Mrs Roberts hadn’t struck her as the type of woman who would make allowances for a six-year-old, and by all accounts Heather’s father was too engrossed in his business to notice or care what was happening to his child.

Mentally she contrasted Heather’s life with Lucy’s. Lucy might lack things in the way of material possessions, but her daughter had never doubted that she was deeply loved. Watching Heather, Claire was fiercely glad that she had never allowed herself to be persuaded to give her child up. Both she and Lucy had lived in poverty, and it had been very hard, but Lucy had never looked at her with such fear and dread in her eyes, and she promised herself that she never would.

Heather was a much less stalwart child—shyer, and more withdrawn; in Lucy’s company she seemed to blossom, but whenever Lucy moved out of sight she withdrew into herself again, staring wide-eyed at Claire while she moved about the kitchen.

‘Lucy, you’ve got a spare toothbrush,’ she instructed her daughter briskly when they had finished their meal. ‘Take Heather upstairs and both of you wash your hands and clean your teeth.’

The cottage was only small, with a sitting-room and a dining-kitchen. Upstairs they had two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom, but after the grimness of the London flat it was sheer bliss to look out of the windows and see the mellow lushness of the Cotswold countryside. They fronted right on to the main road through the village, but even that was a pleasure to look out on to. The cottages lining the village street had been built during the eighteenth century, in mellow cream stone; all of them had small front gardens, filled with cottage garden plants.

As yet the village hadn’t been discovered by commuters, but Claire suspected that that state of affairs wouldn’t last long. Most of the younger generation had moved away looking for work. All of her neighbours were old—her great-aunt’s generation; the village had no industry, other than the land; there was one general store, the post office and a pub. There was talk of the authorities closing the school, but since it took children from two neighbouring villages also, and was well attended, Claire was hoping that this wouldn’t happen. If it did, no doubt Heather’s father would be able to send her to a private boarding school, but she … She was frowning over this when she heard someone knocking on the front door.

She opened it and looked at the man standing on her front doorstep. He was very tall, so tall that she had to tilt her head back to look at him. The immaculate tailoring of his pale grey suit made her lift nervous fingers to her tangled chestnut hair. She hadn’t so much as brushed it since coming in with the girls. His own hair was black, and very thick. His eyes were grey and totally expressionless. They were studying her assessingly, and she felt herself blushing hotly as she realised how closely her old tee-shirt and jeans clung to her body.

It had been such a long time since a man looked at her like that she had lost all awareness of her own sexuality. Now, recognising the way his hard glance rested on her breasts, she felt her whole body tense with immediate rejection. He felt her tension too, she could see it in the way his eyes narrowed thoughtfully on hers.

‘I believe you have my daughter here.’

His voice was cool, as though warning her off, but warning her off what? For a moment she was so bemused that she couldn’t think.

‘Your daughter …’

‘Yes.’ He sounded impatient now, his eyes sharp and cold, as though he had judged her and found her guilty of some unknown crime. ‘Mrs Roberts, my housekeeper, informed me that you …’

‘Oh yes, yes … of course. You’re Heather’s father.’ Why on earth was he making her feel so flustered?

‘Jay Fraser,’ he agreed smoothly, watching her. ‘And you are …’

‘Claire Richards.’

‘Mummy, we’ve cleaned our teeth and …’

Lucy galloped down the stairs, coming to an abrupt halt at Claire’s side, and staring at the man standing in the doorway. Now it was her daughter’s turn to be tongue-tied and wide-eyed, Claire saw, while Heather, who had been behind her, raced up to her father, her face alight with pleasure.

‘Daddy, this is Lucy, my best friend,’ Heather explained to her father importantly, dragging Lucy forwards for his inspection. ‘We had boiled eggs for tea and soldiers, and Lucy’s mummy made scones …’ The babble of chatter suddenly dried up and Claire saw Heather’s eyes suddenly go wide and tearful as she added huskily, ‘Mrs Roberts told Lucy’s mummy that you don’t love me, but that’s not true, is it?’

It most indisputably was not, Claire recognised, watching the mixture of rage and anguish that darkened the grey eyes as Jay Fraser bent down to pick up his daughter.

Over Heather’s head, Claire said impulsively, ‘I know it’s none of my business, but why don’t you get someone else to look after her? She needs—’ She broke off when she saw the expression on his face.

The grey eyes had frozen. He stepped inside the small hall and put Heather down.

‘Why don’t you and … and Lucy, go outside and play for a little while while I talk to Lucy’s mummy.’

Obediently both little girls did as he instructed leaving Claire with no alternative but to invite him into her small sitting-room.

Once inside the room, he dwarfed it. He must be well over six feet, Claire thought absently, watching as he took the chair she indicated, sinking down into it in a way that suggested an exhaustion his face did not betray. How old was he? Somewhere in his early thirties, probably. What did he do for a living? He certainly wasn’t her idea of a businessman. He looked too fit, too physically hard for that …

‘I’m sorry you’ve been landed with Heather,’ he said distantly at last, reaching inside his jacket and extracting his wallet. ‘If you will …’

He was intending to give her money? Claire could hardly believe it. Instantly she was furiously outraged. Why, the man was positively feudal!

‘It was no trouble,’ she told him tightly. ‘Lucy wanted to invite Heather back for tea. I thought it best to check with your housekeeper before I agreed.’

He put his wallet away, but his hard expression didn’t relax. ‘You’re a single parent, I believe,’ he said tautly, the sharp question making her frown.

‘Yes, but …’

‘Let’s get one thing straight then, Mrs Richards. I don’t care what Mrs Roberts may have told you; I’m not in the market either for a mother for Heather, or a second wife for myself.’

It took her several shattered seconds to assimilate the meaning of what he was telling her, but once she had, Claire felt her face flame with furious resentment. What on earth was he trying to imply? Surely he didn’t think that she had invited Heather to come and have tea with Lucy as a … As a what? As a step towards getting to know him better, and through that …

But yes, he had. She could see it in the bleak grey eyes watching her with hard determination. He was a wealthy and successful single man with a young daughter to bring up. No doubt he had been the victim of some degree of matchmaking, but that was no reason for him to think that she …

The red tints in her chestnut hair weren’t there for nothing; her temper, normally well controlled and kept in check, refused to be subdued. She opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of him and his insinuations, but found the hot words stifled in her throat as he suddenly forestalled her and demanded icily,

‘Have I made myself clear, Mrs Richards?’

He was standing up now. Business concluded, interview over, Claire thought acidly.

‘Explicitly,’ she told him in a voice as cold as his own, a spark of rage intensifying the greeny gold of her eyes. Although she didn’t know it, her anger had left a soft flush staining her cheekbones, and had brought a slight quiver to her mouth. She looked more vulnerable than fierce, but since she could not see her own expression she was unaware of the reason for the cynical and faintly brooding expression in those cold grey eyes,

However, even if she didn’t know the reason for it, she knew that it existed and that was enough to make her say bitingly, ‘I assure you you have nothing to fear from me. I’m no more in the market for a husband than you are for a wife, Mr Fraser. Believe me, a man in my life is the very last thing I want. Lucy and I are perfectly happy as we are.’ Her flush deepened betrayingly as she saw the way he looked around her small and rather shabbily furnished sitting-room, and instinctively her fingers curled into her palms. One of the disadvantages of being only five-foot-one was that people sometimes tended to forget that she was a fully grown adult. The look Jay Fraser was turning on her now was one he might have given a slightly dim adolescent. Maybe her home wasn’t much by his standards, but she loved it, and whatever he might choose to think there was no way she would ever want to change it for something like Whitegates.

Her resentment against him incited her onwards.

‘If you must know, I invited Heather to come back and have tea with us because I felt sorry for her.’

She had got him on the raw there, she saw with a pleasurable stab of satisfaction.

‘Oh, I can see you find that hard to believe, Mr Fraser. Heather might have all the comforts a wealthy father can provide, but a busy businessman doesn’t always have time for the little cares and worries of a small child. Mrs Roberts didn’t strike me as a particularly sympathetic mother-substitute …’ She took a deep breath and then rushed on, ‘In fact it seemed to me that Heather is frightened of her.’

She saw from the white line of rage circling his mouth that he was furious with her.

‘Heather doesn’t need your pity,’ he told her sharply, ‘and now if you wouldn’t mind calling her in for me, I think it’s time that both I and my daughter left.’

It was perhaps unfortunate that Heather chose to give her a brief and very shy hug before she left, but there was no way she was going to reject the little girl’s hesitant affection, Claire told herself as she bent down to hug her back. She didn’t like the bitter glance that Jay Fraser gave her as he took Heather’s hand and led her away, but if he thought he could simply walk into her house and insult her the way he had …

It was perhaps just as well that tomorrow was Saturday, she reflected later, listening to Lucy’s chatter as she got her ready for bed. The little girl was full of her new friend and all the things they were going to do together, happily oblivious to the fact that her new friend’s father was probably telling his daughter right at this moment that the friendship was over.

In a way his insinuations were almost laughable. Any sort of involvement with any man was so totally opposite to what she wanted …

There had only ever been one sexual experience in her life, and that had led to Lucy’s conception, and while Claire loved her child with all her heart, the manner of her conception was something that still caused her nightmares. She had no desire for any sort of intimacy with a man; quite the opposite, and so for her, marriage was something that was completely out. Her fear and abhorrence of sex went very deep and was something she normally avoided thinking about. It was less painful that way.

After Lucy’s birth her doctor had suggested some sort of counselling, but she had refused. She hadn’t been able to bear to discuss her feelings with anyone. She couldn’t even examine them in the privacy of her own thoughts.

On Saturday morning Claire had to call at the post office to buy some more eggs. They were delivered fresh each day from one of the local farms, and were a relatively inexpensive and nourishing source of healthy food for both her and Lucy. Fortunately the little girl adored them, and Claire left her examining the treats on the sweet counter while she went to pay for her purchases.

She was just moving away from the counter when she recognised one of her neighbours standing in the queue behind her—nothing moved quickly in the post office; it was the local centre for receiving and sorting gossip.

Her neighbour was an overweight, untidy woman in her late sixties with a faintly overbearing manner. She had come round to introduce herself just after they had moved in, and had almost immediately informed Claire that she was likely to have a problem with her roof. It seemed that most of the cottages had had their roof timbers and slates replaced the previous winter, and that Claire’s had been one of the few that had not. She herself had already noticed several loose slates, and she was still worrying about the horrendous expense that would be involved.

Now Mrs Turner smiled eagerly at her and commented in a loud voice, ‘Wasn’t that the little Fraser girl I saw you with yesterday? Poor little scrap; I feel so sorry for her, poor little mite, rattling around in that great big house, with no one but Amy Roberts for company. And she’s never been one for children. Of course, her father really should get married again. She needs a mother, that’s as plain as the nose on your face.’

Speculation gleamed in the pale blue eyes, and Claire had to fight down an impulse to be rude to her.

‘Heather and Lucy are at school together,’ she said instead, forcing what she hoped was a careless smile. ‘You know how it is with little girls of that age: a new “best friend” every week.’

She knew quite well that the entire queue was listening, and she only hoped that they picked up the message she was giving out. She could just imagine Jay Fraser’s reaction if it got back to him that they were the subject of village gossip.

Luckily Lucy had grown bored with the sweet tray, and so Claire was able to escape from the shop.

It was a pleasantly warm late summer day and she intended to spend it working in the garden. The old lady who lived next door to her had complained during the week that she no longer had the energy to maintain her own garden, and Claire had tentatively offered to take charge of it for her.

In response, Mrs Vickers had thanked her and agreed, but had insisted that Claire had her pick of the raspberries and plums.

For lunch, Claire had made Lucy’s favourite ice cream with some of their own strawberries, and on an impulse she took a covered bowl of the sweet round to her older neighbour.

Knowing how proud and independent older people could be she was touched by the enthusiasm with which Mrs Vickers accepted her gift.

‘Home-made ice cream—I love it,’ the old lady told her with a shy smile. ‘My stepmother used to make it for us …’ She sighed faintly. ‘Why is it that the older one gets, the more one returns to the past? There were five of us, you know, three girls and two boys. Our mother died having a sixth. When our father first brought Mary home and told us she was going to be our new mother I hated her. She was less than fifteen years older than I was myself, but she was so patient with us, and so kind. Very modern in her ways too. She insisted that my father let us girls stay on at school, and never made us do more in the house than the boys—and housework was hard in those days. She had three children of her own to look after as well as us five. All that washing … and the cooking! My father used to come home for his lunch, and he expected a three-course meal on the table … and another at night. But she was always cheerful. I see you had young Heather Fraser round yesterday. Poor little thing. If ever anyone needed mothering it was her.’

Claire, who had been listening to the old lady’s reminiscences with interest, tensed slightly.

‘Heather has a mother, Mrs Vickers,’ she pointed out coolly.

‘She has someone who calls herself her mother,’ corrected Mrs Vickers stubbornly. ‘Never gave a thought to her from the moment she was born, she didn’t. Always off out, leaving the baby with anyone she could get to look after her, and once she met that American … Many’s the time her father’s come into the village to buy the poor child something for her tea because her mother’d gone out without feeding her.’

‘I really don’t think you should be telling me any of this, Mrs Vickers,’ protested Claire, softening the words with a smile. ‘Mr Fraser didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would like the thought of people gossiping about him.’

‘Gossip is part and parcel of village life; when you get to my age it’s one of the few pleasures left. He did take it very hard when she left, though, and that’s a fact. Never seemed to have seen it coming like the rest of us. Of course, with him being away so much … He has a manufacturing company in Bath and they do a lot of business abroad. I’m not sure what they make, but she was the sort of woman who needs a man’s constant attention, and when he wasn’t there to give it to her she looked for it somewhere else. She never struck me as the sort who was suited to village life—or to marriage, come to think of it. Little Heather was only a few months old when they moved in. That father of hers ought to find someone better to take care of her than Amy Roberts, though. Not keen on kiddies, isn’t Amy …’

That was the second time today that someone had made that observation, reflected Claire a little later as she returned home, and it was one she agreed with. However, the person they should be telling wasn’t her but Heather’s father. It seemed ridiculous that one brief visit should give the village the idea that in some way she was responsible for Heather’s welfare. Nothing like this had ever happened in the block of flats; no one cared or noticed there who went in or out of someone else’s front door. But here it was different … people did care, and they certainly noticed!

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE HERSELF HAD not expected that Lucy would receive an invitation to have tea with Heather, but it was very difficult to explain to her little girl why she could not bring her new friend home with her every afternoon.

‘But Mummy, Heather likes it with us,’ Lucy protested one afternoon when Claire had gently but firmly refused once again to allow Heather to come home with them.

‘Lucy, Heather has her own home, and her daddy will be waiting for her.’

Privately Claire thought it was appalling that the little girl should be left to walk home from school on her own, and she had got into the habit of walking Heather to her own gates first and then taking Lucy home. From her own point of view she was more than happy to feed Heather every tea time; she always had plenty, and the two little girls played happily together. She didn’t want Lucy to grow up as a lonely only, and since she herself was never likely to have any more children, friends were something she wanted Lucy to have plenty of.

It tore at her heart to see the woebegone and hurt expression in Heather’s eyes, but how could she explain to a six-year-old that she couldn’t encourage her visits because her father would put the wrong interpretation on them—not to mention half the village. She did notice, however, that Heather was losing weight and gradually becoming worryingly withdrawn.

Two weeks after her confrontation with Jay Fraser, Claire relented and agreed that Heather could stay to tea the following day, provided that Mrs Roberts agreed.

Everything went very well until it was time to take the little girl home, and then to Claire’s dismay Heather burst into tears and clung to her, sobbing pitifully.

‘I don’t want to go back,’ she wept. ‘I want to stay here with you and Lucy!’

‘But Heather, your daddy …’

‘He’s gone away again. I wish I could come and live with you and Lucy and then you could be my mummy and Daddy could be Lucy’s daddy …’

‘Yes Mummy, don’t you think that would be a good idea?’ Lucy piped up. She had gone very quiet when Heather started to cry, but now her brown eyes sparkled excitedly, and the unmistakable contrast between her bright, happy daughter and the little wan face of the child burrowing into her lap caught at Claire’s tender heart.

She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t all Jay Fraser’s fault—a man had to work—but surely he could do better for his daughter than to leave her in the care of someone as plainly unfeeling as Mrs Roberts? Even she herself had quailed a little before the older woman’s sternness, and she could well imagine the effect it would have on someone as shy and insecure as Heather. She suspected that Mrs Roberts wasn’t above bullying the little girl, and, like all bullies, the more frightened Heather seemed, the more bullying she would become.

‘Please, can’t I stay here tonight?’

If only she could say yes, but she couldn’t, and neither could she explain why not.

‘Not tonight, Heather,’ she refused gently, softening her refusal by adding, ‘perhaps another night, if your daddy will let you. Come on now, let’s dry those tears and then we’ll take you home.’

She could tell that Heather was reluctant to go, but what could she do? She saw her safely inside the gates, but didn’t go up to the house with her, mainly because she didn’t want to run the risk of running into Jay Fraser, should he have returned.

Later she was to curse herself for that bit of selfishness, but as she watched Heather’s small figure trudging miserably towards the house she had no premonition of what was to happen, only a tender-hearted sadness for the little girl’s misery.

The following day, when she went to meet them from school, Claire found that both little girls seemed rather subdued. She left Heather after seeing her safely inside the gates to her home, and although Lucy was quieter than usual, there was nothing in her small daughter’s silence to worry her.

They had almost reached their own cottage when Lucy suddenly asked, ‘Can Heather come and live with us, Mummy instead of with Mrs Roberts?’

Sighing faintly, Claire shook her head. ‘Heather’s daddy would be lonely if she came to live with us,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Just as I’d be lonely if you went away from me.’

‘But Heather’s daddy is always away, and she doesn’t like Mrs Roberts. She didn’t like her mummy either; she was always cross and smacking her.

Claire was too aware of how Jay Fraser would react if he ever learned that his daughter had been passing on these confidences to encourage Lucy to say any more. His comments to her on the one occasion on which they had met still stung.

She hated the thought that other people besides himself might consider that she was on the lookout for a husband. A man in her life was the last thing she wanted, especially a man with the legal right to share her bed and her body. She felt herself tense, the familiar sense of nausea sweeping through her.

After she had had her tea, Lucy asked if she could go and play in the garden. Claire agreed readily enough; Lucy knew that she was not allowed to go outside its perimeters.

Mrs Vickers had commented to her earlier in the day that soon it would be autumn. She had remarked on the likelihood of autumn gales and the damage they might do to the cottage roofs. Her cottage, like Claire’s badly needed re-roofing, but unlike Claire it seemed that she had enough money put on one side to cover this expense. She had mentioned a sum that had frankly appalled Claire, who had not realised that the age of the cottages and their country setting meant that they had to be re-roofed in the same traditional hand-made tiles as had been originally used.

She hadn’t realised how long she had been sitting worrying about the roof until she heard the church clock chiming seven. She went to the back door and called Lucy, frowning slightly as she scanned the garden and realised there was no sign of her daughter.

She was just wondering if Lucy could possibly have slipped round to see Mrs Vickers, when she suddenly appeared.

The guilty look on her face was enough to alert Claire’s maternal instincts. It was her private and most dreaded fear that the same thing that had happened to her might happen to Lucy, and it was because of this nightmare dread that she was so strict about not permitting her to stray outside the garden. Now, however, the guilt in her daughter’s eyes made her hesitate before getting angry with her. Her ‘Where have you been?’ brought a pink flush to Lucy’s face.

‘I went for a walk …’

‘Lucy, you know I’ve told you never to go out of the garden without me. Come on now, it’s bedtime.’ How on earth could one describe to a six-year-old the perils that lurked behind the smiling mask of friendly strangers?

‘Don’t be cross, Mummy.’ An engaging smile, and a small hand tucked in hers, made her sigh and decide that her lecture would have to await a more propitious occasion.

It was only when she was making Lucy’s supper that she noticed that her cake-tin was almost empty. She frowned slightly. She had never forbidden Lucy to help herself to food if she wanted it, but neither had she encouraged her. Lucy was not a greedy child, and rarely asked for food between meals, but she could have sworn that that cake-tin had held far more home-made buns last night than it did now.

NORMALLY HEATHER WAS waiting for them outside the school gates, but this morning there was no sign of her, and Claire couldn’t help feeling concerned. Was the little girl ill? Heather wasn’t her responsibility, she reminded herself, and neither her father nor Mrs Roberts would thank her for interfering, and yet she knew that if Jay Fraser’s reaction to her had been different she would have called at the house on her way home and checked to see if Heather was all right.

She knew that Heather was perhaps becoming too attached to her, needing a mother substitute, and while she had scrupulously tried to avoid encouraging the little girl to depend on her in any way at all, she knew that she herself was growing very attached to her. Heather wasn’t her child in the way that Lucy was, but there was something vulnerable in Heather that cried out for love and attention.

Several times during the morning she found herself worrying about her, remembering her wan little face. Heather was frightened of Mrs Roberts, and while she didn’t think the housekeeper would go as far as to physically maltreat the child, there were other ways of inflicting pain and fear on children.

She had almost decided that after lunch she would call round at Whitegates and brave Jay Fraser’s wrath if he found out, when she heard her doorbell ring.

The sight of Jay Fraser standing on her doorstep, flanked by the village constable and a young woman in police uniform, was so shockingly unexpected that she was robbed of breath.

It was the policewoman who spoke first.

‘Mrs Richards. I wonder if we could come in for a moment.’

Conscious of the curiosity of her neighbours, Claire hurriedly agreed. Her small sitting-room had never seemed more cramped. The local policeman, although not as tall as Jay Fraser, was still quite large. He was an older man, married with two grown-up sons, and he seemed pleasant. Now however, he looked worryingly grave, and Jay Fraser, who had refused her offer of a seat, looked almost ill. The tan she had noticed on his first visit now seemed a dirty yellow colour. His immaculate white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, his tie askew, and his hair ruffled.

‘Mrs Richards, I believe your little girl is very friendly with Mr Fraser’s daughter.’

A terrible sense of foreboding overcame her.

‘Yes, yes, she is, she agreed in a husky voice. ‘They’re … they’re best friends.’

All that she constantly dreaded for her own daughter suddenly filled her mind, and it was as though Heather was actually her own child. She sank down into a chair, her body trembling.

‘Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?’

Sergeant Holmes grimaced slightly. ‘We’re hoping not, Mrs Richards. We do know, however, that she’s disappeared. Mr Fraser’s housekeeper reported it to us late last evening.’

‘Late last evening?’

‘Yes, after the little girl didn’t come home from school.’ The sergeant frowned, and looked across at Jay Fraser. ‘It’s probably none of my business, sir, but that’s quite a lonely walk home for a six-year-old …’

‘Mrs Roberts had strict instructions to take Heather to and from school,’ Jay said tightly.

In that instant Claire felt for him, truly understanding how he must be feeling. No doubt he had given the housekeeper her instructions, never imagining that they would be disobeyed. More out of compassion for him than anything else Claire said huskily,

‘I … I … used to walk home with her. I didn’t like the thought of her walking alone. It wasn’t far out of our way …’

Instantly the sergeant’s frown disappeared, and he said eagerly, ‘And did you walk back with her yesterday, Mrs Richards?’

‘Why, yes. I always walked her to the gate and saw her safely inside. I …’

She heard the sound that Jay Fraser made and felt her own throat muscles lock in a mingling of pity and fear.

‘Then you must have been the last person to see her.’ The sergeant frowned. ‘Mrs Roberts says that she didn’t come home from school last night.’

And the woman had waited how long to report that she was missing? Inadvertently Claire looked across at Jay and saw the same emotions she was feeling reflected in his eyes.

‘Mmm. I was wondering if we could talk to your little girl, Mrs Richards. Children sometimes confide things to their friends that they don’t tell adults. We won’t say anything to frighten her,’ he added, correctly interpreting her expression.

‘She and Heather were very close,’ Claire admitted. She bit her lip and glanced apologetically at Jay. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring down at the carpet, his face set and hard.

‘I don’t know if it’s important, but I know that Heather was … well, she didn’t get on very well with Mrs Roberts.’

She caught Jay’s roughly expelled breath, and hurried on. ‘Of course it might not mean anything … and I’m not suggesting that Mrs Roberts was in any way unkind to her … but Heather is a very sensitive child.

‘And you think that perhaps she might have said something to upset the little girl? Children of that age get odd notions into their heads,’ the sergeant agreed. ‘I’ll never forget when our boy decided to leave home. All of five he was, and luckily a neighbour found him pedalling down the road on his trike.’

‘If Heather had walked off like that someone would have seen her,’ interrupted Jay roughly. ‘God—she’s only a baby … ‘His voice was full of anguish. ‘She’s been gone all night … nearly twenty-four hours!’

Claire felt for him, but she suspected that the last thing he would want would be her sympathy. He must be in hell right now, she thought compassionately. What parent wouldn’t be?

‘Have you informed her … her mother, sir?’ Sergeant Holmes asked.

Jay shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t want to know. I would have given her custody of Heather, but she didn’t want her.’ His back straightened, his face suddenly bitterly angry, as he read the expression in the policeman’s eyes. ‘I love my daughter very much, Sergeant,’ he told him curtly, ‘but that doesn’t stop me thinking that a little girl of Heather’s age needs her mother. I can’t be there all the time for her. God, when I think I deliberately looked for an older woman to look after her, thinking that she would be likely to be more responsible! I have to be away a great deal—there’s nothing I can do about it, at least not at the moment …’

‘No one’s blaming you, sir,’ Sergeant Holmes said quietly. ‘All of us here are parents, and we all know what kids are like. Half the time you just don’t know what’s going through their heads.’

‘If she was so frightened of Mrs Roberts, why didn’t she tell me? If anyone’s touched her … hurt her …’

He couldn’t put his fears into words, and Claire felt her body clench on a wave of nausea and pain. That was the way her father would have looked if he’d known … but he’d been dead then and she’d been alone … She sent up a mental prayer that somehow Heather would be safe. If she was, no matter what her father had to say about it Claire intended to give her as much love and attention as she wanted. She felt almost as much to blame as Jay. She had known that Heather was unhappy, but because of her pride and her determination not to give Jay the slightest cause to think she was trying to attract him, she had deliberately backed off. ‘I normally go and collect Lucy from school about now,’ she told the sergeant. ‘Do you want to come with me, or shall I …?’

‘It’s best if you go alone; we don’t want to frighten her. Try and act as naturally as possible with her, Mrs Richards. Children get some weird ideas in their heads. If she does know anything we don’t want to frighten her into keeping it to herself.’

The sergeant’s words made sense, but they were hard to put into practice. Claire could feel her voice turning croaky with anxiety as she casually asked if Heather was at school, already knowing what the answer would be.

Lucy shook her head. As Claire looked down at her she saw that her daughter was avoiding her eyes.

Did Lucy know something about Heather’s disappearance? Striving to seem calm, she said, ‘Oh dear, Heather’s daddy’s waiting for us at home. He thought Heather might be coming home with you.’

No reaction, but Claire felt the small hand tucked into hers clenching betrayingly.

She took Lucy into the kitchen and settled her with a glass of milk and a biscuit before going into her sitting-room.

‘I think she knows something,’ she told Sergeant Holmes worriedly.

‘Will you let me talk to her?’ he asked. ‘I promise I won’t frighten her.’

Knowing what was at stake Claire could hardly refuse. She took the two police officers into the kitchen and made sure that Lucy knew who they were before leaving her with them. She sensed that the sergeant was more likely to learn something if she was not hovering anxiously at his side.

As she opened the sitting-room door she saw that Jay Fraser had slumped down into one of her chairs, his head in his hands. He looked up as she walked in, and she saw the dread and the pain in his eyes.

‘I pray to God that we can find her.’

Instinctively she placed her hand over his, shocked to feel its fierce tremble. ‘I’m sure Lucy knows something … she looked so guilty. Perhaps Heather’s …’ she broke off, his eyes widening as she suddenly remembered Lucy’s disappearance and the missing cakes.

‘What is it?’

‘I think Heather might have run away,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Last night Lucy disobeyed me and left the garden … I found some cakes missing, I …’

Before she could say any more the sitting-room door opened and Sergeant Holmes appeared, holding a tearful Lucy in his arms.

‘I promised Heather I wouldn’t tell Mummy …’ her bottom lip wobbled. ‘She wanted to come and live with us, but you said she couldn’t and Mrs Roberts was very cross because she’d come here for her tea. Heather wanted her daddy, but he wasn’t there …’

Oh, the anguish of that innocent double indictment! Over the tousled brown curls, grey eyes met green, both of them mirroring their guilt and anguish.

‘It seems that Heather spent the night in one of the huts on the old allotments down by the railway,’ Sergeant Holmes informed them. ‘She made Lucy promise not to tell.’

‘Mrs Roberts smacked her,’ Lucy whimpered, ‘she made her cry …’

‘I was wondering, Mrs Richards—if WPC Ames here stays with Lucy, would you …’

Claire didn’t even think of refusing. After hugging and kissing her daughter and reassuring her that no one was cross with her, she was half way out of the door as Jay opened it.

It was less than half a mile to the allotments, but none of them spoke. All of them must surely be thinking of the terrors that could be inflicted on a small girl of six on her own.

As they reached the allotments, the Sergeant suggested softly, ‘I think you’d better be the one to go first, Mr Fraser. If she’s still there, we don’t want to frighten her.’

From the white look on Jay’s face, Claire knew that nothing on earth would have prevented him from going first. Hands clenched, her body tense with dread, she waited as he walked towards the tumbledown hut.

He opened the door and went inside. Claire held her breath, all sensation suspended as she prayed harder than she had ever done in her life before. It was illogical to feel this depth of emotion for someone else’s child, but she knew the horrors that could be inflicted on the innocent—oh, how she knew—and in that aeon of waiting there was an emotional bonding between her personal anguish and the fear she felt for Heather that coalesced in a wave of love so strong and intense that when Jay walked out of the hut, carrying his daughter in his arms, nothing on earth could have stopped her from stumbling across the distance that separated them to take the sobbing child in her arms.

Small arms clung to her, heaving sobs swelling the childish chest. Jay looked white and stunned—lost, almost.

‘She was frightened of me!’ Claire heard him say disbelievingly. ‘She was frightened …’

‘Let’s get her home now,’ Sergeant Holmes suggested, ‘time for questions later.’

As Jay leaned forward to take her from Claire, Heather clung to her, and wept piteously. ‘I want to go to Lucy’s house, Daddy. I don’t want to go home!’

Claire avoided looking at him. She could sense everything that he was feeling. If he had resented and disliked her before it must be nothing to what he was feeling now.

They took Heather back to the small cottage, a look of relief and guilt mingling on Lucy’s face as they walked in.

‘I think we should leave her with Mrs Richards for a few minutes, sir,’ Sergeant Holmes suggested to Jay.

Busy trying to soothe Heather’s tears, Claire was absently aware of Jay stepping back from them and allowing the sergeant to take him into the kitchen.

It was a long time before Heather calmed down enough to be coherent, and the story she told left Claire shaking with rage and appalled by the enormity of what could have happened.

She took her upstairs and put her in the spare bed in Lucy’s room, knowing from experience that such an outburst would soon result in sleep. She was emotionally and physically drained, poor little mite, and even in sleep she clung to Claire’s hand, not wanting her to leave her.

She went down to the kitchen, where the sergeant was entertaining Lucy by reading her a story.

‘She ran away because she was frightened of Mrs Roberts,’ Claire told them tiredly. ‘It’s partly my fault.’ She looked at Jay Fraser and saw that his face was shuttered and remote. Who knew what he was thinking behind that iron mask? ‘She wanted to have tea with us the other day and I … I refused. I said she must ask Mrs Roberts’ permission. The next day she said she had; I didn’t check—I …’ She couldn’t look at Jay Fraser; surely he must know why she hadn’t felt able to speak to his housekeeper. ‘Apparently she hadn’t asked at all, and after I took her home that evening Mrs Roberts was very angry with her—the poor woman must have been out of her mind with fear when she didn’t turn up from school. Apparently she shut Heather up in her bedroom and told her she was going to tell her daddy what she had done. Mrs Roberts told Heather that her father would be very cross.’ Claire bit her lip, wondering if she ought to suppress the next bit, and then, deciding that she could not, ‘Apparently Mrs Roberts threatened to leave and told Heather that if she did, Heather would have to go into a home because neither her mummy nor her daddy wanted her.’ She heard the sound Jay made and steeled herself against it. ‘That’s why she ran away. She was frightened.’

‘I never knew!’ It was agony listening to the torment in his driven voice. ‘I trusted the woman. I thought she was reliable! I had no idea.’

‘It happens to the best of us, sir,’ said Sergeant Holmes gruffly. ‘Try not to blame yourself. I’ve known Amy Roberts for years. I knew she didn’t like kids, but I’d never have suspected …’

‘I’ll have to dismiss her, of course.’ Claire felt that he was talking more to himself than to them. He looked directly at her for the first time and she was shocked by his haggard expression.

‘Could you … would you let her stay here tonight? I’ll …’

‘I’ll leave the two of you now, sir. No need for us to stay any longer …’

Tactfully the sergeant and his colleague left. Lucy was sitting down in front of the television in the sitting-room when Claire peeped in to check that she was all right.

She went into the kitchen. Jay Fraser was standing by the window, his arms rigid against the rim of the sink. He looked up at the entrance and stepped back from the unit, his movements jerky and unco-ordinated. He walked like a man who had had too much to drink, and suddenly he swayed, his face tinged with a frightening pallor.

‘The bathroom,’ he muttered thickly.

Numbly Claire told him, trying to blot out of her mind the sound of him being violently sick. Shock affected people in many different ways, and she could almost feel the bitter combination of pain and anguish that made up his.

When he came back down he moved like an old, old man. Leaning against the kitchen door, he said slowly, ‘I owe you an apology.’ He shuddered suddenly. ‘God, when I think of what could have happened to her … I had no idea how she felt, no idea at all.’

She could hear and see the anguish of a parent suddenly realising how it had failed its child. Ridiculously, she wanted to comfort him, but what could she say?

‘You did your best. It can’t be easy …’

‘No, I didn’t do my best,’ he said savagely. ‘If I’d done my best she’d have a proper mother.’ His eyes suddenly focused on her and darkened. ‘Someone like you. Have you any idea what it does to me to know that you know more about her feelings and her fears than I do …? That you cared enough to make sure she got home from school safely, while I …’

‘You didn’t know. You couldn’t know. In your shoes I’d have opted for an older woman.’

‘I should have known there was something wrong. Hell, I did know,’ he said savagely. ‘She never stopped talking about you, but I wouldn’t listen. It’s been one hell of a bad year for me,’ he added slowly. ‘The divorce became final eighteen months ago. I suppose you’ve heard the story: the neglected wife leaving; having an affair with her husband’s business partner right under his nose. Susie never wanted children. She wanted to abort when she discovered she was pregnant …’

He was telling her things he’d normally never dream of telling anyone, Claire sensed; his defences were relaxed by shock and fear. He needed the release of talking, even if he barely realised who he was talking to. She wasn’t a person to him right now, she was just a presence … someone to listen.

‘She never cared for Heather, and Heather seemed to sense it. I was glad when she said she didn’t want her. She’s my child and I love her,’ he said fiercely as though she had voiced a doubt. ‘But after my experience with Susie I swore I’d never marry again; never allow another woman to entangle me in that sort of emotional mess. It isn’t that easy, though. Human beings have certain needs.’ He wasn’t aware of how Claire froze. ‘And I soon discovered there are plenty of women willing to share a man’s bed, especially when they think he’s vulnerable. I’ve lost count of the number of women who’ve told me that Heather needs a mother.’

He knew who she was now, Claire recognised, catching his oblique glance.

‘I misjudged you and I’m sorry for it, but I’d just spent a fortnight in the States, trying to fend off half a dozen or so attempts at matchmaking from the wives of my business colleagues. Heather might need a mother, but I don’t want a second wife.’ He pushed one hand through his hair. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

What could she say? ‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I,’ he said grimly.

She heard him sigh as he levered his shoulders off the door. Even now, exhausted with anxiety and tension, there was a magnetic attraction about him that she recognised and recoiled from. She saw him frown as she stepped back.

‘Look, I really am sorry about what I said to you. There was no call for it. Put it down to tiredness and the frustration of having to fend off my friends’ matchmaking efforts. To have you repeat what they had been saying to me—that Heather needed a mother—’

‘Made you leap to the instant conclusion that I had myself in mind,’ said Claire wryly. ‘Yes, I can understand that, but you were quite wrong. A husband is the last thing I’d want.’

She saw him frown. ‘My remark was crass and uncalled for.’

A silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. In fact, it was oddly companionable.

‘I’ll come and see Heather later, if I may. Will it be all right if she stays here with you?’

She could see how much he hated having to ask, and that was something else she could understand from her own experience of single parenthood. It bred in one a fierce pride, a determination to manage alone without having to ask for help—but help was sometimes needed, and it wasn’t in her nature to be anything less than generous. Pushing the heavy weight of her hair off her face, she said firmly, ‘Heather can stay here as long as she wants to. I’m genuinely very fond of her, you know,’ she paused, searching for the right words, ‘she’s so vulnerable … and … and wanting. Nothing like my independent little Lucy.’

‘Perhaps because she hasn’t experienced the same security and love.’ Jay’s voice was clipped, his eyes edged with bitterness. ‘I’ve got to go back now. I want to have a few words with Mrs Roberts. I can’t blame it all on her, though; I should have known. But she seemed so responsible. She had such good references!’

‘As a housekeeper, perhaps,’ said Claire gently, sensing his frustration and guilt. ‘But a woman who’s a good housekeeper isn’t always a good …’

‘Mother? No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I can see that—now. I’ll just go up and see Heather before I leave.’

He sounded uncertain and awkward, and Claire didn’t go with him. Some things were too private to be witnessed by anyone else.

‘She’s still asleep,’ he told her when he came down. ‘I’ll come back later.’ Claire walked with him to the front door. As she opened it he turned to face her.

‘I haven’t thanked you,’ he said huskily.

‘There’s nothing to thank me for.’

And she didn’t feel there was. If she hadn’t been there perhaps Heather might never have thought of running away. She hadn’t meant to encourage the little girl to love her, but how much damage had she inadvertently done?

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