Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

It seemed she did not possess that admirable quality because right now the person she wanted more than any other in the world was … Caspar.

‘No, I shouldn’t have,’ she heard Saul correcting her firmly. He took hold of her hands. ‘Let’s both agree that this—’ he glanced around the bedroom ‘—was the result of a little too much good wine and a little too much wishful thinking—on my part at least.’

And then he leaned forward and gave her a determinedly cousinly peck on the cheek before saying briskly, ‘Now, just where did I put those photographs?’

‘Oh, Max …’

Max grimaced in impatience as he heard the emotion in Madeleine’s voice and felt the warmth of her tears on his skin. If there was one thing he particularly loathed, it was women who cried in the aftermath of their orgasm. He might have known that Madeleine would be that type, just as he had known that she would be awkward and inexperienced, fortunately too inexperienced to realise just how manufactured his forced ‘desire’ for her actually was. Unlike her housemate, Claudine … She would have known and she would most definitely not have cried.

Irritably he suppressed the thought. He had never been attracted to brunettes and certainly not ones like her. She was far too assertive and self-assured, far too—

‘Oh, Max! I wish we could always be together….’

Max tensed; this was his cue, the opening he had been angling for, carefully manoeuvring towards. ‘So do I,’ he lied adroitly, reaching to brush away her tears in a gesture of faked tenderness whilst he smiled his crocodile smile down into her tear-wet eyes. ‘But you know the situation. I’m not … I can barely support myself … never mind anyone else….’

He could feel her pulse jump betrayingly beneath his fingers and felt his body start to ease into relaxation and triumph. It had all been so simple. Much, much simpler than even he had anticipated. Madeleine had proved boringly easy to charm and deceive, swallowing every one of the lies he had so cynically told her, gazing at him wide-eyed and adoringly as he relentlessly and ruthlessly manoeuvred his way into her life and her heart.

Prior to meeting her, he had had no clear idea of how best to accomplish his objective, but once he had met her … She was almost too persuadable and malleable, and the contempt he felt for her had now spread to include her parents, especially her father. Did he really believe that she had what it took to make a barrister? Oh, she might have the academic qualifications, but the thought of her ever appearing in a courtroom, even defending a case, never mind prosecuting one … And yet, just because of who she was, or rather who her father was, she still had the power to take that vacancy from him, or rather she thought she could.

Cleverly Max had given her no indication that he knew that she was his rival for the tenancy whilst at the same time apparently openly and disarmingly admitting to her how important getting it was to him. Predictably she had flushed bright red and become self-conscious and flustered, and she had even asked him if he couldn’t find a vacancy with another set of chambers.

He had been tempted then to tell her crudely and bluntly what he really thought and felt, but he had restrained himself. He would get his opportunity to tell her once she had—as he was quite determined that she would—relinquished her claim on the vacancy in favour of him.

‘Oh, there’ll always be a vacancy for me in Chester,’ he had told her carelessly and untruthfully.

In reality, the old man’s pride would never allow him to accept any favours from the Chester branch of the family, even for his favourite grandson. Oh no! It could never be good enough for Max to match the achievements of his Chester cousins. He must supersede them. But Maddy, of course, knew nothing about any of that or about a good many other aspects of his life—and indeed she would never know.

‘Chester?’ Maddy had demurred anxiously. ‘But that would mean you’d have to move there and—’

‘And what?’ Max had teased her, starting to kiss her and keeping on kissing her until her half-hearted protests had subsided.

Oh yes, he had baited his hook very carefully indeed and now tonight he had caught his prize and was starting to reel it—her—in.

Nothing had been left to chance, from the champagne he had left chilling on ice before he had picked her up for their dinner date, to the new bedding he had left instructions for the maid to put on his bed and the flowers he had told her to arrange.

‘Mmm …’ Max murmured, gently nibbling her ear. ‘I’m not really looking forward to meeting your father. He isn’t exactly going to approve of me as prospective son-in-law material, is he? Not when I haven’t even got a proper job …’

He could feel her body going stiff in his arms, and as he raised his head to look down into her eyes, the look of mingled hope, disbelief and adoration he could see so clearly there made him smile in cynical satisfaction.

‘Oh, Max …’ Madeleine whispered. ‘I didn’t know … I didn’t think … Oh, Max, I love you so much.’ She flung her arms around him, holding him tightly as she whispered shakily, ‘Daddy is going to love you … just like I do, and as for your not having a job …’

‘Mmm …’ Max prodded between kisses. ‘As for me not having a job … we can live on love, is that it?’

Madeleine laughed. ‘Well … I … I have some money,’ she told him shyly, ‘and—’

‘No,’ Max countered fiercely, softening his voice and his grip on her arms when he saw her shock. ‘No, my darling, I’m not the kind of man who could ever live off a woman. I know it’s chauvinistic and old-fashioned of me, but, well, that’s just the way I am.’

‘Oh, Max … I do love you,’ Madeleine sighed ecstatically. ‘Don’t worry about the vacancy,’ she urged, giving him a happy, secretive smile. ‘I just know that everything will work out all right….’

Her eyes shone with happiness as she lifted her face up towards his. ‘So please, please stop worrying about it and kiss me instead.’

‘Jack, what is it, what’s wrong, where’s your mother?’ Jon demanded anxiously as his nephew opened the door for him. He had driven straight over to the house after Jack’s phone call, his stomach churning with anxiety and guilt.

‘She’s … she’s in the kitchen,’ Jack replied unhappily, but as Jon headed towards the closed kitchen door he noticed that Jack was hanging back and that he was obviously reluctant to go with him.

As he pushed the kitchen door open, he had no clear idea of what he expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t the sight that greeted him.

Tiggy was squatting in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by what looked like the contents of a rubbish bin. She was wearing a thin diaphanous robe through which he should have been able to see her body but couldn’t because of the way it was smeared with food. At some stage in the evening she had clearly been sick; he could smell the sour, rank stench of it and his own stomach heaved at its foulness.

‘Tiggy …’

As he said her name she focused on him but gave no sign of having recognised him. Her eyes were wild like those of an animal. As Jon studied her more closely, he realised in shocked distaste that it wasn’t just her gown that was smeared with food but her hair and face, as well. Food and what he suspected must be traces of dried vomit.

His stomach curdled and he had to grit his teeth against his own nausea. As he watched her, almost unable to comprehend what he saw, she started to crawl away from him, scuttling into a corner like a … scared animal, her eyes never leaving his face as she reached a clawlike hand towards him with what looked like a half-eaten wedge of cake. To his shock, she started to ram it into her mouth, the whole time peering at him like some kind of feral creature.

Dear God … What was happening? What was she doing to herself? Instinctively, with a feeling of certainty, Jon knew that this was no isolated incident, no single abberation or reaction to outside pressures and the stress of David’s heart attack and everything that had happened since. For the second time in his life, he knew what it was to feel pity for his brother.

The first time had been the night of baby Harry’s birth when he had experienced the privilege and emotional intensity of witnessing the miracle of birth, of feeling his whole being flooding with love for the small, helpless life he had just seen born, of sharing with Jenny the miracle of that birth.

Yes, then he had felt something for his brother but it had been a very different kind of pity to what he felt now.

‘Tiggy!’

‘It’s no good. She can’t hear … she never can when she’s like this….’

The sound of his nephew’s voice made him turn round. Dear God, no child should have to witness this ugliness, yet Jack seemed so composed, so knowing … so adult. Then he remembered the way the boy had hung back from entering the kitchen.

‘Tiggy …’ he tried again, but she was eating something else now, refusing to even look at him, never mind show that she was listening to him.

‘She’ll have eaten everything soon,’ Jack said dispassionately, ‘and … and then it will be all right … unless …’ He paused and looked up at Jon. ‘Sometimes it isn’t enough and she has to have more and then …’

Jon could see the boy’s face starting to crumble as he tried to control his emotions. Automatically he reached for him, held him in his arms and gently rocked him. Dear God, he felt so thin. Far, far thinner surely than Joss.

There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask him, a hundred things he needed to know. He hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to handle this situation. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tiggy starting to creep along the floor. She held a knife in her hand now. His heart started to thud unevenly.

How much of this was his fault … his responsibility …? How much had he contributed to tipping her over the edge and into this dark abyss she was now inhabiting?

He couldn’t deal with this on his own. He needed help … he needed …

His arm around Jack’s shoulders, he started to guide him out of the kitchen. In the hallway he picked up the telephone and punched in a number.

‘Who are you ringing?’ Jack asked anxiously. Jon hugged him reassuringly as he heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

‘Jenny,’ he said huskily before pausing to clear his throat. ‘Jenny, it’s me, Jon.’

As she heard her husband’s voice, Jenny closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, willing herself not to start crying.

‘Jon, yes,’ she replied. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m at David and Tiggy’s,’ Jon told her. He could hear her indrawn breath and added quickly, ‘No, Jen, please don’t hang up. This isn’t … It’s not what you think, Jenny. Please listen,’ he pleaded.

Tensely Jenny gripped the receiver. Dear God, what was it he wanted to say? Why was he ringing her? What did he want? To tell her that he was moving in with Tiggy …?

‘Jen … I … I need your help. Can you come over? Now … please.’

Jon looked down at Jack who was standing stiffly at his side.

‘It’s Tiggy,’ he heard himself saying. ‘She’s … she’s … there’s a bit of a problem,’ he told her. ‘Please come, Jen … now.’

‘Yes … yes … I’ll be there,’ Jenny promised.

Olivia passed the ambulance on the main road as she drove tiredly home. After she left Saul, she had absently got into her car and driven mindlessly though the dark country lanes, the tears pouring down her face as she wept out her pain and despair.

Saul had been so good about everything and so generous, telling her gently that he was the one to blame and not her and that he was a fool for thinking what he had.

‘Of course you still love him,’ he had told her quietly, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes. ‘You’re that kind of person.’

‘Oh, Saul,’ she had wept. ‘I’m so sorry. How could I …?’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he had repeated.

But he was wrong. It was. She should have known. She had known but had tried to ignore that knowledge, to tell herself that if Caspar could so easily replace her, then she could do exactly the same.

Only she couldn’t. She still loved him … still wanted him, still ached for him with her emotions and her body even as her mind acknowledged the impossibility of their ever settling their differences, of his ever being able to accept her as the person she was.

Saul had not wanted her to leave whilst she was so obviously upset, but she had refused to listen to him, and in the end he had been forced to let her go. She had no real idea how far she had actually driven, only that suddenly she realised that she was totally exhausted and needed to get home.

As she turned into the drive, she saw that the house was ablaze with lights. Four cars were parked haphazardly outside, five including her mother’s. Two of them she recognised. Her stomach started to churn as she got shakily out of her car and started to run towards the house.

Jenny had seen her arrive and was at the door waiting for her. Olivia knew the moment she saw her face. ‘It’s Tiggy, isn’t it?’ she demanded, and although five minutes earlier she would have sworn that she had no tears left, all at once she started to cry again.

Jenny wrapped her in her arms and rocked her soothingly in much the same way that Jon had done with Jack earlier.

‘It’s all right, Livvy, everything’s all right,’ Jenny crooned calmingly. ‘Come inside and sit down. Jon, put the kettle on, would you?’ she called out to her husband as he appeared in the hallway, but Olivia shook her head.

‘I’m fine,’ she whispered. ‘I think I know what’s happened.’

Behind Jon she could see two other men. One of whom she guessed, vaguely recognised, was the local doctor.

‘It’s Tiggy, isn’t it? She’s had another …’ She swallowed and bit her lip. ‘Is she …?’

‘Your mother’s got an eating problem, Livvy,’ Jenny told her gently, ‘and Dr Travers feels—’

‘Your mother needs specialised treatment,’ the doctor interjected to tell Olivia. ‘I’ve arranged for her to be hospitalised for tonight. With this kind of disorder there’s always a danger of someone choking to death, either on the food they’ve gorged or on their own vomit.’

‘I knew … I knew what she was doing, but I tried to pretend it was just a one-off. I didn’t … I should have …’ Olivia looked helplessly at Jenny. ‘I wanted to tell you, but …’

‘Livvy, it isn’t your fault,’ Jenny asserted firmly.

‘I saw her,’ Olivia continued despairingly. ‘Just after I came home, I found her in the kitchen one night. Caspar told me then that she needed help … treatment … but I … we … we quarrelled about it. I couldn’t believe … I didn’t want to believe. I should have listened to him … done something then. I should have known….’

‘People like your mother are very skilled at concealing their addiction,’ the doctor informed her sympathetically.

‘Olivia, please believe it isn’t your fault,’ Jenny repeated.

‘What … what will happen to her?’ Olivia asked the doctor uncertainly.

He exchanged a look with Jenny and Jon.

‘We’ve agreed with the doctor that your mother should be admitted into a private clinic that deals in eating disorders,’ Jenny replied quietly.

‘It’s too early to say yet how well she will respond to the treatment. Bulimia isn’t an easy problem to deal with either for the sufferer or her family,’ Dr Travers explained.

‘Your father will have to be told, of course,’ Jenny added, looking at Jon.

‘Yes. I’ll have a word with the specialist first, though,’ Jon agreed.

After the doctor had left, Olivia started to thank Jenny and Jon for what they’d done, but Jenny stopped her. ‘I feel terribly guilty because we didn’t realise what was happening earlier,’ Jenny admitted.

‘There was no way you could have known,’ Olivia comforted her.

Jenny shook her head. ‘Somehow one tends to associate eating disorders with younger people. There must have been signs, though, indications…. We must have been too busy with our own lives to have noticed them. Livvy, are you sure you’re going to be all right here on your own?’ she asked Olivia as she prepared to leave.

It had already been arranged that Jack would go home with Jenny, at his own request.

‘Yes. I’ll be fine,’ Olivia reassured her.

15

Jenny only realised that Jon had followed her home as she was pulling in front of the house. She hung back after she had sent Jack inside, wondering what her husband wanted.

These past few weeks had somehow given him a much more noticeable air of authority; he seemed slightly taller, and as she listened to him talking to the doctor, she’d observed how much more positive and even assertive he was. He had, she recognised, for perhaps the first time in his life, stepped out of David’s shadow, and as a consequence, was being judged on his own merits instead of being dismissed as merely David’s twin. The change suited him, gave him an added air of masculinity and self-assurance.

She looked away from him as he got out of his car and walked towards her.

‘Jenny,’ he asked her, ‘can we talk?’

Her heart sank. ‘That depends on what you want to talk about,’ she told him eventually, forcing herself to meet his gaze. ‘If by talk you mean that you want my shoulder to cry on because of Tiggy …’ She paused and looked away from him again before continuing huskily, ‘I appreciate the way you feel about her, Jon. I know you … you believe you love her….’

‘No … you’re wrong. I don’t. I don’t know which makes me feel more ashamed,’ he told her sombrely as she stared at him. ‘The fact that I fell so easily into the trap that nature sets middle-aged men and so whole-heartedly and stupidly embraced my … my belief that life owed me the chance to be infatuated with the idea of falling in love, or the fact that I could so easily and quickly realise that I didn’t love her at all.’

‘It must have been a shock for you … finding her like that,’ Jenny commiserated. She was trying desperately hard to put aside her own feelings and focus on him but it wasn’t easy, especially when she still hurt so much.

‘If that’s a tactful way of saying that you think that was what brought me to my senses, I can, thank God, at least acquit myself of that. No—’ he shook his head ‘—I had already realised the truth before tonight … this afternoon in fact. I was due to appear in court earlier today and I took Tiggy to Chester with me. We had lunch together. Afterwards … Well, let’s just say that when the opportunity to put our … our relationship on a different footing occurred, I very quickly discovered that that wasn’t what I wanted at all. To be brutal about it, Jen, my body told me in no uncertain terms that it knew exactly who it wanted and it most certainly wasn’t Tiggy.

‘No, it wasn’t Tiggy I wanted to talk to you about.’ He looked levelly at her. ‘I know I don’t deserve it and I wouldn’t blame you if you refused, but is there any chance that we can … that I could … I want to come back, Jen. I’ve missed you and the kids like hell. I … I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks, and although it hasn’t been easy, I’ve come to accept that no matter how much in the past I might have believed otherwise, a part of me has always subconsciously envied David. I see now how jealous I was of him at times, and I resented the fact that his needs, that he always had to come first.’

‘But you were the one who always insisted that he come first,’ Jenny countered. ‘You always made it perfectly clear that your loyalty to him, your love for him, superseded everything and everyone else….’

‘On the surface, yes, because I knew that was what was expected of me, but inside … My son, my wife, my father, my friends, everyone loved David more than they did me and so I suppose when someone, and not just any someone but David’s own wife, actually seemed to prefer me … I’m not trying to make excuses for myself,’ he said. ‘There are none. I despise myself for what I did and always will. I guess a part of me must have been thinking, well … Jenny might prefer you to me but Tiggy, your wife, prefers me—’

‘Oh no, you’re not getting off by thinking that,’ Jenny interrupted him fiercely. ‘I did not … do not prefer David.’

‘You married me because you were carrying his child,’ Jon reminded her quietly.

‘I married you for almost the same reason you married me,’ Jenny admonished him. ‘I married you for the sake of David’s child to give him the family, the father, the protection he deserved, just as you married me to give David the protection you believed he deserved. I hardly came into it at all. I could have been anybody.’

Jon frowned as he heard the forlorn note in her voice. ‘That’s not true,’ he objected.

‘You didn’t love me,’ Jenny charged.

He looked away from her, his eyes veiled. ‘No, perhaps not,’ he agreed heavily at last, and then he took a step towards her and reached for her hand. He held it firmly between his own, his action surprising her into looking questioningly up at him. ‘Not then, but … Do you remember the night Harry was born?’ he asked her huskily.

Jenny nodded her head. Of course she did. How could she forget it? Her first child, the long struggle to give birth, her joy when they handed her her son.

‘That is when I fell in love with you,’ Jon declared softly. ‘That was when I fell in love with both of you. Yes, up until then, marriage to you had been a responsibility, my duty … for David’s sake, the child you were carrying, David’s child, but when I saw him born, suddenly he was my child. I can’t explain properly just how I felt … there aren’t the words. I just know I felt this tremendous uprush of love for both of you.’

‘You … you never said anything,’ Jenny returned weakly, her voice husky with tears and not just because of the memories Jon’s words had conjured up.

‘I … there wasn’t time,’ Jon said simply. ‘His life was so short, and afterwards … Well, afterwards, when you told me that there was no reason for us to stay married any longer, I felt … thought it inappropriate to tell you how I felt.’

‘I … I was just trying to do the right thing, to give you your freedom,’ Jenny explained.

‘To give me my freedom.’ Jon smiled ruefully at her. ‘It was much, much too late for that. What I really wanted you to give me was your love.’

‘Oh, Jon.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he assured her. ‘No one can love to order, and the last thing I would ever have wanted you to do was to pretend … fake….’

‘But, Jon, I did, do love you,’ Jenny told him. ‘Not when we first married. I don’t think that I was capable of allowing myself to love anyone then, but later when Harry … you were so … I loved you then,’ she admitted simply. ‘But it seemed that I’d burdened you with so much already that I couldn’t burden you with that, as well.’

‘How old are we?’ Jon asked wryly. ‘And how long have we been married? And it’s taken all this for us to be able to tell one another how we really feel.’

‘I thought you couldn’t possibly love me, especially when I compared myself with Tiggy. She’s so—’

‘You’re beautiful,’ Jon interrupted her gruffly, cupping her face. Then narrowing his eyes he added, ‘I’ve always thought so. I was so damned jealous the night of the party—seeing you look so lovely. That dress …’

‘I thought you didn’t like it,’ she owned. ‘You never told me.’

‘I couldn’t,’ Jon admitted. ‘I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.’

‘Oh, Jon …’

‘I hated seeing you dancing with David—I would much rather have been dancing with you. Guy didn’t look too pleased, either.’

‘Guy is only my business partner,’ Jenny asserted firmly.

She silently sent up a small prayer of gratitude for the fact that that was exactly all that he was, even if there had been a moment earlier this evening when …