Stronger Than Yearning

‘Lucy’s a teenager, Jenna,’ Bill reminded her, ‘and like all teenagers, she’s going through a very painful growing period — something I know you missed out on.’

‘I didn’t have time for growing pains.’ Jenna admitted wryly. ‘I was too busy fighting to prove I was grown up enough to keep Lucy. I was terrified the authorities would take her away from me. And so they would have if it hadn’t been for you and Nancy, agreeing to stand as our foster parents until I was old enough to adopt her legally.’

‘Well … we wanted to do all we could to help you, Jenna, but as far as Lucy’s concerned, now, today, I think the root cause of the problem is this conflict between you concerning her father.’

‘Yes,’ Jenna agreed quietly, ‘but what can I do, Bill? I can’t tell her the truth now. I just can’t. Perhaps I should have made up a mythical father for her years ago, but somehow I never thought about it. I ask myself, what would Rachel want me to do, and I can’t help feeling she would want me to protect her daughter.’

Bill sighed, knowing that Jenna’s refusal to tell Lucy the truth sprang from a genuine desire to protect her but not sure that he agreed with her. If she wasn’t told the truth, Lucy would go through life constantly wondering about her father. He accepted that to be told the facts now would cause her considerable distress, but Lucy had more of Jenna’s strong nature than either of them realised — enough he was sure, when the initial shock had died down, to accept what she had been told. He felt that in the long run it was better for Lucy to have the anguish of knowing the truth now, rather than the unhealed wound of not knowing her true parentage.

‘I hope there isn’t going to be a lot of competition for the house,’ Jenna commented, changing the conversation. ‘When I originally found out it was going up for auction I wanted it because it had been their house, but now I’ve been round it, seen it …’ She shrugged and smiled wryly. ‘Ridiculous, I know, but I want it so badly, Bill. Too badly, perhaps. When I went inside I … it was the strangest feeling, as though somehow I had come home.’

‘I haven’t heard that there’s been much interest locally.’ Bill was avoiding looking directly at her, and Jenna guessed that he was more affected than he wanted her to know by her brief revelation. She had never found it easy to talk about her feelings — Bill knew that. Jenna loved both Bill and Nancy with a love almost as strong as that she felt for Lucy, but she had never been able to put her emotion into words. She knew that people often found her cool and unapproachable and she preferred it that way. Not for the world would she have wanted to admit to anyone how frightened she was of emotional commitment, of laying herself open to pain and betrayal. Strange, she had not thought so deeply about her own innermost feelings for years, and now was hardly the time to become involved in the complexities of self-analysis, she reminded herself wryly.

‘Of course,’ Bill went on, ‘one never knows about out-of-the-district buyers. But I shouldn’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. After all, the building is extremely run-down and in a rather remote part of the country. Large houses such as the Hall are notoriously expensive to run. What time is the auction?’

‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,’ Jenna told him. ‘I had intended to take Lucy with me, but in view of her present mood I was wondering if you and Nancy could keep an eye on her for me?’

‘Don’t worry about Lucy, she’ll be fine with us.’

Jenna bit her lip. She hadn’t missed the way Lucy had taken to watching Bill, and remembering her own early teenage years, she suspected that, like her, Lucy was suffering from the lack of a caring male presence in her life. Would Lucy also grow to womanhood seeing men as an alien and somehow threatening sex? That wasn’t what she wanted for her. So what could she do about it? she derided herself mentally. Marry?

Who? Harley? She repressed a brief grin at the mental picture conjured up by her thoughts. Poor Harley. There had been a time when he had fancied himself in love with her, but she suspected that if she made any romantic overtures to him now he would run a mile. Marriage wasn’t for her. She could never envisage herself giving up her freedom; her right to remain in control of her life and her career … and yet … seeing the looks Bill and Nancy sometimes exchanged, the depth of understanding and caring that existed between them, there had been instances when she had felt deeply envious.

Bill and Nancy were lucky, she told herself. She only had to think of half a dozen or more of her close acquaintances to remind herself of the disillusionment and pain that marriage could bring. She was right to remain contemptuous of the male sex. She would be far better employed worrying about what her accountants and the bank were going to say when she broke the news of her latest acquisition to them. She repressed another grin as she visualised herself telling them that she had bought the house because she had fallen in love with it. Hardly good business practice. No, somehow she would have to convince them that with the acquisition of the Deveril house her business would flourish, as indeed she believed it would.

It had been hard work to go from being a shorthand-typist, working in a pool with other girls, to owning her own business. It had been her good fortune that she had soon grown bored with the humdrum routine of the typing-pool and had applied for another job. That job had been the first stepping-stone to her present career. She had been exultant when John Howard took her on as his personal secretary, and had made an excited telephone call to Bill and Nancy to tell them all about it.

‘An interior designer?’ Nancy had been inclined to be slightly disapproving, thinking that Jenna would have been wiser to stay with the insurance company, but Bill had supported her. Her plans for going to university had been abandoned when Rachel died. Bill had tried to argue her out of it, telling her that he and Nancy would take care of Lucy for her, but she had been adamant. Lucy was her responsibility, her only link with her dead sister. If she went to university Lucy would be five or six before Jenna was qualified. … Lucy would not be Rachel’s child but Nancy’s and Bill’s, so instead Jenna had concentrated on gaining some secretarial skills, determined to find a job and a home for them both just as soon as she possibly could.

Getting a job had been relatively easy. In those days, secretarial jobs weren’t that hard to come by, and by studying the national papers she had managed to secure an interview with a London-based insurance company without too much trouble. Finding somewhere suitable for herself and Lucy to live in London was a different matter. And who would look after Lucy while Jenna was at work? Her salary was small … not large enough to support both of them, but instinct told her that if she was going to succeed anywhere it would be in London, and not the quiet local market town in Yorkshire. So she had been forced to agree with Nancy’s view that Lucy should stay with them. It had been hard, those first six months in London, saving every penny she could from her salary, living in a dismal but cheap women’s hostel so that she could travel back to Yorkshire every weekend to see Lucy … And then had come the job with John Howard. He had paid her well, delighted to discover that she had an almost instinctive flair for colour and design. It had been at his suggestion that she had attended night school, and she had learned a good deal from him, sensing that he was not a man who represented any threat to her.

He had not, as many people had suspected, been her lover, but his wife had been suspicious and jealous enough for him to tell Jenna after she had worked for him for two years that he felt it best that she looked for a job elsewhere. She had been stunned, shocked, gripped with a furious sense of disbelief. She had worked hard for him, and for herself, saving, scrimping, putting as much money on one side as she could so that she could move out of her hostel and find a small flat for herself and Lucy. She had it all planned out. Lucy could attend nursery school while she worked. She would find herself a neighbour with small children who would be glad to earn a few extra pounds a week taking Lucy to and from school, and now, all because of a spoilt woman’s wholly irrational jealousy, her plans would have to be changed.

Sensing how distraught she was, but not knowing the reason why, it was then that John Howard had tentatively suggested that she go into business herself. He would help her financially in the early stages, he had offered awkwardly, and although pride had urged Jenna to refuse his guilt-induced offer — after all, she had done nothing to warrant being dismissed, nothing at all, no matter what his wife might think — caution had whispered to her to wait. How she had hated Marian Howard, she remembered grimly. Although they had never met, she had seen photographs of John’s spoilt, beautiful wife. They had no children, and from what John said Marian seemed to spend her life in a ceaseless round of shopping and socialising. Now, because she was jealous of Jenna, Marian was forcing John to dismiss her … and because of his wife’s insecurity she would lose her chance to have Lucy with her.

‘I could put quite a lot of business your way, Jenna,’ John had offered, warming to his idea, unaware of the battle going on inside her.

Jenna thought rapidly. She knew quite well what business John meant. As an established, socially prominent interior designer, he was often approached by women who wanted to boast that their living-room or bedroom had been designed by John Howard, and yet these same women, when told how much it would cost them to drop his prestigious name into the envious ears of their friends, often had a change of heart; when they did go ahead and commission him they were always difficult to please. Jenna had had the unrewarding task of soothing more than one of them. But it would be a start, a chance to prove just what she could do, an opportunity to establish herself financially, to have Lucy living with her, and although her pride was outraged and demanded that she refuse to be bought off, she heard herself saying coolly that it sounded a good idea.

Of course it had not been easy. There had been problems … snide remarks … whispered comments that John had backed her financially because she had been his mistress, but she had weathered it all and had long since paid back the small capital John had loaned her, with interest, and now …

Now she was a successful, prominent interior designer herself, as courted and fěted as John had been. One of the reasons for her success had been her ability to keep ahead of the trends, and now she sensed a mood in people to return to the past — a desire for craftsmanship rather than gimmickry — so she had slowly set about building up a pool of craftsmen and women, each an expert in their own field.

If she moved to Yorkshire she would have to start again, she told herself later that evening as she prepared for bed. Of course, she could retain many of her contacts but others … A tiny thrill of excitement curled upwards through her stomach. She wanted the challenge of a new venture, she admitted to herself, and more than that she ached to start work on the old Hall: to restore it, to cherish and love it. Half hysterically she reflected that while other women her age had love affairs with the opposite sex, she was embarking on a love affair with a house. But what about Lucy? Guilt and despair mingled inside her. Initially everything she had done had been for her sister’s child, for Lucy, so that she wouldn’t suffer as she and Rachel had done. She had wanted so much for her … had wanted her to have the security of love and money as she and Rachel had not. She had never quite lost the conviction that had Rachel come from a more moneyed background, from a family where there was someone to stand up for her and support her, that Alan Deveril would not have been able to browbeat her as he had, that Charles would not have got away with what had been a violently brutal rape. But instead of protecting Lucy all she seemed to have done was alienate her. How could Jenna explain now to Lucy how she had been conceived … who and what her father had been?

Lucy was so achingly vulnerable, and although she tried to hide it from her, Jenna was acutely aware of her vulnerability. Sometimes she ached inside for her niece, but it seemed nothing she did could make Lucy happy. She could of course always agree to stay in London. Should she? But London was too full of pitfalls for a young and rebellious teenager. If she gave in to Lucy on this issue, all too soon there would be others. Staying in London was not really the crux of the problem between them: it was Jenna’s refusal to discuss Lucy’s father with her, and at the moment she could see no way of solving that problem without causing her niece pain and possible emotional damage. She drifted off to sleep with a frown on her forehead, still worrying about Lucy.

When Jenna first opened her eyes, it took her several seconds to remember where she was. She shook her head, wonderingly, a bright skein of hair clouding her vision until she pushed it away. It had been years since she had slept so heavily or so well. Must be something to do with the cool, crisp, Yorkshire upland air coming in through the open bedroom window, she thought wryly.

It had also been years since she had woken up in the morning possessed by the faintly breathless sense of excitement she was now experiencing. A sense of excitement she suspected most women would equate with the appearance in their lives of a new man. Her mouth curled derisively. Jenna was no fool. She knew that her attitude towards the male sex was an unusual one, just as she knew that in many ways it sprang from what had happened to her sister. She also knew that all members of the male sex were not like Alan or Charles Deveril, but knowing that had never stopped her from freezing off any attempts men made to make contact with her. It wasn’t that she hated the male sex; it was more that she felt nothing for it in terms of sexual responsiveness. Or had trained herself to feel nothing for it, she thought rather wryly.

What had come over her? It wasn’t like her to be so deeply self-analytical … and that she should be now was faintly disturbing. Unbidden, an image flashed across her mind: a man, tall, with a dark shock of hair and amused blue eyes. The man in the portrait at the old Hall. Quickly she dismissed the image and its disturbing nuances. What was the matter with her? She was as nervous and on edge as a teenager facing her first date. Excitement, that was all, she told herself as she slid out of bed.

A narrow beam of sunlight barred her body, penetrating the fine silk of her nightgown, making her glance briefly downwards to frown slightly over the slender gold of her body where it was revealed by her nightgown. Her own body was something she rarely gave much attention to. She was as slim and as supple as Lucy, and yet her body was quite unmistakably that of a woman and not a girl, her breasts full, her curves feminine. Another image slid into her mind and with a cold shock she realised she was visualising how yesterday’s dark-haired stranger had looked at her.

Too intelligent to practise self-deception, Jenna acknowledged as she banished the image, she suspected that her contempt for the male sex sprang from a deep-seated need to protect herself from the same sort of agony her sister had known. Where sex itself was concerned, her feelings were even more confused. She had never met any man who aroused in her a sexual desire that was strong enough to overcome all her deeply buried fears. Perhaps because she equated sex with what had happened to Rachel. Whatever the case she had been scrupulous about not passing on her own feelings to Lucy. She desperately wanted Lucy to have everything she herself had never had. That was why it hurt so much when Lucy had flung her heedless adolescent accusations at her.

As she dressed, an unusual surge of optimism swept through her, banishing all her doubts. Who could tell? Perhaps once Lucy had accepted the fact that Jenna intended them to move to Yorkshire, she would grow to love the old Hall as much as Jenna herself did. Lucy was at a difficult age, Jenna reminded herself fairly, but in another few years she would be an adult. Perhaps then they would be able to talk about Rachel, Jenna thought contemplatively, acknowledging that she would like to talk about her sister with someone, to share her memories of her, and who better than Lucy? As it was, only Bill and Nancy had known Rachel, and could share her memories with her. Maybe that was why she was so afraid to let a man into her life, she reflected. Because if she did so, she would have to tell him about the past, about Rachel and Lucy …

What was she really afraid of? she asked herself, as she tugged a brush through her hair and studied her reflection pensively in the mirror. That a man might reject her because he thought she had had an illegitimate child? Or that if she cared deeply enough about someone to tell them the truth they might not share her view of the enormity of the crime against her sister. It had been a long time since she had examined her own deep feelings so intensely, perhaps too long.

In London, with a growing, demanding business to take up all her time and Lucy to worry about, there never seemed to be an opportunity to sit down and think about herself. Or was it that she didn’t want to dwell too deeply on her own emotions or lack of them? Harley had accused her on more than one occasion of being a-human. Who knew? Perhaps he was right. A self-mocking smile curved her generous mouth. What would they say, all those men who had striven so hard to get her into their beds, if they knew the truth? That far from being a cool, composed, experienced woman, she was in reality no more than a frightened, inexperienced virgin. The thought was ludicrous enough to make her laugh. What did it matter? No one was ever likely to know the truth, apart from herself.

Once again, irritatingly, a mental image of the man who had admired her car with words and her body with his eyes flashed across her mind, the blue eyes taunting, the curl of his mouth suggesting with arrogant maleness that he knew everything there was to know about her sex. Why had she allowed him to antagonise her so intensely? The man was a stranger, someone she had never met before, nor was ever likely to meet again. Shrugging aside the memory of how he had looked at her, Jenna went downstairs.

‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she apologised to Nancy as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I can’t think what happened.’ She wrinkled her nose ruefully. ‘I haven’t slept so deeply for years. Where’s Lucy?’

‘Gone out,’ Nancy informed her drily, adding bluntly, ‘I know you won’t like my saying this, Jenna, but it’s high time you told her the truth. If you don’t ——’ She broke off as they heard a car outside.

‘Funny!’ she exclaimed, her forehead puckering in a frown. ‘I wasn’t expecting Bill back so soon. He’s driven down to the village to get some more bread. There’s nothing wrong with young Lucy’s appetite, whatever else might be ailing her.’

But it wasn’t Bill who came to the kitchen door. It was Lucy, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, and with her, to Jenna’s complete consternation and shock, was the man whose features had so annoyingly impressed themselves upon her mind, to the extent that twice during the last half an hour she had recalled them in vivid detail. As she looked at him, she realised that her memory had not played her false. His eyes were as intensely blue as she remembered, his skin as healthily tanned.

‘Lucy, where on earth have you been?’ she asked her niece frostily, dragging her attention away from the male figure lounging in the open doorway and forcing herself to concentrate instead on the teenager’s flushed and rebellious features. What was Lucy doing with this stranger, a stranger whose overt sexuality made her mouth compress in bitter contempt? He flaunted his sexuality like a banner and it disgusted her, riveting her attention until Lucy spoke.

‘Out!’ The pert toss of the dark hair which accompanied the defiant challenge only increased Jenna’s perturbation, but she managed to mask her fear with a coolness she was far from feeling.

How many times had she warned Lucy against the folly of talking to strangers; any strangers. It made no difference that every instinct she possessed told her that this man was definitely not the type who needed to waylay young girls in order to obtain sexual satisfaction.

‘I’m afraid the fault lies with me.’ His words fell into the thick pool of silence, stagnant with antagonism, that had fallen on the kitchen after Lucy’s defiant remark, and it goaded Jenna unbearably to know that beneath the conventional apology he was probably laughing at her.

‘I met your daughter down at the Hall and offered to give her a lift back here. It seems that you and I are going to be in competition at the auction this morning.’

Jenna’s eyes left his face and darted to Lucy’s. What had Lucy been doing down at the old Hall? For now her concentration on her niece was something she could use as a defence mechanism to block out the shock of what she had just been told. He wanted to buy the Hall. Her mouth curled unwittingly into a bitter smile. So much for her initial assumptions about him.

‘And what exactly were you doing down there, Lucy?’ she questioned curtly, trying to blank out the feeling of tension invading her veins. What had happened to the excited euphoria with which she had woken up? It was gone, banished by the presence of this dark, mocking man.

‘I just wanted to see what it looked like.’ Lucy’s reply was sulky.

‘Without telling anyone where you were going?’ Jenna knew she was overdoing her chastisement, and that it would be wiser to keep her criticisms until they were alone, but something about the enigmatic scrutiny of the man watching them was driving her on. It was as though somehow they were locked in some sort of secret battle … If that was the case, establishing her parental authority over Lucy was hardly likely to win it, Jenna reflected, slightly ashamed of the way she had spoken so sharply to the younger girl. She wasn’t so far removed from her teenage years herself that she could not remember how touchy and vulnerable a teenager’s pride was. Her voice softened slightly. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy,’ she apologised, curling her fingers into her palms and refusing to look in the direction of the sardonic stranger. She didn’t want to see him gloating over her apology. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that but …’

‘She shouldn’t have accepted a lift with me.’

Once again the cool drawl raised tiny goosebumps of prickly resentment on Jenna’s sensitive skin. ‘My fault again, I insisted. It seemed foolish to let her walk when I was coming this way …’ He shrugged powerfully broad shoulders, this morning encased in a thick navy jumper that added to his ruggedly masculine appearance.

‘Really?’

The moment she spoke the coolly dismissive word, Jenna knew that she had fallen into a carefully baited trap.

‘Yes.’ He ignored her cool withdrawal and smiled instead at Nancy. ‘If I might come in for a second?’

He was still standing just by the door, and Jenna watched with narrowed eyes and a prickling sense of foreboding as Nancy coloured slightly and said quickly, ‘Oh, my goodness, of course! Please do.’

He was a charmer all right, Jenna thought critically, but even if Nancy was not immune she was. She was looking at him, studying him as he walked into the room, watching the lean, long-legged way he moved, his movements as fluid as those of a great jungle cat — and just as dangerous — when suddenly she was conscious that she was staring and that, worse, he was aware of it. The look he gave her as their eyes clashed made her feel as though he could see right into her mind and read every thought in it. He knew how antagonistic she was to him. A fine shudder of apprehension rippled through her body. An outright reaction to her antipathy she could deal with, but somehow his deliberate refusal to show any response at all was unnerving.