Stronger Than Yearning. PENNY JORDAN
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the number of her friend’s parents, quickly dialling it.
It was several seconds before it was answered, a brief spasm of time during which Jenna tried hard not to dwell on how late Lucy was and all the dreadful fates that might have befallen her.
When the phone was answered and she spoke to Janet’s mother she learned that both girls had gone to a party being held by the daughter of one of their neighbours.
‘Didn’t Lucy ring you?’ Emily Harris asked. ‘She said she was going to?’
‘She may have tried to. I was out until four o’clock,’ Jenna told her, thinking though that Lucy had not tried very hard to get in touch with her. Lucy was old enough to be aware of how much she worried about her, and Jenna wondered if Lucy was still deliberately trying to punish her. She sighed as she replaced the receiver, her earlier optimism banished. Her head had started to ache slightly and suddenly she was overwhelmed by a desire to breathe in the clean, cool air of the moors. Funny how, until now, she had never realised how much she missed the solitude and peace of Yorkshire.
Was she being entirely fair to Lucy in uprooting her? But she wasn’t being completely uprooted, Jenna reminded herself. Many of her schoolfriends lived out of London; indeed they came from all parts of the country. Lucy could invited them to stay with her during the school holidays and could visit them in turn. Jenna had always been scrupulous about not being over-possessive with Lucy, encouraging her to make friends and spend time with them, worried that as an only child she might grow up lonely and introverted without company of her own age.
And yet now, as far as Lucy was concerned, nothing she could do was right. Her head really aching now, Jenna wandered into the kitchen to make herself a drink, suddenly aware of a deep sense of depression. What was she going to do to put things right between herself and Lucy? Perhaps it was just as well that Lucy was returning to school on Sunday, although Jenna was loath to part from her in her present mood. Maybe it would do them both good to be away from one another for a while?
‘YOU’RE early.’
Jenna grimaced at Maggie Chadwick, her secretary, and gestured to the large pile of mail already on her desk. ‘With good reason so it seems.’
‘Mmm. Things did rather mount up while you were away.’
Maggie was an excellent secretary and had been with the company for the last three years. Watching her frown, Jenna wondered if something was troubling her. She knew that she was deeply involved in an affair with a foreign news correspondent for one of the national papers and also that their relationship was an extremely stormy one. Thinking perhaps that her secretary’s lack of good spirits might be the result of a quarrel, she enquired gently, ‘Maggie, is something wrong?’
Almost immediately the other woman’s forehead cleared. ‘Well, I know it’s none of my business,’ she began, ‘but we do seem to be having problems with cashflow at the moment. Some of our clients are being very slow to pay.’ She gnawed worriedly at her bottom lip. ‘I know I don’t have any right to say this, but —’
‘But what Maggie?’ Anxiety sharpened Jenna’s voice, her conversation with Gordon Burns still very fresh in her mind. There were always clients in this business who jibbed at paying their bills: some of them, those with the reputation and standing to do so, even got away without paying them at all, but they were in a minority and Jenna was meticulous about investigating the reliability of those clients with whom she took on large contracts. Only the previous month she had turned down a contract from a Greek millionaire to revamp his huge London apartment because she had discovered by discreet enquiry that he was not over-zealous about meeting his bills.
She saw the apprehension darken her secretary’s eyes and realised that she had probably sounded more brusque than she had intended, but then, Maggie didn’t know how concerned she was about the loan she had taken on to buy the Hall.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jenna apologised, smiling at her. ‘I know I sounded snappy but it wasn’t intended for you. I’m having problems with Lucy at the moment.’
The admission was made before she could stop it, leaving Jenna surprised at herself. She never discussed her personal life with any of her staff, not even Harley, and although she liked Maggie and considered her as much a friend as an employee, it would never normally have occurred to her to confide in her. She had grown so used to making her own decisions and relying on herself that she never sought the advice or help of others on a personal basis. In her heart of hearts much as she liked Maggie, she also faintly despised her.
Maggie was a very attractive girl, who was held fast in the throes of a relationship which, as far as Jenna could see, had no advantages for her at all. Rick Forbes was well known to have a roving eye, and Jenna doubted very much if he remained faithful to stay-at-home Maggie when he was away covering stories for his paper, and yet Maggie put up with his fickleness. The flat they lived in was Maggie’s bought with some money she had inherited from her grandparents; she washed, cooked and cleaned for both of them, and if she was lucky, in return for all that, Rick took her out for the odd meal whenever he returned to London. Maggie excused him on the grounds that when he did return home he was too tired to want to do anything other than mooch around the flat, sleeping and working.
Was it any wonder that men rode roughshod over the female sex when women were so weak with them? Well, no man would ever do that to her! If she ever married … Startled, Jenna stared unseeingly through her office window. If she married? But, of course, she wasn’t going to! All that male pressure was beginning to get to her, she reflected, dismissing her thoughts and turning her attention back to Maggie.
‘It’s okay, I know you’re under a lot of pressure at the moment,’ her secretary smiled, accepting the apology. Many of her peers flatly refused to work for a woman boss, saying that they were far worse than men. Men could be coaxed and flattered into giving way if need be, women could not. They were notorious for refusing to give their own sex a hand up the career ladder, but Maggie had never once regretted her decision to come and work for Jenna. For one thing the work itself was fascinating, and Jenna often gave her the opportunity to exercise her own judgement, praising and encouraging her when she did so. It was unlike her to be snappy.
Maggie frowned and wished she could find a way to put her fears over to Jenna without making any direct accusations. Over the last few months she had seen how Richard Hollis had taken on contracts that were not always as financially sound as they might be. He was a very ambitious young man, though Jenna did not seem to see that, perhaps because in her presence he was always obsequious and obedient. Maggie, however, had seen a different side of him. When Jenna was away, Richard enjoyed ruling the roost. Short with mousy-brown hair, he was not the sort of man who made an impression at first sight, and perhaps because of that, Maggie sensed in him a driving ambition that he kept in check when Jenna was around.
Maggie was well aware of Jenna’s contempt for and dislike of the male sex. There were men Jenna respected, businessmen, but for their professionalism, not their maleness. Maggie had heard one or two sneering remarks Richard had made behind Jenna’s back which made her suspect that he wouldn’t always be content merely to be Jenna’s assistant. Not that there was anything wrong with that … but it was the way he hid his ambition and his feelings from Jenna, assuming a deference Maggie suspected he did not really feel, that alarmed her. Accounting was not Jenna’s strong point, but surely in time she would realise that they were taking on more and more unprofitable contracts and would trace them back to Richard. Resolving that it was probably better to say nothing, Maggie picked up the diary.
‘You haven’t got any appointments today, but there’s a cocktail party tonight at the Billingtons’ — Margery Billington wants to show off her new décor.’
Jenna groaned. ‘Dear God, that’s all I need!’ She chewed her bottom lip, thinking rapidly. Could she get out of the party? She certainly didn’t want to go. She had promised herself that tonight she would talk to Lucy, but the Billington contract had been an extremely profitable one. Margery