Stronger Than Yearning. PENNY JORDAN
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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