A Reason For Marriage. PENNY JORDAN
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it were more than that, what if… Panic and dread clutched her heart at the thought of anything happening to her stepfather, if he was more seriously ill than she was being told and something should happen to him. She knew that she would never forgive herself if Mark died without her having seen him.
Even so the situation was an impossible one. If only Jake did not live so close to Queensmeade. Because he had taken over the running of the factory he was constantly in and out of Queensmeade discussing business with his father, and unless she knew specifically that he was going to be away she had purposely not gone home, unable to bear the thought of facing him in the place where she had once known such foolish joy.
How typical it was of Jake’s arrogance that he should expect her to put the past calmly behind her and behave as though nothing had happened. If Wanda hadn’t opened her eyes to the truth she would have been married to him and it would have been too late. They had planned to tell Mark and her mother how they felt about one another on their return from holiday. Jake had been talking about a Christmas wedding. How naïve she had been to think he actually loved her, and how clever he had been to keep her in the dark as to his real feelings.
What hurt her most was not that she had loved him, but that she had trusted him as well, had looked up to him and adored him all through their childhood—and been too bedazzled by the wonder of this demigod, whom she had worshipped all her life, actually loving her, to have the wit to question the reality of an experienced and very male man in his mid-twenties falling passionately in love with an inexperienced teenager he had known all his life.
But if Wanda had not told her would she have been any better off? she wondered cynically, dodging down into the underground. She enjoyed her work—when she was working—but the PR side of the business, so necessary to keep commissions rolling in, was something she preferred to leave to Ralph. Wouldn’t she have been equally content to run the business as a small and probably only marginally profitable sideline, occupying most of her time as Jake’s wife and the mother of his children?
She was not ambitious and never had been, which did not mean that she thought of herself as in any way inferior or subservient to any man. Her mother had shown her that it was possible for a woman to be all those things that were ‘feminine’ and yet to retain her independence and self-worth at the same time. She had seen for herself that for all his wealth and power Mark was as dependent on her mother as she was on him, perhaps more so. Any emotions one felt for another human being to some extent made one vulnerable, dependent. Some of her female acquaintances would have a field-day if they could read her mind, she thought wryly, as she stepped off the train and joined the surge of fellow commuters pressing up the escalators.
The wind had picked up since she had left the office and it whipped icily at her exposed ankles as she hurried towards her small Victorian house. She had bought it with the small amount of money her father had left her, when it had been in a dilapidated and very run-down state. Now five years later it was an undeniable advertisement for the company’s work.
She let herself into the small hall and snapped on the lights. The plain French-blue carpet soothed her eyes, the soft butter-yellow dragged walls banishing the cold dampness of the November night.
Because the house was small she had opted for the same colour-scheme throughout, taking advantage of her knowledge of all the different paint finishes to achieve contrasting effects in each room.
As always, the first thing she did when she got home was to go upstairs to her bedroom, to shed the formality of her coolly efficient business suit.
Like the rest of the house the room was decorated in yellows, and French-blues, but in this room the yellow was toned down to buttermilk, the creamy glazed cotton fabric that covered the bed and windows sprigged with small flowers. Draped curtains hung from a circlet in the ceiling to frame the bedhead, both curtains and bedspread edged in a plain blue fabric that matched the carpet exactly. Jamie had spent weeks hunting for that particular shade of blue, and she was very pleased with the effect, although she knew her bedroom hinted at a more frivolous and feminine personality than most people thought she had.
On one wall, fitted wardrobes were cleverly concealed by panels covered in the floral fabric, the wall-lights casting a warm golden glow on the room.
The house only had two bedrooms but each had its own bathroom. Jamie had opted for plain golds and yellows in hers to tone in with her bedroom, while the guestroom had a rather more ambitious traditional Victorian brass and mahogany decor that suited the high-ceilinged room.
Her evening ritual was always the same, and it struck her as she took off her clothes and quickly showered that she was becoming set in her ways, old-maidish almost. Shrugging the thought aside—she had no desire to marry—she dried herself and dressed again in a bright green tracksuit.
Downstairs in the kitchen she prepared herself a snack of scrambled eggs and a mug of coffee, taking it on a tray into the small study-cum-sitting-room at the back of the house.
Curling up into a comfortable easy chair, she ate her supper, absently watching television.
It was only here in her own domain that she was able to relax, but even here she didn’t feel as safe as she once had. Safe? The thought made her frown. What on earth was she frightened of? Jake? There was no need, surely. All right, so he was forcing her to go home for Christmas, but not for his benefit. Jake had no desire for her company. She had nothing to fear from him in either the emotional or the sexual sense because she already knew he didn’t want her.
No, what she had to fear was herself, she acknowledged wryly. That and her dread that she would not be able to keep her feelings for him to herself if she was forced into his company too often. That was the real reason she could not go home, it had nothing to do with resentment or dislike, and everything to do with the fact that no matter how much she tried, she simply could not dislodge him from her heart.
She was just on the point of deciding she would have an early night when the front doorbell rang.
Since she was not expecting anyone she frowned, a mental image of Jake flashing through her brain, as though somehow by thinking about him she had conjured him up outside her door.
Only it wasn’t Jake who faced her when she opened the door. It was Amanda, and she barely had time to recognise her sharp disappointment before the younger girl erupted into a frantic plea to be allowed to come in.
As she automatically stepped back, Jamie’s eyes widened as she took in the girl’s soaking jeans and jacket. Her blonde hair was plastered to her skull. Remembering her suggestion that she come and visit her while she and her mother were shopping, for a moment Jamie was nonplussed by the younger girl’s appearance. From what she had learned of Amanda’s parents, she didn’t think her mother was the sort of woman who would take her daughter out shopping dressed in faded jeans and an old anorak.
‘I had to come. There wasn’t anywhere else.’ A shiver interrupted the frantic high-pitched words, and Jamie felt her initial astonishment harden into sharp unease. Now that she looked more closely she saw that Amanda was close to hysteria, alternately shivering and crying.
Gently she led her into the study, sitting her down by the fire while she went upstairs to get clean warm towels.
‘Dry your hair and get out of those wet things,’ she instructed calmly, handing her a towelling robe and the towels. ‘I’ll go and make us both a cup of coffee.’
By the time she came back with the two mugs, Amanda was huddled in front of the fire in the robe. As she handed her her coffee Jamie saw how her fingers trembled. She had lost weight too, she thought, studying her, and there was a tension in her blue eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘I take it that you aren’t in London shopping with your mother,’ she said wryly, sitting down opposite her.
Amanda shot her a look of guilty despair before shaking her head. ‘No. I’ve…I’ve left home.’
Left home! Why on earth should she be so surprised? Jamie wondered ironically. She ought to have guessed the moment she opened the door to her.
‘I