Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN
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get your mother and me a drink?’ she heard Ruth instructing her younger son. ‘It’s given them a bad shock,’ Ruth told Jenny when they had gone.
As they walked into the waiting room, Jenny automatically looked for Jon. He was at the other side of the room with Olivia and Tiggy and hadn’t seen her walk in. Tiggy was crying and Jon had his arm around her. Gravely Jenny watched them.
‘It’s Livvy I feel the most sorry for,’ Ruth announced unexpectedly. ‘If she’s not careful, she’s going to find herself turning into a leaning post for Tiggy.’
‘You stay here with Ruth while I go and have a word with your father,’ Jenny instructed Joss when he came back in, carefully carrying their coffee.
Jon still looked as though he was in shock, Jenny noted as she reached him and saw the way he was barely able to focus on her, even recognise her, his face almost a total blank.
‘Is there any news yet?’ she asked him anxiously. It was Olivia who answered her.
‘No, nothing concrete. They’ve confirmed that Dad’s had a heart attack but as yet they don’t know …’
She put her hand over her mouth as her eyes started to fill with tears.
‘Come on now, take it easy. At least he’s still alive and he’s in the best place … safe hands …’
Olivia gave Saul a grateful look as he had obviously overheard Jenny’s question and come across to join them.
He had been marvellous on the way to the hospital, taking charge calmly and easily, even managing to stop her mother’s hysterics without betraying any of the disdain or disapproval she suspected that Caspar might have shown, and once they had got to the hospital he had dealt equally efficiently with everything there, even managing, Olivia noticed, to have a discreet word with one of the nurses to make sure that a professional eye was kept on Ben who, shockingly, seemed to have aged a decade in as many minutes, turning from a domineering, irascible patriarch into an almost frighteningly frail and vulnerable old man.
Just like the rest of the family, she had always known, of course, how much David meant to him and it made her heart ache with pity for him now to see the debilitating effect David’s heart attack had had on him.
Uncle Jon, too, looked equally devastated although in a different way. He had remained with her father right up until the specialist had arrived to examine him, and the moment he had walked into the waiting room, Tiggy had run over to him, flinging herself into his arms, demanding, ‘He’s not dead, is he? Tell me he’s not dead. I can’t live without him. I can’t …’
‘No. He’s not dead, Tiggy,’ Jon had reassured her.
No, David wasn’t dead, thank God. Thank God. No doubt it was the shock of seeing his brother collapse in front of him—his fear for him, his love—that was responsible for the feelings he was experiencing now. He had the oddest sense of somehow not really being a part of what was going on around him, of somehow having stepped outside himself, seeing himself as though his mind, his spirit, had somehow become detached from his body.
His movements, his behaviour, his words, were all automatic, instinctive. He was acting as he always had, as the dutiful, responsible brother.
He tried to put himself in his twin’s shoes, to imagine what it would be like if he were the one lying in the hospital bed. Would Jenny be weeping over him, distraught, inconsolable at the thought of losing him?
Or would she be looking at David and thinking … wishing …
He had watched them dancing together earlier, their bodies so close, Jenny’s head resting against David as he whispered in her ear. What had he been saying to her?
Jon had never been under any illusions about Jenny’s reason for marrying him. If it hadn’t been for the baby … And he, after all, had been the one to insist that they did get married. He couldn’t blame Jenny for that. He had known all along, too, how she had felt about David. Had known how almost relieved his father had been when he announced that he and Jenny were getting married and he had discovered why. Once married to him, Jenny could not pose any threat to the future Ben had planned for David. There had been the expected stern parental lecture, of course, about the fact that Jenny was pregnant and he had sat stoically through it, speaking only once to defend Jenny and to remind his father that creating a new life took two people and not just one.
He had seen the relief in Jenny’s eyes when David had written to say that he couldn’t make it home to attend the wedding and then naïvely he had taken that to mean that Jenny hadn’t wanted David there; that she no longer wanted him in her life.
He knew that Jenny had tried very hard to make their marriage work just as he had done himself; that she had been a good wife and was an even better mother—that could never be called into question—but he had seen the look in her eyes earlier in the evening, watching her as she stood in front of the bedroom mirror studying her reflection, not realising that he was there.
Her face had looked unfamiliarly flushed, her lips half-parted, her eyes shining with … with what? Expectation … excitement … because she had known even then that David …?
It had shocked and disturbed him to see her looking so different … so … so … desirable and … feminine. She had not looked like the Jenny he was familiar with and an odd sensation had gripped his chest as he realised the trouble she had taken with her appearance; revealing herself as a serenely sensual and feminine woman had not been done for his sake. Never once in all the years they had been married could he ever remember Jenny taking the trouble to dress like that for him.
And there had been no doubt that David had been impressed, and not just David. Jon wasn’t blind. He had seen the way the male guests had looked at Jenny, a quick, startled frown of semi-recognition followed by a much longer and far more sexually appraising study of her feminine attributes.
What had David been saying to Jenny whilst they danced? Had he been telling her how attractive she was, reminding her that the two of them once …? And what had Jenny felt, or did he really need to ask himself? As a teenager Jenny had loved David even if she had sturdily dismissed her feelings as a mere teenage crush when she had accepted his proposal of marriage.
David was his brother, his twin brother, and he had been raised from childhood in the belief that that relationship created a closeness between them, a bond formed on his part by unquestioning love and loyalty and on David’s by a careless affection that must come before everything else and everyone else in his life.
David might now be dying, but all he could see in his mind’s eye was not his brother’s stricken face as he collapsed, but his brother as he danced with Jenny.
Of course he wanted David to live. Of course he did. So why did he feel this hollowness inside, this emptiness, this almost complete and total lack of emotion?
Tiggy was still crying and trembling. Automatically his arm tightened protectively around her. Here at least was someone whose feelings were not tainted, whose sole concern was for David. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Jenny, to see what she was feeling, to read what was in her eyes, just in case …
Jack still had his arm around his mother whilst she clung weepily to him, Olivia noticed. She would have liked the support and comfort of Caspar’s arms around her right now, she reflected, but he’d stayed behind, probably seeking out Hillary for company and support.
‘Try not to worry. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can.’ Saul gave Olivia’s hand a comforting squeeze as he picked up on her tense anxiety.
The waiting-room door swung open and the specialist walked in. He looked tired and grave-eyed as he began to speak in an even graver voice.
‘David is out of immediate danger—for the moment. But …’ He paused and looked round the room, choosing his words carefully as he took in Tiggy’s tear-drenched, pale face and Jon’s equally tense, too rigid one. Ben was holding on to Hugh’s supporting arm whilst Ruth stood slightly behind him, Joss’s hand