Return Match. PENNY JORDAN
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Tara had found the solid male refuge a tiny part of herself had always secretly yearned for and been denied? It was impossible to give herself an answer.
Saul had been living at the house for five days when Fanny announced that she was spending the day in Winchester.
Lucy looked at her over her coffee cup. Both children had finished breakfast and were outside playing.
‘Do you want to take my car?’
Fanny shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right. Saul’s taking me.’
Slowly Lucy lowered her coffee cup, keeping her attention on it. As far as she was aware, Saul had not been down to the Dower House since that first visit, which must mean that Fanny had gone to see him. But without mentioning it to her?
Silly to feel hurt and yet she did. She and Fanny had always got on well together despite their very different temperaments, and never in a thousand years could she imagine Fanny deliberately deceiving her.
‘I wanted to talk to him about the children’s trusts.’
Numbly Lucy realised how defensive her stepmother sounded.
‘After all, Saul is the head of the family now, Lucy.’
The head of the family? What on earth was Fanny implying? Lucy knew how muddle-headed she could be, but surely she could not possibly believe that Saul owed them that sort of responsibility?
‘He was very kind and understanding,’ Fanny added. ‘And he’s taking me to see Mr Patterson, so that he can explain everything to me.’
‘But Fanny, he already has.’
Philip Patterson, the family solicitor, had visited them on several occasions, just before and then after George Martin’s death to explain at length the ramifications of his will and the trust he had set up for Oliver and Tara.
‘Yes, but he spoke to you, not me,’ Fanny said stubbornly.
Lucy frowned. ‘But Fanny, you were there with me …’
Across the table Fanny shrugged petulantly.
‘Well yes. But I was so upset about your father. I couldn’t take any of it in.’
There was a small silence while Lucy tried to assimilate her feeling of alienation and then Fanny said defiantly, ‘I know you don’t like Saul, Lucy, and that you resent him taking your father’s place, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to share your feelings.’
The unfairness of the criticism really hurt. So much so that for one awful moment she almost thought she might burst into tears. It was the unexpected direction from which the blow came rather than its weight, she told herself as she struggled to suppress the bleak desolation enveloping her. And Fanny was wrong; she did not dislike Saul.
‘Luckily Saul’s aware of how you feel about him. He told me he found you very anti when he came over that summer. I explained to him that it was quite natural really … what with you being aware that you couldn’t inherit and that he would. It was bound to make you resent him.’
Lucy opened her mouth and closed it quickly, swallowing back the hot words of denial springing to her lips. She was angry, more angry than she could remember being for a long time. How dare Fanny make such careless assumptions about her feelings and actions, and even worse how dare she pass them on to Saul as though they were fact! It seemed to be a long time before she had control of herself sufficiently to say calmly,
‘You’re quite wrong, Fanny. I neither resent nor dislike Saul.’ She wanted to explain to her stepmother her guilt over the past, but it was impossible to find the words, especially now when her anger still formed a hard lump in her throat.
An hour later, when Saul arrived, Lucy learned that the children were also included in the outing.
She didn’t go downstairs, unable to trust her own reactions if she were to come face to face with him now. One thing was clear though. She could not allow this ridiculous belief that she resented him for inheriting the house to stand. When she felt calmer she would have to go and see him and explain the truth. She had been horrified by Fanny’s careless revelation of what had been said, and the pride which had held her back from making an open apology for her foolishness all those years ago, when she realised he was not prepared to meet her equally openly, would have to be sacrificed to the truth. She was not going to allow him to go on thinking that she was stupid and small-minded enough to resent him owning the Manor.
From her own bedroom she heard the children racing about, doors slamming and then the expensive purr of Saul’s car as he drove away.
Standing by her bedroom window, watching the car disappearing down the drive, she was once again swept by acute desolation. Could it possibly be a delayed reaction to her father’s death? At the time she had been almost too busy to weep. And then there had been the shock of discovering that Oliver …
If anyone should resent Saul, it ought to be Oliver, but then in reality why should he? Her father had left Oliver more than well provided for, whereas Saul’s inheritance was more of a burden than an asset.
The sunny morning had turned dull, and by lunch time it had started to rain. Lucy spent the afternoon in the comfortable sitting-room-cum-study which she had made her own terrain, sewing labels on to Oliver’s new school clothes.
At half past four she heard the car, and although her body tensed, vibrating as though someone had touched a nerve, she made no move to get up.
The study door opened and she composed her face into a calm smile as she turned her head to the door.
But it was not Fanny and the children who came in, it was Saul. Her face felt as though it was caked in ice and about to crack, a violent tremor shuddering through her muscles.
Saul paused for a moment in the doorway, and her heart thudded as though suddenly struck a giant blow.
‘I startled you. I’m sorry. Fanny asked me to call in on my way home to tell you that she and the children won’t be back until after dinner. They ran into an old friend of your father’s in Winchester, Colonel Bishop, and he invited them back to dine with him.’
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