A Perfect Night. PENNY JORDAN
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it was one of a pair and ideally suited to his requirements. Guy had been right about that, it was exactly what he wanted even if the price was a little on the high side—not that that was a prime consideration for him—it was easily within his price range.
He had phoned Charlotte to tell her about it and she was going to travel to Haslewich from Manchester today after her classes had finished in order that she could see it. He had given her directions so that she could get a cab there and find it, and had arranged a time to meet. Afterwards he had promised to take her out for dinner.
One of the reasons Sandra had been so comfortable about accepting George’s overseas posting had been because they had known that the live-in, sixth form private college where Charlotte was studying, which specialised in her chosen subjects—and where she had begged her parents to be allowed to go—placed a huge priority on its students’ welfare and safety. It had been agreed that she could go, but only after a long, reassuring discussion with the school’s principal about the precautions they took to supervise the students and ensure their safety. Charlotte would, also, have the benefit of members of her father’s close-knit family on hand to turn to should she ever need to do so.
That of course had been before Seb himself had been headhunted by Aarlston-Becker and everything seemed to fall into place for him to be near his daughter.
Reaching for the telephone he punched in the numbers of the selling agents to confirm the appointment he had made to re-view the property this evening with Charlotte and to tell them that he was prepared to offer the full asking price.
The next stage of the purchase would involve him finding himself a solicitor and once again he suspected he would be wise to accept Guy’s advice and instruct Jon Crighton to act for him.
Katie glanced at her watch. Time for her to leave if she was to meet the agent on time. Tidying up her desk she reached for her mobile phone, popping it into her bag. They were having a spell of good weather with long sunshiny days and high temperatures, which made the wearing of traditional formal office clothes too heavy and uncomfortable.
Instead, aided and abetted by her mother and her cousin, Katie had paid a visit to Chester, which she had combined with a brief but very enjoyable lunch with Luke Crighton’s wife, Bobbie, and a whirlwind shopping trip that had resulted in the purchase of what she had complained to her mother was virtually a completely new wardrobe.
She had felt even more guilty about the extravagance of her purchases when her mother had insisted ‘these are my treat, Katie.’
Now though, as the elegant cut of the smart black linen mix, button-back dress swirled softly round her legs, she had to admit that she was glad she had allowed herself to be persuaded. The dress was smart enough for the office without being too stuffy or formal. She had also bought a complementary jacket to go with it, and a couple of wrap skirts which could also be worn with the jacket in addition to one of several tops in matching tones.
It had been a long time since she had had any new clothes. Although her work for the charity had not involved working at the front line, she had nevertheless been conscious of the fact that a huge discrepancy existed between her comfortably affluent Western lifestyle and those of the people they were trying to help, and besides…
She could feel the back of her throat starting to tighten with emotion. What had been the point in making herself look attractive, and allowing herself to feel womanly and sensual when she already knew that the man she wanted to be those things for would not and could not ever be hers?
Perhaps it was one of those ironic twists of their twinship that her own unrequited love for Louise’s husband Gareth should echo the love Louise had once had for a married man. But then Louise had found love with Gareth and although Katie doubted that she would ever find a man to match him, she knew, too, that for her own inner peace and happiness she had to find a way of moving her life forward and of leaving that love behind.
Katie walked towards the window of her small office and stared out into the busy town square. To one side of it stood the church and running parallel to it but outside her view was a prettily elegant close of Georgian houses where her father’s aunt, Ruth, lived with her American husband, Grant, whenever they were over in England.
The other three sides of the square were filled with a jumble of mixed-era buildings, Tudor wattle-and-daub cheek by jowl with Georgian town houses. The square itself had, thanks to the determination of its townspeople, retained much of its original medieval aura even if the stocks were now purely decorative and the original well had been turned into an ornamental fountain.
As young girls she and Louise used to call to see their father on their way home from school, specifically on ‘pocket-money’ days, hoping that he might be persuaded to add a little extra to the permitted allowance. They had giggled over the boys as they sat side by side beneath the trees on the bench donated by past worthy citizens. Together they had visited Aunt Ruth and helped her with her innovative displays of church flowers. Together they had attended regulation church services. Together they had cycled through the square to the small antique shop their mother had once half owned with Guy Cooke. Together…
As twins they had always been close, even though temperamentally they were in many ways so very different. Together they had gone to university and it had been there that they had both met Gareth Simmonds who had been one of the course lecturers.
Gareth with whom she had fallen quietly and idealistically in love…
Gareth who epitomised everything she had ever wanted in a man…Gareth who was so kind, so calm, so gentle and perceptive…Gareth who loved her sister, her twin…Gareth who could never be hers…
The view below her wavered and swam as her eyes filled with tears. Quickly she blinked them away. She had promised herself when Louise and Gareth married that she would find a way to stop loving him, that she would make herself accept him simply as her brother-in-law, as her beloved twin’s husband, but every time she saw him the ache of loneliness and pain she felt at seeing the two of them so happy together was still there. She knew that Louise was hurt by her rejection of her constant invitations to go and stay with them, and she knew, too, that the gulf that was developing between the two of them disturbed her parents, especially her mother, but what could she do? What could she say? There was no way she could admit what the real problem was. And now there was the additional pain of seeing Louise with her new baby—hers and Gareth’s child.
A small bitter smile twisted the softness of her mouth. Was she destined always to be wanted by men who were already committed to someone else; to always be ‘second best’? She knew that Gareth would never approach her with a view to an illicit affair the way her ex-boss had done. He loved Louise far too much for that. He was so totally unaware of Katie’s own anguished feelings that it seemed to her, in her present state of low self-esteem and self-respect, that it was almost as though she didn’t deserve to be loved or treated well, that something about her actively encouraged men to think they could treat her badly.
No man would ever have suggested to her twin that she should have a seedy, hole-in-the-corner sexual relationship with him. No man would dream of suggesting it to any of her female cousins either, she was sure of it. Even Maddy, her brother Max’s wife, who had always been regarded as the most downtrodden and to-be-pitied member of the family because of Max’s appalling uncaring behaviour towards her, had turned out far stronger and determined than any of them could ever have imagined. Look at the way she had taken control of their marriage and of Max following his return home after his attack.
At last year’s wedding of Bobbie’s twin sister, Samantha, all the family had remarked on how much of an adoring husband and father Max had become. He was even taking on his full share of parenting following the birth of their third child, another little boy, so that Maddy could continue with her work for the charity Aunt Ruth had originally set up. Once, the very idea of Max changing nappies and bathing babies would have been a total impossibility, but now…
So what was it about her that denied her the emotional happiness and support all the other Crighton women, both by birth and marriage, seemed to expect and get as their birthright? Sometimes she felt as though there was something about her that