A Reason For Marriage

Pity the poor girl who did marry him, she thought acidly. He wouldn’t remain faithful for very long, especially not to a naïve nineteen-year-old.

Although she had not seen it when they made love, looking back now she recognised that there had always been an edge of constraint in the way he touched her, a faint holding back, which she suspected now came from the fact that he had doubtless found her inexperience something of a trial. At the time she had not been aware of this, giving herself to him with a blissful joy that recognised nothing other than the unbelievable fact that he loved her. The merest touch of his fingers against her skin had been enough to set her alight with pleasure and happiness, and in her innocence she had thought it was the same for him, that the reason he had made love to her was that like her, he simply couldn’t wait to consummate their love.

He had been very patient with her, very careful and gentle, but then why should he not have been, she thought bitterly now. It wouldn’t have served his purpose at all for him to have frightened her away, and of course, he had always had women like Wanda to turn to for the satisfaction she didn’t give him.

With a sudden shiver, she turned away from the window, achingly aware that her thoughts were careering off down a very dangerous path. She had put the past behind her, and that was where it was going to stay. Although in Jake’s arms, she had quivered with pleasure and ached for his touch, none of the men she had casually dated in the years that had intervened had aroused the slightest sexual interest in her. It was as though that part of her was frozen—or simply no longer existed, she thought wryly—but then what was sex after all other than simply another appetite? Did anyone waste time bemoaning the fact that they didn’t long for food? Just as some people could get along with merely a couple of hours’ sleep a night, while others needed eight hours, so she could live without sex. It was as simple and basic as that.

Maybe, a small inner voice criticised, but what about love? Love? Her mouth trembled and then firmed. What was love after all? That delirious, dangerous emotion Jake had aroused in her? If so she was better off without it. But she wasn’t without it, she reminded herself; even the mere sound of Jake’s name on someone else’s lips was enough to make her muscles cramp and her pulses race. The reason she had avoided him so assiduously since she had run away was not that she loathed and hated him, but that she was terrified of betraying to his too-knowing gaze that she was still acutely vulnerable to him. Whilst he didn’t know how she felt about him she felt in some indefinable way safer, although why she didn’t know. After all, what difference would her feelings make to him? He had never attempted to get in touch with her, never tried to explain.

There had been a letter from him, arriving soon after he had received her note, but she had torn it up unread. Had he guessed then that she had lied when she claimed that she felt she was too young to marry and settle down? It had been little more than a sop to her pride, and she had no doubt that he had seen straight through it, but the very fact that he had made no attempt to see her or justify himself to her was surely proof of how right Wanda’s allegations had been.

And now tomorrow he was coming here—with his new girlfriend. Did she have the strength to face him? Did she have any choice? If she left now Beth was bound to speculate, and she had after all nothing to fear. No one in the family knew of that brief month of ecstasy he had given her before the lies and deceit caught up with him. No, only she and Jake knew about those evenings in his flat when she had lain in his arms and felt his hands against her skin, when he had told her that he had been waiting for her to grow up, waiting for her to see him as a man and not simply as a stepbrother.

It was dark now. How long had she been standing staring into space? She glanced at her watch. Almost an hour. Beth would be wondering what on earth she was doing.

At least she had been granted a few hours to prepare herself. She looked at the case she had dropped on the bed and went over to it, unsnapping the locks. She had come straight to Bristol after nothing more than a brief stop at her London flat, giving herself time only to shower and re-pack.

In New York she had had enough free time to do some shopping. With this visit in mind she had bought a sweater for Beth and a beautifully dressed rag-doll for her goddaughter.

She unpacked automatically, her movements deft with experience. In her case was the new Calvin Klein she had bought in New York. She had packed it on impulse, a handful of dark lavender silk jersey that looked nothing on the hanger but which moulded her body and picked out the unusual colour of her eyes. It was a sophisticated dress that only just fell short of meriting the description ‘sexy’. She would wear it tomorrow night, she decided grimly. Whatever her private feelings might be, she wanted Jake to be in no doubt at all that the old Jamie had gone. As she hung the dress up she thanked God for the experience that had taught her over the years exactly how to conduct a light-hearted flirtation without involving herself in anything more. If she knew her cousin, Beth would be providing her with a dinner partner; normally she would have been cool and distant with him, letting him know that she was not in the market for a one-night stand or anything else, but tomorrow…

She heard her cousin’s voice calling to her outside her bedroom door, and composing her face into an expression of cool serenity she went to open it.

‘Sarah’s awake now,’ Beth told her, holding up the blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby for Jamie’s closer inspection.

‘Heavens, she’s grown so much.’

After a few seconds’ solemn inspection the little girl deigned to smile.

‘It’s bath-time,’ Beth explained, glancing ruefully at her cousin’s immaculate skirt and cashmere jumper. ‘I’m sorry to be such a poor hostess. If you want to go downstairs…’

‘What I want to do,’ Jamie told her firmly, ‘is to help you give my goddaughter her bath. After all,’ she said more softly, touching her fingertips to the baby’s soft skin, ‘I am her godmother; which reminds me. I’ve brought a small present for her from New York.’

Firmly dismissing Jake from her mind Jamie held out her arms to take Sarah from her mother.

‘Come on,’ she said firmly to the little girl. ‘It’s time you and I got to know one another, young lady.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JAMIE, you’re an angel,’ Beth said breathlessly, standing back to admire the bowl of flowers Jamie had just placed on the dining-room table.

The long velvet curtains had been closed against the dark; Jamie pursed her lips slightly as she studied her arrangement.

‘With Sarah to look after I never get time for all the small details like flowers,’ Beth told her wryly. ‘Richard’s going to get quite a shock when he finds out what we’re having to eat. I’m afraid all I ever seem to manage is something simple. I really am grateful to you for everything you’ve done. But I feel terribly guilty. You’re supposed to be here to rest.’

‘I enjoyed it,’ Jamie told her truthfully. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been let loose in a kitchen.’

‘Of course, I was forgetting that your mother taught you to cook. It’s no wonder you’re so good.’

‘Adequate but not inspired,’ Jamie told her, shrugging off the compliment.

The dining-room of Beth and Richard’s new house was a pleasant size but the previous owners had been less than adventurous in their choice of decor. The walls and ceiling were painted cream, taking no advantage of the lovely high ceiling and the attractive cornice.

‘This room’s dreadfully dull,’ Beth commented critically, wrinkling her nose. ‘The whole house needs redecorating, but I just don’t know where to start.’

‘We’ll sit down tomorrow and talk about it together,’ Jamie promised.

‘There’s Richard,’ Beth exclaimed as they heard the front door open and shut.

‘I’d better go upstairs and get ready,’ Jamie told her, giving her cousin’s husband a warm smile as he came into the room. Rather like a cuddly round teddy bear to look at, she liked Richard, who she knew was a shrewd businessman who adored his wife and little girl.

Leaving them alone together she hurried upstairs. In an hour and a half Jake would be here. Already her heart was pounding unevenly. Her fingers shook as she opened her bedroom door. She wasn’t going to let seeing him affect her. She was going to be cool and indifferent to him. She had to be.

‘WOW, WHAT A stunning dress!’ Beth’s eyes opened wide as she studied her cousin’s appearance, enviously admiring the way the silk jersey clung to Jamie’s supple body. ‘How on earth do you manage to stay so slim?’ she complained ruefully. ‘I’m at least half a stone overweight.’

‘If you are that’s how I like you,’ Richard told his wife, coming into the kitchen behind Jamie, and going over to give Beth a quick kiss.

‘Mmm, something smells good.’

‘Well, you can thank Jamie. She’s taken charge of tonight’s meal,’ Beth told him.

Jamie knew there would be eight of them altogether: Jake and his girlfriend, the local doctor and his wife, and her brother, who was apparently staying with them following a road accident, Jamie herself and Beth and Richard.

Beth had been only vaguely informative on the subject of Ian Parsons, explaining that he was a geologist who worked abroad, who had been involved in a road accident which had killed his wife.

‘Ian was very badly injured, but he’s on his feet again now. The accident happened over eighteen months ago, and he’s been staying with Sue and Chris ever since. He’s rather quiet and withdrawn,’ she warned Jamie. ‘Sue says he blames himself for his wife’s death. They were on the verge of splitting up when it happened, and he thinks if they hadn’t been arguing, his wife would never have crashed the car.’

Jamie was in the kitchen checking on the seafood crêpes she had prepared for their first course when she heard the doorbell ring.

The kitchen door was open and she heard Beth opening the door, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickling atavistically as she recognised the deep male drawl that answered her cousin’s warm greeting. Jake had arrived!

She was glad that being in the kitchen meant that she didn’t need to go out and greet them. But then wasn’t that why she had offered to make the meal? She might be able to deceive others, but she couldn’t deceive herself.

‘Something smells good,’ she heard Jake say, unconsciously repeating Richard’s comment. She had forgotten that velvet, teasing quality his voice could take on. Her body was a mass of pain and she had an intense desire to open the back door and run.

Almost as though Beth had sensed it, the kitchen door was pushed open and her muscles tensed, knowing she had only seconds to prepare her defences.

All four of them walked into the room. She had her back to them as she pretended all her concentration was on what she was cooking, but in reality all she was aware of was Jake. She could almost smell the faint scent of his body, she thought feverishly, knowing by some sixth sense that he was the one standing closest to her. She had to turn round and face him.

‘Jake.’ Her smile was the perfect social widening of lips that signified politeness rather than pleasure. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’

She didn’t hold her hand out to him, but gripped the spoon she was using.

He was like a force field, she thought achingly as she willed herself to meet the cool cynicism of his eyes; drawing all the energy and resistance out of her. The last time she had seen him had been at Sarah’s christening, but then she made only a lightning appearance, leaving before the party afterwards with the excuse that she was due to fly to the States. Then she had had weeks to prepare herself, weeks to teach her senses to register his presence and then ignore it.

All at once she felt terribly hot and shaky. The green eyes narrowed, his glance moving slowly and thoughtfully over the silky fabric that clung to her breasts and hips.

‘Doesn’t Jamie look lovely?’

Even Beth seemed to be affected by the tension invading the kitchen, her voice high and slightly breathless.

Without taking his eyes off her Jake said coolly, ‘She’s too thin.’

He was talking about her as though she were completely incapable of emotions and feelings, and it hurt so badly she felt as though she were being ripped apart.

She mustn’t let him get to her like this. Jake had always enjoyed dominating and dictating to her, she knew that, and he would enjoy doing it again, simply for the pleasure of humiliating her. She couldn’t let it happen. She took a deep breath, reminding herself wryly that she was now a sophisticated businesswoman, not a mutely adoring child, and putting down the spoon she turned towards the pretty blonde girl hovering uncertainly between Jake and Beth.

‘No one seems to be going to introduce us,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Jamie, and I know you must be Amanda.’

The girl, and that was exactly what she was, Jamie thought noting the clear skin and childishly rounded face, smiled back guilelessly.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, I’ve heard such a lot about you from your mother and Jake’s father.’

Pain, unexpected and devastating, gripped Jamie. When Beth had talked about Jake settling down she had not really believed her, but it was obvious that Jake must have taken Amanda with him to Queensmeade.

‘They’re both so proud of you,’ the slightly breathless voice continued, strengthening a little as she added, ‘I envy you. I’d love to do something as exciting as you do.’ She made a small moue. ‘My father wouldn’t even let me go to university. He said it was taking a place from someone else, and that I would never need to work.’ Amanda sighed, her blue eyes faintly shadowed, and against her will Jamie felt drawn to her.

The doorbell rang again, and Jamie turned back to the cooker, as Beth shepherded everyone back into the hall.

It was over and she had survived, but she couldn’t relax. Her nerves were coiled into tight knots of pain.

She heard the kitchen door open again and said shakily, ‘Beth, I’m afraid I have the most awful headache, would you watch the veg for me, while I run upstairs for a codeine?’

‘Beth’s busily organising everyone with drinks.’ The laconic careless words weren’t important. What was, was that Jake was here in the kitchen with her. For a moment she stood like a petrified creature, knowing that danger lurked, but too wrought up to know in what direction it might come.

‘She sent me in to ask what you wanted.’

A faint grimness underlined the words.

Oh, Beth, Jamie thought unhappily. You’re meddling in something you don’t understand.

‘I think she feels that since we’re both Sarah’s godparents, we ought to be able to get on better together.’

Thank God she had the excuse of watching the dinner to prevent her from turning round to look at him.

He ignored her comment and said flatly instead, ‘Mark’s worried about you. You know he’s not well?’

‘Yes.’ Thank goodness she had the excuse of her worry for her stepfather to excuse the tremor in her voice. ‘Beth told me last night. How serious is it, Jake?’

She had to turn round to face him now, but almost flinched back as she saw the anger and contempt icing his eyes.

‘Much you care,’ he told her cuttingly. ‘How long is it since you’ve been to see them, Jamie? A year, eighteen months?’

‘I’ve been busy, I…’

‘Rubbish!’ His fingers bit into her arms as he grabbed hold of her, catching her off guard. ‘You haven’t come home because you can’t bear to see me, isn’t that closer to the truth?’

She felt she was going to choke on the pain, at the humiliation of his knowing how she felt about him, but as she looked into his eyes, it was anger she saw there and not mocking contempt.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.

‘You’re being ridiculous, Jake,’ she told him evenly.

‘Am I? Prove it,’ he challenged harshly. ‘Come home for Christmas.’

The refusal rose to her lips but could not be uttered. It was six years since she had spent a Christmas at home. Six years. How she had loved their family Christmases.

‘For once in your life stop being so damned selfish and put someone else first,’ Jake demanded harshly. ‘My father’s a sick man, Jamie, he misses you.’

Blankly she looked into his face. His mouth was hard and compressed, his eyes shadowed. His hair, thick and densely black, looked as though it needed cutting. He looked tired, she recognised, momentarily stepping outside the magnetism that always held her so much in thrall and seeing him simply as another vulnerable human being. He had released her now and impulsively she wanted to reach out and touch him, to smooth away the frown creasing his forehead, and then bitterness overtook compassion. It was easy for him to condemn and criticise her. He would not have to endure the torture that would be hers if she went home, if she spent Christmas in the same house with him.

‘I…’

‘If it’s me you’re worried about,’ he told her with cold scorn, ‘then you needn’t be. Mandy will be there, so you needn’t worry that you might have to spend any time with me.’

‘I…’

‘Be there, Jamie,’ he warned her. ‘It isn’t me you’re punishing by staying away, you know.’ His eyes darkened with anger and contempt. ‘You might look the part of the sophisticated businesswoman,’ he told her curtly, ‘but inside you’re still a spoiled petulant child.’

She watched as he left the kitchen, her throat raw with suppressed tears. How dare he speak to her like that, accuse her? Dismiss the sheer cruelty of what he had done to her as though it were nothing? He knew why she had stayed away, why she could not endure to go back to the place where she had once been so deliriously happy, but he behaved as though she were acting on nothing more than a childish whim. Punish him? Nothing she could do could do that. Did he think she didn’t know it?

IT WAS AFTER they had finished dinner and the other guests had gone that Jake announced casually,

‘By the way, has Jamie told you that she’ll be coming with us to Queensmeade for Christmas this year?’

Across the space that divided them his eyes warned her against contradicting his statement. Beth was looking flushed and excited as she looked at them.

‘Aunt Margaret will be so pleased. Oh, Jamie, she has missed you so much. We’ll be going too, of course. You can always drive up with us if you don’t fancy taking your car. I know it’s two months away yet, but…’

‘Jamie will travel with me. I have to come down to London to pick Mandy up anyway.’

In other words she wasn’t going to get the opportunity to make any last-minute bid for escape, Jamie thought bitterly, avoiding looking at him.

Mandy was sitting next to her and a pleased smile curved her mouth as she listened to Jake.

‘I’m so pleased you’ll be coming too,’ she whispered to Jamie. ‘Jake can be so severe at times.’ She pulled a slight face, and then coloured as she saw Jamie’s surprised expression. ‘My father’s a very wealthy man, he doesn’t consider that women can handle their financial affairs—he’s old-fashioned like that. He wants me to get married and he seems to have picked on Jake as the ideal candidate. I don’t suppose I should be telling you this.’

Jamie saw the slightly nervous glance she gave towards Jake who was talking to Richard.

‘I like Jake, but he’s very formidable, isn’t he? Sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t even know I’m there. And he doesn’t love me.’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ Jamie said bracingly. She felt as though she had strayed into some macabre form of sick joke. Why on earth had Mandy chosen her to confide in? She looked into the younger girl’s face and saw that she still looked uncertain.

‘Jake wants to get married, he wants a son, a grandchild for his father, I think, and… Well, it’s just that he’s so very hard to argue with, isn’t he?’

Oh yes, he was that all right, Jamie acknowledged to herself. Jake could be bitterly determined and stubborn when someone opposed him, and she could see how easily this young and rather diffident girl could be overwhelmed by him, especially if the marriage was something her parents approved of as well.

‘I don’t feel I’m mature enough to get married yet,’ she confided to Jamie. ‘I want to do something with my life, I don’t know what yet, but I know it isn’t marriage. Of course at first I was flattered when Jake showed an interest in me, but he doesn’t want me really.

‘I’m going to London Christmas shopping with Mummy next week. Could I come and see you? I don’t have anyone I can talk to, and you are Jake’s stepsister. You must know him very well.’

Well enough to know that this child wouldn’t be able to withstand Jake if he turned the full force of his will and personality against her. Her common sense told her not to get involved, that it would only lead to further heartache for her. She had no wish to hear Mandy’s girlish confidences but as she looked into the girl’s agonised blue eyes she felt herself waver, and the next second she was writing down her address and telephone number, whilst at the same time wondering what on earth she was doing.

‘YOU AND MANDY seemed to be getting on very well. What do you think of her?’

Jamie hadn’t needed to look over her shoulder to know that Jake was standing just behind her. That delicate personal radar that worked every time he came anywhere near her had already warned her.

She glanced across the room to where Mandy was talking to Beth before replying.

‘I think she’s charming,’ she said shortly at last.

‘The inference being far too charming for me, I take it.’

She could tell without looking at him that his mouth had twisted slightly just as she could hear the mocking amusement in his voice.

‘Too charming. Too innocent, and far, far too vulnerable, Jake,’ she said as coldly as she could. ‘But then I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you any of that. What does worry me a little is that she’s also intelligent. What will you do when she discovers it, I wonder?’

‘Bitch.’ The insult was laconic, without heat or emotion. ‘Still living alone, are you?’

The question was careless and uncaring, flicking her on the raw as it underlined the solitariness of her life.

‘That’s the way I prefer it,’ she told him coldly.

‘Still the ambitious career-woman. I thought it might have palled by now. Strange how I never realised all the time you were growing up that you had such a strong streak of ambition.’

‘Why should you? I certainly never recognised a good many very obvious traits in you.’

He moved in front of her, frowning at the biting contempt in her voice.

‘Such as?’ he invited softly.

It was too much. She had already endured enough tonight, her head was pounding violently. He knew exactly what he’d done to her, so why make her say it? Did he enjoy tormenting her?

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She got up too quickly, his proximity to her suddenly claustrophobic. In her panic she tried to push past him and found that his body blocked the way. Closing her eyes against the onslaught of pain in her head she swayed dangerously and put out a hand to save herself. Everything was whirling madly out of control, the only point of reality in her disordered world the sure, firm sound of Jake’s voice, and she clung to it like a drowning man to a life-raft, willingly letting herself sag against his body as she felt his arms go round her and her mind abandon her completely.

Dimly she was conscious of being picked up, of being carried, of Jake’s suddenly increased heartbeat. She could hear Beth asking anxious questions, and Jake’s reassuringly measured reply.

‘Don’t worry, she always did push herself too hard. It’s probably just jet-lag catching up on her. Which is her room Beth?’