Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘I knew I should have gone to England,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Bobbie never did have much of a stomach for fighting dirty.’

It was she who had masterminded the plan they were now putting into action, she who had been the driving force behind it, and unlike Bobbie, she who knew she would never have fallen into the trap of ‘liking’ those cussed and accursed Crightons, as the twins had grown into the habit of calling them when they had inadvertently stumbled on the secret that their mother had found so shameful that she hadn’t wanted them to know about.

It had been their grandfather in the end who had answered their questions. And even now, although they were adult and had known the story for many years, their mother still did not like to talk about it or hear it mentioned because it still hurt her so much, all the more so, Samantha suspected, because of their father’s very distinguished and strait-laced Puritan ancestry.

Not that knowing the truth made their father love their mother any the less, nor did they, but it still hurt to see her vulnerable.

‘It’s not fair. Why should Mom be the only one to suffer?’ Samantha had demanded of Bobbie. ‘It wasn’t her fault. We should make them pay.’

‘But how can we?’ Bobbie had asked her.

‘I’ll think of a way,’ Samantha had promised.

And so she had ... or rather she had thought she had until Bobbie started to turn chicken-hearted.

If only she wasn’t committed to her college classes and her vow to make up for the time she had taken off to travel. Still, there was no point in regretting that now; she would just have to make sure that Bobbie didn’t weaken still further.

In Chester, Bobbie paced her bedroom unhappily. She just didn’t possess Sam’s fiercely stubborn determination and adherence to any cause she took on; she lacked her sister’s strength, she knew that. It wasn’t that she cared any the less about their mother. It was just...

Face it, she told herself sternly, you’re a coward. You just can’t abide any kind of fighting or confrontation. You’re a real scaredy-cat, she taunted herself.

But what was she so afraid of? Seeing the friendship and warmth in Olivia’s and Joss’s eyes turn to dislike and contempt when they discovered how devious and underhand she had been, or seeing the triumph in Luke’s when all his suspicions of her were confirmed?

CHAPTER FIVE

WHEN Olivia rang later in the day as she had promised she would, Bobbie took a deep breath and made a fervent mental plea that she was making the right decision as she confirmed that she wanted to accept her offer of a job.

‘You’ll do it! Oh, that’s wonderful!’ Olivia enthused, adding, ‘I was so afraid that you were going to say no.’

Bobbie bit her lip as she prayed that Olivia would never have cause to wish that she had refused whilst she listened to her explain the finer details of their arrangement.

‘Oh, and don’t worry about transport,’ she told Bobbie. ‘We’ll provide you with a car. You’ll certainly need one because we are rather isolated, I’m afraid.’

Well, at least that solved the problem of how she was going to explain away being able to afford the cost of a hire-car, Bobbie acknowledged as Olivia went on to detail the generous amount of time off she would be given plus the use of the car for her personal needs.

It was agreed that Olivia would pick her up at the hotel in the morning, but despite the other woman’s enthusiasm, Bobbie was not surprised to discover that her hand was shaking and her stomach churning with nauseous apprehension when she finally replaced the receiver.

Still, at least there was a positive advantage to leaving Chester—she would not be likely to see Luke Crighton again.

‘I’ve told Joss that you might be coming to work for us,’ Olivia had informed her. ‘He’s thrilled to bits!’

Bobbie spent the rest of the evening packing her things and trying to ignore the sad little voice of her conscience.

After all, how could she have faced her twin sister if she had refused such a golden opportunity? And, given the choice, she would much rather confront and deal with her own conscience than Sam’s ire!

‘Here we are, home safe and sound,’ Olivia announced with a smile as she drove in between the gateposts towards the pretty low-roofed brick building that was her home and that, as she had already explained to Bobbie, had originally been a small block of three farm workers’ cottages.

‘They came up for auction along with a couple of paddocks just before we got married. It was Luke who tipped us off about them. He knew it was exactly the kind of place we were looking for—something large enough in which to bring up a family and with a good bit of land, but nothing too grand or expensive.

‘For the first six months we owned it, the place was completely uninhabitable, and we were still virtually knee-deep in builders and decorators and the like when Amelia was born.’

‘It looks wonderful,’ Bobbie enthused as she gazed appreciatively at the neatly painted windows and the mellow warmth of the old bricks.

‘Come on,’ Olivia instructed her as she stopped the car. ‘Let’s go in. Caspar is dying for you to arrive.’

‘I hope I’m not going to let you down.’ Bobbie hesitated. ‘I ... I really don’t know that much about babies or small children.’

‘Neither did I until I had Amelia,’ Olivia confessed cheerfully. ‘She liked you,’ she added warmly. ‘I could see that, and quite frankly that’s much more important to me than a long string of qualifications. Mmm...I’m surprised that Caspar hasn’t come out to welcome you.’

Uncertainly, Bobbie followed Olivia as she led her, not to the prettily painted front door of the now-amalgamated cottages but around the side of the house and through a gate into a walled courtyard area and towards what Bobbie guessed must be the back door.

As Bobbie followed her through it into the kitchen, she heard Olivia exclaim, ‘Ruth! I didn’t realise you were here!’ Bobbie followed Olivia’s gaze and saw an elegantly dressed, serenely attractive woman whose still dark, well-styled hair made her look nothing like the age that Bobbie knew her to be.

If Ruth’s clothes and supple, slender body looked elegant, the pose she had adopted on the floor where she was obviously playing with Olivia’s baby daughter most certainly was not. Her carelessly sprawled body and the warm, rich uninhibited sound of her laughter surely belonged more to a girl in her late teens or early twenties rather than a woman of such maturity, Bobbie decided, her own body stiffening slightly in a mixture of wariness and covert disdain as Ruth scrambled to her feet, still laughing as she explained, ‘Caspar had to go out—an urgent meeting. He phoned and asked me if I could come over.’

‘Oh, Ruth, we impose on you far too much,’ Olivia apologised as she hugged her great-aunt warmly, ‘but not, I promise you, any more. This is Bobbie. She’s going to be looking after Amelia for us for a few weeks to give us time to find a more permanent nanny.’

If Ruth Crighton’s demeanour and body language seemed surprisingly youthful, then the look of extraordinary wisdom and kindness in her eyes told a very different story, Bobbie acknowledged, shaken by the unexpectedness of the emotions that overwhelmed her as Ruth held out her hand towards her. Her first instinct was to step back from her to avoid any kind of physical contact with her. But her mother had had an old-fashioned attitude towards teaching her children good manners and Bobbie found that she was automatically extending her own hand.

Ruth’s clasp was firm but feminine, the bones in her hand fine and delicate. Bobbie had to look away and blink frantically in case the sudden rush of tears to her eyes betrayed her. The feel of that elegantly shaped, long-fingered hand with its smooth, delicate, English-rose skin was almost unbearably familiar.

‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,’ she heard Ruth telling her warmly before adding, ‘Joss drew a most intriguing verbal picture of you.’

‘I suppose he told you that I was a giant.’ Bobbie smiled back, taking refuge from her own chaotic emotions in making a joke about her height.

‘Actually, no, he didn’t,’ Ruth denied. ‘He told me that you liked reading tombstones and that you were just the right height for Luke.’

To her own dismay, Bobbie realised that she was actually blushing.

‘He also said that you were American and that he liked you,’ Ruth added with another smile, tactfully ignoring Bobbie’s embarrassment.

American and he liked her or American but he liked her? Bobbie wondered as her self-consciousness subsided and she was unable to stop herself from asking dryly, ‘I see. Does that mean that normally the two aren’t found to be compatible?’

Ruth’s eyebrows rose, her fine eyes rather thoughtful as she studied Bobbie’s face. There was no doubt that the American was a vibrantly beautiful young woman. Ruth could see intelligence as well as pride in her expression, but even more intriguingly she could also see an unexpected hint of uncertainty and defensiveness.

‘Oh dear,’ Olivia broke in ruefully. ‘I suspect that must mean that Joss has been telling you tales about how certain members of the Crighton clan have in the past been chauvinistically anti-American. I can remember how shocked I was when Caspar told me that he’d heard about it, but that’s all in the past now, Bobbie,’ she said reassuringly. ‘If it ever really existed.’

‘There was a certain amount of local resentment and male jealousy of the American forces stationed here during the Second World War,’ Ruth supplied quietly, ‘but that was all a long time ago and I believe what ill feeling there may have been has been exaggerated into a bit of a shaggy-dog story.’

‘Mmm... Uncle Jon seems to feel that it was your father who first started the whole anti-American thing,’ Olivia commented. ‘Something about some argument he’d had with someone in authority on the American side...’

Bobbie wondered if she was being over-sensitive in thinking that Ruth hesitated just that little bit too long before replying and that her voice was not quite so naturally or warmly pitched as it had been before as she responded, ‘That may very well have been the case. Your great-grandfather had his own very decided views on things and he certainly wasn’t too happy with the way the Ministry had appropriated land—especially when it was his land—for war use and I believe there were certain quarrels and petty arguments over his belief that he still had a right to walk on what he considered to be his own land while the authorities viewed that he was trespassing on what was now military property.’

Olivia laughed and, as she bent down to scoop up her small daughter who was now beginning to object to the lack of adult attention, told Bobbie, ‘Well, you can rest assured, Bobbie, that Americans are more than welcome in this household. You will stay for lunch, won’t you?’ she turned to ask Ruth as the older woman started to straighten her skirt.

‘I wish I could, but it’s the Simmonds’ wedding this weekend and I promised I’d help with the flowers for the church today,’ Ruth answered, turning away from Olivia and smiling gently at Bobbie as she added, ‘It’s been lovely to meet you. Perhaps Olivia will bring you over to see me before you leave.’

‘Bring her over to see you... How formal.’ Olivia pulled a face.

Without waiting for Bobbie to reply, Ruth turned back to her small great-great-niece, her eyes alight with tenderness and love as she bent her head to kiss her.

‘Ruth is wonderful with children,’ Olivia told Bobbie ten minutes later after Ruth had driven off.

‘Yes ... yes, I can see that she is,’ Bobbie agreed flatly. The day had suddenly started to turn sour on her. She had the beginnings of what promised to be a very bad headache, and for the first time since she had come to Britain, she missed her twin so much that she positively ached with the pain of wanting her.

‘Bobbie, what is it? Are you feeling all right?’ Olivia asked her anxiously. ‘You weren’t upset by what we were saying about Americans, were you? It was thoughtless of me to bring it up. It’s just that you’re almost bound to meet Gramps and, well, depending on what kind of mood he’s in and how much his hip is paining him, he can be rather...tactless. He’s rather behind the times, I’m afraid, and his outlook is very blinkered. You’d never believe that he and Ruth are brother and sister. She’s so modern and so forward-thinking. I know that Gramps is older than her but sometimes you’d think he’s got stuck in some kind of time warp, whereas Ruth—’

‘You obviously think very highly of her,’ Bobbie commented abruptly.

Olivia gave her a thoughtful look.

‘Yes ... yes ... I do,’ she agreed gravely. ‘You see... Well, let’s just say that if it wasn’t for Ruth, I doubt very much that Caspar and I would be together today and I certainly wouldn’t have you, would I, my wonderful, precious, naughty little one?’ She smiled, hugging her gurgling daughter.

‘In many ways, Ruth and Jon’s wife, Jenny, have been the true mother figures in my life, the people I’ve turned to for help and advice and, yes, for the definition of myself as a woman. My own mother...’ She gave Bobbie a sad look. ‘It’s no secret and you’re bound to hear about it sooner or later, so I may as well tell you myself. My mother, Tania, suffered very badly from...from an eating disorder. So badly, in fact, that even now, although she’s in recovery, she still needs help.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Bobbie commiserated, genuinely moved to compassion, not just for Olivia but for her unknown mother, as well.

‘Yes, so am I,’ Olivia agreed, ‘which is just one of the reasons why I’m so determined that this tittle madam gets a very different kind of mothering.’

‘And your father?’ Bobbie asked hesitantly.

‘Who knows?’ Olivia returned dryly. ‘He ... he disappeared shortly after my mother became ilt—he’d been recovering from a heart attack in a nursing home and he just walked out. We’ve tried to find him but...’

‘And you’ve heard nothing from him?’ Bobbie asked her, shocked.

‘Two postcards, one from Italy and the other from South America, but we still haven’t been able to trace him.’ Olivia gave a small shrug.

‘As Amelia grows up, Jenny and Jon will be her maternal grandparents and Ruth... Ruth, I hope, will always be Amelia’s special person and be there for her as she was for me when I was a child and as she is now for Joss. She’s convinced that, of all of us, he’s the one who will fulfil all of Gramps’s ambitions, and she’s probably right. Mind you, Joss is going to have a long way to go before he matches Luke’s awesome courtroom manner,’ Olivia noted, smiling.

‘Yes. I can imagine,’ Bobbie agreed grimly. ‘He must be a ruthless prosecutor.’

‘Prosecutor!’ Olivia stared at her. ‘Oh, but Luke specialises in defence, didn’t he tell you? That’s his forte.’

‘Whom does he defend?’ Bobbie muttered cynically, trying not to betray her discomfort. ‘Murderers and rapists?’

She could see from Olivia’s expression that she had gone too far and inwardly cursed her runaway tongue’s impulsiveness.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised guiltily. ‘It’s just...’

‘It’s all right,’ Olivia assured her. ‘You don’t have to explain to me. Caspar and I had some pretty horrendous fights in our time.’

Whilst Bobbie stared at her, she added illuminatingly, ‘I’m afraid that Fenella wasn’t too discreet in giving vent to her feelings about discovering the pair of you together. I don’t intend to pry,’ she declared firmly. ‘But, well, let’s just say that it’s pretty obvious that there’s a certain something smouldering away between you, and my experience is that when something smoulders, sparks can fly,’ Olivia finished more light-heartedly.

Bobbie didn’t say a word. How could she? She was too busy trying to grapple with the latest complication in her life. She doubted that Luke would be too pleased at discovering that at least one member of his extended family and possibly others appeared to think that they were something of an ‘item’. Well, he only had himself to blame, and unpleasant though she might find the thought of being linked romantically to him, she at least would soon be walking away from the situation—and from him.

For now, though, she was caught in something of a cleft stick. She either allowed Olivia to continue thinking that there was some kind of romance going on between herself and Luke or she told her that there wasn’t and left her believing that she had simply spent the night with him. Of the two, the second option was certainly the more unpalatable, Bobbie acknowledged, and besides, she rather suspected that Luke would find it much more difficult to explain his way out of a supposed romance than to dismiss a mere one-night stand, and if he was busy doing that, he would surely have far less time to indulge his suspicions of her. In fact, the more Bobbie thought about it, the more advantages she could see in allowing the fiction that she and Luke were attracted to one another to continue.

For a start, it would allow her to be far more openly curious about Luke’s family background than she could allow herself to be as a mere substitute nanny and for another thing... Well, she admitted that she wouldn’t have been human if she wasn’t enjoying the prospect of seeing Luke wrong-footed and discomforted and she certainly knew exactly how he would feel at the idea of having her for a ‘girlfriend’.

And then another thought struck her.

‘I hope you didn’t offer me this job because...because of me and Luke,’ she asked Olivia uncomfortably.

‘Certainly not,’ Olivia reassured her immediately. ‘No, Caspar and I had already talked about approaching you on the night of the party. Which reminds me, could you hold Amelia for a moment, please, while I go and ring Caspar and find out what time he’s coming home?’

Left alone with her new charge, Bobbie smilingly returned the baby’s curious, round-eyed stare, enjoying the soft, warm feel of her in her arms, and instinctively started to talk to her.

When Olivia returned, Amelia was smiling hugely in Bobbie’s arms whilst Bobbie herself...

Some women just had a natural mothering instinct, Olivia believed, and Bobbie, whether she knew it yet or not, was definitely one of them.

Twenty-four hours later, even Bobbie herself was surprised at how easily she had fitted into the household. Caspar and Olivia treated her more as a friend than an employee, and as for Amelia...

She was delicious, Bobbie had happily and wholeheartedly told a grinning Caspar. Yummy, delicious, delectable and definitely the most intelligent and aware eight-month-old who had ever existed.

‘You’re almost as bad as Luke,’ Olivia teasingly scolded her later that evening. ‘He’s the most besotted godfather that ever was.’

‘And a far better choice than Saul would have been,’ Caspar chipped in, adding dryly, ‘He would have been more interested in making eyes at Amelia’s mother than at Amelia.’

‘Caspar!’ Olivia warned him.

‘Saul’s my father’s cousin,’ she explained to Bobbie. ‘You may have met him at the birthday party.’

‘He was the one Louise was desperately trying to impress,’ Caspar supplied helpfully, ‘but she’s wasting her time because Saul—’

‘Caspar...’ Olivia warned a little more firmly this time. ‘Saul’s much too old for Louise,’ she explained. ‘He’s well into his thirties now and Louise is only eighteen.’

‘He’s also getting divorced, has three children and is still half inclined to believe himself in love with you,’ Caspar interjected.

‘Saul was never in love with me,’ Olivia refuted firmly. ‘He may at one time have thought...felt... Oh, I’m sure Bobbie doesn’t want to hear all this ancient family history,’ she told her husband, then continued to explain to Bobbie, ‘As a teenager I did have a bit of a crush on Saul, and then when his marriage broke up and Caspar and I were estranged, Saul provided a welcome cousinly shoulder for me to cry on. His wife was an American, by the way. In fact, it’s rather ironic, given Gramps’s insistence on being so anti-American, that two of us have married across the Atlantic, as it were.’

‘If you ask me, a good deal of your grandfather’s antipathy towards us springs from Ruth’s mysterious relationship with her army major,’ Caspar conjectured.

‘Caspar, please,’ Olivia objected even more sternly this time, and good manners precluded Bobbie from asking any questions. Instead, Olivia tactfully changed the subject and talked about how Haslewich had developed as a town. Her enthusiasm was infectious, but she admitted her knowledge was limited.

‘If you really want to know more about its history, Ruth is the one to talk to. Which reminds me, I’ve got some books she loaned me and I really ought to get back to her. Could you possibly return them for me tomorrow, Bobbie, when you’re out with Amelia?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Bobbie agreed.

‘I’d take them back myself, after all she only lives a few minutes away from the office, but I’m in court in Chester tomorrow and possibly for the rest of the week, as well.’

‘Oh and, Cas, before I forget, we’ve all been summoned to Queensmead for lunch on Sunday. Apparently, Max is home and Gramps has issued a royal summons. You’re included, too,’ she told Bobbie, adding ruefully, ‘Not that it’s likely to be a particularly relaxing occasion, not with Max around.’

‘You’d have thought that marriage would have mellowed him a bit,’ Caspar grumbled.

‘The only thing that’s ever likely to mellow Max is a large helping of humble pie,’ Olivia responded forthrightly, ‘and he’s certainly not going to be fed that by Madeleine, who worships him.’

‘Mmm...I’ve noticed,’ Caspar agreed wryly. ‘Hardly a healthy foundation on which to base a marriage and it can’t but lead one to suspect that Max’s motivation for marrying her—’

‘Poor Madeleine,’ Olivia broke in, ‘I feel so sorry for her. She doesn’t work and she’s prepared to devote herself to Max and then to their children when they come along and, of course, she genuinely is a very lovable and kind-hearted person.

‘And although Luke doesn’t normally put in an appearance when he knows Max is going to be around, I suspect that we’ll be seeing him at Queensmead this Sunday,’ Olivia told Bobbie with a teasing smile.

Fortunately Amelia distracted them, freeing Bobbie from the necessity of making any reply, although she was uneasily aware that in refusing to correct Olivia’s misconception that she and Luke were romantically involved, she was potentially risking tangling with an unstable situation, but, she told herself firmly, it was Luke’s responsibility to tell his cousin exactly why he had virtually forced himself into her room, and not hers.

She was thinking about Luke again the following day as she wheeled Amelia through the sunshine and into Haslewich’s pretty town square on her way to return Ruth’s books. It was an unfathomable mystery to her how such a man—the type of man she would normally have sidestepped past with the same kind of politically correct disdain with which she would have avoided some offensively rabid right-winger spouting his views at a Washington dinner party—could have such a deep and profound impact on her at the deepest level of her emotional and physical self, especially when there was so much else that was far more important to occupy her thoughts. It must be because she disliked him that she was spending so much time thinking about him, she decided hastily, but the analytical and fiercely sharp streak of hard-hitting perseverance and brutal self-honesty she had inherited via her father from his Puritan forebears refused to allow her such an easy way out. If she disliked him so much, how come he had the kind of physical effect on her body and her female desires that she couldn’t remember having had so strongly or so bewilderingly activated since junior high?

So she was as vulnerable as the next woman to the kind of raw sexual energy that Luke positively exuded. So what? She knew otherwise perfectly sensible and intelligent women who went glassy-eyed over Brad Pitt and only admitted to it in the privacy of dark, sheltered wine bars after at least half a bottle of good wine.