Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

He was apparently too engrossed in enjoying the taste of her flesh to register her tension.

‘Caspar,’ she started to protest, but he ignored her, throwing one leg across her body as he slid his hand along her jaw and turned her to face him, his mouth opening hungrily over hers.

Olivia hesitated a second before she started to respond. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to make love. It was just that right now it was more important to her that they talked. She needed to vocalise what she was feeling and Caspar was the only person she felt she could talk to.

It felt so disloyal, hurt too much, to have to admit that the love she knew she ought to feel for her mother simply wasn’t there and that she felt guilty—guilty because all she could feel was pity and compassion. But Caspar’s hand was already moving towards her breast. His body was already aroused.

His thumb stroked her nipple and in the darkness she tried to recapture her normal feeling of sensual delight at his touch. The first time they had made love she had wanted him so much, ached for him so much, that she had actually had a small orgasm whilst he had been kissing her breast, teasing first one and then the other erect nipple with the tip of his tongue. The gentle roughness of his teeth, the mind-blowing eruption inside her when he started to suck slowly on her nipple had been incredible sensations.

She had been mortified with embarrassment, but Caspar had simply laughed, teasing her that if that was her reaction to his sensual stimulation of her breast, he couldn’t wait to find out how she reacted when it was a far more intimate part of her body he was orally stimulating.

As it happened he had been right; he couldn’t wait and neither could she, but they had made up for their impetuosity later, and for the first time in her life Olivia discovered that it wasn’t only the man who derived pleasure from the warm caress of a woman’s mouth on his sex.

She had been a little hesitant at first to pleasure him in such a way, especially when her own body felt so languid, so deliriously satisfied, and so her touch had been a little cautious and uncertain.

Caspar hadn’t hurried her, though, or tried to force the pace of an intimacy she wasn’t ready for. Yet, if she was honest, she had rather enjoyed the sense of power their intimacy gave her, especially when she had felt him start to swell and harden as he responded to the gentle pressure of her mouth and the stroke of her tongue.

Totally absorbed in his reaction of what she was doing, it had been several minutes before she recognised not only the fact that she was squirming rather obviously on the bed but the reason why she was doing so, the reason why her breasts suddenly started to ache again, her nipples re-engorged, her chest was flushing with sensual heat.

When she did realise that the desire recharging her sexual batteries had nothing to do with anything that Caspar had done to arouse her and owed its being quite simply and rather shockingly to the fact that she was becoming sexually aroused by so intimately caressing him, she was so surprised that she released him and sat up abruptly.

‘What’s wrong?’ Caspar had asked her, sitting up himself and reaching out to take her in his arms. ‘If you don’t like it …’

Olivia had shaken her head. ‘No. No, it’s not that,’ she had told him.

‘Then what?’ Caspar had pressed her when she didn’t go on.

‘I … I want you,’ she had confessed huskily as she looked from his aroused body to his face and then betrayingly touched her fingertips to her own mouth, her face warming as she added, ‘Doing that … being so … I didn’t think … I never knew …’

Later Caspar had shown her that he was equally vulnerable to the sensual effect of that kind of intimacy when he laid her gently on the bed and even more gently moved apart her legs and then knelt between them, touching her, stroking her slowly, watching her eyes, holding her gaze so that he could see her reaction as he slowly lowered his head towards the soft, damp tangle of her pubic hair.

Olivia had closed her eyes, trying to suppress the moan of pleasure she could feel building in her throat as he slid his hands beneath her thighs, lifting her, tilting her, setting her legs over his shoulders as he started to explore the tender, sweet intimacy of her, unerringly finding the place where she was most sensitive, most responsive, and caressing it until she could no longer hold back her response.

But that had been then; this was now. Beneath the stimulation of his tongue, her nipple had started to stiffen, her body responding to him even if her mind was not.

Beneath her fingertips she could feel the crispness of his hair, but where normally she would have buried her hands in it to keep him, to hold him even closer to her body, tonight what she really wanted to do was to push him away. How could he not know … not sense that she simply wasn’t in the mood? Was he really so blind, so oblivious to her feelings, or did he simply not care? Was it more important for him to satisfy his own needs than hers?

The pressure of his mouth on her breast was increasing. He had moved their bodies closer together. She could feel his hardness pressing against her and for the first time in their relationship Olivia experienced a need to simply get their lovemaking over and done with as quickly as she possibly could.

Tonight the foreplay she normally loved and enjoyed so much was merely an unwanted and resented duty. Since his need for sex was quite obviously so all-consuming, all-important, far more important to him than what she might want or need and since he was so obviously ready, why didn’t he just go ahead and get it over with?

She moved impatiently against him and then ground her teeth as he misinterpreted her invitation and started to caress her with his hands, sliding them down over her hips, massaging her belly and then her buttocks in the way she normally enjoyed before sliding one hand between her thighs.

Olivia tensed and finally so did Caspar.

‘What is it?’ he asked her. ‘What’s wrong?’

So he’d finally noticed there was something wrong.

‘Nothing,’ she told him curtly, then added, ‘Look, Caspar, can we please get this over with? I’m tired and if you want sex as you obviously do …’

Olivia knew even as she was saying it how awful her words must sound but she just couldn’t help herself. Was it her fault that Caspar was so blind, so selfish that he couldn’t tell for himself that she just wasn’t in the mood, that what she wanted was to be held and comforted, to be listened to and not simply treated as a means by which he could relieve his sexual tension?

She could feel him watching her in the darkness and wasn’t surprised when he started to move away from her. Caspar had never been the kind of man to force unwanted sexual overtures. He had once told her that for him to enjoy sex, the pleasure had to be mutual, both partners giving and taking, both sharing the desire, the wanting, the arousal. But then just as she was about to turn over, he suddenly reached out and took hold of her, pinning her beneath him with a speed and strength that took her off guard, and when she looked up at him in stunned shock he told her angrily, ‘Very well, if that’s what you want …’

‘Caspar,’ Olivia started to protest but it was already too late. With the weight of his body keeping her pressed to the bed, he was already starting to enter her.

Her body, she recognised, must have been more aroused, more responsive than she had thought because it was certainly accepting him easily enough now, despite her efforts to tense her muscles against him.

‘I thought you wanted me to get it over with,’ Caspar reminded her grimly as he felt her efforts to resist him.

He had started moving faster, harder, and to her shock Olivia realised that a part of her was almost enjoying the knowledge that she had made him angry. It seemed as though in pushing him into anger she could allow herself to acknowledge her own sensual and sexual needs.

She stiffened as she found that her body was quite definitely starting to respond to the fiercely rhythmic thrust of Caspar’s within it. She wanted to push him away, to stop him doing what he was doing, to reach out and scratch him with her nails, bite him with her teeth, fight against his sexual possession of her and at the same time … at the same time …

She gave a sharp gasp as the first fluttering contraction of her orgasm caught her off guard and then it was too late, much too late for her to do anything but wrap herself around him and call out his name as the intensity of her own need swamped and engulfed her.

They had never used sex as a means of hurting one another before, not physically and certainly not emotionally, but they had done last night. After it was over she had turned her back on Caspar, feigning sleep when he had tentatively touched her and whispered her name.

After a while she had felt him move away and turn his back to her whilst she had stayed stiffly where she was, aching to be able to turn to him and be taken in his arms and yet too angry … too hurt to allow herself to tell him so.

When she had woken up this morning, Caspar was already in the bathroom. They had been treating one another with guarded politeness all day. Stubbornly Olivia told herself that Caspar was the one in the wrong and not her. He should have known how she was feeling; he should have seen … understood. She was disturbingly conscious of a growing feeling of alienation between them, a reluctance on her part to feel able to confide fully in him, to tell him about the hours she lay awake at night, worrying not just about her father but also about her mother, listening for the betraying sound of her mother creeping downstairs to repeat the self-destructive binging and vomiting cycle of behaviour that she had witnessed before the party.

Now she smiled tiredly as Jon came over to join her and Saul. Of all of them Jon was the one who was taking her father’s illness the hardest, Olivia suspected. After all, not only was he her father’s twin brother and bound to be psychologically affected by his heart attack, he was also the one who had to bear the brunt of the family’s panic and fear, especially her mother’s and his own father’s. In her mother’s case, that fear had been displayed in bouts of hysterical tears and a need to cling to him both physically and emotionally, which must be hard enough for him to bear, but when it came to her grandfather … Judgementally Olivia glanced across the room to where her grandfather was sitting.

Perhaps he didn’t mean to give the impression that he wished it had been Jon who had been stricken with a heart attack and not David … that if he had to lose one of his sons he would prefer it to be Jon and not David. But, nevertheless, that was the impression he had given and Jon must have inevitably been hurt by such accusations—despite his enviable stoicism and quiet acceptance of his father’s angry claims that it was due to his own failure to shoulder his fair share of the burden of running the practice that David had been overworked to the extent that his heart had damaged by the strain.

‘Livvy and I were just wondering how you are going to manage with the practice,’ Saul commented. ‘I imagine your best option would be to get a locum in and—’

‘No.’ The swiftness with which Jon rejected Saul’s suggestion surprised Olivia. His voice, normally gentle and controlled, had been almost harsh. ‘I … I haven’t had time to come to any decision about the practice as yet,’ Jon told them stiffly as Olivia and Saul instinctively exchanged surprised glances. Such vehemence and intensity were so foreign to Jon’s nature that it had caught them both off guard a little.

‘But you will have to make a decision soon,’ Jenny interposed quietly from her seat near by. ‘You can’t possibly run the practice on your own. There’s far too much work and besides—’

‘Besides what?’ Jon challenged her, ignoring Olivia and Saul’s presence as he turned round to face his wife, his voice and eyes suddenly sharply bitter. ‘Besides what?’ he demanded again. ‘Besides I’m not David and therefore not capable of running the practice by myself?’

‘Jon. You know I didn’t mean anything of the kind,’ Jenny reproached him. He had changed so much over these past few days that sometimes she hardly recognised him. She knew how much pressure he was under, how anxious and concerned he was for David … how caught up with supporting not just Tiggy but his father, as well; and she sensed how hurt he must have been by Ben’s obvious belief that he was not capable of stepping into David’s shoes. But it was impossible for him to do two men’s work indefinitely and that was all that she had been going to say.

‘I could help out for a while….’

As soon as she had said the words, Olivia wondered what on earth had possessed her. She was already committed to going to America with Caspar. All their plans had been made.

‘Oh, Livvy, could you? But what about your own job?’ Jenny exclaimed in obvious relief.

Olivia was conscious of Caspar listening to her and watching her from the other side of the room. Hillary was at his side, a place she was frequently to be found of late, she reflected a little bitterly. As Hillary reached up and whispered something to him, Olivia’s chin tilted stubbornly.

It was too late for her to retract what she had said now and besides … ‘I’m … I’m between jobs at the moment,’ she told her aunt quite truthfully. ‘I … I haven’t got round to telling the family yet, but I actually handed in my notice at work some time ago, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t step into Dad’s shoes and help out at the practice for a little while at least.’

‘Could you, Livvy. That would be marvellous, wouldn’t it, Jon?’ Jenny exclaimed as she turned to her husband. ‘It would—’

‘What’s this, what’s this?’ Ben was demanding, having obviously been told by Max what was going on.

‘Livvy’s just offered to help out at the practice until David’s well enough to go back to work,’ Jenny explained to her father-in-law.

‘To do what? She can’t! She’s only a girl and she’s not—’

‘I might be a girl, Gramps, but I’m also a fully qualified practising solicitor,’ Olivia heard herself reminding her grandfather in a coolly firm voice. But despite her outward control, inwardly her heart had started to beat too fast and she could feel the familiar turmoil beginning to churn her stomach. ‘I know it’s what Dad would want me to do,’ she added, looking her grandfather squarely in the eye. ‘Unless, of course, Max wants—’

‘That’s impossible,’ Ben told her testily. ‘You know that perfectly well. Max is trying for the Bar.’

‘Are you sure you know what you’re taking on?’ Saul murmured in her ear. ‘It’s not going to be easy for you, you know. I dare say that Jon isn’t as much of a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist as Ben, but you’re still talking about a very old-fashioned country practice with very old-fashioned country clients.’

‘What are you trying to say to me, Saul?’ she challenged him sharply. ‘That I’m not up to the work?’

‘No, of course not,’ he denied. But despite his denial, as she looked round at the expressions on people’s faces, Olivia suspected that none of them really believed that she was capable of stepping into her father’s shoes.

‘Livvy,’ she heard Jon beginning hesitantly and her resolve hardened and along with it her voice.

‘I’ve made up my mind, Uncle Jon,’ she told him grittily, ‘and I’m not going to change it. I’ll be at the office first thing tomorrow morning.’

She held her breath, waiting for one of them to call her bluff, then released it slowly when none of them did. They needed her, she recognised bleakly, even if none of them, apart from Jenny, was prepared to admit it. Well, she would show them. She would show them that she was just as professional as any male Crighton they’d care to name, and a good deal more so than some of them, she decided as she glowered darkly at Max, who was watching her with his usual smug contempt.

She wondered if he’d told Ben that his elevation to full junior membership in his chambers wasn’t by any means as cut and dried as he’d implied and then decided that if he hadn’t, it was his own business. She wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, though, if the final selection went against him as Caspar was pretty sure that it easily could.

‘Why?’ she had asked Caspar when they had been discussing it. ‘On what grounds?’

‘Plenty,’ Caspar had returned. ‘He’s the wrong sex for starters and in addition to that I doubt that he’s strictly fully competent enough to win the selection.’

‘He passed his exams.’

‘Just,’ Caspar pointed out pithily, ‘and he’s not popular. Oh, I know what you’re going to say,’ he continued, holding up his hand to stop her before she could begin to speak. ‘And, yes, I agree that to have the reputation of being held a little in awe by your peers is no bad thing for a barrister, but in this case I wouldn’t say his peers hold him so much in awe as in contempt.’

Olivia gave him a wry look. He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already heard. The legal world was, after all, a relatively small and close-knit one through which gossip and rumour tended to spread pretty quickly.

Now, as she looked at Caspar across the width of her grandfather’s drawing room, her heart missed a beat. How was he going to feel about her impetuous decision to step into her father’s shoes at the practice and the temporary hold it would put on their own plans? He would understand just why she had felt compelled to offer her assistance, wouldn’t he?

‘Fine. You felt you had to do it for your father’s sake. Very daughterly. But what about us, Livvy? What about me? Surely I had a right at least to be consulted about what you were contemplating.’

Olivia winced as Caspar stopped pacing the floor of her bedroom and swung round angrily to confront her. ‘I didn’t stop to think,’ she confessed. ‘I just … I thought you’d understand….’

‘Oh, I understand all right,’ Caspar told her grimly. ‘I understand very well that you just couldn’t resist the opportunity to win your grandfather over, to get his approval, to have him say how much he values you … how much he appreciates you … how he loves you. But it isn’t going to happen, Livvy, because your grandfather will never admit that he could possibly make an error of judgement or that a woman could possibly be as good a lawyer as a man. He can’t. It would mean going against everything he believes in and he’s too old and too set in his ways to do that.

‘You can think about that when you’re trying to fill your father’s shoes and abandoning a perfectly good pair of your own in the process and you can think about something else, as well,’ he told her bitterly.

‘I value you. I appreciate you … I love you, but my feelings no longer seem to matter to you. Just like the plans we’ve made. Still, at least I found out before it’s too late. There’s no way I intend to build my life around a woman who is always going to be running home to her family whenever she thinks they need her, who is always going to put them first, who’s as addicted to the way they withhold their love and approval from her in just the same way that her mother’s addicted to—’

‘That’s not true,’ Olivia interrupted him furiously. ‘I’m not abandoning you for my family, Caspar. And as for our plans, I’m simply putting them on hold for a few weeks until my father’s well enough to go back to work. You know what your trouble is, don’t you?’ she challenged him, as angry now as he was himself, refusing to listen to the small inner voice that warned her to exercise restraint and caution.

‘You’re very good at accusing me of clinging to a childhood pattern of behaviour; of misinterpreting my motivation for offering to help as some childish need to gain my grandfather’s approval. But what about you? What about the fact that you’re still acting like the little boy who couldn’t bear not to come first? It’s not my fault your parents divorced, Caspar. It’s not my fault that your father had other children. Oh, this isn’t getting us anywhere,’ she finished tiredly as she saw the look in his eyes. The last thing she wanted was to quarrel with him, not now when she needed his support and his understanding so badly. As she pushed the heavy weight of her hair off her face, she looked pleadingly at him, her stomach tensing nervously as she saw his stony expression.

‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed coldly. ‘But then perhaps that’s because there’s nowhere left for us to go. You’ve made your decision, Olivia … your choice, and you made it without feeling any need to discuss its implications with me. I think that says all that needs to be said about how much you value our relationship, don’t you?’

‘Caspar, what are you doing?’ Olivia demanded anxiously as he started to walk towards the door.

As he opened it he paused and looked coldly at her before saying, ‘I think you already know the answer to that. It’s too late for me to leave for London this evening, but first thing in the morning I’ll make arrangements to do so. After all, there’s very little point in my staying on now, is there?’

‘Caspar,’ Olivia protested, but it was too late; he had already gone and yet, alongside her despair, Olivia was acutely conscious of a sharp sense of resentment she couldn’t completely smother.

Yes, she had acted impetuously, and yes, she should, with hindsight, have talked things over with Caspar before making that offer to Jon. But to make those accusations about her motives, to have reacted the way he had without making any attempt to understand her feelings or her situation … to virtually demand that she focus her life on him and only him …? After all, he hadn’t wanted to listen to her last night, had he?

Olivia couldn’t forget how alienated from him she had felt when he had refused to understand how upset she had been about her mother. At least now she would be on hand if her mother should need her, something she was sure that Saul with his far more compassionate nature would understand.

Wearily she looked out of her bedroom window. She could see Caspar standing in the garden. He had his back to her, his hands in his pockets, his hair ruffled by the late afternoon breeze. She would have to go down and talk to him, make him understand, make him see her point of view … apologise to him for not having consulted him … show him that she did love him, and that once she had discharged her duty to her parents, her family, they could be together as they had originally planned.

He would have to understand that she couldn’t go back on her word to Jon. Not now … If she did, it would simply confirm everything that her grandfather was so scathing about concerning the ability of her sex to commit itself to a career, to put logic first and emotion second. But would Caspar understand? Perhaps Saul had been right this afternoon when he had claimed wryly that Americans have a different way of looking at life … a different set of priorities.

At the time, whilst she had been sympathetic, Olivia had put his disenchantment down to the fact that he and Hillary were having marital problems. Now she wasn’t so sure …

‘Well, at least Livvy’s offer to help out at the partnership will take one problem off your shoulders,’ Jenny commented to Jon later that evening after their return from Queensmead.

‘Yes,’ he agreed tersely. They were both in the kitchen. Jenny was starting preparations for supper.

Jenny looked thoughtfully at him. His terseness only confirmed what she had already guessed—that for some reason he was reluctant to accept Olivia’s offer of help. She was sure about one thing; it wasn’t because of Olivia’s sex. Jon, after all, had been the one who suggested, albeit rather tentatively, to both David and Ben when Olivia had first expressed an interest in training as a solicitor, that they take her on themselves as an articled clerk. It had been David and, of course, Ben who had vetoed the idea.

‘You don’t sound very keen,’ she pressed when he made no further attempt to answer her. ‘You can’t run the practice on your own,’ she told him. ‘You need—’