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‘Then you’re a good judge of character,’ he said with a raffish grin. ‘The romantic bit is all very nice, but I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces, sort out the broken hearts, the whole boring thing.’
‘But you’ve got it all wrong,’ she said passionately. ‘I understand why you’re concerned for your brother, but I won’t break his heart—’
‘Only his bank account, eh?’
‘That’s a wicked thing to say—’
‘Look, I’ve seen some of the presents he’s given you—all bought with money he doesn’t have.’
‘I don’t ask him to—’
‘Sure you don’t. You don’t need to. He enjoys splashing out. Well, I can be generous too—for a purpose.’ He named a sum of money.
‘Are you trying to buy me off?’ she demanded, outraged.
He shrugged. ‘Put it how you like. It’s a good bargain.’
‘And my-self respect? How would I buy that back?’
‘That’s a good line. I’ll up the offer a little, but not much.’
‘You could double it and I still wouldn’t be interested.’
‘No, don’t overplay your hand. I won’t double it.’
Furiously she stormed off, but at the last minute something made her turn back to look at him, standing there, regarding her with a sceptical look.
She was used to waking early, and she enjoyed getting up with the dawn to look out of her window and watch the sun rising over the Tenby estate. At such moments she could forget the tensions that swirled around her, spoiling this beautiful place.
But then one morning it was spoilt anyway, by the sight of Jason pounding up the avenue of oaks, mounted on Damon, his big black stallion. Simon had called the horse ‘a ferocious brute who tries to kill everyone who comes near him’, but Jason sat him as easily as if he were a pony.
He wore no jacket, and through his thin shirt she could see the tension of his muscles, controlling the huge beast without effort.
He thought he could control everything, she thought—his estates, his brother, the whole world. But she wouldn’t let him control her.
A moment later he stopped under her window.
‘Do you ride?’ he called up.
‘I—yes,’ she said.
‘Good. I’ll find you a mount.’
She’d made a bad mistake. Her mother had once done housework for a man who owned a fat, elderly pony. He’d let the child play with the animal, and she’d learned to saddle him and sit there while he ambled slowly about. And she’d thought that was riding.
She looked good in a riding habit that belonged to their recently married sister, but almost at once she knew she’d done something stupid. Her mount was gentle enough, but it was a real horse. It needed to be properly ridden. And she didn’t know how.
What happened next would always fill her with shame.
The horse simply ignored her, going happily on its own way, while she grew more and more miserable and humiliated. Her one real effort to take charge resulted in the beast trotting off to the nearest stream and stopping so suddenly that she was deposited in the water.
It was Jason who hauled her out. ‘Why did you pretend you could ride?’ he demanded, exasperated. ‘Of all the idiots!’
‘I can ride, but not on an animal like that,’ she insisted, pulling off her sodden jacket. Beneath it she wore a thin white sweater, which was also soaking.
‘What do you mean, “an animal like that”?’ he yelled back. ‘It’s a horse, for Pete’s sake. It’s got one leg at each corner and nothing between its ears. It’s a mount for a child, always assuming the child knows what it’s doing. What did you learn on, a rocking horse?’
‘Stop it!’ she cried. ‘Stop trying to bully me.’
‘Bully you, you stupid girl? I’m trying to prevent you making the biggest mistake of your life.’ Suddenly he seemed to lose his temper, taking hard hold of her shoulders. ‘Stop trying to be something that you’re not, d’you hear? Get out of here while you can. Simon isn’t the man for you.’
‘That’s for me to say. Simon loves me and I love him.’
He gave her an exasperated little shake. She tried to pull free but he held her harder than ever. ‘Love,’ he said contemptuously. ‘What do you know?’
They held each other’s eyes, both now equally furious. She could hardly believe her own anger. Normally she was sweet tempered to a fault, but suddenly all the restraints were off and a fierce emotion rose in her, sweeping all before it, startling her. It startled her enemy too. She could see that in his eyes, as though something unexpected had winded him.
‘Hey!’
Simon’s voice surprised them both. He’d ridden up while they were preoccupied. Jason swore under his breath and released her. Simon threw himself down from his horse and put his jacket around her. Jason remounted and galloped off without a backward glance.
That evening Simon carved their initials on the oak tree, kissed her, and said, ‘I could have knocked him down for holding you like that. Did you know you were almost naked from the water?’
She blushed and laughed. ‘You don’t need to be jealous of your brother. He’s the last man I could ever look at. I can’t see how any woman could even like him.’
‘Jason knows how to make himself pleasant when it suits him. But when he wants to make himself unpleasant—look out!’
‘And he wants to make himself unpleasant now,’ she murmured. ‘But it won’t make any difference to us, will it?’
‘We won’t let it,’ he assured her.
How blindly confident she’d been that Simon could cope with every problem! How pitifully naive that confidence seemed now! Jason had managed to part them because he’d sworn to do so, and his will was inflexible.
But how could she ever have imagined that he would do so in a way so cruel, so callous, so unspeakably wicked?
Looking around the luxurious bedroom, Elinor knew she was mad to have returned here where bitter memories mocked her at every turn. She’d refused the job at first, and it had gone to someone else. But two days ago the other nurse had suffered a family crisis. The head of the agency had pleaded with her to fill the gap, and she’d decided perhaps it was time to confront her ghosts.
The first face to greet her hadn’t been a ghost. Mrs Hadwick had worked for the Tenbys all her life, but she’d been away for Elinor’s first visit.
Her decision not to tell Jason who she was had been an impulse. Smith was such a common name that he couldn’t identify her from that alone. Even Elinor wouldn’t mean anything to him. He’d known her as Cindy.
She’d done it for his sake. Telling him the truth would only put pressure on him, and he had enough pressures already.
She too was feeling pressured. She’d vowed to return, and she’d done so, in defiance of Jason’s order to ‘stay right away from this family’.
Now it didn’t feel right. She’d made that vow in grief and passion, but over the years all passion had drained away from her, replaced by the will to make something of herself. She’d worked night and day to qualify as a nurse.
She’d had no social life. She wanted nothing more to do with love. While other girls dated she’d studied, and passed her examinations near the top of her class.
These days she was a poised, elegant professional woman. There was nothing to connect her with the awkward girl who’d last come to Tenby Manor.
Or so she’d thought, until she’d seen her enemy again.
Time had gone back and she’d relived their first meeting, holding Simon’s hand for reassurance. Then she’d remembered that she was Nurse Smith, highly qualified and much in demand. And Jason Tenby was a sightless wreck of a man, who needed her help if he was ever to be anything else.
The knowledge brought her no satisfaction, only a weary conviction that she’d assumed a burden too heavy for her.
Then she pushed the feeling firmly away. She’d learned to be strong for herself. Now she would be strong for her patient. That was all he was. Just a patient.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN the door had closed behind Nurse Smith, Jason Tenby lay in the darkness, straining to listen. His body ached with tension, his head was thumping and the very silence seemed to sing in his ears.
He wished he could force himself to relax, but he’d never known how. From the moment of his birth he’d been the Tenby heir, carrying the burdens of Tenby expectations. His father had died when he was twenty-two, leaving an inheritance of death duties that had fallen like a lead weight onto his shoulders.
He’d broadened them to bear the load. The family traditions made him personally responsible for every worker on the land and in the factory. It was his job to ensure that there would always be work for them.
Jason had never shirked an obligation in his life.
He’d paid off the debts and made the property more prosperous than ever before, but it had taken its toll on him. He hadn’t consciously renounced pleasure, but he’d deferred it to some indefinite future, and now he hardly remembered it.
‘Don’t let any man—and certainly no woman—see that he knows more than you,’ his father had barked. ‘You’re the top man. Nobody must get the better of you.’
Over the years he’d learned the value of that advice. And he’d added ‘Never let the world know you’re afraid’. There had been a lot of fear. Fear of not being up to the job, fear of people suspecting that he wasn’t up to the job.
But nothing had prepared him for the fear that lived with him now. It stalked him in the daytime darkness. It waited to pounce when he slept.
It filled the void of his life. Fear of the nightmares. Fear of the future, of people he could hear but not see, of medical staff because they knew more than he did.
Nurses came and went, driven off by his bitter rage. But today there had come one who wouldn’t yield. He’d sensed it in her manner, heard it in her quiet voice. She was strong and confident, and she would fight him back.
Soon his factory manager would arrive to make his twice weekly report and receive Jason’s instructions. He tried to clear his mind so that he could appear to be in command. He mustn’t think of what might wait for him: years of being blind and crippled. Because then the fear would rise up and engulf him.
‘Mrs Hadwick—’
‘Call me Hilda, love.’
‘Thank you, Hilda. And I’m Elinor.’ She gave her friendliest smile. ‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but could you find me somewhere else to sleep? I need to be near my patient at night.’
‘There’s a room right opposite his,’ the housekeeper said doubtfully. ‘But it’s just a cupboard.’
It turned out to be very small, with barely enough space for a bed, a chair and a wardrobe.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Elinor said. ‘What matters is to be where he needs me.’
Hilda regarded her with approval. ‘None of the others thought of that. They were only too glad to get away from him. He’s not the easiest patient.’
‘No, I gathered that.’
‘When it first happened, I thought he’d go crazy. He’s always been such an active man, and suddenly he couldn’t see or move. It’ll be terrible if—’ She broke off as if she couldn’t bear to speak the thought.
‘You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?’ Elinor said, surprised. It was hard to picture anyone fond of Jason Tenby.
‘Oh, yes,’ Hilda said at once. ‘He’s been very good to my Alf and me. When Alf lost his job Jason found him work on the estate. That’s Jason for you. He looks after his own.’
Elinor didn’t answer this. She had reason to know how Jason Tenby looked after his own.
As they made up the bed together Hilda gossiped about the family.
‘Not many of them left now,’ she said regretfully. ‘Only Jason, his brother Simon, and their sister. She married and went to Australia. Simon lived here until a couple of years ago. He’s in London now.’
Elinor had known that Simon had left because the last nurse who’d held this job had given her a rough briefing. It was a relief to know that she needn’t fear meeting him.
How bitter his face had been at their parting. How terrible were the names he’d called her. It wasn’t his fault. Jason had forced the situation on them. But Simon had believed the worst of her so easily. How could he?
She pulled herself together and asked some bright, meaningless question. Hilda answered it and the moment passed.
‘But with any luck there’ll soon be a family again,’ she chattered on. ‘We’re all looking forward to the day Jason brings his bride home. Just as soon as he’s well, he’ll marry Miss Virginia.’
‘Not Virginia Cavenham?’ Elinor said before she could think.
‘Yes? Do you know her?’
‘No, but I’ve heard the name Cavenham.’ The Cavenhams were a notable local family. Elinor hadn’t met Virginia, but she’d heard her called the pride of the crop. Simon had spoken of her as a future bride for Jason even then. She was ‘suitable’.
‘The families have been friends for years and we always knew Jason would probably marry one of the two girls,’ Hilda said now.
‘Suppose he hadn’t wanted to?’ Elinor asked curiously.
‘Then he could have had Jean Hebden, or one of the Ainsworths,’ said Hilda, naming local wealthy, land owning families.
‘But suppose he wants to look beyond the Cavenhams, the Hebdens or the Ainsworths?’
‘Land marries land,’ Hilda said firmly. ‘Or money. That’s how great old families survive for centuries.’
When Hilda had gone Elinor looked about her, struck by how easily her meagre possessions fitted into the cramped space. There were a few clothes, a change of uniform, something for ‘best’, some sweaters, a couple of pairs of jeans. Her underwear was white and functional without a flower or a piece of lace to be seen.
Her make-up told the same story: enough to wear when necessary. Nothing elaborate. Her books barely filled the shelf: a few detective stories for lighter moments, but mostly medical works. She liked to keep abreast of the latest advances.
Of course she could explain this austerity. She travelled light. She’d never been fond of accumulating possessions. There were always plenty of reasons.
But in her heart she knew it wasn’t much to sum up a life. A withered life. A withered heart. She resisted the thought, but she couldn’t entirely deny it.
The mirror inside the wardrobe door showed her a neat, efficient young woman, her face unadorned, with a hint of tension about the mouth. The beginnings of frown lines between the eyes told of long nights of study, days filled with work, years without a holiday, without feelings, without anything.
Yet her skin still had the peachy bloom of youth. Her features were regular, her mouth wide and shapely, with something that might have been sensuality still lurking in the corners. If her face had been animated it would have been beautiful. If her large blue eyes had glowed with love or laughter she would have been irresistible.
But love and laughter had died long ago.
