LITMIR.BIZ

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instinctively repudiated him as a lover.

      She knew why she had never bothered to get a divorce. She had no wish to marry again, but what about Blake? Was it just that he had never had the time between assignments to bring their marriage to a formal end, or was it simply that, having married once, he had no intention of repeating his mistake? Unlike her, Blake did not seem to lack congenial companions of the opposite sex. Over the years, she had seen him featured in several newspaper photographs as the escort of glamorous women.

      ‘Mummy… Mummy.…’

      The impatient and reproving voice of her daughter checked her thoughts. Fern was all Blake’s child. She had her father’s unruly, dark brown hair and his green eyes. And her personality held echoes of Blake’s as well. A pragmatic, intelligent child, she sometimes gave Jaime the uncomfortable feeling that their roles were reversed and that she was the child. She even seemed to accept her own lack of a father. She had seen his photograph and knew that he lived and worked in London, but seemed to accept that his life lay apart from theirs.

      ‘… and Mrs Childs told us a story… but I knew it wasn’t real. Frogs can’t turn into princes, not really.…’

      Jaime glanced into her daughter’s scornful green eyes and sighed. She herself had been at least ten before she had finally and reluctantly abandoned fairy stories.

      ‘You’re daydreaming again…’ the small firm voice accused. ‘Granny says you’ve always got your head up in the clouds.…’

      When Jaime repeated this comment to her mother later in the evening when Fern was in bed, Sarah Cummings laughed. Married at eighteen, a mother at nineteen, she was, in Jaime’s view, far too young-looking and vigorous to be anyone’s grandmother. A partner in a thriving antique business in the local market town her mother had the knack of drawing people to her, Jaime reflected watching her. Her once fair hair was tinged with grey now, but she still had the same youthful figure she had always had, and she still seemed to radiate that special sort of energy that Jaime always associated with her.

      ‘Fern’s like me,’ her mother commented pragmatically, ‘a down-to-earth Taurean.…’

      ‘Umm, I was thinking today how like Blake she is.…’

      ‘Don’t tell me you’re worrying about her lack of father again,’ Sarah said drily, correctly interpreting her remark. ‘Well, if you’re thinking of marrying Charles to provide her with one, I shouldn’t bother. She’s already running rings round him.’

      That Charles found it difficult to talk to her young daughter Jaime already knew. An only child himself, he was always uneasy in Fern’s presence and she seemed to know it and take advantage of his awkwardness.

      ‘You’re not worrying about the studio, are you?’ Sara asked her daughter, noticing the frown pleating her fair skin. ‘I thought it was just about beginning to pay its way.’

      ‘Yes, it is.’ At first on her return to her home Jaime had been wholly dependent on her mother, but once Fern had started playschool, she had trained in exercise and dance, and then, when she was qualified, she had opened her own school which was beginning to get an excellent reputation locally. She was fortunate in being able to rent a now-empty school hall at a very reasonable cost, and the knowledge that she had achieved something for herself through her effort and skill had boosted her self-confidence. Because she always looked so calm and self-possessed, few people guessed at the deep sense of inadequacy she suffered from. Indeed, it was only since she had left Blake that she had come to terms with it herself.

      ‘So, what’s worrying you?’ her mother probed.

      ‘Charles came to see me today. He’s heard that Caroline means to sell the Abbey to a property developer and that it’s going to be knocked down and a housing estate built.’

      ‘Mmm… I shouldn’t think she’ll be able to go ahead with the sale. The Abbey is a listed building, you know.’

      ‘And Caroline can be very determined.’

      Jaime had gone to school with Caroline Travers, although they had never been good friends. Caroline’s father had made a fortune in industry and had bought the Abbey and retired there. Caroline had inherited quite a substantial sum from him on his death, but she was a lady with very expensive tastes and she had never liked the Abbey.

      ‘Charles wants me to go round and have a word with her—try to persuade her to reconsider.…’

      ‘Why doesn’t he go himself?’ Sarah asked forthrightly. ‘Really, the man is a fool. I honestly believe he’s terrified that Caroline would seduce him.’

      Jaime grinned at her mother’s percipience. ‘He did say that he thought the initial approach would be better coming from me—a “woman to woman appeal”,’ Jaime quoted.

      ‘“Woman to man eater” doesn’t he mean?’ her mother quipped. ‘Really, Charles is impossible. I don’t know why you bother with him.’

      ‘Because he’s an old friend and he’s my solicitor.…’

      ‘And he’s also a very safe wall to hide behind. Jaime, you’re twenty-six, and a very attractive woman, but you behave as though you’ve voluntarily gone into purdah.…’

      ‘You were even younger when you were widowed.…’

      ‘Yes, but I didn’t eschew all male company because of it.…’

      ‘But you’ve never remarried.’

      ‘No, because I preferred being single. You don’t. You need marriage, Jaime, I never did. I was too independent to commit myself to the sort of relationship marriage was in my day. I loved your father and I missed him terribly, but I didn’t live like a nun the way you do. Blake.…’

      ‘I don’t want to talk about him.…’

      Jaime turned away, hoping that her face wouldn’t betray her. Her mother didn’t know that she still loved Blake, and every time she mentioned him, Jaime retreated from the conversation like a flower curling protectively back on itself. Her mother had liked Blake. They had got on well together, chatting with an ease that had left her envious when she heard Blake’s deep laughter mingling with her mother’s. She had been jealous of the ease with which they became at home with one another, just as she had been jealous of anyone who got close to her husband. It was no wonder he had lost his temper with her, she reflected as she went into the kitchen on the pretext of wanting a drink. When she thought about it, it was a miracle he had stayed with her so long as he had. No man likes jealous scenes, and on occasions she had behaved like a spoiled child, demanding more and more of his time and attention because of her deep-rooted insecurity, her inability to believe that he loved and needed her with the same intensity with which she loved and needed him. She had created an atmosphere which must have been claustrophobic, driving him away from her in her frantic attempts to keep him with her. No one would ever know how much she regretted her behaviour, or how much she longed for a second chance, she thought as she reached automatically for the coffee. Her mother thought the subject of Blake was taboo because she hated him. That was what she had claimed when she first came home, driven to say so because she couldn’t admit the truth, and she had never corrected that misconception.

      When Charles commiserated with her about her marriage she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from telling him the truth—that the faults were all on her side. There had hardly been a night in the three years since Fern’s birth when she hadn’t longed for Blake’s presence, and yet she couldn’t regret Fern who had, in her way, been the reason for that final argument. Knowing that she might be pregnant, and that her pregnancy had been the result of her deliberate carelessness, she had panicked when Blake had declared quite firmly that he didn’t want children. But what was the use of raking over the past?

      ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said to her mother when she carried the coffee tray back into the small sitting room. ‘Perhaps I ought to tell Charles to start divorce proceedings.’

      Because she was bending over the

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