Payment Due - PENNY JORDAN

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her she really had no idea. The woman must surely realise how much her husband doted on her … but then if she was as jealous as Nicholas had implied, almost pathologically so … Tania frowned. The whole situation repelled her, especially those aspects of it which touched upon Clarissa’s relationship with her stepbrother. Clarissa did seem to have an unhealthy dependence on and absorption with her stepbrother.

      Surely he, though, as the elder, as the sophisticated and worldly man he was supposed to be, must have long ago recognised the dangers of Clarissa’s dependence on him? Surely it should have been up to him to gently ensure that his stepsister turned to her husband to satisfy her emotional needs and not to him? Surely it should have been up to him to gently and painlessly put a proper distance between them … ?

      Or was she confronting just another example of the male sex’s vanity and weakness? Did James Warren perhaps actually relish Clarissa’s patent adoration of him, despite Ann’s denial of this?

      Restlessly she moved away from the window. Twenty-four hours, he had said … In twenty-four hours he would return for her decision. She wondered cynically whether, once he had discovered the truth and his mistake, he would apologise to her for his totally unfounded accusations against her. Privately she doubted it. He simply wasn’t the type. She doubted if he had ever admitted to a mistake in his entire life.

      She went to bed early, worn out by the events of the day, acknowledging how much strain she was under with the opening of her shop so imminent. She daren’t even allow herself to contemplate failure. She had to make a success of this venture. For Lucy’s sake if nothing else. She had seen already how much healthier, how much happier her daughter was in their new surroundings. How much less inclined to cling to her.

      In many ways it made her heart ache a little that Lucy should be so willing to spend so much time at the Fieldings’, but then she reminded herself of how isolated she and Lucy had always been and how much this had worried her in the past. How much she had wanted security, self-confidence, and happiness for Lucy.

      It was a long time before she managed to sleep, only to discover in the morning that not only had she overslept but she also had all the signs of an impending migraine.

      Mentally cursing James Warren and all his family, she hurried into the bathroom to discover that she was out of the only tablets she had managed to find which, if taken fast enough, sometimes managed to keep her migraine at bay. She knew from painful experience that once she let the headache take hold nothing would take it away.

      Luckily there was a chemist in the next street, who listened sympathetically to the reason for her early morning call and thankfully was able to supply her with the drug she needed, although her errand took rather longer than she had anticipated, principally because the chemist was a friendly man who liked to chat with his customers. Once Tania had explained who she was he announced warmly, ‘Oh, yes, of course. My wife was saying only the other day that it was a good thing that a decent children’s shoe shop had opened up here. She dreads taking our two into the city to kit them out for school. A proper nightmare, she says it is, so I expect you’ll be seeing her once you’re open.’

      As a potential customer Tania felt she could hardly cut him short and risk offending him, with the result that it was almost half an hour before she was able to hurry back to her own shop.

      As she went upstairs to the flat, she recognised that it sounded oddly silent. Normally as she opened the door she could hear Lucy humming or talking to herself, but today everywhere was silent.

      Her heart started to pound heavily. She had always stressed to Lucy how important it was that she never went anywhere without her; that she never talked to strangers, much less accepted lifts from them, that she never did anything or went with anyone unless she, Tania, had expressly told her beforehand that she might.

      Hurrying into the sitting-room, calling her daughter’s name, Tania came to an abrupt halt as she discovered a tearful Lucy standing in the kitchen doorway.

      ‘Darling, what is it?’ Tania asked anxiously, dropping down on to her knees and gathering her daughter close in her arms, cradling her there.

      Where her own hair was conker-red, Lucy’s was a slightly lighter colour, more the shade of new chestnuts, silky and burnished, and, unlike her own, Lucy’s eyes were grey rather than tawny. Now those grey eyes looked apprehensive and guilty, and as she looked over her daughter’s shoulder, Tania saw the scattered shards of china on the kitchen floor.

      ‘I’m sorry. I was just trying to help …’

      Tania bit her lip as she recognised one piece of china. As a special treat she had recently given in to a reckless whim and bought a pretty set of breakfast crockery, a real luxury to her since in the past all she had ever been able to afford had been cheap seconds, bought on market stalls.

      ‘I was just trying to make you a cup of tea,’ Lucy told her tearfully, ‘but the teapot just sort of slipped.’

      The teapot. It would have to be that, of course, the most expensive item of the set. But at least it hadn’t been full of scalding hot water when Lucy dropped it.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said as comfortingly as she could. ‘Everyone has accidents.’

      And yet, even as she comforted Lucy and told herself that it was after all only a piece of china, she couldn’t help grieving for the waste of money its destruction represented. It wasn’t that she was mean or penny-pinching, it was simply that she couldn’t afford … She sighed faintly to herself. Perhaps it was her own fault … Lucy was just at that stage when she adored ‘helping’ and being grownup. She ought to have recognised the danger, ought to have waited a little perhaps before giving in to the impulse towards such extravagance.

      It was a day which seemed destined to be fraught with small difficulties and snags, nothing to do, of course, with her own underlying tension and the knowledge that, before it was over, she would once again by confronted by James Warren.

      After all, why should she feel apprehensive … ? Apprehensive … She laughed bitterly to herself; sick with fear would be a more accurate description of her feelings. Not that she intended to allow him to see it. Hateful man. No, he was the one who should be suffering, not her.

      She even toyed with the idea of purposely disappearing for the afternoon, but acknowledged this was a cowardly and pointless exercise. She was not playing a point-scoring game against the man. All she wanted was for the situation to be sorted out and the truth revealed so that she could get on with her life and her business, without his unwarranted threats hanging over her.

      When after lunch Susan Fielding called round to ask importantly if Lucy would like to go back to her house with her so that they could both watch her daddy making her new stencil, Tania was almost relieved to see her daughter go. Not because she didn’t want her company, but she certainly did not want her on hand to witness any confrontation between herself and James Warren.

      When three-thirty came and went without any sign of him she told herself with relief that Nicholas must have revealed the truth and, like the bully that he undoubtedly was, James was too embarrassed by his own error to come round and acknowledge the wrong he had done her.

      Well, that suited her fine. The last thing she wanted was to see him again. She still felt inwardly bruised and battered from their previous meeting.

      It was just gone four o’clock. She was just about to sit down and make herself a cup of tea to wash down the tablets her still-aching head demanded when she heard the shop doorbell ring.

      Immediately she knew who it was, but, even knowing, couldn’t stop the tension invading her stomach as she walked towards the door and saw James Warren standing on the other side of it.

      For a moment she was tempted to leave it locked, but then she noticed that one of her neighbours was watching curiously from the opposite side of the road and so reluctantly she unlocked the door and stepped to one side so that he could walk in.

      ‘Very sensible,’ was his jeering comment as he followed her inside. ‘Well?’ he demanded closing the door behind him.

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