LITMIR.BIZ

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about the children? an inner voice argued. Was it fair on them to subject them to legal quarrels between their guardians so shortly after they had lost their parents? But if she didn’t do so she would be cut completely out of their lives. Joel was ruthless enough to do that, she knew it. He was not married either, so there would be no feminine influence in their lives, if one discounted the string of glamorous girlfriends who seemed to slip in and out of his life, not to say his bed. No, the girls needed her, she was convinced of it … just as they needed Joel. Unlike him she didn’t deny that he had his rights.

      Simon knew all about her hopes and fears in connection with her nieces and had generously told her to take off all the time she needed to visit her solicitors. This morning she had managed to arrange an early appointment, which meant that she should not arrive at the office too much later than Simon himself, who didn’t normally put in an appearance until ten.

      The night before last Simon had taken her out for dinner and they had spent most of the evening talking about the children. Sighing faintly, Lissa finished her coffee and collected her outdoor things. Simon was intrigued by her she knew; he found her sexual coldness a challenge he was not used to facing; he couldn’t see that her refusal to go to bed with him wasn’t just a manoeuvre in a clever game, but a genuine abhorrence of the sexual act. She had tried to tell him … to explain to him why it was she found it so difficult to let him touch her even in the most general way, but as always, guided by some inner caution she had withheld the real truth. That was something she found it impossible to talk to anyone about, and a thin film of sweat broke out on her skin as her mind kaleidoscoped back and she was fifteen again. Clenching her hands together Lissa willed the memories away, but they refused to listen. How ungainly and insecure she had been at fifteen; how conscious of being the family’s ugly duckling; of being unloved in the way that Amanda was loved. Her father had wanted a son and not a second daughter; she knew that, but even so, if she had been another blonde moppet like her elder sister she felt reasonably sure that he would have come to terms with his disappointment. As it was her dark red hair and tall uncoordinated frame were so much the antithesis of what her father thought was feminine that he had never been able to reconcile himself to his disappointment. Her mother, like Amanda, was a delicate, fluffy blonde, and Lissa had lost count of the number of times she had heard her mother explaining half apologetically to her friends that she had no idea where her second daughter got her plainness from. ‘Not from my side of the family, I’m sure …’ Lissa’s mouth tightened, and she counselled herself sternly not to blame her parents. A more self-reliant and less intensely emotional child would soon have learned to come to terms with being second best. Her parents were not responsible for the flaws in her personality, any more than she was herself. Over the years she had taught herself to accept that and to make the best of what Nature had given her. There had been many men who if asked would have quite openly chosen her tall, red-headed elegance over her sister’s blonde prettiness, but she had never allowed them to do so. Picking up her bag and keys, Lissa made for her front door.

      Three quarters of an hour later she was seated in her solicitor’s office, listening to his careful, judicial speech.

      The question she had asked him was whether Joel Hargreaves could legally deny her access to her nieces.

      ‘Not legally,’ her solicitor told her, frowning slightly as he leaned his elbows on his desk and studied her. Her parents had been clients of his for many years, and he felt intensely sympathetic to this quite, beautiful girl who he remembered as a rather plain and very frightened teenager. ‘But of course, we can’t overlook the fact that materially he can give them much more than you can. He owns a large house in the country, unless I’m mistaken?’

      Lissa nodded. ‘Yes, and he’s rich enough to be able to afford a nanny for them … something I couldn’t possibly manage … I know I can’t have them to live with me on a permanent basis—at least not yet, but visiting rights … weekends …’

      Her solicitor pursed his lips. ‘Yes … yes … After all it was your sister’s wish that you be appointed co-guardian of the girls. You’re their godmother as well, aren’t you?’

      Lissa confirmed that this was so.

      ‘It’s just a pity that you aren’t married, or at least engaged,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Judges are often a trifle old-fashioned in their attitude towards minors. If they can see a ready-made family unit they look upon it very favourably.’

      Lissa wanted to point out that Joel wasn’t married either, but she did not. After all, unlike her, Joel could afford to buy all the help needed. Joel and John had both received all the benefits of being rich man’s sons. Both had gone to a famous public school; Joel had taken over running the family estate when his father retired, while John had run the components factory from which they derived their wealth. The estate was a large one, encompassing several farms, woods, a shoot in Scotland, and Winterly House itself, a Queen Anne gem of a building which Lissa had only visited twice, but had fallen instantly in love with. She had never been able to understand how John and Amanda could prefer to live in the extremely modern house John had had built for them, but then Amanda, unlike herself, had been a thoroughly modern young woman. Painfully, Lissa dragged her thoughts back to the present, in time to hear her solicitor saying that while there was no doubt about her legal rights to the children, he suspected that Joel Hargreaves intended to make it extremely hard for her to take them up.

      He frowned slightly as he studied the papers in front of him, a faint tinge of embarrassed colour darkening his skin as he said hesitantly, ‘And then of course there is the matter of … well, reputation … from the court’s point of view …’

      He got no further, because Lissa had stood up, pushing her chair back unsteadily, her eyes darkening to brilliant emerald as she interrupted bitterly. ‘Are you trying to say that a court might not consider me a fit person to have charge of the girls? And how will they prove that I wonder?’ Temper had her in its coils now, burning fever bright, pushing through the barriers of pride and reserve, words boiling up inside her and spilling volcanic-like from the place deep inside her where all her pain was buried. ‘By checking through my life? By questioning my friends? By delving into my private life, searching diligently for every little grub of dirt they can find?’ Two angry spots of colour burned high on her cheeks as she added finally, ‘Perhaps they might even want to subject me to a physical examination … just to find out how promiscuous I am … What a pity they can’t apply the same rules and standards to Mr Hargreaves … but then of course, his lifestyle isn’t important is it? After all he’s rich and important, and I’m neither … Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me.’

      ‘My dear …’ The solicitor looked and felt embarrassed. What she had said held a faint shadow of truth, although of course there could be no question of any examination of her … physical or otherwise … In the face of her bitter anger he felt unable to defend or even explain the workings of the law … nor could he entirely refute her allegations concerning the court’s possible view of Joel Hargreaves. It was wrong and unfair he knew that.

      ‘I won’t give them up … I won’t …’

      Lissa turned round and almost ran from his office, still so angry that she never even noticed the speculative stares of his secretary who had caught her raised voice from inside her boss’s office. No wonder she had lost her temper, with a mane of hair like that, she reflected half enviously. Her own hair was a soft mousy brown, and in her fantasy daydreams she had often imagined herself as a passionate redhead.

      Lissa was still shaking when she reached her own office. Simon was there already, checking through the post. He smiled warmly at her, checking when he saw her expression. ‘Heavens, what’s happened?’ he questioned her, guiding her into a chair and perching on the edge of his desk. ‘You look as if you’re about to explode.’

      ‘So would you if you’d just been told that you aren’t a fit person to have charge of your nieces because you aren’t rich enough to sway the opinion of the Judge.’

      She was so overwrought that she was barely aware what she was saying, and unacknowledged, but at the bottom of her, agony was the memory of past hurts and humiliations and of one in particular so painful to

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