Stronger Than Yearning. PENNY JORDAN

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      As she swept towards the door, Jenna thought she heard Lucy mutter rebelliously, ‘Or when it comes to any matters …’ but even as she stiffened and was about to turn, she heard the inner door slam as Lucy walked into the hall.

      ‘A very attractive young lady, your daughter,’ James Allingham remarked a few seconds later as he settled her into his car — a Mercedes saloon, she noticed absently as she fastened her seat-belt.

      ‘I think so.’ Her cool voice was meant to warn him not to trespass any further, but James Allingham refused to take the hint.

      ‘There’s just the two of you, or so she tells me,’ he persisted. That he should ignore her warning and continue with his line of questioning angered Jenna even further.

      ‘That’s right,’ she agreed, knowing as she did so that her voice sounded brittle, defensive almost, and that angered her even more.

      ‘She also tells me that she doesn’t want to come back and live in Yorkshire.’

      Impossible not to miss the amused, half-victorious sidelong glance he gave her as he put the car in motion.

      ‘You and Lucy seemed to have had an extremely enlightening conversation,’ Jenna said tartly. ‘At least, enlightening as far as you were concerned.’

      He shrugged and met her cold glance with an easy smile. ‘I bumped into her as I came out of the Hall. We got chatting.’ He shrugged again. ‘She seemed to be in need of someone to confide in. Sometimes strangers make the best listeners. I take it you do still intend to bid?’ Another sideways glance.

      Jenna was infuriated. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Because of that little sob-story you’ve just told us?’ She managed an arctic, derisive smile. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Allingham, I wasn’t born yesterday, even if Lucy was.’

      ‘Meaning?’ His voice was as cold as her own now, and somehow slightly intimidating, making Jenna uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was alone with him in his car. Wild thoughts of his kidnapping her … holding her captive somewhere until the auction was over, flooded into her mind, only to be dismissed as more rational reasoning took over.

      It gave Jenna a brief sense of satisfaction to know that she had got under his skin and broken through that air of easy confidence at last.

      ‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe you’re telling the truth,’ she told him, her own confidence restored.

      ‘I’m relieved to hear it.’

      The sardonic inflexion beneath the words momentarily rang warning bells but Jenna ignored them.

      ‘Then why the antagonism?’ he questioned, throwing her off balance by the unexpectedness of his question.

      ‘Surely I don’t need to spell out for you the fact that you used what you learned from my daughter in an effort to dissuade me from bidding for the house?’ Jenna said by way of explanation, hoping that he would not probe any further.

      ‘Meaning that you don’t give a damn whether your daughter wants to move up here or not?’

      The injustice of his calmly delivered comment stung. That wasn’t what she had meant at all, but she was too honest to be able to refute completely what he had said. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped, ‘but I happen to believe that at fifteen Lucy is not old enough to know where she does or does not want to live. I don’t consider that London is exactly an ideal environment for an impressionable teenager.’

      ‘She tells me you sent her to boarding school,’ he commented, changing tack.

      Dark colour flamed in Jenna’s cheeks.

      What else had Lucy told this threatening stranger? And he was threatening … every instinct Jenna possessed told her so.

      ‘That’s right.’ Her curt, clipped voice warned him against any further intrusion, but, as before, he ignored it.

      ‘Do you think that’s wise, for a mother to completely abandon the upbringing of her child to others?’

      For a moment Jenna was so angry that she had to clench her hands tightly against the leather of the seat to stop herself from coming out with the first biting retort that sprang to her lips.

      ‘I am a single parent, Mr Allingham,’ she said at last, ‘and in common with other single parents I have to earn money to support myself and my daughter. Much as I would love to spend more time with Lucy it just hasn’t been possible.’ Inwardly she was shaking with temper. How dared he? How dared he criticise her like this?

      ‘Oh, come on now, I don’t believe that.’

      Against her will Jenna felt her glance drawn to his. His eyes were cold and watchful where her own were hot with resentment. ‘A woman with your … assets,’ he said softly ‘would never have any problem in finding a man to support her … and her child.’

      His implication stunned her. There were a thousand things she could have said: that she loathed his sex and would never, ever allow herself to be dependent on a member of it, that she preferred to be independent, that —— Bottling up the violent emotion clamouring for release inside her, she gritted through her teeth, ‘But I happen to prefer paying my own way through life.’

      Now he smiled at her, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘A rather masculine way of looking at things, wouldn’t you say? Most women prefer to have a husband to lean on for both emotional and financial support.’

      ‘Yes, no doubt,’ Jenna agreed crisply, ‘and a good many of them discover later in life just how fragile that support is when their husbands leave them for someone else. Someone younger and fresher. I have no desire to marry, Mr Allingham,’ she told him in brittle tones, too carried away by her feelings to watch what she was saying, ‘even if that means that I don’t have as much time to spend with Lucy as I would wish. She’s a teenager and at the moment, as all teenagers are wont to do, she’s apt to feel herself hard done by.’

      ‘Umm. Lucy told me that she didn’t have a father.’

      A sensation of pain lanced through Jenna. She could feel him watching her. ‘Are you widowed, divorced?’

      She longed to refuse to answer his impertinent questions, but pride would not allow her to do so. ‘Neither.’

      ‘So …’

      The way he murmured the word made Jenna suspect that he had already known what her answer would be. ‘You must have been very young when Lucy was born.’

      ‘Old enough.’ She wasn’t aware of how much bitterness there was in her voice, only a profound sense of relief as the Hall lodge gates came into sight.

      ‘And that’s why you hate my sex so much, is it?’ he pressed. ‘Because Lucy’s father deserted you. Left you to bear the burden of parenthood alone?’

      As they went up the drive, all Jenna wanted was to escape from his questions and his proximity. ‘Is that what you think?’ she snapped at him. ‘It fits neatly into all the psychiatrists’ theories, doesn’t it?’

      She was conscious of the glance he gave her, but because of the СКАЧАТЬ