Stronger Than Yearning. PENNY JORDAN

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      Too intelligent to practise self-deception, Jenna acknowledged as she banished the image, she suspected that her contempt for the male sex sprang from a deep-seated need to protect herself from the same sort of agony her sister had known. Where sex itself was concerned, her feelings were even more confused. She had never met any man who aroused in her a sexual desire that was strong enough to overcome all her deeply buried fears. Perhaps because she equated sex with what had happened to Rachel. Whatever the case she had been scrupulous about not passing on her own feelings to Lucy. She desperately wanted Lucy to have everything she herself had never had. That was why it hurt so much when Lucy had flung her heedless adolescent accusations at her.

      As she dressed, an unusual surge of optimism swept through her, banishing all her doubts. Who could tell? Perhaps once Lucy had accepted the fact that Jenna intended them to move to Yorkshire, she would grow to love the old Hall as much as Jenna herself did. Lucy was at a difficult age, Jenna reminded herself fairly, but in another few years she would be an adult. Perhaps then they would be able to talk about Rachel, Jenna thought contemplatively, acknowledging that she would like to talk about her sister with someone, to share her memories of her, and who better than Lucy? As it was, only Bill and Nancy had known Rachel, and could share her memories with her. Maybe that was why she was so afraid to let a man into her life, she reflected. Because if she did so, she would have to tell him about the past, about Rachel and Lucy …

      What was she really afraid of? she asked herself, as she tugged a brush through her hair and studied her reflection pensively in the mirror. That a man might reject her because he thought she had had an illegitimate child? Or that if she cared deeply enough about someone to tell them the truth they might not share her view of the enormity of the crime against her sister. It had been a long time since she had examined her own deep feelings so intensely, perhaps too long.

      In London, with a growing, demanding business to take up all her time and Lucy to worry about, there never seemed to be an opportunity to sit down and think about herself. Or was it that she didn’t want to dwell too deeply on her own emotions or lack of them? Harley had accused her on more than one occasion of being a-human. Who knew? Perhaps he was right. A self-mocking smile curved her generous mouth. What would they say, all those men who had striven so hard to get her into their beds, if they knew the truth? That far from being a cool, composed, experienced woman, she was in reality no more than a frightened, inexperienced virgin. The thought was ludicrous enough to make her laugh. What did it matter? No one was ever likely to know the truth, apart from herself.

      Once again, irritatingly, a mental image of the man who had admired her car with words and her body with his eyes flashed across her mind, the blue eyes taunting, the curl of his mouth suggesting with arrogant maleness that he knew everything there was to know about her sex. Why had she allowed him to antagonise her so intensely? The man was a stranger, someone she had never met before, nor was ever likely to meet again. Shrugging aside the memory of how he had looked at her, Jenna went downstairs.

      ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she apologised to Nancy as she walked into the kitchen. ‘I can’t think what happened.’ She wrinkled her nose ruefully. ‘I haven’t slept so deeply for years. Where’s Lucy?’

      ‘Gone out,’ Nancy informed her drily, adding bluntly, ‘I know you won’t like my saying this, Jenna, but it’s high time you told her the truth. If you don’t ——’ She broke off as they heard a car outside.

      ‘Funny!’ she exclaimed, her forehead puckering in a frown. ‘I wasn’t expecting Bill back so soon. He’s driven down to the village to get some more bread. There’s nothing wrong with young Lucy’s appetite, whatever else might be ailing her.’

      But it wasn’t Bill who came to the kitchen door. It was Lucy, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, and with her, to Jenna’s complete consternation and shock, was the man whose features had so annoyingly impressed themselves upon her mind, to the extent that twice during the last half an hour she had recalled them in vivid detail. As she looked at him, she realised that her memory had not played her false. His eyes were as intensely blue as she remembered, his skin as healthily tanned.

      ‘Lucy, where on earth have you been?’ she asked her niece frostily, dragging her attention away from the male figure lounging in the open doorway and forcing herself to concentrate instead on the teenager’s flushed and rebellious features. What was Lucy doing with this stranger, a stranger whose overt sexuality made her mouth compress in bitter contempt? He flaunted his sexuality like a banner and it disgusted her, riveting her attention until Lucy spoke.

      ‘Out!’ The pert toss of the dark hair which accompanied the defiant challenge only increased Jenna’s perturbation, but she managed to mask her fear with a coolness she was far from feeling.

      How many times had she warned Lucy against the folly of talking to strangers; any strangers. It made no difference that every instinct she possessed told her that this man was definitely not the type who needed to waylay young girls in order to obtain sexual satisfaction.

      ‘I’m afraid the fault lies with me.’ His words fell into the thick pool of silence, stagnant with antagonism, that had fallen on the kitchen after Lucy’s defiant remark, and it goaded Jenna unbearably to know that beneath the conventional apology he was probably laughing at her.

      ‘I met your daughter down at the Hall and offered to give her a lift back here. It seems that you and I are going to be in competition at the auction this morning.’

      Jenna’s eyes left his face and darted to Lucy’s. What had Lucy been doing down at the old Hall? For now her concentration on her niece was something she could use as a defence mechanism to block out the shock of what she had just been told. He wanted to buy the Hall. Her mouth curled unwittingly into a bitter smile. So much for her initial assumptions about him.

      ‘And what exactly were you doing down there, Lucy?’ she questioned curtly, trying to blank out the feeling of tension invading her veins. What had happened to the excited euphoria with which she had woken up? It was gone, banished by the presence of this dark, mocking man.

      ‘I just wanted to see what it looked like.’ Lucy’s reply was sulky.

      ‘Without telling anyone where you were going?’ Jenna knew she was overdoing her chastisement, and that it would be wiser to keep her criticisms until they were alone, but something about the enigmatic scrutiny of the man watching them was driving her on. It was as though somehow they were locked in some sort of secret battle … If that was the case, establishing her parental authority over Lucy was hardly likely to win it, Jenna reflected, slightly ashamed of the way she had spoken so sharply to the younger girl. She wasn’t so far removed from her teenage years herself that she could not remember how touchy and vulnerable a teenager’s pride was. Her voice softened slightly. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy,’ she apologised, curling her fingers into her palms and refusing to look in the direction of the sardonic stranger. She didn’t want to see him gloating over her apology. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that but …’

      ‘She shouldn’t have accepted a lift with me.’

      Once again the cool drawl raised tiny goosebumps of prickly resentment on Jenna’s sensitive skin. ‘My fault again, I insisted. It seemed foolish to let her walk when I was coming this way …’ He shrugged powerfully broad shoulders, this morning encased in a thick navy jumper that added to his ruggedly masculine appearance.

      ‘Really?’

      The moment she spoke the coolly dismissive word, Jenna knew that she had fallen into a carefully baited trap.

      ‘Yes.’ He ignored her cool withdrawal and smiled instead at Nancy. ‘If I might come СКАЧАТЬ