A Reason For Marriage. PENNY JORDAN

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      She heard the kitchen door open again and said shakily, ‘Beth, I’m afraid I have the most awful headache, would you watch the veg for me, while I run upstairs for a codeine?’

      ‘Beth’s busily organising everyone with drinks.’ The laconic careless words weren’t important. What was, was that Jake was here in the kitchen with her. For a moment she stood like a petrified creature, knowing that danger lurked, but too wrought up to know in what direction it might come.

      ‘She sent me in to ask what you wanted.’

      A faint grimness underlined the words.

      Oh, Beth, Jamie thought unhappily. You’re meddling in something you don’t understand.

      ‘I think she feels that since we’re both Sarah’s godparents, we ought to be able to get on better together.’

      Thank God she had the excuse of watching the dinner to prevent her from turning round to look at him.

      He ignored her comment and said flatly instead, ‘Mark’s worried about you. You know he’s not well?’

      ‘Yes.’ Thank goodness she had the excuse of her worry for her stepfather to excuse the tremor in her voice. ‘Beth told me last night. How serious is it, Jake?’

      She had to turn round to face him now, but almost flinched back as she saw the anger and contempt icing his eyes.

      ‘Much you care,’ he told her cuttingly. ‘How long is it since you’ve been to see them, Jamie? A year, eighteen months?’

      ‘I’ve been busy, I…’

      ‘Rubbish!’ His fingers bit into her arms as he grabbed hold of her, catching her off guard. ‘You haven’t come home because you can’t bear to see me, isn’t that closer to the truth?’

      She felt she was going to choke on the pain, at the humiliation of his knowing how she felt about him, but as she looked into his eyes, it was anger she saw there and not mocking contempt.

      She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.

      ‘You’re being ridiculous, Jake,’ she told him evenly.

      ‘Am I? Prove it,’ he challenged harshly. ‘Come home for Christmas.’

      The refusal rose to her lips but could not be uttered. It was six years since she had spent a Christmas at home. Six years. How she had loved their family Christmases.

      ‘For once in your life stop being so damned selfish and put someone else first,’ Jake demanded harshly. ‘My father’s a sick man, Jamie, he misses you.’

      Blankly she looked into his face. His mouth was hard and compressed, his eyes shadowed. His hair, thick and densely black, looked as though it needed cutting. He looked tired, she recognised, momentarily stepping outside the magnetism that always held her so much in thrall and seeing him simply as another vulnerable human being. He had released her now and impulsively she wanted to reach out and touch him, to smooth away the frown creasing his forehead, and then bitterness overtook compassion. It was easy for him to condemn and criticise her. He would not have to endure the torture that would be hers if she went home, if she spent Christmas in the same house with him.

      ‘I…’

      ‘If it’s me you’re worried about,’ he told her with cold scorn, ‘then you needn’t be. Mandy will be there, so you needn’t worry that you might have to spend any time with me.’

      ‘I…’

      ‘Be there, Jamie,’ he warned her. ‘It isn’t me you’re punishing by staying away, you know.’ His eyes darkened with anger and contempt. ‘You might look the part of the sophisticated businesswoman,’ he told her curtly, ‘but inside you’re still a spoiled petulant child.’

      She watched as he left the kitchen, her throat raw with suppressed tears. How dare he speak to her like that, accuse her? Dismiss the sheer cruelty of what he had done to her as though it were nothing? He knew why she had stayed away, why she could not endure to go back to the place where she had once been so deliriously happy, but he behaved as though she were acting on nothing more than a childish whim. Punish him? Nothing she could do could do that. Did he think she didn’t know it?

      IT WAS AFTER they had finished dinner and the other guests had gone that Jake announced casually,

      ‘By the way, has Jamie told you that she’ll be coming with us to Queensmeade for Christmas this year?’

      Across the space that divided them his eyes warned her against contradicting his statement. Beth was looking flushed and excited as she looked at them.

      ‘Aunt Margaret will be so pleased. Oh, Jamie, she has missed you so much. We’ll be going too, of course. You can always drive up with us if you don’t fancy taking your car. I know it’s two months away yet, but…’

      ‘Jamie will travel with me. I have to come down to London to pick Mandy up anyway.’

      In other words she wasn’t going to get the opportunity to make any last-minute bid for escape, Jamie thought bitterly, avoiding looking at him.

      Mandy was sitting next to her and a pleased smile curved her mouth as she listened to Jake.

      ‘I’m so pleased you’ll be coming too,’ she whispered to Jamie. ‘Jake can be so severe at times.’ She pulled a slight face, and then coloured as she saw Jamie’s surprised expression. ‘My father’s a very wealthy man, he doesn’t consider that women can handle their financial affairs—he’s old-fashioned like that. He wants me to get married and he seems to have picked on Jake as the ideal candidate. I don’t suppose I should be telling you this.’

      Jamie saw the slightly nervous glance she gave towards Jake who was talking to Richard.

      ‘I like Jake, but he’s very formidable, isn’t he? Sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t even know I’m there. And he doesn’t love me.’

      ‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ Jamie said bracingly. She felt as though she had strayed into some macabre form of sick joke. Why on earth had Mandy chosen her to confide in? She looked into the younger girl’s face and saw that she still looked uncertain.

      ‘Jake wants to get married, he wants a son, a grandchild for his father, I think, and… Well, it’s just that he’s so very hard to argue with, isn’t he?’

      Oh yes, he was that all right, Jamie acknowledged to herself. Jake could be bitterly determined and stubborn when someone opposed him, and she could see how easily this young and rather diffident girl could be overwhelmed by him, especially if the marriage was something her parents approved of as well.

      ‘I don’t feel I’m mature enough to get married yet,’ she confided to Jamie. ‘I want to do something with my life, I don’t know what yet, but I know it isn’t marriage. Of course at first I was flattered when Jake showed an interest in me, but he doesn’t want me really.

      ‘I’m going to London Christmas shopping with Mummy next week. Could I come and see you? I don’t have anyone I can talk to, and you are Jake’s stepsister. You must know him very well.’

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