Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ if you ask me, they’re all inclined to go a bit that way when they get old. I suppose we’ll be the same if we live that long. She’s ninety-one next time….’

      ‘Ninety-one …’ Olivia gazed at the tiny, wizened figure on the chair opposite her own.

      ‘David’s …’ The old lady’s gaze sharpened. ‘Oh yes, I remember now … came home with some young American, didn’t you? So our Margaret told me. What’s happened to him?’

      ‘He’s gone back to America,’ Olivia replied tersely. ‘Now, about your will …’

      ‘Gone back, has he? Oh well, he’s not the first to do that by a long chalk. You want to ask your Aunt Ruth about that. A real to-do over her Yank there was, her father up in arms about what was going on, and her mother sending her off to her family in Yorkshire.’

      Olivia frowned. Caspar had said something about her great-aunt being involved with an American, but she had forgotten all about it in the turmoil of her father’s heart attack and the discovery that had followed.

      ‘Not told you about it, has she?’ the old woman asked. ‘Well, dare say she wouldn’t. Never liked the Yanks, her father, and there was a real to-do up at the house when he found out what was going on. My daughter Liza used to work there then and she came home full of it.’ She chuckled. ‘Not that your grandfather had it all his own way. She had plenty of spirit about her, did your Aunt Ruth, but my Liza told me that they’d found out he was married, this American of Ruth’s, and that was that, then. The poor girl was broken-hearted. Had to be sent to Yorkshire to get over it. It’s a long time ago now. Quick, before our Margaret comes back … about my will …’

      ‘How do you feel about taking pity on me and having dinner with me tonight?’

      ‘Saul … how can I?’ Olivia protested, laughing after she picked up the telephone and heard Saul’s voice. ‘You’re in—’

      ‘No, I’m not,’ he interrupted softly. ‘I’m right here in Haslewich, well, almost …’

      She could hear the warmth in his voice and a huge wave of desolation and loneliness swept over her. ‘What … what are you doing up here?’ she asked him chokily. ‘I thought—’

      ‘Business. I’ve got a meeting in Chester in the morning. I’m staying at the Grosvenor. I could drive over and collect you and—’

      ‘No … no … I’ll drive to Chester,’ Olivia countered. It would do her good to get out. She had spent far too many nights worrying and brooding over problems for which she knew there were no solutions.

      ‘Good girl,’ Saul said quietly before asking, ‘How soon can you get here?’

      The Grosvenor was right in the centre of Chester. The doorman welcomed her with a well-trained smile and a brief admiring glance as she walked past him and to the foyer, where Saul was waiting for her.

      He looked dangerously handsome in his elegantly cut dark suit and Olivia noticed the way his glance fell appreciatively on her body as he greeted her, her pulse rate picking up betrayingly as her body registered the interest and responded to it.

      ‘Mmm … you look good enough to eat,’ Saul told her as he ignored her attempt to hold him at a distance and bent his head to kiss her very firmly and lingeringly on the mouth. ‘So good in fact,’ he murmured wickedly as he lifted his mouth from hers, ‘that I—’

      ‘Saul,’ Olivia warned him reprovingly.

      ‘All right,’ he said, laughing, ‘but you can’t blame me for trying. I like the dress, by the way,’ he remarked. ‘Black suits you. Have you heard anything from Caspar?’

      Olivia shook her head. ‘What about you? Has Hillary …?’

      ‘She’s been in touch via her lawyers,’ he replied dryly. ‘Looks like she’s very eager to get the divorce through. I wonder why. Perhaps she’s already lined up her next victim.’

      Olivia could feel her heart starting to thump unevenly. Did Saul know about Hillary and Caspar?

      ‘Saul …’ she began, but before she could ask him, he was leaning forward and whispering to her.

      ‘Your lipstick’s all smudged.’

      ‘And whose fault is that?’ Olivia challenged him indignantly. ‘Now I’ll have to go and repair it.’

      ‘I’ve got a better idea….’ As his thumb pressed gently against her lower lip and his eyes looked deeply into her own, she saw there the unmistakable message of desire; Olivia took a steadying breath and determinedly stepped back from him.

      She felt as though she had just drunk a large glass of champagne much, much too quickly and, as a result, had become deliciously light-headed and slightly dizzy. Anticipation delicately threaded with sensual and sexual arousal curled headily through her body and she was tempted to cast aside her cares and behave illogically and, yes, even irresponsibly, to allow herself to imagine what it would be like to feel the warmth of Saul’s arms around her, the heat of his mouth on hers, the hard male pressure of his body.

      Be careful, she tried to warn herself. Saul is family, a relative … a friend … and not a potential lover. She had come to Chester simply to have dinner with him and to talk. That was all, she reminded herself firmly, that was all.

      ‘You’ve hardly touched your meal. Would you prefer to order something else?’

      Jenny shook her head and looked apologetically at their waiter as he came to remove their plates, hers barely touched, and Guy’s empty.

      ‘I’m just not very hungry,’ she admitted and then added untruthfully, ‘I ate with the children before I came out.’

      She still wasn’t quite sure exactly what she was doing here in Knutsford’s premier bistro with Guy when she should have been at home doing the ironing and when, after all, she saw him almost every day at the shop as it was. She just knew that when he had telephoned out of the blue and suggested they go out together for a meal, for some reason without really allowing herself time to think, she had agreed.

      For some reason … Now she was trying to ignore the truth. She knew perfectly well what had prompted her to accept Guy’s invitation. It had been Olivia who had informed her quite innocently that Jon had taken her mother to Chester with him. Hot tears burned the back of her eyes. There had been many times during the years they had been married when she had ached with the pain, the almost unbearable weight of her love for Jon, knowing that loyal, caring, compassionate though he was, he couldn’t possibly return it, but there had never been a time when she had felt like this, when her whole body seemed to be reflecting the emotional agony of not just her loss, but even more hurtfully, her searing jealousy of Tiggy.

      Knowing Jon the way she did, she knew how painful it must be for him to have fallen in love with his brother’s wife. Jon, predictably, denied that his decision to leave had had anything to do with Tiggy but Jenny knew better.

      Oh yes, she had seen the covert, pitying looks of other people when they saw her in the street and somehow, most shaming and hurtful of all, the way some women, women whom if anyone had asked her beforehand, she would immediately and confidently have claimed as friends, now seemed to avoid her, almost as though being deserted by one’s husband was akin to having СКАЧАТЬ