Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ desperately hard to put aside her own feelings and focus on him but it wasn’t easy, especially when she still hurt so much.

      ‘If that’s a tactful way of saying that you think that was what brought me to my senses, I can, thank God, at least acquit myself of that. No—’ he shook his head ‘—I had already realised the truth before tonight … this afternoon in fact. I was due to appear in court earlier today and I took Tiggy to Chester with me. We had lunch together. Afterwards … Well, let’s just say that when the opportunity to put our … our relationship on a different footing occurred, I very quickly discovered that that wasn’t what I wanted at all. To be brutal about it, Jen, my body told me in no uncertain terms that it knew exactly who it wanted and it most certainly wasn’t Tiggy.

      ‘No, it wasn’t Tiggy I wanted to talk to you about.’ He looked levelly at her. ‘I know I don’t deserve it and I wouldn’t blame you if you refused, but is there any chance that we can … that I could … I want to come back, Jen. I’ve missed you and the kids like hell. I … I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks, and although it hasn’t been easy, I’ve come to accept that no matter how much in the past I might have believed otherwise, a part of me has always subconsciously envied David. I see now how jealous I was of him at times, and I resented the fact that his needs, that he always had to come first.’

      ‘But you were the one who always insisted that he come first,’ Jenny countered. ‘You always made it perfectly clear that your loyalty to him, your love for him, superseded everything and everyone else….’

      ‘On the surface, yes, because I knew that was what was expected of me, but inside … My son, my wife, my father, my friends, everyone loved David more than they did me and so I suppose when someone, and not just any someone but David’s own wife, actually seemed to prefer me … I’m not trying to make excuses for myself,’ he said. ‘There are none. I despise myself for what I did and always will. I guess a part of me must have been thinking, well … Jenny might prefer you to me but Tiggy, your wife, prefers me—’

      ‘Oh no, you’re not getting off by thinking that,’ Jenny interrupted him fiercely. ‘I did not … do not prefer David.’

      ‘You married me because you were carrying his child,’ Jon reminded her quietly.

      ‘I married you for almost the same reason you married me,’ Jenny admonished him. ‘I married you for the sake of David’s child to give him the family, the father, the protection he deserved, just as you married me to give David the protection you believed he deserved. I hardly came into it at all. I could have been anybody.’

      Jon frowned as he heard the forlorn note in her voice. ‘That’s not true,’ he objected.

      ‘You didn’t love me,’ Jenny charged.

      He looked away from her, his eyes veiled. ‘No, perhaps not,’ he agreed heavily at last, and then he took a step towards her and reached for her hand. He held it firmly between his own, his action surprising her into looking questioningly up at him. ‘Not then, but … Do you remember the night Harry was born?’ he asked her huskily.

      Jenny nodded her head. Of course she did. How could she forget it? Her first child, the long struggle to give birth, her joy when they handed her her son.

      ‘That is when I fell in love with you,’ Jon declared softly. ‘That was when I fell in love with both of you. Yes, up until then, marriage to you had been a responsibility, my duty … for David’s sake, the child you were carrying, David’s child, but when I saw him born, suddenly he was my child. I can’t explain properly just how I felt … there aren’t the words. I just know I felt this tremendous uprush of love for both of you.’

      ‘You … you never said anything,’ Jenny returned weakly, her voice husky with tears and not just because of the memories Jon’s words had conjured up.

      ‘I … there wasn’t time,’ Jon said simply. ‘His life was so short, and afterwards … Well, afterwards, when you told me that there was no reason for us to stay married any longer, I felt … thought it inappropriate to tell you how I felt.’

      ‘I … I was just trying to do the right thing, to give you your freedom,’ Jenny explained.

      ‘To give me my freedom.’ Jon smiled ruefully at her. ‘It was much, much too late for that. What I really wanted you to give me was your love.’

      ‘Oh, Jon.’

      ‘It’s not your fault,’ he assured her. ‘No one can love to order, and the last thing I would ever have wanted you to do was to pretend … fake….’

      ‘But, Jon, I did, do love you,’ Jenny told him. ‘Not when we first married. I don’t think that I was capable of allowing myself to love anyone then, but later when Harry … you were so … I loved you then,’ she admitted simply. ‘But it seemed that I’d burdened you with so much already that I couldn’t burden you with that, as well.’

      ‘How old are we?’ Jon asked wryly. ‘And how long have we been married? And it’s taken all this for us to be able to tell one another how we really feel.’

      ‘I thought you couldn’t possibly love me, especially when I compared myself with Tiggy. She’s so—’

      ‘You’re beautiful,’ Jon interrupted her gruffly, cupping her face. Then narrowing his eyes he added, ‘I’ve always thought so. I was so damned jealous the night of the party—seeing you look so lovely. That dress …’

      ‘I thought you didn’t like it,’ she owned. ‘You never told me.’

      ‘I couldn’t,’ Jon admitted. ‘I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.’

      ‘Oh, Jon …’

      ‘I hated seeing you dancing with David—I would much rather have been dancing with you. Guy didn’t look too pleased, either.’

      ‘Guy is only my business partner,’ Jenny asserted firmly.

      She silently sent up a small prayer of gratitude for the fact that that was exactly all that he was, even if there had been a moment earlier this evening when …

      ‘I feel almost guilty in a way that we should feel like this—have so much,’ Jenny whispered huskily to Jon several minutes later after he had finished kissing her. ‘Poor David and Tiggy … What do you think will happen?’

      ‘I don’t know…. Jen, there’s something I haven’t yet told you.’

      Quietly she waited.

      ‘It’s David. He’s been taking money from a client’s account.’ Briefly he explained as Jenny listened in appalled silence.

      ‘Oh, Jon,’ she whispered in shock once he had finished. ‘How could he have done such a thing? What will happen? There’s no way we could pay it back even if we sold everything and—’

      ‘I know, I know,’ Jon agreed, reaching out for her and wrapping her in his arms. ‘There was a message waiting for me when I got back from Chester this afternoon to say that Jemima Harding had died early this morning. The accountants will have to be told now, and the bank.’

      ‘Oh, Jon …’ Jenny СКАЧАТЬ