Perfect Marriage Material. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ of the fact that she stood outside the tightly knit and obviously very close family network that bonded together the other five people seated round the table with her.

      ‘When does Louise finish university for the year?’ Saul asked Jenny apparently casually.

      As Tullah stiffened with shock and disgust to hear Saul questioning Jenny so carelessly about her daughter, a girl who must be almost twenty years younger than Saul himself and whom she had heard described illuminatingly as having a very intense crush on Saul, she saw that Jenny was looking uncomfortable, as well, her glance straying to her husband before she responded quietly, ‘Officially not for another few months although she did say she might come home earlier. Apparently her lectures finish a little ahead of the official end of term.’

      It was obvious that Jenny was ill at ease discussing her daughter with Saul, and no wonder, given what Tullah knew about the situation between them. In fact, Tullah could only marvel at both Jenny’s forbearance and Saul’s breathtaking arrogance and obvious disregard for Jenny and Jon’s feelings as Louise’s parents.

      All in all, Tullah felt relieved when the evening finally came to an end and Jon and Jenny got up to leave. Shortly afterwards, declining a nightcap, Saul, too, announced that he must go.

      Caspar offered to see him out and whilst they were gone Tullah followed Olivia into the kitchen to help her clear up.

      ‘Saul’s a darling,’ Olivia began warmly as she started to stack the dishwasher. ‘I just hope...wish...’ She stopped speaking as she saw Tullah’s expression. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ she asked her friend quietly.

      ‘I’m sorry, Olivia,’ Tullah apologised. ‘But no, I don’t. I know he’s your cousin, a member of your family but...’ She took a deep breath and lifted her head, forcing herself to meet Olivia’s expression of shocked dismay. ‘He’s everything I most dislike in a man, Olivia. I know that you...that you and he...’ She shook her head awkwardly. ‘I mean, just look at the way he left his children tonight to come here. A man like that doesn’t deserve to be a father. He—’

      ‘Tullah...’ she heard Olivia interrupting her in a stifled warning voice, but it was too late. Tullah followed her gaze and, turning round, saw Saul standing behind her in the open doorway, a tight, furiously angry expression on his face.

      ‘For your information, the only reason I left my children as you so ill-informedly put it to come here tonight was because Olivia asked me—’

      ‘Saul,’ Olivia intervened pleadingly, ‘Tuilah didn’t mean...she doesn’t realise—’

      ‘On the contrary, I realise all too well,’ Tullah objected curtly.

      ‘I came back to check if it was still all right to leave Meg with you on Monday night,’ Saul asked Olivia, totally ignoring Tullah.

      ‘Yes, of course it is. Caspar will collect her from school and bring her back here.’

      Saul turned to leave and then seemed to hesitate, turning to look at Tullah scathingly before saying quietly, ‘I hope you prove to be rather more thorough and responsible in your attitude to your work than you appear to be in your attitude to your fellow human beings,’ he told her coldly. ‘Because if not...’

      ‘Because if not, what?’ Tullah challenged him, lifting her chin. He might be above her in status in the company, but his involvement with the transatlantic side of the business meant, thankfully, that they were hardly likely to come into much contact with one another.

      ‘I must go, Livvy,’ Saul said, ignoring her once more. ‘I promised Bobbie I’d be back before twelve. She and Luke want to spend some time with Aunt Ruth and Grant before they fly back to Boston.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ Olivia returned. ‘I think it was wonderful the way Ruth and Grant made a prenuptial agreement to each spend six months of every year living in one another’s country.’

      ‘A decision worthy of Solomon,’ Saul agreed with a smile. His smile disappeared as he turned back towards Tullah and gave her a small, terse nod of his head before saying curtly, ‘Good night.’

      Tullah barely waited for the door to close behind Saul’s departing back before saying huskily, ‘Would you mind if I went up to bed, Liwy? I’ve got a bit of a headache and—’

      ‘No, no, you go up,’ Olivia assured her. Tullah knew her antagonism towards Saul had disturbed her but still she couldn’t apologise for it or take back what she had said.

      

      An hour later as she snuggled up in bed next to Caspar, Olivia told him sleepily, ‘I can’t understand why Tullah is so antagonistic towards Saul of all people. He really is one of the nicest men you could ever meet. Uncle Hugh used to say that it was just as well Saul decided to go into industry because, despite all his professional qualifications, he just doesn’t have that aggressive hard edge you need to make it to the top as a barrister. Luke’s got it, of course, and—’

      ‘Mmm...she does seem to have taken rather a dislike to him,’ Caspar agreed, kissing the top of her head before adding reassuringly, ‘It’s just as well you didn’t have him picked out as a possible father for the children you’ve decided Tullah wants to have.’ He chuckled at the thought.

      ‘Saul and Tullah... No, that would never work,’ Olivia declared, laughing.

      

      ‘Daddy...’

      ‘Mmm...’ Saul responded, bending down to tuck a stray curl off his younger daughter’s face. She had been crying in her sleep in the grip of one of the bad nightmares she had started having whilst she was staying in America with her mother and Hillary’s second husband. Having woken her gently from it and calmed her down, Saul watched her tenderly in the light from the small child’s lamp as he waited for her to go back to finish whatever it was she wanted to say to him.

      ‘You won’t ever go away and leave us, will you?’

      Somehow he managed to resist the impulse to snatch her up out of her small bed and hold her close.

      ‘Well, sometimes I do have to go away on business,’ he responded calmly and matter-of-factly, ‘and sometimes you go away, too, when you leave to stay with Mummy, but I promise you I won’t ever go away from you for very long, poppet.’

      ‘Do I really have to go and stay with Mummy even if I don’t want to?’

      Saul’s heart sank.

      He had tried his best to explain to the children that they were Hillary’s children as well as his and that she loved them and wanted them with her. The older two, Robert and Jemima, had understood even though they had both forcefully expressed their desire to stay with him. With Meg, however, it was proving much harder to explain that it was not just a legal requirement that her mother had access to her, but also his own conviction that at some stage in their lives all three children were going to want to have contact with their mother and that if he acceded to their desire now not to have to visit her, then not only would he be guilty of depriving them of an emotional bond he believed they needed to have, but ultimately there could possibly come a time when they would blame him as an adult and their father for allowing them to make a decision they were at present too immature emotionally to make. And it was for that reason, for their sakes, that he had been at such pains to keep his divorce from Hillary and the subsequent custody СКАЧАТЬ