The Perfect Lover. PENNY JORDAN

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      Considerably startled, her brother released his hold on the door handle and spun round to face her.

      ‘We were just going down to the greenhouse,’ Jack told her with virtuous innocence. ‘Aunt Ruth is growing some special seeds there and...’

      ‘The greenhouse?’ Louise questioned loftily. ‘This compelling expedition to view Aunt Ruth’s seedlings wouldn’t have been taken via the TV room, would it?’

      The look of contrived injured innocence her brother gave her made Louise’s lips twitch slightly, but Jack wasn’t quite such a good actor, and his fair skin was already starting to flush with guilt. Both boys were ardent rugby fans, and Louise had overheard them pleading with her mother, without success, earlier in the day to be allowed to sneak away from the family party in order to watch their favourite game.

      ‘The All Blacks are playing,’ Joss told her pleadingly.

      ‘You’ll be all black, or rather your good behaviour record will be, if Mum catches on to what you’re up to,’ Louise warned him.

      ‘If we go now, we can just about catch the last half,’ Joss told her winningly. ‘And Mum won’t even notice. We’ll be back before she knows we’re gone.’

      ‘I don’t think...’ Louise began, but Joss was already reaching up to give her a fervent hug.

      ‘Thanks Lou, you’re the best,’ he announced. ‘And if Mum should ask...’

      Louise shook her head firmly.

      ‘Oh, no...don’t drag me in. If you get found out, you’re on your own, the pair of you.’ But she was smiling affectionately as she returned her brother’s warm hug. After all, it wasn’t such a very long time ago that she herself had found such family gatherings rather dull, and had, like Joss and Jack, made her escape from them just as quickly as she could.

      ‘Bet you wish you could come with us,’ Joss whispered to her with an engaging grin before quickly sliding through the French window.

      ‘To watch the All Blacks? No, thanks,’ Louise retorted with a small female shudder, but she was smiling as she discreetly closed the French windows behind the two boys.

      On the other side of the room Tullah, who had been watching the scene, touched Saul on the arm.

      As he turned to look at her she took their son out of his arms and told him, ‘I’m just going to have a word with Louise.’

      Frowning slightly, Saul watched her. She had totally transformed his life, and the lives of his three children from his first marriage.

      Louise stiffened as she saw Tullah making her way towards her. She looked quickly over her shoulder, but the door from the drawing room was blocked by her father and Aunt Ruth, who were deep in conversation. Katie, whom she might have expected to be her ally, had somehow or other managed to melt away, and now there was no escape for her. Tullah was already at her side.

      ‘Hello, Louise...’

      ‘Tullah.’

      ‘You’ve had your hair cut. I like it. It suits you...’

      ‘Thank you.’

      Automatically Louise touched one of the short feathery curls of her newly shorn hair. She had had her hair cut on impulse the day before she had flown home, and the feminine cut showed off the delicacy of her bone structure and emphasised the shape and colour of her dark eyes. The weight she had lost while away at university had never totally been replaced. She looked, Tullah acknowledged inwardly, almost a little too fine-boned and fragile, and she could well understand, as a mother herself, why Jenny should be a little bit anxious over her well-being.

      As the silence between them stretched Louise was acutely conscious of the fact that virtually everyone else in the room was probably watching them and remembering...

      As she turned to move away from Tullah, baby Scott reached out and, grinning winsomely at Louise, patted her cheek with one fat baby hand, pronouncing solemnly, ‘Pretty.’

      Over his downy head Tullah’s sympathetic eyes met Louise’s wary, startled ones.

      ‘Oh, dear. I think I’m going to sneeze.’ Tullah told Louise. ‘Could you take him for me?’

      Before Louise could protest she found herself holding a solid armful of gurgling, beaming baby, whilst Tullah dived into her jacket pocket for a tissue.

      ‘No. No, it’s gone...’ Tullah announced when the threatened sneeze was not forthcoming, but she made no attempt to take her son back from Louise as she commented, ‘It’s so nice to see virtually all the family here. I know your grandfather isn’t always the easiest person to get along with...’

      ‘You can say that again,’ Louise agreed wryly, gently detaching the baby’s clutching fingers from the gold chain she was wearing around her neck. ‘He’s got your colouring but Saul’s eyes,’ she told Tullah. ‘How have the other three...?’

      ‘So far, so good,’ Tullah told her, showing her her crossed fingers. ‘It’s probably been easier for them, and for us in one way, because they live with us full time. So there’s no question of them feeling that Scott, here, gets to see more of their father than they do.’

      Scott, for some reason, had quite obviously taken an immediate liking to Louise, and much to her own astonishment, and Tullah’s patent amusement, he started to press loud juicy kisses against her face.

      Louise, despite her determination to focus on her career, had always liked children and enjoyed their company. As a teenager she had often babysat for Saul, and had formed quite a close bond with his three, and now, to her chagrin, she suddenly felt her eyes filling with emotional feminine tears as Scott’s baby kisses touched her skin.

      Quickly she handed him back to Tullah, telling her chokingly, ‘Tullah, I’m sorry...’

      And both of them knew that it wasn’t what was happening now that she was apologising for.

      Very gently Tullah touched her arm.

      ‘It’s over, Lou,’ she told her softly. ‘Forget it. We have. You were missed at Christmas—by all of us...’ As she turned to return to Saul and the children, she paused and dropped a light kiss on Louise’s cheek.

      ‘Forget it’, Tullah had said. Louise closed her eyes as Tullah walked away. If only she could. Tullah and Saul might have forgiven her, but she doubted that she would ever be able to forgive herself...

      ‘Is everything all right, darling?’

      Louise forced a determined smile as she read the concern in her mother’s eyes.

      ‘Fine,’ she assured her. A quick look around her grandfather’s drawing room reassured her that she was no longer the object of everyone’s discreet attention. Taking a deep breath, Louise commented as steadily as she could, ‘I was just saying to Tullah that Scott has Saul’s eyes but her colouring...’

      ‘Yes, he has, hasn’t he?’ Jenny Crighton agreed gratefully, relief leaking through the anxiety that had gripped her.

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