Lingering Shadows. PENNY JORDAN

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      She remembered calling round early one afternoon just after they had moved in. Giles had come to answer the door, his face flushed, his hair untidy, apologising for keeping her waiting, and then behind him on the landing Davina had seen Lucy, and she had known immediately that she had interrupted them making love.

      She had felt so envious then, so alone.

      And now she felt guilty, even though she told herself she had nothing to feel guilty about.

      Davina parked her car on the Cheshire brick herringbone-patterned drive and walked up to the front door.

      She remembered the first time she had visited the house and how stunned she had been by the way Lucy had decorated and furnished it. The whole house had seemed to sing with harmonious colour and warmth, soft peaches and terracottas which complemented Lucy’s dark red hair, cool blues and greens and creams, the colour of her eyes and skin; the house was Lucy, Davina had thought, right down to the femininity of the soft cushions and the voluptuous way in which she had used her fabrics. It was a house in which even on the greyest of days the sun always seemed to be shining.

      Today the sun was shining, but when Lucy opened the door Davina was shocked to see how pale she looked, how withdrawn her manner was in stark contrast to her normal ebullience.

      ‘Lucy, it’s been ages since I saw you,’ Davina told her nervously. ‘It’s the company. It seems to eat into my time.’ As she followed Lucy into the kitchen Davina was aware that she was speaking too fast, gabbling almost.

      ‘Funny, that’s always Giles’s excuse,’ Lucy told her harshly. ‘The company. Odd that you never seemed very interested in it while Gregory was alive, isn’t it?’

      There was outright hostility in her voice now and Davina’s heart sank. This was what she had been dreading; that Lucy would resent her for persuading Giles to stay on.

      ‘Lucy, I know how you must feel,’ she began awkwardly. ‘But——’

      ‘Do you? I don’t think so,’ Lucy interrupted her bitterly. ‘You aren’t the one who has to sit here alone all day waiting for your husband to come home, are you? Why are you so anxious to hold on to Carey’s, Davina? You never cared about it while Gregory was alive.’

      ‘I didn’t realise then the problems they were having,’ Davina told her. On that subject at least she could be totally honest with Lucy. She owed it to her to be totally honest with her. ‘I have to try to keep Carey’s going, Lucy. I can’t let the company close down.’

      ‘Why not? You’re financially secure, aren’t you?’

      Davina winced at the accusation in her voice. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It isn’t the money, Lucy. It isn’t for me …’

      ‘Then who is it for?’ Lucy asked sarcastically. ‘Giles?’

      Davina winced again.

      ‘If Carey’s closes, over two hundred people will lose their jobs, and there are no other jobs for them to go to.’

      ‘Giles can get another job,’ Lucy told her stubbornly. ‘Giles isn’t free to throw his career chances away for Carey’s, Davina. Giles is my husband.’

      ‘I know that.’ Davina couldn’t look at her. She could see how angry Lucy was, how upset, but there was more than anger in her eyes; there was pain, as well as vulnerability. Davina wasn’t used to seeing Lucy vulnerable, and doing so now made her ache a little inside.

      She had always envied Lucy slightly, envied her insouciance, her self-confidence, her brilliant, glowing sensuality, her way of living life to its fullest, and most of all, if she was honest, she had envied Lucy the love that existed between her and Giles. Not because she had wanted Giles for herself, never that … No, what she had envied Lucy was the state of being loved, of being wanted, needed, of being the centre of someone’s world.

      Once she had known a little of what that was like, once and very, very briefly, but what she had known had merely been a shadow of the brilliance of the love that Lucy and Giles had seemed to share.

      What had happened to them? What had happened to that love? She could understand why Lucy was resentful and angry that Giles was staying on at Carey’s, but surely she must know that it was Giles’s very nature to stick loyally to those to whom he believed he owed that loyalty?

      ‘I was wondering if you fancied a day in Chester, shopping?’ Davina asked her, trying to change the subject to something less painful.

      ‘Shopping? While Carey’s goes bankrupt and people lose their jobs?’ Lucy demanded gibingly.

      Davina flushed, with irritation, not guilt. Lucy was being deliberately difficult … childish almost. For the first time Davina realised that there was still a lot of the child about Lucy, and that it was this combination of a child’s faroucheness and a woman’s sexuality that made her so powerfully appealing.

      She tried again.

      ‘Lucy, I’m sorry if you’re angry because Giles has decided to stay on a little longer at Carey’s.’

      ‘So it was Giles’s decision, was it?’ Lucy demanded tauntingly.

      Davina heard the bitterness in her voice and her own heart suddenly felt unbearably heavy. It had been wrong of her to persuade Giles to stay, but what alternative had she had? If he left, the company would collapse. There was literally no one else who could take over. She tried to explain as much to Lucy, but Lucy did not want to listen.

      ‘Giles isn’t doing this for Carey’s, Davina,’ Lucy interrupted her angrily at one point. ‘He’s doing it for you. You know it and I know it. Even Gregory knew it.’

      Davina couldn’t hide her shock. It was reflected in her eyes, in the way her body tensed, her colour fluctuating as she demanded huskily, ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Oh, come on, Davina. Giles must have told you about the arguments he and Gregory had about the way Gregory was running the company. Giles didn’t approve of the way Gregory was playing with the firm’s money. He was concerned for your future … your security. He even threatened Gregory that he would tell you what was going on. If Gregory had lived he would have sacked Giles, and Giles knew it. Do you honestly think Giles did any of that because of Carey’s? It isn’t Carey’s Giles cares about, Davina. It’s you.’

      ‘No … no, that isn’t true,’ Davina denied, but she felt like Judas, not only denying Giles, but also denying Lucy the right to express her bitterness and pain.

      When she left it was with the feeling that all she had done was to make things worse. The last thing she would do would be to have an affair with another woman’s husband, especially when that woman was a friend; surely Lucy knew that? She liked Giles, of course she did. And yes, she was flattered … comforted even by his obvious concern for her, but that was as far as it went.

      Except that she had used Giles’s concern for her to persuade him to stay on at Carey’s. Except that, in being concerned for her, Giles was very obviously hurting Lucy. And hurting other people was the very last thing Davina wanted to be responsible for.

      From an upstairs window Lucy watched СКАЧАТЬ