Campaign for Loving
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

AS she unlocked the door of her Mini, Jaime glanced quickly at her watch, expelling a faint sigh of relief. Three o’clock. She still had plenty of time to pick up her three-year old-daughter, Fern, from playschool.

At first, when her mother had suggested she move back to Dorset, she had been dubious. She and Blake had lived in London during the brief eighteen months of their marriage and she had been reluctant to move away. Now she could acknowledge that her reluctance had stemmed from her hope that Blake would come looking for her and beg her to go back to him. For a girl of twenty-three she had been extremely naive, she thought sardonically. The unflattering alacrity with which Blake had accepted the challenge she had flung at him in the heat of her tempestuous outburst ought to have warned her, but it hadn’t. It had taken Suzy Monteith to do that. Suzy had worked with Blake on the Globe’s Foreign Affairs team for several years and Blake had never made any secret of the fact that they had at one time been lovers. Suzy had never liked her Jaime realised with the benefit of hindsight, and no doubt she had thoroughly enjoyed telling her of her husband’s request to his editor that he be sent abroad to cover the war in El Salvador, only twenty-four hours after she had accused him of putting his job before his marriage, more or less giving him an ultimatum to choose between her and working for the Globe.

Suzy had called round on the pretext of inviting them both to a party she was giving. But Jaime hadn’t even waited for Blake to come home that evening, she had simply packed her things and gone round to a friend’s flat where she had stayed for two weeks, willing Blake to appear and beg her to come back to him.

Of course he hadn’t done and by then she had known that the possibility that she might be pregnant was a certainty. She had written to him then, an angry bitter letter to which he didn’t reply, making it obvious that he didn’t want her or their child—she had offered him a choice and he had made one—excluding her completely from his life. Her pregnancy had wrapped her in an anaesthetising shawl which numbed all pain. Blake’s letters she returned unopened, accepting her mother’s suggestion that she return home simply because she had no means of supporting herself, and was was determined not to accept any money from Blake. He hadn’t wanted a child—he had made that more than clear to her. His lifestyle could barely accommodate a wife, never mind the responsibility of children, and that had been another subject for contention between them.

The truth was that they should never have married, Jaime thought as she manoeuvred her car down the bumpy lane that led from the old school hall she used for her dance and exercise studio to the village. And it was her fault that they had married. All Blake had wanted was an affair—but she had been naive and very much in love. When he discovered that she was still a virgin he had given in to the subtle pressure she had put on him and, within six months of meeting, they had been married.

Right from the start she had known that she wasn’t really equipped to enter Blake’s world. Shy and rather retiring by nature, she had gone to London at the urgings of a schoolfriend and her mother, and although she quite enjoyed her job as a secretary in a busy advertising agency, she had never really lost her longing for the peace and relative simplicity of the village she had grown up in. She had met Blake at a party, flattered and slightly bemused that he should single her out for attention. She knew she wasn’t exactly unattractive but she had lived in London long enough by then to realise that London males expected more than a heart-shaped face, deep blue eyes, black hair and a willow-slim body. They wanted women who could converse with them on their own level, sharp witty women who didn’t blush and fumble awkwardly; women who were as sophisticated and worldly as they were themselves.

She had recognised Blake instantly from a current affairs television programme he had participated in, but the effect of his lean, suntanned features and his air of cool cynicism were far more devastating in real life man they were on the television screen. She had had the impression that his green eyes were laughing at her, but when, seconds later, they roved her body with a sensual appraisal that was almost a physical caress, she hadn’t been able to hide her response from him. Blake! Even now, just thinking about him made her pulses race and her mouth go dry. He had been, at first, a patient and then a very passionate lover, drawing her out of her shell of shy reserve, teaching her to please him and find joy in her own pleasure. As befitted a man who lived on the edge of danger, he brought excitement and challenge into her life, but she was constantly worried that she would never be enough for him; that after a while her inability to meet him as an equal would lead him to grow bored with her. Before their marriage he had dated sophisticated, glamorous women, and Jaime had always secretly compared herself to them and found herself wanting. If she hadn’t blurted out to him that she loved him and that he would be her first lover, would he still have wanted to marry her?

‘He married you because that was the only way he could get you into bed,’ Suzy had told her tauntingly, ‘but you’ll never keep him—he’s bored already. You see, Blake’s like that. When he wants something, he goes after it single-mindedly, that’s what makes him such a good reporter. He wanted you because you were a challenge.…’

And she, instead of trying to understand him, had begged him to give up his job and find another one that would mean less travel. That had been the cause of their final row.… Perhaps, because her own father had died when she was so young, she had always cherished in her mind a clear picture of what she wanted her life to be, and that picture contained herself, her husband and their two children, living cosily in a village very like the one she had been brought up in; a safe, secure little world, a universe away from Blake’s lifestyle.

People thought she had got over him and her marriage to him. She talked openly to Fern about her father; she answered whatever questions people asked her, but only she knew the truth. She still loved Blake as desperately now as she had done the day she left him. But at least in the intervening four years she had achieved some maturity, she reflected as she brought her Mini to a halt outside the playschool building. At least she had finally accepted that Blake had the right to make his own decisions about his career and his life, but that didn’t stop her regretting her folly in leaving him. If she had stayed, perhaps they could have worked something out… perhaps.… Angrily, she dragged her mind away from the past. Blake had made it more than clear how much he regretted their marriage. He had never even asked to see Fern. He hadn’t wanted a child and, although he had offered to support them financially, he had made no attempt to get to know his daughter.

Charles had told her she ought to get a divorce. She had known Charles Thomson since her schooldays, and she knew, without any conceit, that he would marry her tomorrow if she gave him any encouragement. It was ironic that Charles was tailormade to fit her childhood image of the perfect husband and father, but he was as exciting as cold rice pudding, and her body, which had been awakened and tutored by Blake’s, instinctively repudiated him as a lover.

She knew why she had never bothered to get a divorce. She had no wish to marry again, but what about Blake? Was it just that he had never had the time between assignments to bring their marriage to a formal end, or was it simply that, having married once, he had no intention of repeating his mistake? Unlike her, Blake did not seem to lack congenial companions of the opposite sex. Over the years, she had seen him featured in several newspaper photographs as the escort of glamorous women.

‘Mummy… Mummy.…’

The impatient and reproving voice of her daughter checked her thoughts. Fern was all Blake’s child. She had her father’s unruly, dark brown hair and his green eyes. And her personality held echoes of Blake’s as well. A pragmatic, intelligent child, she sometimes gave Jaime the uncomfortable feeling that their roles were reversed and that she was the child. She even seemed to accept her own lack of a father. She had seen his photograph and knew that he lived and worked in London, but seemed to accept that his life lay apart from theirs.

‘… and Mrs Childs told us a story… but I knew it wasn’t real. Frogs can’t turn into princes, not really.…’

Jaime glanced into her daughter’s scornful green eyes and sighed. She herself had been at least ten before she had finally and reluctantly abandoned fairy stories.

‘You’re daydreaming again…’ the small firm voice accused. ‘Granny says you’ve always got your head up in the clouds.…’

When Jaime repeated this comment to her mother later in the evening when Fern was in bed, Sarah Cummings laughed. Married at eighteen, a mother at nineteen, she was, in Jaime’s view, far too young-looking and vigorous to be anyone’s grandmother. A partner in a thriving antique business in the local market town her mother had the knack of drawing people to her, Jaime reflected watching her. Her once fair hair was tinged with grey now, but she still had the same youthful figure she had always had, and she still seemed to radiate that special sort of energy that Jaime always associated with her.

‘Fern’s like me,’ her mother commented pragmatically, ‘a down-to-earth Taurean.…’

‘Umm, I was thinking today how like Blake she is.…’

‘Don’t tell me you’re worrying about her lack of father again,’ Sarah said drily, correctly interpreting her remark. ‘Well, if you’re thinking of marrying Charles to provide her with one, I shouldn’t bother. She’s already running rings round him.’

That Charles found it difficult to talk to her young daughter Jaime already knew. An only child himself, he was always uneasy in Fern’s presence and she seemed to know it and take advantage of his awkwardness.

‘You’re not worrying about the studio, are you?’ Sara asked her daughter, noticing the frown pleating her fair skin. ‘I thought it was just about beginning to pay its way.’

‘Yes, it is.’ At first on her return to her home Jaime had been wholly dependent on her mother, but once Fern had started playschool, she had trained in exercise and dance, and then, when she was qualified, she had opened her own school which was beginning to get an excellent reputation locally. She was fortunate in being able to rent a now-empty school hall at a very reasonable cost, and the knowledge that she had achieved something for herself through her effort and skill had boosted her self-confidence. Because she always looked so calm and self-possessed, few people guessed at the deep sense of inadequacy she suffered from. Indeed, it was only since she had left Blake that she had come to terms with it herself.

‘So, what’s worrying you?’ her mother probed.

‘Charles came to see me today. He’s heard that Caroline means to sell the Abbey to a property developer and that it’s going to be knocked down and a housing estate built.’

‘Mmm… I shouldn’t think she’ll be able to go ahead with the sale. The Abbey is a listed building, you know.’

‘And Caroline can be very determined.’

Jaime had gone to school with Caroline Travers, although they had never been good friends. Caroline’s father had made a fortune in industry and had bought the Abbey and retired there. Caroline had inherited quite a substantial sum from him on his death, but she was a lady with very expensive tastes and she had never liked the Abbey.

‘Charles wants me to go round and have a word with her—try to persuade her to reconsider.…’

‘Why doesn’t he go himself?’ Sarah asked forthrightly. ‘Really, the man is a fool. I honestly believe he’s terrified that Caroline would seduce him.’

Jaime grinned at her mother’s percipience. ‘He did say that he thought the initial approach would be better coming from me—a “woman to woman appeal”,’ Jaime quoted.

‘“Woman to man eater” doesn’t he mean?’ her mother quipped. ‘Really, Charles is impossible. I don’t know why you bother with him.’

‘Because he’s an old friend and he’s my solicitor.…’

‘And he’s also a very safe wall to hide behind. Jaime, you’re twenty-six, and a very attractive woman, but you behave as though you’ve voluntarily gone into purdah.…’

‘You were even younger when you were widowed.…’

‘Yes, but I didn’t eschew all male company because of it.…’

‘But you’ve never remarried.’

‘No, because I preferred being single. You don’t. You need marriage, Jaime, I never did. I was too independent to commit myself to the sort of relationship marriage was in my day. I loved your father and I missed him terribly, but I didn’t live like a nun the way you do. Blake.…’

‘I don’t want to talk about him.…’

Jaime turned away, hoping that her face wouldn’t betray her. Her mother didn’t know that she still loved Blake, and every time she mentioned him, Jaime retreated from the conversation like a flower curling protectively back on itself. Her mother had liked Blake. They had got on well together, chatting with an ease that had left her envious when she heard Blake’s deep laughter mingling with her mother’s. She had been jealous of the ease with which they became at home with one another, just as she had been jealous of anyone who got close to her husband. It was no wonder he had lost his temper with her, she reflected as she went into the kitchen on the pretext of wanting a drink. When she thought about it, it was a miracle he had stayed with her so long as he had. No man likes jealous scenes, and on occasions she had behaved like a spoiled child, demanding more and more of his time and attention because of her deep-rooted insecurity, her inability to believe that he loved and needed her with the same intensity with which she loved and needed him. She had created an atmosphere which must have been claustrophobic, driving him away from her in her frantic attempts to keep him with her. No one would ever know how much she regretted her behaviour, or how much she longed for a second chance, she thought as she reached automatically for the coffee. Her mother thought the subject of Blake was taboo because she hated him. That was what she had claimed when she first came home, driven to say so because she couldn’t admit the truth, and she had never corrected that misconception.

When Charles commiserated with her about her marriage she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from telling him the truth—that the faults were all on her side. There had hardly been a night in the three years since Fern’s birth when she hadn’t longed for Blake’s presence, and yet she couldn’t regret Fern who had, in her way, been the reason for that final argument. Knowing that she might be pregnant, and that her pregnancy had been the result of her deliberate carelessness, she had panicked when Blake had declared quite firmly that he didn’t want children. But what was the use of raking over the past?

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said to her mother when she carried the coffee tray back into the small sitting room. ‘Perhaps I ought to tell Charles to start divorce proceedings.’

Because she was bending over the tray, she missed the brief frown that touched her mother’s forehead, and when she looked up it was gone, the older woman’s face enviably serene.

‘Charles is organising a committee to formally protest against any plans to pull down the Abbey,’ Jaime told her mother. ‘He wants me to be the secretary.’

‘Will you do it?’

‘Umm, I think so. It’s a beautiful old building.’

‘Talking of beautiful old buildings, I’ve booked my holiday at last. Ten days in Rome, in a month’s time.’

‘You mean that Henry is actually letting you go on your own?’

Henry Oliver was her mother’s partner in the antique business, and had been her faithful admirer for as long as Jaime could remember.

‘That’s one of the advantages of being independent,’ Sarah pointed out with a smile. ‘I don’t have to ask him.’

A week later, carefully noting down the minutes of the meeting Charles had called to discuss ways and means of preventing the Abbey from being destroyed, Jaime pushed a wayward strand of dark curling hair out of her eyes.

‘You look about sixteen, poring over that notebook,’ an admiring male voice whispered in her ear. ‘How about letting me take you out for dinner when this is over?’

‘No thanks, Paul.’

Paul Davis was their local celebrity, the Managing Director of their local radio station. He was also married, although he made no attempt to hide his many affairs from his wife.

‘Spoilsport.’

Jaime returned her attention to the meeting. Charles was speaking, and she groaned inwardly, knowing his propensity for long and dull speeches. Fern was with Mrs Widdows next door, as Sarah Cummings was also out that evening, and Jaime had promised that she would be back by eight. It was seven now. Paul Davis was also glancing at his watch, and when Charles paused he made full use of the opportunity to stand up and bring the meeting to a rather abrupt halt. Charles looked pained and flustered. ‘Rather like an irritated St Bernard,’ Jaime thought watching him.

‘I hadn’t finished speaking,’ he complained to Jaime in aggrieved accents later. ‘Have you been to see Caroline yet?’

‘No, I’ll go tomorrow. But she and I were never friends, Charles, and I don’t think an approach from me will do the slightest good.’

‘Perhaps not, but at least she’d know that we mean to do something. It is a listed building after all.…’

Jaime thought of other listed buildings which had become piles of rubble in dubious circumstances, but said nothing—if she didn’t leave soon, she’d be late for Fern.

Her route took her past the entrance to the Abbey. As she drove past, a car was turning in at the gates, and she caught a glimpse of a male outline before the car disappeared. One of Caroline’s lovers? If so, this man must be rather more wealthy than they usually were. He had been driving a menacing-looking black Ferrari.

‘No… look, you do it this way.…’ Fern’s clear, high-pitched voice reached her as she knocked on Mrs Widdows’ door.

‘I was just showing Airs Widdows how to make a house,’ she explained when she saw Jaime. ‘A man telephoned after you’d gone out and asked to speak to Granny. He asked me what my name was, and I told him. He was nice.’

It was rare for Fern to make any comment on other adults, but as her mother was out Jamie was unable to question her about the unknown male who had won her daughter’s approval.

It was perhaps cowardly of her to take Fern with her the following afternoon when she finally plucked up the courage to go and see Caroline, but Charles had telephoned in the morning, insisting that she go, and having Fern with her gave her something else to worry about other than the coming interview.

Caroline had never liked her; Jaime knew that they were worlds apart for all the similarity in their ages. Caroline had come to her wedding, and she could vividly remember the predatory look in her eyes when she saw Blake. There must be very few women immune to Blake’s wholly male, sexual aura. During their brief marriage she had soon come to recognise the look in other women’s eyes which said that they were imagining him as their lover. It had driven her into paroxysms of jealous insecurity. How could Blake genuinely prefer her to these sexy, assured women?

As it was a pleasant day she had elected to walk to the Abbey, her decision in no way connected with the fact that walking would delay the inevitable confrontation with Caroline, she taunted herself as she fastened Fern’s sandals.

One day her daughter was going to be an extremely attractive woman, and when she was Jaime was determined that she would have far more self-confidence than she had ever had.

‘I like this green dress,’ Fern told her complacently. ‘It’s my favourite.’

‘It matches your eyes,’ Jaime told her. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, I like your dress too, Mummy.’

It had been a present from her mother the previous year. It was quite simple, white crinkle cotton, with shoe-string straps and an A-line skirt, the ideal dress for a hot, sunny afternoon. Her skin tanned well and the white fabric showed off her smooth golden arms and shoulders. She had taken more care than usual with her make-up and hair. When she looked happy, her eyes glowed like sapphires, Blake had once told her, and he had bought her a sapphire engagement ring to match them. She still had it, but could not wear it because of the memories it brought with it. She felt her heart contract with pain and regret.

Fern was an entertaining companion, chattering away at her side as they headed for the Abbey, Jaime matching her steps to her daughter’s slower ones.

‘It’s a very big house, isn’t it?’ Fern commented when they turned into the drive, ‘but I think I like Granny’s cottage best.’

Fern moved with a natural grace Jaime noticed, watching her daughter, unaware that her lithe delicacy had been inherited from her. Jaime had always enjoyed dancing. The discipline of teaching others, of helping them and watching their own appreciation grow with ability gave her an intense feeling of satisfaction. Fern tugged on her hand as she bent to examine a clump of ragged robin, and not for the first time Jaime gave mental thanks for the fact that her daughter had such an equable and sunny temperament. Fern would never suffer as she had done from an excess of sensitivity and over-emotionalism. ‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ her mother always said when she voiced this fact. ‘You have many things to recommend yourself, Jaime, you just don’t realise it.’ It sometimes seemed to Jaime that her mother had been trying to bolster her self-confidence all her life, but she had just never possessed the sturdy independence which characterised both her mother and her daughter.

The Abbey loomed before them, grey and ivy-coloured. Although not a beautiful house, it possessed a mellow air of continuity that had always appealed to Jaime. It had once been an Abbey, although little of the original building remained. It had been rebuilt during the reign of Charles the Second and, although Caroline complained that she found the panelled downstairs rooms gloomy and depressing, Jaime loved them.

Mrs March, Caroline’s housekeeper, answered the door, beaming at Fern, who responded with a happy grin of her own.

‘Why don’t I take her into the kitchen and give her some of my home-made gingerbread?’ she suggested, not realising that she was depriving Jaime of the emotional support she felt she needed. ‘Miss Caroline’s in the drawing room,’ she added.

No doubt Mrs March knew quite well why she was here, Jaime reflected, watching her daughter follow the housekeeper without a backward glance. The panelling had been removed from the drawing room by Caroline’s father, but the graceful stucco ceiling remained, and the Adam fireplace added by a Georgian owner. Caroline had completely refurnished the house when she inherited it. Personally, Jaime loathed the cold starkness of the modern Italian furniture she had chosen, but there was no doubt that it made a stunning setting for her startling beauty. Dark red hair framed her face in an aureole of curls, the leather trousers and silk blouse she was wearing being a soft khaki colour which emphasised her colouring. As always, she was immaculately made-up. She had played at modelling when she first left school and had picked up enough tips to achieve what always seemed to Jaime to be an effortlessly glamorous look. She reminded Jaime of the women who had pursued Blake, both before and after their marriage. Brittle, expensive, beautiful predators who lived by their own rules. Women she could never hope to compete with. ‘Why bother?’ her mother had once said lightly when she had tried to confide her fears to her. Blake had chosen to marry her, but she had never been able to rid herself of the conviction that, somehow, she had coerced him into marriage and that had been something she hadn’t been able to tell her mother. She had been too deeply ashamed to admit to her that she didn’t have the strength to be as independent as Sarah was. She had always felt that, secretly, she must have been a disappointment to her mother; that although she had never shown or expressed any impatience, there must have been some. ‘You underestimate yourself too much Jaime.’ That was what she had always said, and Jaime would have been surprised if she had known that, far from comparing her with Caroline to her own discredit, most people would have found far more appeal in her own natural beauty and quiet intelligence than in Caroline’s showy, pushy manners.

‘Well, well if it isn’t Miss Goody Two Shoes,’ Caroline mocked. The nickname was a throw-back to their schooldays, and Jaime managed to hold back the humiliating scald of colour she could feel rising up under her skin.

‘No need to ask what you’re doing here,’ Caroline continued tauntingly. ‘But what happened to the cavalry?’

‘If you mean Charles, he’s had to go to Dorchester to a meeting,’ Jaime responded evenly. ‘Caroline, surely it can’t be true that you intend to sell the Abbey to a developer?’

‘Why not?’ Caroline asked carelessly, ‘After all, it’s mine to do with as I choose.’ Without inviting Jaime to sit down, she drifted elegantly over to one of the uncomfortable-looking modern chairs, crossing her legs at the ankle, sure of herself as a woman in a way that Jaime felt she could never emulate.

‘But it is a listed building,’ Jaime reminded her quietly. Caroline shrugged. ‘So what.… If you feel so strongly about it, you can always put in a more attractive bid. The current one is £250,000.’ She laughed unpleasantly at Jaime’s expression.

The sound of Fern’s excited voice interrupted Jaime’s thought flow. She could see her daughter in the garden, walking towards the French windows, chattering animatedly to the man at her side.

Jaime’s heart seemed to do a somersault and then stop beating as she stared disbelievingly at the dark head bent towards her daughter’s. She started to shake, her sight blurring, the two heads of dark brown hair so similar that they merged into one. Caroline got up and opened the French doors.

‘Blake, darling, there you are. I thought you were writing.…’ There was malice in her eyes as she directed a contemptuous look at Jaime’s white face. ‘You seem to have given poor Jaime rather a shock, didn’t you let her know you were coming?’

As she watched the dark, hawklike profile of her husband turn in her direction, Jaime struggled to retain some composure.

‘Jaime and I aren’t exactly on intimate terms these days.’ The indifferent tone of his voice, the cool aloofness in his green eyes, both combined to increase Jaime’s feeling of nausea. She could scarcely believe that this handsome distant man had once possessed her body; had fathered her child.

‘I agree.’

‘Umm, it seems hard to believe that you were ever that,’ Caroline drawled, ‘but of course there is Fern.’

Fern! Trying to control the shudders of shocked reaction coursing through her, Jaime looked into her daughter’s shining eyes.

‘This is my Daddy,’ she told Jaime importantly, ‘I found him in the garden. He was looking at some flowers. I told him my name and he said that he was my Daddy.’

‘Fern, it’s time to go home.’ How weak and faint her voice sounded. ‘Go and say thank you to Mrs Marsh for your gingerbread and then we’ll go.’

‘I’m sorry about the interruption, Blake,’ she heard Caroline apologising as she hurried Fern away. ‘It’s Mrs Marsh’s fault, she should never have let the child loose in the garden.’

Blake’s response was an indistinct blur that Jaime didn’t stay to hear. Why should she? She already knew how Blake viewed his daughter; in much the same light as he did his wife; as an encumbrance he would prefer to do without.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YES, staying up at the Abbey he is… writing a book or supposed to be.…’ The voice faded away as Jaime entered the small post office and her face burned as she recognised who they were talking about. It was as impossible to ignore Blake’s presence in the vicinity as it was the sympathetic glances that seemed to follow her everywhere she went these days. Even at the studio she was aware of the faint air of sympathetic concern that surrounded her.

‘It’s horrible,’ she complained to her mother that night. ‘I feel as though I’m being treated as the victim of an incurable disease.’

‘It’s only because people don’t want to hurt you,’ Sarah sympathised. ‘If you talk to them openly about it, they’ll soon accept the situation.’

‘Why on earth did Blake have to come here?’

‘Presumably for the reason Caroline gave you. He needs somewhere to write.’

‘Or because he wants to flaunt his affair with Caroline in front of me.’

‘Why should he want to do that?’ Her mother’s glance was calmly shrewd. ‘You haven’t seen him for four years, and if he wanted to have an affair with Caroline, there’s nothing to stop him, although I doubt that she’s his type.’

‘But why should he need somewhere to write…?’ Frustration edged up under her voice, giving it a husky note of impatience.

‘Jaime, I know as little about his motives as you do yourself. If you really want answers to all these questions, you must ask him yourself.’

‘But to tell Fern that he’s her father!’ Why must her mother always be so reasonable and fair-minded? Why couldn’t she simply side with her without question? Her impartiality was frustrating and, in some strange sense, vaguely threatening.

‘He is her father,’ Sarah pointed out mildly. ‘One of your criticisms of him has always been his lack of interest in her. Try to be consistent, Jaime, my love. What do you want of the man? Or is he just to be a whipping post?’

‘I don’t believe for one moment that he’s come down here simply for Fern’s sake.’

‘Jaime, I really can’t see the point in discussing him with you while you stay in this frame of mind. I can understand why seeing him should shock and even upset you, but for Fern’s sake you must try to set aside your own dislike of him, and remember that he is her father. Must he be damned for ever, because you quarrelled with him?’ she asked quizzically. ‘Perhaps he’s changed, people do you know,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t rush to meet trouble head on, Jaime. I personally can’t believe for one moment that Blake is staying with Caroline simply because he wishes to flaunt any relationship they might have in front of you. He isn’t that type of man. Now, I’m going shopping this afternoon. I need to restock my wardrobe for Rome, but I should be back for tea.’

On Wednesday afternoons Jaime closed the studio and usually spent the afternoon with Fern. She had just collected her from playschool and was making a drink when she heard a car stopping outside. Her mother’s cottage was the middle one of a row of three with a long front garden and a pleasant, sheltered back one. The kitchen-dining room in which Jaime was standing had windows at either end, and her heart skittered to a standstill as she saw Blake unfold his lean frame from the low-slung black Ferrari she had seen entering the Abbey’s drive earlier in the week, and unlock the garden gate.

‘Mummy, you’re daydreaming again,’ Fern criticised sternly. She wanted to run but where was there to run to? And besides, she had left that sort of childish reaction behind her when she left London.

As she opened the door to him, he seemed to tower menacingly over her, dark and forbidding, his jean-clad figure familiar and yet totally alien. He had always affected her in this way; the maleness in him calling out to her deeply feminine core so that her pulse rate quickened and her stomach ached.

‘Sensible of you,’ he commented when she let him in. His eyes were derisive as he added, ‘Knowing you as I do, I half expected to have to break the door down to get in. You always did have a taste for the dramatic.’

‘Not to say farcical,’ Jaime agreed, watching the faint surprise replace the derision. ‘We do have a back door,’ she pointed out, ‘and it is open.’

‘We have to talk.’

‘Do we? I can’t think what about.’

‘Well, there’s Fern for starters.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ It was her turn to sound derisive. ‘Forgive me for not recognising your concern for your daughter straight away, won’t you?’

‘You know the reason I haven’t shown any interest in her before.’ His voice was clipped, and if she had not known better she could have imagined there was a trace of angry pain in it.

‘What, besides Fern, brings you down here?’

‘You heard what Caroline said. I need the peace and quiet to write.’

‘A new departure isn’t it? You always seemed to manage quite well at the flat.’

‘With you for inspiration?’ His mouth twisted. ‘They were articles, this is a novel—my third to be exact.’

Her heart missed a beat and then hammered painfully. It hurt much more than she could say that there had been such drastic developments in his life and that she had known nothing about them.

‘I started the first one just after you left me, after I got back from El Salvador.’

She didn’t want to talk about the past. It held far too many unhappy memories. Fern heard their voices and came running out of the kitchen, launching herself at Blake with unabashed enthusiasm. ‘Daddy.…’

‘I’d like to take her out for the afternoon.’

‘No… Wednesday is the only afternoon I have her all to myself.’

‘Then come with us.’ It was a subtle challenge, reminding her of the many other challenges he had given her in the past and the often childish manner in which she had reacted to them. Fern’s smile widened and Jaime knew that if she refused the little girl would be disappointed.

‘Very well,’ she agreed coolly, suppressing wry amusement as she saw disbelief flicker briefly in Blake’s eyes. Had he expected her to refuse? She shrugged aside the thought. What did it matter what he had expected? She wasn’t going to leave Fern alone with him, at least not until she knew why he was making this attempt to get to know his daughter. Nor was she going to allow him to provoke her as he had done in the past. With a slight start, she realised she was experiencing none of the tongue-tied anxiety she had previously felt in his presence. Somehow the gulf she had always felt between them seemed to have narrowed, and she no longer stood so much in awe of him. Not that she underestimated him for one moment. Fern was already showing incipient signs of being dazzled by him and her heart ached for her daughter, the pain followed by a fierce wave of protective mother love. Blake would never hurt Fern the way he had hurt her.

‘How about the New Forest?’ Blake suggested blandly. Jaime bit her lip. They had once spent a weekend there shortly after they were married. Blake had overruled her protests at dinner and, as a consequence, she had drunk rather more wine than was her normal habit. Later, alone together in their room, he had made full use of her intoxicated state to coax from her a physical response to his lovemaking which still held a vivid place in her memories.

‘Fine,’ she responded lightly. ‘Fern will love the ponies.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘Well, if we’re going to make it there and back in the day, we’d better start out soon.’

He was right, but Jaime suppressed a mental sigh. She had looked forward to a little time on her own from which to draw enough strength to face the prospect of the rest of the afternoon with him.

Fern accepted his presence with her normal placid good sense, although she did comment to Jaime, thankfully while Blake was out of earshot, ‘I like my Daddy; he’s much nicer than Charles isn’t he?’

It didn’t take long to get ready. Blake waited for them in the sitting room, commenting admiringly on Fern’s new pale pink boilersuit when they rejoined him, although it was on Jaime’s slim shape in her faded jeans and soft T-shirt that his eyes lingered.

‘I hear you’ve opened a dance studio,’ he remarked, as he opened the front door for them, ‘and that it’s doing very well.’

‘Surprised?’ Her voice sounded nastily bitter.

‘Why should I be? I always knew you had it in you to make your own way in life, Jaime. That air of helpless desperation is very deceptive. You’ve made it more than clear to me that you want neither my emotional nor financial support.’

As they were walking down the garden path, Charles’ Ford drew up outside, Charles himself emerging from inside it, his eyes going from Jaime to Blake and then back again. Charles had met Blake at the wedding and, as he came towards them, Jaime could almost see the questions hovering on his lips.

‘Templeton,’ Charles greeted Blake stiffly. ‘Quite a surprise.’ He looked at Jaime as he spoke, his face taut with disapproval. ‘I suppose you’re here to discuss the divorce.’ His gaze switched back to Blake and Jaime felt her heart lurch precariously. Of course! Stupidly that was something she hadn’t thought about. Did Blake want to institute divorce proceedings? If so, he need hardly discuss them with her. They had been separated for longer than the statutory period necessary for an uncontested divorce. ‘I’m Jaime’s solicitor, and the right thing to do would have been for yours to get in touch with me,’ Charles was saying stuffily. ‘In fact, your divorce will be quite a simple procedure.…’

‘Always supposing we want one.’ Blake’s drawl was calm but something about the way he spoke warned Jaime that he was annoyed. Why? Because Charles had pre-empted him?

‘And besides, what makes you think we’re discussing divorce? We could be contemplating a reconciliation.’

If she hadn’t been so stunned, Jaime might almost have laughed at Charles’s expression. His eyes met hers, but before she could answer the question in them, Blake’s hand was on her arm, guiding her towards the car. He opened the door and helped Fern into the back, never once releasing Jaime’s arm from his grip.

When he finally put the Ferrari in gear and drove away, Charles was still standing mute, watching them.

‘Uncle Charles looked like one of the goldfish at playschool,’ Fern commented, watching him, as they drove off. Blake’s laughter released Jaime from her stupefied incredulity… ‘Why did you say that to him?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Why did you intimate that we might be considering a reconciliation?’

The powerful shoulders shrugged, his profile turning briefly towards her. ‘Why not?’ he asked blandly. ‘It’s as likely to be true as his comment about a divorce. At least on my side. Are you contemplating divorce proceedings?’

‘Are you?’

He made a small, exasperated sound in the back of his throat. ‘You know damn well if I was, you’d be the first person to know about them—via me, not some solicitor. The only reason I can think of for divorcing you would be because I wanted to marry someone else. As that doesn’t apply, I’m quite happy with the present status quo. Apart from anything else, it acts as a pretty good deterrent.’

‘You mean it gives you the freedom to have affairs without giving any commitment,’ Jaime commented bitterly.

‘It gives you exactly the same freedoms,’ Blake pointed out. ‘Why was Thomson coming to see you?’

His abrupt change of subject startled her for a moment. For some reason he obviously didn’t want to talk about a divorce between them. But men, as he had so cynically commented, he had no reason to divorce her. He had the best of both worlds; the protective status of marriage, and the freedom of a single man.

‘Charles? Oh, I expect he wanted to know how I got on at the Abbey.’

‘Ah, yes, Caroline waxed most indignant after you’d gone about your plans to stop her selling the place.’

‘Not to stop her selling it, it’s the fact that she’s planning to sell it to a property developer, who will probably pull it down, that we’re objecting to.’

‘It’s a listed building, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but when did that stop anyone?’

‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Always a fault of yours. You always did enjoy painting the blackest picture possible.’

They drove some miles in silence before Fern piped up with several questions. Blake answered her with a calm assurance that Jamie found surprising, listening to him tailoring his replies so that the three-year-old would find them easily comprehensible. This was a side of him she had never seen before. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps, where Fern was concerned, he had had a change of heart and genuinely wanted to get to know his daughter. How would she be able to cope if Blake came back into her life as Fern’s part-time father? She had learned today it was easier to cope with never seeing him than with these brief exchanges, excruciatingly painful after the intimacy she had once shared with him.

With Blake’s powerful Ferrari it seemed no time at all before they reached the outskirts of the Forest. Fern laughed excitedly when the powerful car splashed through one of the fords, the jolting throwing Jaime against Blake’s hard shoulder. One hand left the wheel as he steadied her, his fingers resting against her body just below the full curve of her breast. She jerked convulsively against his touch as though it burned, watching the mocking arch of his eyebrows.

‘Once when you did that it was because you couldn’t wait for me to make love to you,’ he murmured softly, watching her.

The way she had craved his lovemaking almost as though it were a drug was one of the things that sickened Jaime most about her behaviour during their brief marriage, and, in a way, his physical possession of her had been a drug. In his arms, she could forget all her doubts and insecurities and convince herself that he loved her as much as she loved him.

‘Now, it’s because I can’t endure the thought of you doing so,’ she responded crisply, hoping that he couldn’t tell that she was lying. The proximity of him brought back memories she would much rather have suppressed. She had been shy and naive when they first met, but that had not stopped her from responding to Blake’s lovemaking with an ardency that had surprised her. If he turned to her now and took her in his arms—suppressing the acutely erotic images tormenting her, she shook her head, and turned round to talk to Fern.

Blake brought the car to a halt in one of the small clearings. Half a dozen mares and foals grazed peacefuly several yards away, Fern’s eyes widening with delight when she saw them. Jaime had taken the precaution of bringing a bag of stale bread with her, and Blake took it from her, demonstrating to Fern how to offer it to the ponies. When one finally deigned to take the bread from her small quivering palm, her serious little face was suffused with an expression of pure bliss.

Jaime caught Blake looking at her, something approaching pain darkening his eyes. An emotion stirred inside her, refusing to be quelled, and just for a moment, she gave in to the urge to make believe that they were a contented family unit; that she and Blake were still together.

‘She’s very much your child,’ she said softly to Blake, acting instinctively, wanting to banish the look of pain in his eyes.

‘Physically, yes, but in other ways she reminds me of your mother. She’s very self-sufficient. Don’t look at me like that,’ he added sardonically. ‘I’ve no intention of trying to deny paternity. Even if she didn’t look like me, I’d still know she was my child. You were so physically responsive to me, there couldn’t have been anyone else.’

Jaime’s face burned at the implications of his remark, and trying to change the subject, she demanded curtly, ‘Why have you come to Frampton, Blake? I don’t believe it was simply because you want to get to know Fern. Especially as you’re staying with Caroline.’

‘In point of fact, I’m not staying with her. I’m renting a cottage from her. The old Lodge—I didn’t even know it belonged to her until I answered the “ad” for it in The Times.’

‘Are you saying you did come to Frampton purely because of Fern?’

Some of her anxiety must have shown in her face because he said lazily, ‘I’m not going to attempt to wrest her from your maternal arms, if that’s what’s worrying you, but she is my child.…’

‘A child you never wanted me to conceive,’ Jaime reminded him hotly, glad that Fern was still engrossed in the ponies. ‘She’s three years old, Blake.…’

‘Which means she and I have three years to catch up on. You say she’s at playschool during the day. How about if I pick her up in the afternoon and have her with me until tea time?’

It was plain that she wasn’t going to get an explanation for his change of attitude towards Fern, and Jaime sighed, knowing the impossibility of getting Blake to talk about something when he didn’t want to. Part of her wanted to demand that he went away and left them alone, but did she have the right to deprive both Fern and Blake himself of their natural relationship?

‘She is my child, Jaime.…’

‘I’ll have to think about it.’

His mouth curled sardonically, ‘Well, when you have done, come and give me your decision. I’ll wait until Friday.’

‘Two days!’

‘It’s long enough, I seem to recall you made an even bigger one in two hours—that’s how long it took you to decide to run out of our marriage, wasn’t it?’

Jaime didn’t know what he was talking about. Two hours! She had waited two long weeks for him to come looking for her and take her home, but he had left the country two days after their quarrel, without making the slightest attempt to get in touch with her.

‘I think it’s time we went back,’ she said shakily. ‘It’s getting close to Fern’s bedtime.’

‘Same old Jaime,’ Blake taunted mockingly. ‘Always ignoring the unpleasant.’

They arrived back in the village several hours later with Fern asleep in the back of the car. Before Jaime could protest, Blake lifted the sleeping child out and carried her to the house. Her mother opened the door to them, and smiled at Blake without surprise.

‘If you tell me which room she’s in I’ll take her up,’ Blake drawled. Fern looked so right and at home in his arms that Jaime had to fight against the desire to cry. In sleep her tough independent daughter looked unfamiliarly vulnerable.

‘You go up and show Blake the way,’ Sarah suggested, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Charles came round to see if you were back,’ she added, answering Jaime’s unspoken question. ‘He told me you’d gone out with Blake.’

The cottage had only three bedrooms, but the third had been split to provide a small bathroom and a tiny room which could only be reached through Jaime’s bedroom. She saw Blake glance mockingly at her single bed as she indicated the small room which was Fern’s.

‘Very nunlike,’ he commented, as he carefully placed Fern on her bed. ‘I imagine your dates must find it frustrating if they ever get this far, to find you’re almost sharing a room with your daughter.’

‘There’s always their bedrooms,’ Jaime pointed out, angry at his mocking assumption that she lived the life of a nun, even if it was true. She doubted that he was any monk, and it galled her that he should assume that her life was bereft of the sexual involvement he no doubt had a surfeit of.

Just for a moment, his eyes seemed to darken, his mouth compressing.

‘I’ll just slip Fern’s dress off. You go down, I won’t be long.’

‘I’ll wait for you.’ There was an old rocking chair in her room in which she used to sit when she was feeding Fern, and he walked over to it, setting it in motion with his foot. His presence in her bedroom made Jaime feel acutely uncomfortable, and her fingers fumbled over Fern’s small buttons. The little girl stirred, but didn’t wake, and at last she was tucked up.

‘Thank you for taking us out,’ Jaime said formally, as she rejoined Blake in her own room.

‘So very polite… but you always were that, weren’t you, Jaime? So polite and correct. The only place I could get to the real Jaime was in bed; it was the only place you ever lost your inhibitions.’ He laughed when he saw her expression, his fingers suddenly and surprisingly curling round her wrist. ‘Ah, Jaime, aren’t you going to thank me in the traditional manner? Like this,’ he added huskily when she frowned.

His seeking mouth found hers before she could move away, the warm, intimate pressure of it, transporting her to another world, her lips softening and responding before she could even think about rejecting him. Her eyes widened and darkened, her fingers clutching convulsively at the thin fabric of his shirt to hold herself upright. ‘Ah, Jaime, this at least was always good, wasn’t it?’

Blake’s husky voice seemed to weave a spell around her, her mind and body acquiescing almost instantly to his unspoken commands. When his mouth left hers, she arched her throat, instinctively giving him access to the vulnerable skin his lips were seeking. Tiny frissons of reaction shivered across her flesh, a small moan suppressed in her throat as Blake’s delicately thorough exploration triggered off feelings she thought had gone for ever. His teeth found the lobe of her ear and tugged on it gently, her fingers automatically curling into the thick springyness of his hair, her body unconsciously moulding itself to him.

‘Jaime.’ His hands slid down her body, lingering against the curves of her breasts, the pressure of his mouth gradually increasing as it moved across her skin, teasing tormenting kisses against her trembling lips, his tongue stroking their vulnerable contours until they parted in soft invitation.

She was lost, drowning in a warm, lapping sea that called out a siren song to her senses. Everything she had ever wanted or would want was here within her reach. Her fingers sought for and found the space between Blake’s shirt buttons, feverishly stroking the silky dark hairs that shadowed his chest. She felt the sudden compression of his muscles as his mouth lifted from hers and dizzyingly and bewilderingly she was free.

‘Your mother just called us.’ Amusement danced in his eyes. ‘Poor Jaime,’ he taunted, ‘despite all your attempts to hide it, you still respond to me physically, don’t you?’

‘How can I help doing?’ Miraculously her voice sounded much calmer than she had expected. ‘You were the one who first taught my body the meaning of physical pleasure.…’

‘The first? Meaning there’ve been others since?’ His eyes were almost black, glittering with a savage anger she couldn’t understand.

‘But Thomson isn’t one of them, is he?’ he tormented. ‘He looks at you the way a dog eyes a particularly juicy and unobtainable bone.’

‘My relationship with Charles has nothing to do with you,’ Jaime choked out. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘No? Aren’t you forgetting something?’ He picked up her left hand and raised it until she was looking at the narrow gold wedding ring she still wore. ‘You are still my wife, Jaime.’

‘That can soon be changed,’ she responded, goaded into making the declaration. Didn’t he know how much he was hurting her with his careless lovemaking that stirred her body into an acutely painful response, and his equally careless assumption that she was still his for the taking, as though he had looked into her heart and seen the foolish love for him that still lived there. ‘I can quite easily get an uncontested divorce. We’ve been separated long enough.’

‘An uncontested divorce requires a separation of two years without any marital relations between the divorcing couple.’

‘Meaning…’ She was shivering all over now, wondering if Blake really meant the threat hidden in his dulcet comment.

‘Meaning that just at the moment it suits me to remain a married man, and moreover that I intend to remain a married man, and that I’m fully prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that I do so.’

He saw her expression and smiled derisively.

‘While you’ve been busy with your life, Jaime, I’ve been busy with mine. My first two books have been extremely successful in the States, and I’m now a comparatively wealthy man. A healthy bank balance makes a man appealing husband material. I have no intention of being trapped into a marriage it will cost a great deal to extricate myself from and, while I remain married to you, that won’t happen.’

‘Unless of course I decide to sue you for alimony.’

‘Coming from the woman who’s refused to accept a penny support from me for the last four years, that’s hardly likely is it? I think we’d better go downstairs before your mother puts the wrong interpretation on our absence, don’t you?’

When he left half an hour later, Blake turned to Jaime in the privacy of the cottage door and said, ‘Remember, you’ve got two days to come to a decision about Fern. You know where to find me, Jaime, and if you don’t, I’ll have to come looking for you.’

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