Fragrance of Violets (9 page)

The answers came one after the other.

“Finding jobs.”

“Housing we can afford if we want to stay here.”

“No entertainment. We’re too young for pubs and clubs, and there’s nothing for kids our age.”

“Hardly any public transport. We have to rely on our parents to take us anywhere, especially in the evenings.”

“Shopping. We have to go to Kendal or even further for any decent shops that cater for teenagers.”

“Yes, you’re all right,” Jack said. “In fact, you’re listing similar things to those we complained about when we were your age. I remember Abbey going on about the lack of any shops with teenage fashions.”

He winked at her, and Abbey grinned as she replied, “And I could tell them about the time you went all the way to Manchester to buy the designer trainers you wanted.”

The youngsters laughed, and Jack’s blue eyes softened as he smiled at her. Like the previous Sunday, it was as if they’d stepped back in time, to the Jack and Abbey they used to be.

But it wasn’t her memory of their teenage closeness which sent the heat rushing through her veins now. He hadn’t had this effect on her when they were kids.

For the first time, she allowed herself to accept that she was attracted to him. Despite her immediate attempt to deny it, she forced herself to be honest. The attraction had been there when they first met outside the shop. Now it had taken root. Not only a physical attraction, but an even stronger pull to the man Jack had become. For a few moments, she struggled to equate what she felt now with what she’d felt ten years before, but pushed it to one side. It was something she’d have to work out later.

She brought her mind back to what he was saying to the group. “Ten or fifteen years ago, our problems were similar to yours today, but do you think teenagers in the past faced the same problems?”

The young people looked at each other, and Abbey was impressed again by the way he encouraged them to think.

“How far in the past do you mean?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise when Charlotte Morris asked the question. The shy fourteen year old rarely contributed to any discussion although Abbey had recognised her potential as an actress.

Delight zinged through her at the interest which lit up the girl’s face. The same interest was reflected in faces of the others. It seemed she wasn’t the only one to be affected by Jack’s charisma.

“However far in the past you want to go,” Jack said in answer to Charlotte. “You could find out, for example, what life was in your parents’ or grandparents’ time, and compare the problems they had when they were younger with your own issues today. You might go even further back, into the nineteenth century, and think about young people at that time. They faced a lot of similar problems, you know. Jobs? Yes, they were expected to continue family traditions—farming, slate quarrying, working in the copper mines, even blacksmiths and carpenters, but what if they didn’t want to do that? What other opportunities did they have?”

The discussion went on as the teenagers compared and contrasted their own lives with what they’d heard from their parents or grandparents about life forty or sixty years ago. The atmosphere became charged with a buzz of excitement, and Abbey realised they’d hit on something that could work. A portrayal of life for young people in Lakeland, past and present.

She let Jack lead the discussion, which he did with confident ease, until she checked her watch and saw with surprise that it was nearly nine-thirty.

“Okay, time to finish. Jack’s given you lots to think about. During this coming week, how about doing some research on life in the past for people your age?”

“Concentrate on three or four aspects,” Jack said. “Ask your parents and grandparents or other older people, and see if you can find out about the nineteenth century, too, because I guarantee you’ll discover that young people faced very similar issues.”

Abbey nodded. “Next week, we’ll try to create scenes that highlight comparisons and contrasts.”

The young people tidied the barn and said their farewells. Some were walking in groups to homes in the village, others were picked up by parents from farms and homes further away. When they’d all left, Abbey’s nerves tightened again. Being alone with Jack filled her with too many conflicting emotions.

“Thanks for coming. Your ideas were great.”

“I enjoyed it.” He flicked off the lights and held the door for her. “Hopefully it’s given them something to think about, and after all that talking, I need a drink. How about you? Want to go to the White Lion?”

Part of her wanted to run away from Fir Garth, to escape home where she could examine her muddled thoughts in private. The other part longed to sit next to him in the pub, feel his arm brushing against hers, let her eyes connect with his, talk and laugh like they used to do.

It didn’t make sense that she could be attracted to him and yet resent him at the same time. Besides, he was grieving for his fiancée. She was in danger of making a complete fool of herself.

She shook her head. “Not tonight, thanks. I need to go home now, but thanks again for the use of the barn and for talking to the kids.”

She set off toward the gate.

“Abbey, wait.”

She didn’t want to wait, or turn around, or talk to him any longer, or feel the hot rush of desire she didn’t understand, or deal with the battle between her head and her heart.

How could she maintain a casual friendship with him when everything inside her was on fire? She desperately wanted to distance herself from him, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Instead she stopped, and reluctantly turned to face him.

CHAPTER 9

Jack breathed again. He knew he’d have to tread carefully if he was to break through the barrier she’d erected around herself. It was probably more like a solid wall than a flimsy curtain, but he needed to find out.

She didn’t say anything, but tilted her chin slightly as she looked at him. Her green eyes were defensive and challenging at the same time.

He stayed a few feet away from her. “I haven’t a clue what’s going on in your head right now. Sometimes I think we’re fine, other times we—you—well, I’m not sure what to think.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does. At least to me, which is why I think we should talk.”

“I don’t want to—”

He held up his hands. “I don’t mean about the past. I hoped we could get to know each other again.”

“Oh.”

Her face relaxed but he sensed her uncertainty. “I’d also like to know more about the kids in the group.” Perhaps that would open a channel of communication between them.

“Oh, I see.”

There was still wariness in her voice but he decided to take a chance. “How about coming into the house for coffee, or something stronger, if you prefer?”

“Coffee would be fine.”

“Good.” He led the way into the house, and to the kitchen, glad he’d made a jug of coffee earlier and left it on the hot-plate.

Abbey glanced around. “This is different.”

“Yeah, Dad organised it a few years ago. Had some guys in to give the place a makeover.”

“You sound very American at times, you know. Saying things like
some guys
. At one time, you’d have said blokes or fellas.”

He shrugged. “I lived there for two years. Sometimes I forget what’s British and what’s American.”

“Tell me about Los Angeles.”

“Crazy place. Too much traffic, fumes, smog. All the emphasis on money, and the pressure to be seen in the right places, going to the right functions, meeting the right people. You must have experienced some of that, too?”

She nodded. “I hated having to go to parties or publicity events because the producer or sponsor insisted. My agent once told me I should always go out looking like a glossy celebrity photo, but I can’t play that game. Instead, I tie my hair back and wear casual clothes and hope no one will recognise me. Underneath, I’ll always be Abbey Seton, not Abigail Barton.”

“Yes, that’s the girl I remember. Determined to do it your own way, no matter what anyone else says.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He suppressed a sigh. She was so brittle and defensive, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. “Nothing’s wrong. On the contrary, I have the greatest respect for people who refuse to play the game, as you put it. It means you retain your own individuality rather than simply doing what others expect you to do.” He finished pouring the coffee and picked up the two mugs. “Come on, let’s go into the lounge instead of standing here in the kitchen.”

As he followed her across the hallway to the lounge, his chest tightened in panic. His laptop was on the coffee-table and he’d left open the document with the first chapter of his fourth
Rycroft Saga
book. With relief, he saw it had gone into screensaver mode.

This was definitely not the right time to tell her he was the author. Not until he’d had an update from Farrell who said he would contact the casting director. Farrell wasn’t certain they could withdraw the contract which had been offered to another actress, but hopefully everything would be resolved by the end of the week. Until he was sure, he couldn’t raise Abbey’s hopes, or risk giving her another disappointment.

“This room’s different, too,” she said.

He closed his laptop and laughed. “Soulless, isn’t it, without all the family photos and knick-knacks? Most of those were in the boxes we moved on Sunday.”

She sank down into one of the dark green brocade armchairs. “I suppose it’s what you have to do when you rent out a house. Will you be renting it out again when you leave here?”

He sat on the couch and gave her a wry grin. “Is that a loaded question?”

“No—no, I wondered—”

“You wondered how long I’ll be here?”

She flashed the amused smile he remembered so well. “It had crossed my mind.”

“What would you say if I said I was leaving tomorrow?”

* * * * *

A bolt of alarm shot through Abbey. Leaving tomorrow? A couple of weeks ago she’d hoped Jack wouldn’t be staying in Rusthwaite for very long. Now she didn’t know what to think. Once he left, her life would return to its normal predictable course, but was that what she wanted?

“Are you?”

He grinned. “Nope.”

She pouted in mock exasperation. “That’s the kind of thing you did when we were kids.”

“Did I?”

His wide-eyed innocence made her laugh. “You know very well you used to wind me up by saying something and letting me believe it for ages before you retracted it. You told me the valley road was going to be closed for three months, and once you said Johnny Depp was coming up to Windermere to make a movie.”

Jack laughed, the deep rich laugh she remembered, which now sent a rush of warmth through her. “We had some crazy times, didn’t we?”

“We had crazy conversations, too,” she replied, relaxing now her tension had started to subside. “Remember when we had a long discussion about whether spiders got frustrated or annoyed when people swept away their webs, after they’d spent hours making them?”

“And the time we talked about whether butterflies remembered they’d once been caterpillars.”

“I don’t remember that one.”

“Ah. Sorry, no, that was a silly conversation I had with Rachel.”

Something stirred inside her that she’d never felt before, but she recognised it. Jealousy of this unknown woman who had shared Jack’s life. “What was she like, Jack?”

“Rachel?” He hesitated. “When I first met her, she reminded me of you.”

Abbey didn’t know if her heart had stopped beating or if it was pounding so fast that everything became numb inside her. “M-me?” Hastily she recovered herself. “Why?”

“Because she was lively and had a real zest for life, but she also knew what she wanted. She was determined and straightforward and uncomplicated—”

“And you think that applies to me?”

“Of course it does. Think back to all the fun we had. You bubbled over with enthusiasm
and
you knew what you wanted.”

“And uncomplicated?”

“Yes, in the sense of being single-minded about becoming an actress.”

“Not in any other sense, though.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Oh, come on, Jack, I was the most screwed-up teenager you could ever meet.”

“Because of your father?”

“Yes.” She looked away from his searching eyes.

“Are you still screwed up about him?”

She gave a small shrug. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive what he did to Mum, or to Louise and Ellie and me.”

“Plenty of men leave their wives and their children. It’s a sad fact of life these days.”

“Yes, I know it happens everywhere, and everyone has to find their own way of dealing with it. At the time, and afterwards, too.”

“Hey, stop getting prickly. This is me, remember?”

Abbey managed a small smile. She’d spoken more sharply than she intended. “Sorry, I don’t like talking about him. I don’t even want to think about him.”

“And that’s how you deal with it? Now, I mean?”

“Perhaps a part of me still thinks it was my fault, just as I did when he first left us.”

“I thought you got over that feeling?”

“Yes, of course I realised he didn’t leave because I told Mum about the phone call. It’s the things we found out later that I can’t forgive. His affairs with other women, and the problems Mum had with child support payments from him, and all the excuses he made when we were supposed to visit him.” She stopped as the memories returned in a painful rush.

“Especially over the New York trip.”

“Yes.” She shuddered as she remembered the ghastly debacle when she was fifteen. Her father had called out of the blue and said he wanted to take her to New York for a week. She’d been giddy with excitement. Broadway theatres and all the shops on Fifth Avenue, as well as the posh hotels and restaurants her father could well afford.

Two days before they were due to go, he called and said he was sorry, but he had to attend some meetings in Berlin. She was bitterly disappointed, but tried to accept it as part of his job.

The following week, one of her school friends pointed to a photograph in a celebrity magazine. “Hey, Abbey, isn’t this your Dad?”

Abbey stared at the photo of her father with a glamorous auburn-haired woman, and read the caption:
French model Chantelle Garnier with her new escort, London stockbroker Marcus Seton, at the New York Metropolitan Opera last week
.

At first she couldn’t believe it, but anger soon replaced her incredulity. She bought a copy of the magazine and held her cold fury in a tight ball inside her until a couple of weeks later, when her father sent her a letter. He apologised for the New York trip, and said his meetings in Berlin had been very successful.

She tore up the letter, and the tight ball exploded into a million icy shards.

“My father’s a liar,” she sobbed against Jack’s shoulder. “A bare-faced liar. He lied about this trip, and he’s probably lied whenever he’s made excuses about why he couldn’t see us.”

Jack was the only person she ever told. To her mother, she said, “I’m fed up of Dad’s excuses. I’m not going to see or speak to him again.”

And she hadn’t. Not even when he phoned from Japan on her eighteenth birthday, and she returned the large cheque he sent her on her twenty-first.

“I still have the magazine,” she said now. “The one with the photo of him and the French model. If I ever feel myself weakening toward him, wondering how he is or what he’s doing, I look at that picture.”

“And remind yourself of the day you decided men would cause you nothing but grief?”

Abbey heard his ironic tone. At the same time, she recalled the words of the husky-voiced woman on the phone:
Men are all the same, they can’t be trusted.
“No,” she said, with more certainty than she felt. “Of course I realise not all men are like that, but at the time I was devastated.”

“You were fifteen, an emotional adolescent.”

“Are you telling me I haven’t grown up?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

Abbey stiffened, not only because she’d been reminded of feelings she preferred not to think about, but also because she sensed a hint of criticism in what Jack said.

“What he did over the years has affected us all,” she snapped. “Louise married a man twenty years older, went through her own bitter divorce, but she’s still searching for a substitute father figure. And Ellie, although she was much younger when he left, seems to be trying to prove she’s as good as any man, with her engineering degree at university and now her backpacking and mountaineering.”

“And you?”

“I’ve concentrated on my career.”

Jack acknowledged her reply with a small tilt of his head but said nothing.

Abbey’s mind seethed with contradictions. Half of her was annoyed by his questioning which in turn had resurrected her deep-seated resentment. The other half regretted the turn in what had been a relaxed conversation.

She made a conscious effort to recover her composure. The last thing she wanted was for him to tell her she was overreacting, and she forced a note of levity into her tone. “I thought you were about to psychoanalyse me, Jack. To tell me it’s time I got over my adolescent reactions and moved on.”

He gave a small shrug. “I’m the last person in the world to tell you to move on. You have to find your own way. So have I, and I know how hard it is.”

“Yes, I understand that. At least, I do in your case, although I can’t even begin to imagine how it feels to lose someone you love.”

“You don’t have to imagine. You know what it’s like.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve never—”

“You lost your father when you were nine, and again when you were fifteen.”

“That was different.”

“Yes, in one sense, but desertion can be even more difficult to come to terms with than death. In both cases, though, someone you love disappears from your life. You probably went through all the stages of bereavement—the disbelief, the denial, the guilt, the anger. Oh yes, definitely the anger.”

“You mean my anger?”

“I’ve gone through it, too, if it’s any consolation.”

Abbey stared at him. “You’ve been angry with Rachel?”

He nodded. “With Rachel for storming out of the apartment and getting herself killed, with myself for provoking our fight, and for a lot of other things.”

“Are you still angry?”

“No, I think I’m past that now, but you aren’t, are you?”