Starting Over (5 page)

Immediately reality intruded, breaking the spell she was under. In the same second that she pulled back from him Nick released her. Wordlessly they glared at one another. Two pairs of eyes both reflecting the same furious resentment, both reflecting the same hot aching desire.

'EVERYTHING all right now?' Tullah asked Nick when he rejoined them. Saul had gone to pay the bill so only she was there to see the shattered, shocked expression in Nick's eyes.

'Everything's fine,' he lied as he guided her towards the exit where Saul was waiting for them both.

Crighton men! Sara seethed, her emotions in chaotic turmoil, her body equally disturbed. Tania had been
so
right about them.

'GOOD LORD, is that really the time?' Frederick de Voysey exclaimed as he glanced at his watch. 'I had no idea. Can't remember when I last enjoyed m'self so much...excellent dinner, m'dear,' he praised Honor.

'I'll drive you back to Fitzburgh Place.' David smiled. He had deliberately not had any wine with his meal, knowing that he would be driving Honor's cousin home afterwards.

He had been a little bit uncertain about the wisdom of inviting Freddy round for dinner the same day that the priest was arriving, but as always Honor's judgement had proved better than his and the two men both in their seventies had got on famously together. So much so that Lord Astlegh had already invited the priest to join him in a game of chess later in the week.

'In terms of religion they may be poles apart,'

Honor had agreed when David had raised that issue.

'But in terms of their desire to help their fellow man they are very similar and surely that matters more.'

And so it had proved to be. From the tone of Freddy's conversation David suspected that it wouldn't be too long before the priest found himself involved in one or other of the peer's 'good works,'

but right now he could see that the older man was looking tired. He had, after all, only arrived from Ireland a few hours earlier.

'I think I'm ready to call it a night as well,' Father Ignatius agreed.

At the front door Honor kissed her elderly cousin fondly.

'I've had the plans back for the orangery,' he reminded her. 'You'd better come up and see them.'

'I shall,' Honor assured him affectionately.

Closing the front door behind him she smiled at the priest. 'Would you like to wait here until David comes back or would you prefer to go straight to your bed?'

'Straight to bed if you don't mind,' he confirmed.

It had been a tiring journey from Ireland but it was a peaceful kind of tiredness. He had gone there for a purpose, back to the place where his ministry had begun. Now he could settle to a life in the Cheshire countryside. Father Ignatius was at the place that he knew would be his final home on earth.

He allowed Honor to walk with him to the small self-contained apartment they had prepared for him.

Its rooms had a stark almost cell-like bareness that he knew was deliberate. David's decision or Honor's? It didn't really matter. He felt comfortable here. At home...and was appreciative of whichever of them it was that had had the sensitivity to know that this would be what he wanted.

The books on the simple bookshelves were David's choice—he knew that—and would have known it even if Honor had not whispered to him that David had spent days combing antiquarian booksellers lists for them.

They were books they had talked of in Jamaica. He reached for one, smoothing the aged leather cover, opening it and breathing in the familiar smell of its pages. There had been books like this at the Jesuit college where he had been educated. How long ago that seemed now.

'Do YOU THINK Father Ignatius is all right?' David asked Honor an hour later. They were in bed lovingly curled up together like two spoons. Whilst he waited for her response David started to nibble tenderly at the exposed curve of Honor's neck. There was something uniquely adorable and almost absurdly youthful about the back of her neck. Closing his eyes he breathed in the unmatchable Honor scent of her. He was lucky, so undeservably blessed.

'He's tired after his journey, that's all,' Honor reassured him. 'He certainly enjoyed Freddy's company.'

'Okay, I concede, you were right about them getting on well together,' David laughed.

'Olivia and Caspar were due back today, weren't they?' Honor said quietly.

'Yes,' David agreed. There was no laughter in his voice now.

Immediately Honor turned round to look at him.

'Give her time, David,' she counselled him. 'I know how much you want to show her what she means to you, but—'

'She hates me, Honor,' David interrupted her sadly.

'I can feel it....'

'No, it isn't you she hates,' Honor told him wisely.

'It's herself. Poor Olivia...'

'It's my fault that she is suffering so much,' David told her.

'In part, yes,' Honor agreed steadily.

'I was a bad father,' he said heavily.

'Yes,' Honor acknowledged. 'You
were
a bad father, David,' she told him truthfully.

'I just want to make it up to her but she won't let me get near her....'

'Give her time,' Honor repeated.

She could hear the pain and frustration in his voice and see it in his eyes.

'Somehow it's easier with Jack,' David continued.

'He's—'

'...male?' Honor supplied.

'No,' David denied immediately.

Honor shook her head and told him truthfully,

'That's what
Olivia's
going to think, David. The blame doesn't all lie with you, though. Your father...'

She stopped.

'Olivia is my daughter. I should have protected her from my father's prejudices.' David closed his eyes.

'I shouldn't burden you with all this.'

'Of course you should,' Honor told him immediately. 'That's part of what loving someone is all about...sharing...the bad as well as the good.'

Smiling she reached out and cupped his face and then very gently and slowly started to kiss him.

'Mmm...more,' David coaxed hopefully as he gathered her into his arms and started to kiss her back.

JENNY FROWNED over her shopping list. It seemed pathetically brief, but now, after all, she was only shopping for two. Joss had flown out to America to visit Jon's aunt Ruth who was living there with her American husband, his last chance to do so before he started focussing on his school exams.

Joss and Ruth had always been particularly close and Jenny smiled as she thought about her aunt-in-law and her youngest son. Both of them were blessed with a special temperament, a serenity and wisdom that had a gentling effect on everyone they came in contact with.

The telephone started to ring and she went to answer it

'Jen, it's me,' she heard Jon saying. 'Look, don't wait for me for dinner tonight. David's asked me to go up to Fitzburgh Place to see Lord Freddy. He's got some business he wants to discuss with me.'

'Is David going to be there as well?' Jenny couldn't stop herself from asking tersely.

'David?' She could hear the confusion in Jon's voice. 'I don't know. He could be. Why?'

'Nothing,' Jenny fibbed. She could imagine how Jon was likely to react if she gave in to the childish desire to complain that just lately he seemed to be spending more time with his brother than he was with her. He had gone out earlier to play golf and she had been expecting him to return within the hour.

On her way back from her shopping she would call and see Olivia, she decided, to see if there was anything she could do to help.

'MuMEE
...Mumee... Wake up. I'm hungry.'

Olivia opened her eyes as she heard Alex's voice, her heart pounding as she saw the time. Ten o'clock.

She was
always
up at six. She could feel the now familiar ice-cold nausea rising up inside her as fear flooded her veins. Her skin felt clammy but icy cold.

More than anything else she wanted to stay where she was, here in bed, to pull the duvet over her head and shut out the world and her problems but she couldn't. She had responsibilities...duties...two children...a job.... Mentally she started to list the day's tasks. There was the washing, the girls' school uniforms for tomorrow, her own case notes to read...food to buy...meals to cook...the house needed cleaning.

Her heart was thudding even more frantically now as anxiety-induced adrenaline shot through her veins.

'Mummee...' Alex persisted. 'I'm hungry...I'm
starving.'

Olivia could feel the scream building up inside her but she knew she must not give voice to it. It wasn't Alex's fault she was feeling like this. She had no
right
to be feeling like this. She was a woman...a mother...a wife... No, not a wife any more...not now...

Caspar... Suddenly her whole body started to tremble.

'Mummy,' Alex had started to cry and Olivia could see the fear in her eyes. More than anything else children needed security and love. No one knew that better than Olivia herself.

'It's all right darling,' she reassured her. 'I'm going to get up now. You go downstairs and wait for me.'

Caspar...Caspar...
Why
hadn't he understood...?

Why hadn't he
helped
her...? Why hadn't he
loved
her...? No one had ever loved her....

As she walked into her bathroom Olivia raised an unsteady hand to her face to wipe away her tears.

Her—crying?
But she never
cried...

IT WAS five o'clock in the morning and still dark outside. Caspar lifted his head from his pillow. Next to him lay a small toy, one of Alex's. He had found it after she had gone. Gently he touched it with his fingertips. He ached with the pain of missing his daughters—and his wife? His mouth compressed grimly.

Olivia might be his wife but she wasn't the woman he had married, the woman he had fallen in love with and who he had believed loved him.

Ultimately they were going to have to sit down and talk. There was no way he intended to be merely a weekend father to his kids, but right now...right now, locked up in the garage of his half-brother's house where he was spending the night was the gleaming Harley-Davidson motorbike he had bought the previous day and tomorrow he was going to start out on the journey he had first promised himself he would make when he was still in high school, right across America from coast to coast.

'You're going to do what?' his father had asked in disbelief, adding, 'Hell, Caspar, a man of your age can't ride something like that. It's for kids.'

He shifted uncomfortably in the too soft, too big bed that felt even bigger and emptier without Olivia's presence at his side, her body tucked close to his.

Tucked
close
to his. It was one hell of a long time since they had shared
that
kind of night-time intimacy.

Closing his eyes he tried to think back to exactly when it had been, certainly before Alex's birth. She had been a colicky, light-sleeping baby causing Olivia to get up so many times during the night to her in the first weeks after her birth that eventually Olivia had started sleeping in the nursery with her. They had both agreed that it would be unfair to Amelia to bring Alex's cot into
their
room. And after that? After that Olivia had spent so much time working that when she did go to bed it was purely and simply to sleep.

Was that when sex had ceased to become a shared pleasure between them, turning instead into a reluctant exchange on Olivia's part which he had had to barter for?

Caspar started to frown. Loving someone wasn't just about sex. But Olivia didn't want his love any more than she wanted his body. Bleakly he closed his eyes.

'JON...'

Jon smiled as he saw his twin waiting for him when he got out of his car at Fitzburgh Place.

'I had to come up to collect some plants from the greenhouses for Honor so I thought I might as well hang around and wait for you,' David explained as they exchanged affectionate hugs.

'Olivia and Caspar were due back yesterday, weren't they?' David asked with such deliberate studied carelessness that Jon's heart went out to him. 'I expect she's already been round to see Jenny to tell her all about their trip....'

Jon frowned.

'No...she hasn't.' There was no easy way for him to tell David what had happened.

'Livvy's
come back David, but
Caspar
hasn't.

They've separated,' he told his twin bluntly.

'What...?'

Jon could see the shocked disbelief in David's eyes.

'But I thought they were so happy together.'

'They were,' Jon agreed heavily, 'But...look, I don't know the full details.'

'I'm going to go and see her,' David announced starkly, 'She's my daughter...I'm...' He stopped, his face twisting with unhappiness. 'I was going to say that I'm her father but of course, I don't deserve to be considered fitting for that role—not really.'

'Look, I know how you must feel,' Jon tried to comfort him. 'But why don't you wait until Jenny's been to see her?'

'Has she brought the girls back with her, do you know?' David asked him.

'Yes,' Jon confirmed.

David let out his breath in a leaky sigh. He ached to get closer to his granddaughters, to be for them all that he had not been able to be for their mother. Just watching Jon with Max and Maddy's children brought out such a yearning in him to hold his own granddaughters in his arms that it was almost a physical pain. Right now he felt that same urge, that same need, to hold Olivia—adult though she was.

'Oh, by the way, I ought to warn you that Dad isn't too pleased about the fact that you've invited Father Ignatius to live with you,' Jon told him ruefully.

'I know, he told me,' David acknowledged without adding that Ben had actually hinted to David that if he and Honor were to move into Queensmead with him he would make the house over to him.

'Queensmead! You've already promised
Queens -

mead
to Max,' David had reminded his father grimly.

'Maddy has spent a fortune of time and effort on the place and—'

'More fool her. I never asked her to,' Ben had returned surlily.