Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘What on earth for? Chester is much closer and—’

‘Chester may be much closer but it doesn’t possess an Emporio Armani,’ he had countered, enlightening her obvious confusion by explaining, as though trying to instil comprehension of some arcane adult concept to a very small child, ‘Armani, my dear Jenny, just in case you are the only person on this globe who is unaware of the fact, is a designer—the designer so far as the vast majority of elegant, successful women are concerned. He designs clothes for women—not girls, you will note, not models, not fashion victims, but women with a capital W and there is a branch of his vast network of retail outlets in Manchester selling clothes from his diffusion range.’

‘Thank you, Guy,’ Jenny had retorted wryly, ‘but yes, I have heard of him and as for buying one of his designs or even looking …’ She had shaken her head and laughed. ‘My budget doesn’t run to that kind of extravagance.’

‘An Armani is never an extravagance,’ Guy had corrected her and then added smugly before she could argue further, ‘and besides, this is a diffusion range we are discussing with suitably modest prices. If you won’t come with me, then I shall just have to go by myself,’ he had added determinedly, ‘and choose something for you by guesswork.

‘I mean it, Jen,’ he had informed her sternly, ‘you are not going to this do wearing some dowdy, dull “bargain” bought at the last minute because you haven’t had the time to get anything else and because we both know that if you had you would not spend either it or Jon’s money on something—anything—for yourself. For once in your life you are going to be dressed in something that does you justice and for once in your life, even if you won’t put yourself first, then I’m damn well going to see that someone does!’

Jenny had had to sit down.

‘But why?’ she had asked him, honestly bewildered by the obvious strength of his resolution.

‘Why? If I said because you deserve it, you’d find some way of arguing me out of it,’ he had told her frankly, ‘so instead I’ll say because even if you yourself don’t recognise it, you owe it not just to yourself and to Jon but to me, as well, and to this business and before you come up with any more arguments, the business is going to pay for it. No, I mean what I say, Jenny,’ he had repeated. ‘Either you come with me or I’ll go by myself and—’

‘And you’ll what?’ she had teased him gently. ‘Make me wear whatever you choose or send me to bed in punishment instead with a glass of water and some dry bread?’

She had only meant it as a joke but she saw the look in his eyes as he told her oh so gently and oh so quietly, ‘If I ever got the opportunity to send you to bed, Jenny, it most certainly wouldn’t be in punishment and as for making you wear it … Well, let’s just say I don’t imagine it would be beyond my powers to work on Jon to ensure that he persuaded you to wear it.’

Bravely Jenny had met the look in his eyes.

There had been odd occasions before when her woman’s instincts had told her that Guy wanted more from her than just friendship, instincts that she had dismissed as the over-active imagination of a middle-aged woman. Now she knew she had been wrong, or rather that she had been right.

But they had still gone to Manchester, mainly because Guy had already preempted her by going behind her back to inform Jon of his plans and to get his assistance.

Jon, Jenny suspected, had little idea who or what an Armani might be but Guy’s comments had struck an unfamiliar raw chord within her, reminding her of how she had felt at the annual family get-together at Christmas dressed in the familiar security of her ‘good suit’ and humiliatingly conscious of how different she looked, not so much from Tiggy but from the other women present there, as well, women who were probably no more physically attractive than she was herself and certainly no younger but who seemed to have a confidence, a pride in themselves, that she had always lacked. Even Ruth had been more trendily dressed than she was herself, a fact that Joss had pointed out to her at the time.

She had been unnerved at first on stepping into the solidly built King Street building that housed the Armani store. The female assistants, every one of them impeccably dressed and groomed, all seemed to possess the same Italianate good looks. They exuded a certain air that initially she had found slightly intimidating but that, on closer inspection, melted away to reveal a genuine helpfulness that soon had her forgetting her doubts and allowing herself to be coaxed into trying on clothes that ten minutes beforehand she would have totally refused to even consider wearing.

In the end she had bought the dress she was wearing tonight—a handful of cream crêpe in the simplest of styles that fell from a sort of Empire-style bodice to her ankles in a swathe of material that owed nothing to the vagaries of fashion and everything to the eye of the master who had designed it.

It was, as the enthusiastic saleswoman pointed out to her, a dress designed to complement and flatter a woman’s figure. Without a single frill or flounce and without coming anywhere near fitting tightly to her body, it somehow still seemed to subtly emphasise all her good points, Jenny had realised as she stared at her own reflection in silent astonishment.

It was a dress that made her look and feel very much a woman; a dress that brought back all her teenage yearnings and longings to be seen as desirable … yearnings and longings that she thought she had packed sensibly away with all her other memories of those years. Yearnings and longings that she had told herself sternly were most certainly not appropriate to a woman of her age. And yet, she had still bought the dress and a trouser suit, as well, which she was saving for the family lunch they were having the next day.

The dress went beautifully with the pearls that Jon had given her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, reflecting their creamy colour and satiny texture. She held her breath a little as she fastened them.

The phone was ringing as Olivia walked across the hall on her way to join the others in a predeparture drink in the drawing room. She answered it automatically, asking the caller to wait as she went to find her father.

‘There’s a call for you,’ she told him. ‘The Cedars Nursing Home.’

David could feel himself starting to sweat and he knew that his heart was beating far too fast. He could feel the tension invading his chest, tensing his muscles, his whole body, and with it the accompanying nausea of fear.

His palm was so damp he had to wipe it as he picked up the receiver and cleared his throat. ‘Yes, David Crighton here.’ His jaw was aching again. He massaged it with his free hand, turning his back towards the half-open drawing-room door as he listened to what his caller had to say.

Upstairs in his attic bedroom, Caspar grimaced as he finally managed to knot his bow tie and reached for his jacket. He wasn’t looking forward to the evening ahead and not just because of his quarrel with Olivia who, in his opinion, had been wrong to blame Hillary for it even if it had been her revelations that provoked it.

He had noticed a change in Olivia over the past few days; suddenly the family that, at a distance, she almost disdained had become all-fired important to her. Suddenly he and his views were no longer apparently of any value to her. Look at the way she had dismissed his advice over her mother’s obvious need for professional help and counselling.

‘It doesn’t matter how much they quarrel with one another, in the end they always stick together,’ Hillary had warned him this afternoon. ‘They stick together and they shut you out,’ she had added emphatically with a bitter look in the direction of her husband.

‘I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall when Hugh told me about Ruth,’ she had added, ‘but at the time I didn’t realise exactly what he was telling me, any more than I realised exactly what it meant when I discovered that it was part of Ben’s grand plan for the family that ultimately Saul should marry Olivia.’

Saul should marry Olivia! Caspar frowned his lack of comprehension. Olivia had never said anything to him about there being any family hopes that she might marry her father’s cousin. But then she had never mentioned the fact that her great-aunt had apparently had an extremely passionate relationship with an American major who, according to Hillary, had virtually been co-erced into giving her up.

How much more was there about her family, about herself, that Olivia hadn’t told him?

* * *

‘You look just as I’ve always known you could look, should look. You look wonderful, perfect. You look … you.’

Strange how such words, such emotions, when expressed by one man, the wrong man, could mean so little and could cause more embarrassment and self-consciousness than pleasure and yet the same words when said by the right man …

Logically, of course, Jenny should have expected, anticipated, that Guy would be the one to praise and admire her appearance, take a long look at her as she welcomed him and then seek her out at the first opportunity to take hold of her hand and draw her close to him as he told her what he felt. But for some reason she was still idiotically hoping that …

The meal was over and the band had started to play. Several couples were already dancing.

‘Jenny! Goodness! You do look—’

Jenny tensed as she saw the look Tiggy was giving her and heard the critical edge in her voice, but before she could say anything more, Ruth interrupted firmly, ‘You look wonderful, Jenny. I love your outfit.’

There was no mistaking the sincerity in Ruth’s voice, or the warm approval in her eyes as she, too, studied her, Jenny recognised, and even David, who was standing slightly behind Tiggy, was looking at her now, his eyes widening slightly and then lingering on her.

‘It’s Armani, isn’t it?’ she heard Tiggy demanding as she self-consciously forced herself to break the eye contact David was maintaining with her. Ridiculous of her to start blushing like that. David was her brother-in-law, that was all, even if once …

‘Yes, yes, it is,’ she answered Tiggy hastily.

‘What on earth made you buy it?’ Tiggy persisted. Her eyes had narrowed, her voice was slightly shrill and she looked almost unhealthily pale, Jenny noticed. ‘It isn’t you at all.’

‘Mother …’ Olivia upbraided her mother warningly, giving Jenny an apologetic look as she started to draw Tiggy away.

Jenny frowned as she watched them. It wasn’t like Tiggy to be bitchy or unkind and her comments were making Jenny have second thoughts about the advisability of wearing her new outfit. Perhaps Jon hadn’t said anything about it not because he simply hadn’t noticed that she looked any different but because he had not wanted to upset her by criticising her appearance.

‘Tiggy’s wrong, you know….’ Her head came up as she heard David’s voice. He smiled warmly at her. ‘It does suit you.’

As tongue-tied as a small child, Jenny could only stand there and shake her head mutely.

‘Tiggy’s just jealous of you, that’s all.’

‘Jealous of me?’ Jenny stared at him. ‘She can’t possibly be,’ she protested. ‘Not when she’s …’

‘Not when she’s what?’ David prompted, taking hold of her arm and starting to draw her towards the dance floor.

Jenny shook her head again. ‘I can’t dance with you now, David,’ she told him huskily. ‘The caterers—’

‘Of course you can,’ he told her. ‘The caterers can wait, but I can’t. Mmm … you feel good,’ he murmured as he turned her into his arms and began to dance.

Helplessly Jenny realised that David wasn’t going to let her go and that it would cause less fuss to give in and dance with him than to go on protesting.