Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘Oh, Saul rang,’ Tiggy told her. ‘He wants you to ring him back.’ She waited until Olivia had left the room before turning to Jon and saying apologetically, ‘Olivia isn’t in a very good mood, I’m afraid. I think she and Caspar have had a row. Oh, Jon.’ She stopped talking, her voice suspended by her tears. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be burdening you with my problems, but I know David—’

‘Shh … it’s all right,’ Jon started to reassure her, ‘and you’re not burdening me. I want to help.’

‘Oh, Jon.’ The misty-eyed look she gave him was full of gratitude and trust. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if it hadn’t been for you. I’m not like Jenny or Olivia. It doesn’t matter what happens, they always seem able to cope, but I’m not like them.’

No, she wasn’t, Jon acknowledged. He couldn’t remember the last time that Jenny had needed him, turned to him, wanted him…. His heart missed a beat. He hadn’t let himself think about their quarrel as he drove over here.

‘Am I a nuisance, Jon? I’m sure Jenny …’

‘No, of course you aren’t.’

Later he wasn’t sure how it had happened. One moment he was reaching out automatically and a little awkwardly to pat her reassuringly on the arm; the next Tiggy was in his arms, fragile, fragrant and fatally feminine, clinging to him and crying out her anxiety and fear.

His awareness that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the chiffon affair and that her breasts felt pert and firm came too late for him to do anything about his body’s unexpected reaction to her. He could feel the soft warmth of her breasts against his body, the scent of her filling his nostrils. He had an overwhelming urge to …

When Tiggy nervously whispered, ‘We mustn’t. Olivia might come back,’ he suddenly returned to his senses—to reality—his face flooding with hot, guilty colour as he released her and stepped awkwardly back from her, unable to look directly at her as he started to apologise.

‘No, it’s not your fault,’ Tiggy stopped him shakily before bursting out in an anguished voice, ‘Oh, Jon, you don’t know how much I’ve needed someone like you. David hasn’t … Our marriage …’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. You’re his brother … his twin.’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘But who else can I talk to … confide in … trust?’ She lifted her hand to her head.

‘My head aches so much I can’t think. There are so many things I ought to do … things that I know that Jenny would be able to do, but I just can’t …’

It hurt him that she so constantly felt the need to compare herself unfavourably with Jenny. How well he himself knew that feeling of envy, the sense of shame and self-dislike it brought, the guilt and self-contempt.

‘You and Jenny are different people,’ he told her gently.

‘Yes, I know,’ she agreed, giving him a slightly wobbly smile. ‘But I can’t help thinking that if Jenny had been David’s wife, she would have seen what was happening, she would have known … done something … I just know that everyone blames me for his heart attack,’ she confessed brokenly.

‘No, you mustn’t think that,’ Jon denied. ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault. How could it be? Look … I have to go, but don’t worry. I’ll speak to the bank in the morning.’

There was something else he had to ask … something he had to do. He paused and then took a deep breath.

‘Tiggy, I was wondering … the keys to David’s desk here, do you …?’

‘They’re upstairs,’ she told him instantly. ‘Do you want them? I’ll go and get them for you.’

She was so trusting, so guileless, he could taste the sour bile of his guilt.

‘If … if you don’t mind, there are some papers … some files.’

‘I shan’t be a moment.’

He closed his eyes as he watched her leave, his forehead beaded with sweat, his heart thumping. He silently prayed to God not to be right, not to let the suspicions that had been gathering round him like dark clouds be confirmed.

Tiggy returned, smiling her innocent triumph, as she gave him David’s keys. ‘I’m not sure which ones are for his study desk,’ she confided, her forehead puckering.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll find them,’ Jon reassured her. The telephone had started ringing and he held his breath in relief as she went to answer it.

Feeling like a thief, he hurried into David’s study, flicking through the keys Tiggy had handed him until he found the ones for the desk. The drawers were a jumble of unanswered mail and unfiled correspondence all thrown haphazardly on top of one another. He could see the familiar buff edge of the file poking out from underneath a thick, untidy wad of bank statements. His heart started to beat very fast.

He had just removed the file when the study door opened. He froze as he heard Olivia exclaiming, ‘Tiggy … Oh, Uncle Jon, it’s you.’

‘Yes. I was just getting some papers … your mother …’

Olivia frowned as she watched the awkward way he tried to conceal the buff file he had removed from her father’s desk amongst some of the papers he had picked up.

‘I, er, promised your mother I’ll ring the bank in the morning.’

‘Won’t you need to take Dad’s bank statements, then?’ Olivia suggested quietly.

‘What? Oh yes …’ He reached for them almost reluctantly as though he didn’t want to touch them, Olivia noticed.

Her instincts warned her that something was wrong. Jon looked pale, ill almost, but then none of them was exactly behaving normally at the moment. Take Saul for instance. She had telephoned him at Queensmead to discover that he wanted her advice.

‘Hillary and I have decided to separate,’ he had told her tautly. ‘She wants to go back to the States. As yet we haven’t made any plans to divorce, but I suspect it will only be a matter of time before we do so. I’m going to need a good divorce lawyer, Livvy. I want full custody of the kids. There’s no way they’re going to be passed between us like parcels and no way do I intend to be an absentee father. You’re more up to date with these things than me. Is there someone you can recommend?’

‘I’m like you. I work in industry,’ Olivia reminded him. ‘Wouldn’t Max have more idea?’

‘Max!’ Saul had snorted with derisive contempt. ‘The only ideas he’s got are how to extract more money out of Ben. Come over if you can, Livvy, please. I need someone to talk to … or are you and Caspar …?’

‘Caspar’s gone out,’ Olivia told him shortly, not wanting to tell him that she and Caspar had quarrelled.

‘So you can come over, then?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed after a small pause, ‘I can.’

She had gone into the study thinking her mother was there and intending to tell her that she was going out. She hadn’t expected to find Jon there and expected even less to see the almost guilty way he seemed to be furtively going through her father’s papers.

Tiggy appeared at the door. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ she asked Jon.

‘Yes, yes, I have,’ he told her, adding, ‘Look, Tiggy, I must go.’

‘Yes, I know you must,’ she agreed wanly. ‘Jenny will be cross with me for keeping you so long, but you will come with me when I go to see David tomorrow, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I will,’ Jon assured her gently.

‘I’m going to Queensmead to see Saul,’ Olivia told her mother, then turned to Jon and asked him quietly, ‘What time shall I be at the office in the morning?’

A shadow crossed his face before he reluctantly answered, ‘I normally like to be there around eight-thirty.’

‘Fine, eight-thirty it is,’ Olivia agreed.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Olivia asked Saul, concern etching her features. He had met her at the door as she arrived and had plainly been waiting for her, shaking his head as she turned towards the house.

‘Do you mind if we talk outside? It’s easier for me somehow. We could walk down to the river. Remember how much you used to love it as a kid?’

‘I can remember how exasperated you got when I disturbed your fishing expeditions.’ Olivia laughed. ‘Remember the time I fell in …?’

‘Can I ever forget it? You terrified the life out of me, and I’m sure your mother thought I’d pushed you in deliberately.’