To Be a Husband

by Carole Mortimer

  He found that surprising, he had to admit, knew that as a couple Marilyn Palmer and Terence Royal had been courted by royalty as well as fellow actors. But they weren't a couple any more, and some people, he knew, found it difficult to be around the bereaved. But even so—

  'You said something about Richard having called round earlier, Mummy,' Gaye prompted smoothly as she poured the coffee for the three of them.

  'Oh, yes.' Marilyn sat down in one of the armchairs.

  Although merely to say she sat was to understate the movement totally, Jonathan realised with fascination. Marilyn didn't just sit, she glided, each movement graceful, the fitted dress she wore a perfect match in blue for the darkness of her eyes.

  'Such a surprise, darling.' Marilyn continued to talk to Gaye, her face as youthful and unlined as it had been twenty years ago. 'He was so sorry to have missed you.'

  Gaye handed her mother a cup of black coffee. 'What did he want?' she enquired casually.

  Although Jonathan could see her nervousness as she sat on the edge of her chair, her shoulders hunched stiffly. He suddenly had an overwhelming urge to go and stand behind her chair and massage the tension out of those shoulders and that lovely delicate neck.

  Wonderful! So much for his promise to drink his coffee and go; he didn't want to go at all; he wanted Gaye to sit next to him on the sofa where he now sat alone, for the two of them to talk softly together, and then for them to go upstairs and—

  He sat forward himself as the stirrings of his body threatened to betray him. Excellent! If his mind continued along this path much longer then he wasn't going to be able to stand up and leave when the time came!

  "Thank you.' He took his own cup of coffee, avoiding Gaye's gaze as she gave it to him. For the moment it would be better if he didn't even look at her!

  'He wanted to see you, of course, darling,' her mother answered her happily. 'I realise the two of you have had a little falling-out, but Richard obviously regrets it, and he did look so sorry to have missed you. I didn't think you would mind if I told him where you were. Of course, I had no idea you were with Jonathan.' She gave him an apologetic smile. 'I hope I didn't cause anyone any embarrassment!'

  'Certainly not on my account,' Jonathan assured her smoothly, still caught up in the 'little falling-out' remark; finding your fiancé in bed with another woman was a major falling-out in his book!

  'Or mine,' Gaye added softly. 'Richard didn't say anything else?' Even now, Jonathan noticed, she didn't sit back in her seat, still poised on the edge of it, as if ready for flight.

  'Oh, he did mention a script I might like to have a look at,' her mother threw in breezily. 'Some play or other that he's thinking of directing.'

  The hand that held Gaye's coffee-cup shook slightly now. 'That's new,' she said warily. 'He always said directing was a thankless job.'

  'Oh, it is, darling,' her mother agreed with feeling. 'The one and only time your father directed he said he would never do it again. For which I am very grateful,' she added with a breathless laugh. 'He was impossible to live with for weeks!'

  'What did you say to Richard about doing the play, Mummy?' Gaye pressed tensely.

  'You know I never do any role without your father's approval, Gaye, darling,' her mother chided with light rebuke. 'I told him to contact your father, of course.'

  It was as well Jonathan wasn't in the process of sipping his coffee at that moment, or he would have choked on it. Talk to Gaye's father? To Terence Royal? But—

  He looked across at Marilyn Palmer searchingly, now seeing beyond the warm beauty, the glittering charm, noticing for the first time the slight vacancy in those deep blue eyes, a total lack of anything but smiling good humour. No matter how Jonathan might have longed for just such a mother himself when he was growing up, he also knew it wasn't realistic for someone to be always smiling and happy. . .

  This was what Gaye had meant about her mother being different since Terence Royal died; to Marilyn her husband wasn't dead!

  Gaye nodded in answer to her mother's last comment, studiously avoiding looking at Jonathan. 'I'll speak to Richard myself,' she said quickly.

  Like hell she would! Her mother might have chosen to shut out all the pain and sudden emptiness of two years ago by pretending it had never happened, but Gaye and Jonathan were well aware of Richard Craven's betrayal at that time, and his subsequent marriage to someone else. A wife he was now cheating on with someone else. Jonathan had no intention of Gaye ever going near that man again if he could avoid it. And he had every intention of doing so!

  How on earth had Gaye coped with all of this alone for the last two years?

  God, no wonder she had asked to go home with him an hour ago; he would want to escape for a few hours too if he had to carry this burden by himself. Except Gaye wasn't on her own any more. . . She might not want it, or like it, but he was in her life now. He didn't intend going anywhere else in the immediate future.

  'We'll speak to Richard for you together,' he put in firmly, levelly meeting Gaye's accusing gaze as she turned sharply to him.

  Marilyn looked momentarily confused as she looked at him, and then she seemed to dismiss the puzzle of Jonathan being with Gaye—as she must have dismissed a lot of things going on around her during the last two years if they appeared to disturb the fragile balance of a mind practising the most severe denial. Not least of those things being the fact that her husband, a man she had obviously adored, was in fact dead! Jonathan couldn't even begin to fathom how she managed to do that; it would take an expert in such matters to understand it. An expert Jonathan intended speaking to at the earliest opportunity!

  'It will be dealt with,' Gaye reassured her mother enigmatically.

  At least, to Marilyn it might have been enigmatic, but it told Jonathan all too clearly that Gaye did not intend him to be involved in this any further, certainly not to the point of accompanying her when she talked to Richard Craven.

  'Wonderful,' Marilyn agreed, rising gracefully to her feet. 'I'll leave you two young people now to finish your coffee.' She put her empty cup down on the tray. 'It was lovely to meet you, Jonathan,' she told him pleasantly. 'Please do come again.'

  He nodded. 'Oh, I intend to.' It was a promise, not an empty statement.

  'I'll look forward to it,' Marilyn told him with husky pleasure. 'Do invite Jonathan to dinner one evening, darling,' she said to Gaye as she bent to kiss her goodnight. 'It would be wonderful to start entertaining again,' she added wistfully before leaving the room, taking her life and vitality with her, leaving behind only her heady perfume.

  And Gaye who, Jonathan noted with a frown, looked on the edge of exhaustion.

  'Drink your coffee,' he advised abruptly, standing up to move closer to her chair.

  She looked up at him with eyes too large and luminous a green in that ethereally beautiful face. 'I—' She stopped, drawing in a deep breath. 'It— She—' Gaye shook her head, unable to go on.

  Jonathan leant down, reaching out and pulling Gaye effortlessly up beside him, taking her gently into his arms. 'It will be all right, Gaye,' he comforted her.

  She looked up at him with tear-wet eyes.

  'It will, Gaye.' His arms tightened about her at her look of disbelief. 'I'll make sure it is.'

  And he would. He didn't know how yet, but he would find a way. He had to!

  As his hands cradled each side of Gaye's face, as his mouth moved slowly down to claim hers, he had no idea why he was so determined to help this woman.

  As their lips fused heatedly together, he found he didn't care about the reasons why. . .!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A sob caught in Gaye's throat as her arms moved up over Jonathan's shoulders, her fingers becoming entangled in the silky blondness of the hair at his nape. She wanted to lose herself again, forget for a few moments; yes, she definitely felt freer than she had in ages. Jonathan was going to help her. She didn't know how, couldn't even begin to guess why, but she suddenly felt that everything was goi
ng to be all right.

  For now, in Jonathan's arms, everything was all right.

  Jonathan was holding her, kissing her, and that felt so right.

  More right than it ever had with Richard?

  She came down to earth with a thump at the thought of her ex-fiancé. Richard. . . He had been here earlier this evening, and his presence in the bar later hadn't been an accident, and that show of surprise at seeing her had all been an act. Because he had been here first and spoken to her mother.

  Gaye pulled back from Jonathan, apology in her expression as she looked up at him. But there was also apprehension. They had a housekeeper who came in daily when Gaye was at work, and who kept unwanted visitors away from her mother. In the evenings Gaye was here to shield her mother as best she could. But the system had broken down this evening with Gaye's absence from the house. . .

  'You're thinking about Craven again,' Jonathan rasped harshly, his hands falling back to his sides, his expression grim.

  'He will have realised from talking to my mother that she—well, that she still isn't well.'

  'And you think he may use that information?' Jonathan frowned darkly.

  The Richard she had once believed herself in love with had been handsome, charming, full of fun and laughter, but the Richard she had later come to know was egotistical, selfish, ambitious, and completely ruthless.

  The fact that Gaye had found out he was involved with other women during their engagement hadn't meant a great deal to him. With her father dead, and her mother ill, they were no longer of any use to him in furthering his career, and in consequence neither was Gaye.

  The breaking of their engagement had meant nothing to him; he'd moved on swiftly, his next relationship with the daughter of a director he had long wanted to work with. The release of the film that followed had put him well on the road to stardom. But the daughter of the director had duly been replaced by yet another woman he could use to step on on his way up the ladder of success. Richard had put a whole new meaning on the phrase 'casting couch'!

  However, he had talked to her mother earlier about directing. His obvious coup would be to bring Marilyn Palmer back to the theatre!

  Gaye would have welcomed her mother's return to acting, a world her mother had always adored, and which adored her, but not under these circumstances. She wouldn't allow her mother to be used by Richard, of all people!

  'He'll use anything if he can,' Gaye answered Jonathan cynically. 'But I don't aim to let him!'

  'We don't aim to let him,' Jonathan corrected her firmly. 'I meant what I said to your mother earlier, Gaye,' he went on determinedly. 'You aren't in this on your own any more.'

  She swallowed hard. It had been so long since anyone had wanted to help her. Her own fault; she realised that. Her parents' acting friends had been very attentive during those first few months after the accident that killed her father, the letters, cards and flowers all acknowledged by her, the telephone calls and personal calls much harder to deal with. Especially as it had become obvious, as the weeks and months passed, that her mother, although now fully physically recovered from her own injuries in the accident, was somehow trapped in a time-warp—where husband, Terence Royal, was still alive!

  The personal visits had stopped, the telephone calls too when it became obvious Marilyn would not be returning to work in the near future, if ever. The two women had become isolated, with Gaye protecting her mother in every way that she could, and that included spending most of her time with her. Money was no problem, her parents having amassed a fortune over their years of acting. But the isolation had become a problem, until the doctors had recommended that Gaye go back to work and employ a housekeeper to be at the house with her mother during the day. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, with Gaye still constantly worrying about her mother when she was out, but it had muddled along quite comfortably for the last six months.

  Until tonight. The first evening Gaye had spent away from her mother, Richard Craven had burst back into their lives. He had backed off earlier at the pub, probably because of Jonathan's presence, but, knowing him of old, Gaye realised Richard would be back! He obviously had some sort of plan in mind, and he wouldn't give up on it easily.

  'Why are you so interested, Jonathan?' she said brightly.

  His mouth tightened. 'You're being insulting, Gaye,' he rasped.

  'I don't mean to be,' she replied. 'More coffee?' she offered, leaning forward to lift the pot.

  'Thanks.' He pushed his cup across to her. 'You may not mean to be insulting, Gaye—' although his tone said he doubted that '—but you most certainly are. I'm in this with you now.'

  She looked at him with candid green eyes. 'Why?'

  'What do you mean—why?' he exploded, his coffee forgotten on the table as he paced the room. 'You can't expect me to just walk away from this, not now I know—now I realise—'

  'That my mother is Marilyn Palmer,' Gaye finished for him, shaking her head in gentle rebuke.

  'Who your mother is has nothing to do with it,' Jonathan bit out harshly, eyes glittering deeply gold.

  'Of course it does,' Gaye chided, sitting down again.

  It had been the same all her life, first at school, then during her nurse's training, at the hospital where she went to work once she had qualified; people were always amazed, and then intrigued, by the fact that her mother was Marilyn Palmer and her father was Terence Royal. Most had wondered why, with two such notable and obviously wealthy parents, Gaye had bothered to work at all, let alone at something that could be so arduous. None could believe that, as the daughter of two such talented actors, Gaye had no dramatic ability herself. But it was true. As numerous teachers had learnt to their cost during her years at school!

  'You won't be the first young man to be in love with my mother,' Gaye assured Jonathan dryly; that too had been happening most of her adult life. But, as she also thought her mother was the most beautiful, as well as lovely-natured, woman, Gaye could quite understand why!

  'I am not in love with—' Jonathan broke off his angry outburst, glaring at her fiercely. 'Yes, I've admired her since I was in my teens, possibly lusted after her a little then too, but that sort of hero-worship stopped being part of my fife when I was sixteen, and my father went bankrupt and my mother walked out on all of us! There was no money then for the theatre or cinema, let alone the time or inclination. Who your mother is has nothing at all to do with my involvement now,' he insisted.

  Gaye barely heard the last statement, still caught up in the previous ones. He had mentioned before that he didn't know where his mother was, and she had had no idea she had left under such awful circumstances. She had just assumed that the Hunters had always had money, that Jonathan was basically a rich playboy. She was wrong. . .

  'I appreciate your concern, Jonathan— Yes, I do,' she said sincerely at his sceptical snort of disbelief. 'But I really don't see what you can do that hasn't already been done. We've seen doctors, specialists; money has been no object—but my mother simply refuses to accept that my father is dead.' Her voice broke over those last four words.

  'What about you?' Jonathan prompted softly.

  She looked at him sharply. 'Oh, I know he's dead,' she said flatly.

  She had always adored her father, neither of her parents excluding their only child with the love they had for each other. She had been almost as devastated as her mother when her father was killed. Almost. . .

  'My father died instantly in the accident, and my mother was trapped in the car beside him for hours after it happened, her legs trapped,' she told Jonathan dully. 'Is it any wonder that her brain refuses to acknowledge those hours?' She looked across at him with haunted eyes.

  'No,' he acknowledged gruffly, moving down on his haunches beside her chair. 'But, as you've pointed out to me already this evening, your mother is only in her mid-sixties—it's impossible to contemplate her continuing to live like this, or you either, for another twenty years! Let me help you, Gaye.' He reached out and tightly gr
asped her hands in his. 'Let me help her,' he added with feeling.

  She swallowed hard. It had been so long since anyone had wanted to help. . .!

  'You're a busy man, Jonathan—'

  'Not so busy I don't have time to help a friend,' he cut in.

  A friend. . . Somehow Gaye felt a sense of disappointment at the thought of only ever being this man's 'friend'. The fact that he'd been at her side this evening when she'd met Richard had given her a freedom she might otherwise not have felt. And it wasn't, she realised now, just because she had been with a handsome, obviously worldly man. Jonathan himself gave her a confidence that had been lacking from her life the last couple of years, a confidence in the future. If anyone could help her mother, then she had a feeling Jonathan was that person. And, in doing so, he would help her too. . .

  But what about after that? Would Jonathan just leave their lives then, or would he continue to be their 'friend'?

  Because she was fast coming to the conclusion she didn't want him to leave her life.

  To feel that way was a mistake, she was sure. She knew little about the Hunter men, but what was obvious was that they were all in their thirties, and of the three of them only Jarrett had married, only two years ago. Maybe she had been given an insight into the reason for that a few minutes ago; the brothers had been deserted by their mother at a very impressionable age, so it was no wonder that none of them had too much trust in women! Although, a brave little voice inside her head said, Jarrett had overcome that lack of trust when he fell in love with Abbie, so why should it be impossible for Jonathan to do the same? If he ever fell in love. . .

  Trust. It was something she didn't have too much of either, not after Richard's multiple unfaithfulnesses.

  'In that case—' she squeezed his hand '—I accept your offer of help.'

  He blinked, looking at her in complete amazement. 'This is getting to be quite a habit of yours. Every time I think I have a battle on my hands, you give in without further argument!' he explained dazedly.