by Penny Jordan
Quickly she dismissed the thought, clipping on her seatbelt as Blake started the car. As she glanced over her shoulder she noticed a dog guard lying in the back of the car.
‘Have you got a dog?’ she asked him curiously.
Blake, following her glance, shook his head, and then told her slightly self-consciously, ‘No… At least not yet… I had thought… pets can be very therapeutic for people going through trauma; they can often express their emotions through animals far more easily than they can through their contact with other human beings. That’s one of the reasons I bought this car. Plenty of room for a family and for a dog as well. Don’t you like animals…?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do, but Andrew never cared for pets, and with the boys at boarding-school…’
Philippa saw the look he was giving her and, correctly interpreting it, told him quietly, ‘It wasn’t my decision. Andrew insisted and…’ She hesitated, searching for the right words, reluctant to betray to him what she perceived as her own weakness. ‘There was family pressure as well…’
‘From your father,’ Blake guessed. His voice was suddenly much harder and colder, Philippa noticed. ‘What did he do?’ he asked her harshly. ‘Tell you that you were being selfish and emotional in wanting to keep them at home, putting your own needs before theirs?’
Startled by his perception, Philippa stared at him.
‘How did you know that…?’ she began, and then fell silent. Blake and her father had never liked one another and habit prevented her from criticising someone to whom she was supposed to be close to someone who wasn’t.
‘Oh… I suppose it’s your training,’ she hazarded. ‘You must…’
‘No… it isn’t my training,’ Blake contradicted her. He sounded angry, she recognised. Male anger had always alarmed her and unnerved her, and she had to fight to suppress the instinctive urge to placate him in the way that she had been taught… in the way that her father and elder brother had demanded and expected.
Those days were gone now; she was not responsible for Blake’s emotions, they were his responsibility, she told herself firmly.
‘It isn’t my training,’ he repeated. ‘Just the fact that I know your father.’
And I know you, he might have added, Philippa acknowledged silently. I know how weak you are.
‘It seemed better to let them go to school rather than keep them at home in a bad atmosphere,’ she said in defence of herself. ‘I didn’t want them growing up like my father, like Robert, like Andrew, to think that being a man means that you have to withdraw from any kind of emotional contact with anyone.
‘As it happens, the fact that they are away at school has meant that it’s been easier for them to come to terms with Andrew’s death. They never really knew him, you see. He never really had time for them…’ Or for me, she could have added, but she didn’t. She was in danger of becoming over-emotional as it was. ‘And thankfully they’re still both young enough not to feel any guilt…’
She stopped speaking. She had already said enough… too much really, but there was something about the quality of Blake’s silence that made it easy to talk to him.
All part of his training, no doubt.
‘You love them very much.’
His statement was as unexpected as the soft roughness in his voice.
‘Yes,’ Philippa agreed chokily.
‘When do they come home for the summer holidays?’
‘Not until the end of the month,’ Philippa told him, grateful for the switch from emotional to practical matters.
‘Three weeks. Good… That should give Anya some time to get settled in first.’
‘Three weeks isn’t very long,’ Philippa said. ‘It’s bound to be difficult for her, and not just because of the trauma of losing her parents. The change from living in a city, in a small flat to living somewhere rural… She’s bound to find it confusing.’
‘Yes, I know. The one good point is that she starts secondary school in September, which means that at least she will be on a par with her peers there.’
‘To some extent,’ Philippa agreed.
‘Having second thoughts?’ Blake asked her lightly.
Why was he asking her that? Was he having second thoughts himself, perhaps judging her too emotional for the role he wanted her to play after hearing her speak about her sons?
‘No,’ Philippa denied. ‘Are you?’
‘No, I’m not.’ He took advantage of a slowing down of the traffic to turn his head and look at her. ‘What makes you think I might?’
His questions made her feel slightly uncomfortable, vulnerable almost.
She gave a small shrug, unwilling to express the self-doubt or the self-knowledge that had given rise to her question, and said instead, obliquely, ‘I’m still my parents’ child.’
There was a moment’s pause, and then Blake asked her softly, ‘Are you? Somehow I don’t think so. I would have said that now you’re very much your own woman.’
His compliment, so unexpected and so unlooked for, caught Philippa off guard; she could feel her skin starting to heat and she was probably gaping at him like a raw adolescent, she told herself fiercely as she willed her body heat to subside and turned her head away from him.
Very much her own woman; they were words to be treasured and savoured, bright stars lighting the darkness of her own voyage of self-discovery, and would have been no matter who had given them to her; but to have received them from Blake of all people.
Be careful, she warned herself… Be very, very careful.
* * *
The outskirts of Leeds were similar to those of any other large industrial city, the block of flats where Anya was staying depressingly familiar.
How could any child thrive, living in such surroundings? Philippa wondered sadly. It was like planting flowers where they would be deprived of sunlight.
The flat where Anya was staying was halfway up one of the larger blocks; the lifts were out of order so Philippa and Blake had to walk.
She would have felt very uneasy about using these stairs on her own, Philippa acknowledged as she carefully avoided any eye-contact with the silent group of youths gathered together on one of the landings, and she was a healthy, relatively young woman. How must it feel to be old and alone, living in one of these places?
It was Anya herself who opened the door to them. Her skin, which Philippa suspected would have gleamed warm honey-gold in a warmer climate, looked sallow, clinging to the thin bones of her face and body, and her huge brown eyes watched them in silence as they entered the small flat.
The clothes she was wearing were too small and shabby.
It wasn’t so much that she looked undernourished, Philippa recognised, rather than that she looked underloved.
A huge rush of emotion seized her, a need to take hold of Anya’s thin body and hold her protectively in her arms, but Philippa sensibly resisted it. To overwhelm Anya with unfamiliar and probably unwanted physical affection would be the worst possible thing she could do. Her needs were not the ones that were paramount—Anya’s were.
There were two other people in the small cramped sitting-room—an older grey-haired woman, who Philippa guessed was the foster mother the council had had looking after Anya since her parents’ death, and a younger woman who quickly introduced herself as Anya’s social worker.
It was obvious from the slight stiffness in her manner towards Blake that she did not totally approve of the situation. Her manner towards her was slightly warmer, Philippa recognised, and she mentally applauded the girl’s professionalism in putting her responsibility towards Anya before her own personal reactions.
While she listened to her and responded to her questions, Philippa watched Anya, aware that despite her physical withdrawal from the adults discussing her future she was fully aware of what was going on.
Philippa’s heart went out to her. She knew all too well how it felt to have other people in control of your life, to feel powerless to have any say
in the decisions they were making.
‘Has anyone asked Anya what she would prefer to do?’ she asked quietly when the social worker had finished speaking.
Immediately the younger woman bridled resentfully, ‘Of course,’ she told Philippa crisply. ‘Naturally. It is always the child’s needs that are of paramount importance…’
When it was time to leave, Anya did so in an apathetic silence which caught at Philippa’s heart. The social worker walked with them to the car. She was so plainly determined not to be impressed by Blake that Philippa had to hide her amusement.
‘It’s all right for you,’ Blake muttered to her as the other woman left them. ‘You’re not a potential child molester.’
‘It’s their job to be concerned…’ Philippa pointed out quietly,
‘Yes, I know,’ Blake agreed as he placed Anya’s suitcase in the back of the estate car. ‘But it still isn’t…’ He shook his head and added feelingly, ‘God, I’d hate to be a parent, a father caught up in an alleged abuse case…’
‘Yes,’ Philippa agreed with a small shiver. There were worse things than being an emotionally absent father as Andrew had been; far, far worse.
Anya looked surprised when Philippa got in the back of the car with her, but she didn’t, as Philippa had half expected her to do, retreat into the far corner, putting as much physical distance between them as she could.
‘We’ll have to stop somewhere for lunch,’ Philippa warned Blake as he started the car.
‘What kind of things do you like to eat, Anya?’ he asked as he drove off.
Silence. A small, anxious frown pleated the sallow forehead.
‘For a special treat my sons love going to McDonald’s,’ Philippa offered, and was rewarded with a relieved look from Anya’s brown eyes and a brief hint of a smile.
‘McDonald’s, eh?’ Philippa had to fight hard not to laugh as she saw Blake’s expression.
* * *
‘Are you OK back there, Philippa?’ Blake asked quietly.
Philippa nodded. Anya had fallen asleep with her head on Philippa’s shoulder half an hour after they had resumed their journey after their stop for lunch. Now, as she gently eased her into a more comfortable position, Philippa didn’t risk waking her up by speaking.
Her appetite was healthy enough at any rate, she reflected, judging from the way she had demolished her lunch, although Philippa would have preferred to see her eating a healthier diet.
‘What am I to call you?’ she had asked Philippa politely when Blake had gone to get their food.
‘What would you like to call me? My name is Philippa, but you can call me Pip, or Pippa if you prefer,’ Philippa had offered.
‘Pippa—it’s a bit like Nanna, isn’t it?’ Anya had told her, adding quietly, ‘I don’t have a grandmother, or a grandfather. They’re dead. The secret police killed them…’ She’d said it matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t have anyone else at all now,’ she’d added.
‘You have us,’ Philippa had told her, swallowing down the emotion threatening her.
‘Yes, but you don’t really belong to me, do you?’ Anya had replied levelly.
There was nothing that Philippa could say, no words that could give Anya back what she had lost, she’d acknowledged, and it would be an insult to the child to pretend any different.
She had failed her already, Philippa had thought hollowly as Blake had come back with their food, including a huge sweet milkshake for her, which she knew she had not ordered.
‘I thought you would like it,’ Blake had told her innocently when she’d pushed it away after one taste, but there had been laughter in his eyes as he’d watched her expression and rueful acknowledgement in her own.
‘She’s really taken to you,’ Blake whispered softly now.
‘What’s that?’ Philippa responded drily after checking that Anya was still sound asleep. ‘Your professional opinion or wishful thinking?’
‘Neither,’ he responded promptly. ‘If you like, it’s just a plain basic male interpretation of the fact that she prefers to be close to you, that she relaxes and lets down her guard with you… responds to you in a way that she certainly hasn’t shown any signs of doing with me. I’d like you to move in with us as soon as you can. Anya obviously prefers your company to mine.’
‘She doesn’t seem to have had a lot of contact with her own father,’ Philippa told him. ‘She’s probably just not used to men.’
‘You spend so much time protecting others’ sensitivities, but who, I wonder, protects yours?’
‘Mine don’t need protecting,’ Philippa responded lightly, but inwardly his perception had jolted her, touching a vulnerable nerve. Once she would have been overjoyed at the thought that he had actually noticed something, anything about her, but now the knowledge that he had been studying her made her feel wary.
What else had she given away about herself to him without knowing it?
She had felt almost relaxed travelling back from Leeds with him, her attention concentrated not on the past, but on Anya, her awareness of how easy it would have been for her actually to enjoy being with him firmly pushed safely out of harm’s way.
Anya was a warm, slight weight against her arm, familiar from holding her sons and yet at the same time very different.
‘I’ll drop you off first,’ Blake announced as they reached the outskirts of their town.
They had already told Anya that tonight Philippa would be staying in her own home but that soon she would be moving into Blake’s house to take care of her.
Philippa nodded, and then froze as she glanced out of the window and saw Joel standing on the opposite side of the road.
He hadn’t seen her. He was waiting for the lights to change so that he could cross the road, his attention fixed on the traffic.
Her heart turned over inside her chest, her throat closing on a surge of mixed emotions: her body’s instant physical response to the sight of him, her emotional urge to reach out to him, her mind’s reminder of all the reasons why she could not do so.
She had not loved him, nor he her, she knew that, but the possibility of love developing between them had been there and a part of her still ached with loss for the tenderness of his lovemaking, the sense of being needed, wanted, protected.
Through his driving mirror Blake watched her face. He had seen the man standing on the pavement and her reaction to him, and for a moment the intensity of his emotions had caught him unprepared.
‘Want me to stop?’ he offered harshly.
Philippa stared at the back of his head, her face flushing as she realised how much she had betrayed.
‘No, thank you,’ she told him quietly.
‘An old friend?’ Blake persisted.
Philippa could sense his anger and was confused by it. So he had seen her looking at Joel and guessed… something. That was no reason for him to cross-question her… or judge her. She was not ashamed of what she had shared with Joel.
‘Not a friend, no…’ she said steadily. ‘If you must know, we were briefly lovers… very briefly…’
As she watched Blake’s hands tighten on the steering-wheel she knew that she had surprised him.
‘It’s over now,’ she added quietly. ‘What’s wrong, Blake?’ she challenged him when he remained silent. ‘You asked, I told you—or am I not allowed to be truthful? Do you, like my father, prefer me to conform to your values and judgements? Well, I’m sorry, but the only values that matter to me now are my own. I’m not ashamed of what I had with Joel. What would make me ashamed would be hiding or denying it. He gave me something that no one else has ever given me, showed me a part of myself I didn’t think existed, gave me back a part of myself I thought I’d lost forever.’
‘Was that why you took this job with me?’ Blake asked her harshly. ‘Because your affair with him was over?’
‘No,’ Philippa told him. ‘I took it so that our affair could never get the opportunity to start… among other reasons.’
Somewher
e in among the turmoil of jealousy he could feel seething through him there was also awareness and respect, Blake acknowledged.
Awareness, respect, and an overwhelming sense of loss.
Many times over the years he had allowed himself the indulgence of imagining what manner of woman she had become. He had not done her justice, though, he acknowledged tiredly—nowhere near.
* * *
‘Here, let me take her.’
Philippa tensed as Blake reached into the back of the car to lift Anya’s still sleeping body from her arms so that she could get out, but there was no need for that wary tensing of her muscles, she recognised; Blake was scrupulously careful about not touching her, not even by the merest brush of his fingertips, as he lifted Anya away from her.
A sense of forlornness, of aloneness filled her as she relinquished Anya to him. What was it about the sight of a big man with a small child in his arms that tugged so emotionally at the heart-strings?
‘Would you like me to come inside with you… make sure…?’
‘No… You mustn’t wake Anya,’ Philippa told him, shaking her head. ‘What time tomorrow…?’
‘Whatever time best suits you,’ Blake told her.
As she turned to walk away, he said quietly to her, ‘Philippa, I’m sorry. What I said earlier… your private life is your own affair.’
‘I have no private life—at least not in the context you mean,’ Philippa told him steadily. ‘But you’re right, it is my own affair. I intend that the only arbiter of what I may or may not do or be shall be me. It’s your choice, your right to judge me as you wish, Blake, just as it’s mine to decide whether or not to allow that judgement to have any power over me or any jurisdiction over my life.’
As she walked away from him, Philippa told herself that she had broken free of the shackles which had once bound both her life and her, and that no one, not even Blake, could be allowed to reimprison her in them.
Not even Blake.
Why the ‘even’? He was no more important, no more special to her than anyone else. Less so, in fact; much, much less so.
