Dangerous Sanctuary

by Anne Mather

  'Yes. To talk!'.

  'But we didn't do a lot of talking, did we?' Jaime was trembling from head to toe. 'You—you tricked me into feeling sorry for you, and then—and then you did what you knew had seduced me before, and which you thought would seduce me again. Well, you were wrong. The sex was good, but it hasn't changed my mind about a thing. Do what you like. I'm going back to work!'

  Jaime had a blinding headache by the time she got home that evening. She told herself it was because she had had to work twice as hard that afternoon, to make up for the time she had lost in the morning, but it wasn't that. Even though Felix had forborne from asking where she had been, she was still devastated over what had happened at the Priory, and no matter how she tried to avoid it she knew she had only herself to blame.

  But it wasn't just the sense of responsibility she felt for what had happened that was troubling her. If she could have accepted the blame and dismissed it, she might have been able to live with herself. But she couldn't. She kept seeing Ben's face, when she had accused him of tricking her, and experiencing again the anxiety she had felt when he had lurched across the room and yelled for Curtis. He hadn't seemed to care that his appearance alone must have been a blatant advertisement of what had happened. He had just hung weakly against the door, as he'd issued his orders for Curtis to take her back to her office, and the sound of the library door slamming behind her had rung in her ears for hours.

  In consequence, she was in no mood to humour her son. Tom was waiting for her when she got home, and he was gruff and resentful, obviously suffering his own misgivings for what had happened the day before.

  'You're late,' he said, by way of a greeting, and it took all Jaime's self-control not to turn on him, too. She could have accused him of laziness, of not making any contribution to the meal he objected having to wait for, but she didn't. She had enough on her conscience, she thought miserably. Dear God, what was going to happen now?

  The doorbell rang as she was trying to swallow a mouthful of baked potato, and she turned anxious eyes in Tom's direction. 'Angie?'

  'I doubt it.' Tom shovelled another forkful of beans into his mouth, and shrugged his shoulders indifferently. It was obvious his appetite had not been affected by his feelings, and, realising he had no intention of answering the door, Jaime got wearily to her feet.

  It had to be Ben, she thought, as she went along the hall. If it wasn't Angie—and she didn't think her mother would make another visit at this time of day—it had to be him. Oh, God, she thought despairingly, this was all she needed.

  The bell pealed again as she reached the door, and she knew a moment's indignation. So impatient! she thought, reaching for the handle. He must have seen the car. He knew she was at home. Couldn't he show a little consideration?

  At first glance, the woman who was waiting outside was unfamiliar to her. Jaime, preparing herself for a confrontation with Ben, was taken off balance, and the relief she felt was tempered with a weak sense of anticlimax. 'Yes?'

  'Don't you recognise me?' The woman, who appeared to be in her late sixties, gave her an arrogant stare, and Jaime felt a disturbing twinge of alarm.

  'No, I—I—' She faltered, and the woman's lips curled.

  'Oh, I'm sure you will remember me, if you think hard enough,' she declared, looking beyond Jaime to where Tom had come to stand in the kitchen doorway. 'He knows who I am, don't you, Tom?'

  And then Jaime knew, too. But her hesitation had been understandable enough. It was more than fifteen years since that memorable occasion Philip had taken her to meet his parents, and Mrs Russell's face was not one she had wanted to remember.

  'It's Mrs Russell, Mum,' Tom said behind her, as Jaime demanded tautly,

  'What do you want?'

  'A few words is all,' replied Mrs Russell, with equal hostility. 'May I come in?'

  'I don't think so.' Jaime glanced over her shoulder at Tom, wishing he would just go back into the kitchen and close the door. 'We have nothing to say to one another.'

  'I disagree.'

  Mrs Russell put one foot on the threshold, and Jaime gazed at it in amazement. What did Ben's mother hope to do? Force her way inside? She might be a tall woman—like her sons—and strong for her age, but surely she couldn't hope to compete with a much younger adversary.

  Deciding it would be too embarrassing for all concerned to try to find out, Jaime tried to ignore it. 'Well, I'm sorry,' she said, 'but I don't care what you think. Now, if you don't mind—'

  'You'd prefer me to say what I have to say here?' Mrs Russell waved a dismissing hand, and, as she did so, Jaime noticed Curtis leaning on the bonnet of the Mercedes, which was parked in the road, outside her gate. So his mother had Ben's blessing, did she? Jaime thought tremulously. Was this his way of getting back at her? By letting his mother fight his battles for him?

  'I don't particularly care what you have to say,' she said at last, casting another speaking look in Tom's direction, but instead of taking the hint, and returning to his dinner, the boy came forward.

  'Why don't you go away, as Mum says?' he asked, and Jaime gave an inward groan as Mrs Russell turned her scornful gaze on him.

  'I suggest you speak when you're spoken to,' she retorted. 'And the sooner you're transferred to a school where they'll teach you to show some respect for your elders the better.'

  'Transferred to another school?'

  Tom was shocked, and showed it, and Jaime briefly closed her eyes against the damage this woman could unknowingly inflict. 'Look,' she said, stepping in front of her son, and pressing him back along the hall, 'I don't know why you've come here, and I don't want to know. You—you've hurt Tom enough, and I won't allow you to do this. I want you to go—'

  'How typical!' Mrs Russell sneered. 'You accuse me of hurting Tom, when all these years you're the one who's hurt him most!'

  'That's not true—'

  'It is true.' Mrs Russell was adamant. 'You're a past mistress at hurting people, Jaime. First Philip, then Tom, and now Ben!'

  'Ben?' Jaime's lips twisted. 'I doubt if he'd appreciate your saying that.'

  'No?'

  'No.' Jaime realised Tom hadn't gone back into the kitchen, as she had hoped, but some things had to be said. 'Ben's pretty good at hurting people himself. What about—' it was a calculated risk '—what about Maura?'

  'Oh—Maura!' Mrs Russell swept her late daughter-in-law aside with a careless hand. 'Maura doesn't come into this. Besides, she's been dead for more than three years. Very sad, of course, but Ben should never have married her. As soon as he found out, he should have divorced her. I mean she knew, before the wedding. She should have told him.'

  Jaime blinked. 'Knew? Knew what?'

  'That she had leukaemia, of course. Didn't Ben tell you? Oh, of course, he wouldn't. What a pity she didn't marry Philip.'

  Jaime swayed. 'Why?' she whispered, as a kaleidoscope of images swept over her. Ben at her wedding, without Maura. Ben rescuing her from Philip, also without Maura. Ben's reluctance to talk about his wife—her reclusiveness. His refusal to leave Maura, even though he had said he loved Jaime. Dear God, was that why he had left England? To remove the chance of ever seeing her again?

  'Why?' Mrs Russell was saying. 'I should have thought that was obvious. Then we wouldn't be in this situation, and I might have some legitimate grandchildren!'

  Jaime felt sick. 'I think you'd better go—'

  'Not before I say what I've come for,' declared the other woman grimly. 'I just thought you ought to know what you've done!'

  Jaime swallowed. 'What I've done?' she echoed, and Tom grabbed her arm, and said,

  'Don't listen to her, Mum.'

  'Yes, what you've done,' continued Mrs Russell, ignoring Tom completely. 'You've put my son in hospital, that's what you've done! As I say, you know all about hurting people, Jaime. I just hope you haven't killed him, that's all.'

  Jaime clutched the door for support, and even Tom pressed forward to hear what was being said. 'In hospital?' he
got out bravely. 'I—I don't believe you.'

  'Ask Curtis, then,' said Mrs Russell contemptuously. 'If you don't believe me, ask him. He'll tell you Ben collapsed after your mother left this morning. He'll tell you how Ben had to be rushed to the hospital in Kingsmere for an emergency operation!'

  'Oh, God!' Jaime slumped against the door. 'I—I've got to go to him,' she whispered frantically, but Tom was tugging at her arm.

  'You—you went to see Uncle Ben this morning?' he exclaimed, and now she could see anger in his face, too. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

  'Not now, Tom,' she pleaded, very near to breaking-point, but Tom had his own reasons for distrusting her.

  'You weren't going to tell me, were you?' he demanded, as Mrs Russell looked on with scathing eyes. 'You pretend not to like him, but as soon as anything happens you can't wait to get in touch with him, can you? Why? Are you in love with him or something? Was Uncle Ben the reason you left his brother?'

  'No!' Jaime was still desperate to go and see Ben, but she had to disabuse Tom of that belief. 'I left Philip for reasons I couldn't begin to go into at this moment. Suffice it to say, he was a sick man, and he made my life a living hell! Now—I've got to go—'

  'But why?' Tom retained his hold on her, and, gazing into his troubled face, Jaime knew she couldn't keep the truth from him any longer.

  'Because he's your father!' she cried, and, snatching her arm out of his stunned grasp, she pushed past Mrs Russell, and ran down the path.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ben was in a side-ward. He was still unconscious, but, according to the doctor Jaime had spoken to, he was not in any immediate danger. He had had the operation his mother had spoken of, and was presently recovering from the anaesthetic. He was still attached to a drip, and another machine monitored his heartbeat but, again according to his surgeon, he was expected to make a full recovery.

  The relief was so great that Jaime spent the first five minutes after receiving this news being sick. She emptied her stomach of everything she had had that day, and when she managed to return to Ben's room she felt like nothing so much as crawling into bed beside him.

  Not that the ward sister would have taken a very favourable view if she had. When Jaime arrived at the hospital, after prevailing upon Curtis to disobey Mrs Russell's commands and bring her, she had had quite a problem trying to convince the starchy sister that she had a legitimate right to be there. Mrs Russell, who had insisted on accompanying them, had done her best to thwart her efforts, and it was not until Ben's doctor appeared and ascertained that this was the 'Jaime' Ben had apparently been asking for before the operation that she was permitted into his room. And it was the doctor who suggested that Mrs Russell should wait in the visitors' lounge until Ben regained consciousness. It wasn't wise for a patient to be over-stimulated, and as Jaime was here…

  So, by some miracle, it was Jaime alone who was sitting beside Ben's bed when he eventually opened his eyes. She saw the flicker of his lashes, and the languid way his lids lifted, and for a moment she was too overwhelmed to say anything. But then Ben's eyes focused and turned in her direction, and she could no longer contain her relief.

  'Oh, Ben,' she breathed unsteadily, getting to her feet and leaning over him. 'Thank God, you're all right.' She lowered her head and bestowed a trembling kiss at the corner of his mouth. 'I—I thought—oh, I don't know what I thought. I—I've been so worried!'

  Ben frowned, as a tear dropped from her lashes on to his face. But he put out his tongue to remove it, before saying huskily, 'How did you get here?'

  'Oh, it's a long story,' said Jaime, cupping his face in her hands, as if she couldn't get enough of looking at him. 'You've been ill. You wanted me. Do you remember?'

  'I've wanted you a long time,' he said, lifting his hand to cover one of hers. 'I'll have to be ill more often, if this is what happens.'

  'Oh, Ben.' Jaime kissed him again. 'I love you.'

  'Do you?' Ben's eyes darkened. 'I thought you hated me.'

  'Oh, no.' Jaime sniffed, in no state to hide her emotions any longer. 'I wanted to. I did. But you knew it wasn't true.'

  'Did I?'

  'You should. After—after what happened this morning.'

  'What happened this morning?'

  'You know.' Jaime's lips were tremulous. 'You must.'

  'Refresh my memory,' he said, and the faint smile that touched the corners of his lips convinced her that he really was going to be all right.

  'No,' she said. 'Not now. Now, I've got to tell your mother that you're OK. She—she's in the waiting-room.'

  'My mother?' Ben blinked. 'What's she doing here?'

  'The same as me,' said Jaime soothingly. 'Making sure you're all right. I expect Curtis sent for her when you were taken ill. I don't know. Anyway, it's thanks to her that I'm here. Well, not thanks to her exactly, but she did tell me what had happened—'

  'She told you I had had an operation, did she?'

  'In a manner of speaking—'

  'Did she tell you what it was for?'

  Jaime shrugged. 'No. But that doesn't matter. As long as you're going to be all right.'

  'It does matter.' Ben sighed. 'Jaime, it was only a perforated appendix—'

  'Only!' Jaime's heart fluttered.

  'Well, it was nothing—life-threatening. I mean, they caught it in time,' said Ben wearily. 'I'm sorry if you—'

  'If I what?'

  'Oh—' Ben groaned '—if you thought I was dying, or something. I admit, I did have a viral infection when. I came back from Africa, and that complicated matters, but I know what my mother's like. I know how vindictive she can be, and if she thought that you—that you and I—Jaime, I don't want there to be any lies between us ever again.'

  'There won't be. I promise.' Jaime inched her way on to the side of the bed, and smoothed the damp hair back from his forehead. 'All right, maybe I would have taken a little longer to come to my senses if she hadn't put the fear of God into me. But she also—told me something else. About—about Maura. Ben, why didn't you tell me she had leukaemia?'

  Ben looked puzzled. 'But you knew!'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'Philip must have told you?'

  'No.'

  'Oh, God!' Ben captured one of her hands in both of his. 'You mean—you mean you didn't know why I couldn't leave her?'

  'No.'

  'God!' He raised her fingers to his lips. 'But I thought everyone knew. Everyone in the family, that is.'

  'But I wasn't really part of the family, was I?' Jaime reminded him gently. 'Your mother saw to that.'

  'So she did.' Ben shook his head. 'Do you mean—you might have told me about Tom if—if—?'

  'I don't know.' Jaime bent her head. 'You went off to Africa—'

  'Because I couldn't bear the thought that there was some other man in your life,' said Ben harshly. 'Don't you remember? You told everyone you were going away with—with another man?'

  'Oh, Ben.' Jaime lowered her head to rest her chin on their clasped hands. 'And I thought that you—that you—'

  'Didn't care?' he demanded huskily. 'If you only knew!'

  'Well, I do now,' said Jaime unsteadily. 'From now on, there won't be any more mistakes. The only people who matter are you, and me, and Tom—oh, God! Tom!'

  'What is it?' Ben gazed at her anxiously. 'There's nothing wrong with Tom, is there?'

  'I told him,' confessed Jaime weakly. 'I've just remembered. I told him about you. That you're his father. Oh, God, I was in such a state, it just came out. What must he be thinking?'

  Ben made a helpless gesture. 'He had to know,' he said. 'Sooner or later, he was bound to learn the truth. Particularly in the present circumstances.' His hands tightened around hers. 'OK, maybe he didn't find out in the kindest way possible, but he's my son as well as yours. He'll get over it. With our help.'

  'Our help, said Jaime unsteadily. 'Oh, that sounds good to me.'

  'And to me,' said Ben, drawing a laboured breath. 'Oh, God, Jaime, do you h
ave any idea how much I need you?'

  'What you need is a little bit of rest and relaxation, Mr Russell,' declared the ward sister's reproving voice from the doorway. 'And you won't get it if members of your immediate family insist on disrupting your convalescence. Hey, young man! Where do you think you're going? I haven't given you permission to go in there yet—'

  But it was too late. As Jaime got reluctantly to her feet, Tom pushed past the nurse, and came uncertainly to his father's bedside. He didn't look at his mother. His whole attention was centred on the man in the narrow hospital bed, and Jaime watched, dry-mouthed, as he halted at the foot of it.

  There was a moment's silence, when even the nurse seemed aware of the tension in the room, and then Ben said softly, 'Hi, Tom!' and Tom's unnatural composure cracked.

  'Hi—Ben,' he replied, moving a little nearer. 'How—how are you?'

  'Improving by the minute,' said Ben, with some relief, exchanging a tense look with Jaime. 'How about you?'

  'Me?' Tom did look at his mother now, but even she could read nothing from his expression. 'I'm not the one who's in hospital. Sister Latimer says you're as well as can be expected.'

  Ben looked at the disapproving face of Sister Latimer, and reserved comment. 'I'm OK,' he said, and, as if her patience was at last exhausted, Sister Latimer marched across the floor.

  'I'm sorry, Mrs Russell,' she said. 'But your husband must get some rest.'

  'He's not my—' began Jaime, and then, catching Ben's eyes, she closed her mouth. 'Oh—all right.' She squeezed the hand she was still holding. 'But I'll come back later, if I may?'

  'Tomorrow,' declared Sister Latimer firmly, and even though Jaime protested she was unyielding. 'It's late, Mrs Russell. And our patient needs to get some sleep. Now, if you don't mind…'

  Jaime sighed, but it was obvious that the sister only had Ben's interests at heart. 'Very well,' she said, releasing his reluctant fingers. 'Um—say goodbye, Tom.'

  Tom hesitated. Then, risking the nurse's displeasure, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and said, 'Is it true? What—what Mum said?'