by Penny Jordan
‘Tell me,’ his mother repeated.
‘You won’t like it,’ he warned her grimly.
Twenty minutes later, when he had finished, his mother’s face was pale.
‘You’re right,’ she told him in a strained voice. ‘I don’t like it. Oh, Ward,’ she burst out painfully. ‘How could you do such a thing? That poor girl. What must she have felt?’
‘That poor girl?’ Ward exploded. ‘Ma, she’s the one—’ He stopped, pushing his fingers into his hair. ‘If anyone needs your sympathy then...’
‘Ward, she must have been so hurt and shocked. To have believed you loved her as much as she obviously loves you...’
‘Hang on a minute... What makes you think she loves me?’ Ward demanded sharply.
‘But it’s so obvious,’ his mother replied gently. ‘If she didn’t love you she would never have... Ward, of course she loves you,’ she told him severely.
‘Ma, you’re behaving as though...’ He hesitated and shook his head in frustration. ‘I told you. The reason I went to see her in the first place was because...’
‘Because she cheated Ritchie out of five thousand pounds,’ his mother agreed serenely. ‘Yes, I know. But, Ward, have you thought she could have had a reason for her behaviour? There could have been mitigating circumstances...’
‘For what’s damn near fraud?’ Ward demanded scornfully. ‘Ma...’
‘Is it really so important what she did, Ward?’ his mother asked him quietly. ‘You’ve as good as said yourself that you love her. I know that she must love you.’
‘Of course it’s important,’ Ward told her harshly. ‘If a person is inherently dishonest, how can you have a trusting relationship with them? How could I ever...?’
‘Ward, I’ve never told you this, but when I first knew your stepfather there’d been a spate of thefts from the school—only small amounts of money were involved, but they were thefts nonetheless. I knew and so did your stepfather that all the circumstantial evidence pointed to me being the thief. Your stepfather had every reason to believe that I was a thief, but he still put his feelings for me and the fact that he had fallen in love with me above all the logical facts that indicated that I was responsible for taking money from the school.’
‘But you weren’t the thief,’ Ward pointed out grimly, ‘and Anna...’
‘Ward, you aren’t listening to me,’ his mother told him
gently. ‘Just as you aren’t listening to your heart. You should do. Sometimes it gives a much truer message than one’s brain.
‘Go and see her,’ she counselled him. ‘Go and see your Anna, Ward, and tell her what you’ve told me. Tell her that you love her.’
He wasn’t going to, of course. What was the point? He had already made a complete fool of himself over her once, telling her that he loved her, but fate had intervened, giving him a second chance to get his life back under his own control, giving him a second chance to listen to the logical, analytical messages of his brain rather than the emotional ones of his heart.
No, he wasn’t going to pay any attention whatsoever to what his mother had said, to what he himself was feeling...
So why, just as soon as he had assured himself that his stepfather was on the mend, was he driving far too fast along a motorway which would not take him home to Yorkshire but instead to Rye?
Because his mother was right, that was why. Because he loved Anna and he couldn’t let her go without at least seeing her one more time.
One more time. Just who was he kidding? Ward asked himself with grim black humour.
He loved Anna, and he loved her so deeply and so intensely that... That what? That he was prepared to abandon his principles and his beliefs for her? That he thought he could totally suspend reality and pretend that she had not done what they both knew she had done?
And what of Anna herself? What if she did not want to change? What if she enjoyed cheating and deceiving? What if he took her his offer of amnesty and a completely new beginning and she threw it back in his face?
But somehow Ward could not imagine the Anna he had come to know and love so intimately ever behaving like that. She had shown such tenderness and compassion, such concerned awareness for the feelings of others, that it would, quite simply, be totally out of character for her to do that kind of thing.
But had he actually known the real Anna? Perhaps her blow on the head had affected more than just her memory. What was he trying to persuade himself to believe? Ward asked himself scornfully. That Anna had undergone a complete personality change? Now he was venturing into the realms of fantasy.
But still, when the opportunity came half an hour later for him to switch motorways and drive straight home, he made no attempt to take it.
* * *
‘Are you sure you really feel well enough to be home?’ Dee asked Anna sternly as they stood in Anna’s kitchen.
‘Dee, I’m fine,’ Anna responded gently.
Dee had tried every argument she could think of to persuade Anna to change her mind and stay on as her guest instead of going back to her own house, but Anna had remained obdurate and Dee had finally been persuaded to drive her home.
‘I have to get my life back to normal some time,’ she had responded with a brisk lack of self pity when Dee had suggested that perhaps she needed more time to come to terms with what had happened, before returning home where she would be on her own.
‘I think it is much better that I should get back into the swing of things sooner rather than later,’ Anna insisted now. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate all that you’ve done for me,’ she told Dee warmly. ‘Without you...’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘It’s made me feel so much better just having someone to talk things over with, and I’m grateful to you as well, Dee, for keeping what I’ve told you between the two of us. It’s bad enough that I’ve made such a complete fool of myself anyway...’
‘I’m sure that Kelly and Beth would have understood,’ Dee told her quickly and truthfully.
‘Yes. I know they would, but... Beth seems to be over Julian but she’s changed...she’s different. There’s something on her mind, something that’s worrying her, but whatever it is she just doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.’
‘Mmm... I must admit I have noticed that she does seem to be rather preoccupied lately,’ Dee agreed, ‘but I’d put that down to the problems she seems to be having with this stuff she ordered when she was in Prague.’
‘Oh, dear, has she still not received that order?’ Anna asked her. ‘Poor Beth; I hope it arrives soon. I know she was counting on it to boost her sales.’
‘Mmm... Well, she’s got time yet,’ Dee reminded her.
‘You’ve been such a wonderful friend to all of us, Dee,’ Anna praised her. ‘You’ve helped us all and—’
‘Helped you?’ Dee interrupted her dryly. ‘Have I? I was responsible for nearly turning Kelly and Brough against one another, and now it’s because I involved you in lending Julian money that this Ward Hunter has behaved so badly towards you...’
Anna looked quickly at Dee. There were still times when she tended to forget that Dee was actually younger than her, times when all of them tended to lean on her, but Anna recognised that Dee too had her moments of insecurity, her moments of vulnerability.
‘You are a good friend,’ she reiterated softly now. ‘A very good friend, Dee. I just wish...’ She stopped and looked searchingly at her. ‘I don’t want to pry but...this thing between you and Julian Cox. There’s more to it than you’ve ever told any of us, I think...’
Anna waited, holding her breath, wondering if Dee would take the opportunity she was trying to give her to confide in her as Anna had done in her, and, for a moment, she thought her patience was going to be rewarded as Dee began hesitantly, ‘Yes, there is, and...’
‘And...?’ Anna encou
raged.
Dee looked away from her.
‘I can’t... It isn’t anything really,’ she told her dismissively, and Anna knew that there was no point in trying to press her any further. She knew something else as well, she acknowledged a little sadly as Dee announced that she would go out to the car to bring in the rest of Anna’s things, and the shopping they had just bought. She knew that Dee was lying to her.
She couldn’t make Dee confide in her, but what she could do, Anna decided as she gave in to Dee’s insistence and agreed that, yes, perhaps she would go upstairs and rest on her bed for a while, was to make sure that if Dee did ever need her—for any reason—she was there for her.
‘Look, I’ve got to go and do some supermarket shopping,’ Dee told her. ‘If there’s anything that you want I could get it for you and we could perhaps have lunch here together...’
Anna hesitated before accepting Dee’s offer. She was perfectly well enough to go and do her own supermarket shopping now that she was home, but if she was honest she knew that if anyone were to ask her the kind of questions she could not bring herself to answer... It was still too soon, her emotions still too raw.
‘I shan’t be long,’ Dee assured her, heading for the door.
The last thing she felt like doing was sleeping, Anna admitted after Dee had gone, but nevertheless she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, opening them quickly a few minutes later as the telephone beside the bed rang. Reaching for the receiver, she said, ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ she heard a woman’s voice responding warmly. ‘Am I speaking to Anna Trewayne?’
‘Yes, you are,’ Anna confirmed. ‘But who—?’
‘My name is Ruth. I’m Ward’s mother...’
Ward’s mother! Anna nearly dropped the receiver; her heart was thudding frantically, her immediate instinct being to replace the receiver and blot out the woman’s soft, warm voice. But as though she had guessed what Anna was thinking Ruth begged her, ‘Please listen to me, Anna. Please...’
Dazed, Anna did as she had requested.
Ward’s mother, as Anna soon discovered, had a very good understanding of her son, his bad points as well as his good ones.
‘I’m not trying to make excuses for him, and certainly do not intend to make his apologies for him,’ she told Anna firmly. ‘But what I do want to say, Anna, is that he loves you very much.’
‘He didn’t love me at the hospital when he allowed me to believe that we were lovers,’ Anna countered quietly.
‘No,’ his mother agreed immediately. ‘He didn’t love you then, but, after all, he didn’t know you then.’
‘He deliberately and callously took advantage of my vulnerability,’ Anna pointed out remorselessly.
‘Yes,’ his mother conceded, without attempting to defend him. ‘And the fact that he believed you had done the same thing to Ritchie in no way excuses that behaviour,’ she added firmly.
On her end of the line Anna smiled rather ruefully at that quick and very sure maternal thrust.
‘Why are you telling me all of this?’ she asked Ward’s mother eventually.
‘Because I’m a woman as well as a mother,’ she came back immediately. ‘And I know that as a woman you need to know that your own instincts and feelings didn’t betray you. That what you and Ward shared was real and that he does love you.’
‘I love you,’ he had told her after making love with her, and in the bitterness of discovering how he had deceived her Anna had considered those words to be as much a fiction as everything else he had told her. But what if they had not been? What if they had been the truth—still were the truth?
‘Has he asked you to tell me all of this?’ Anna asked her challengingly.
‘No. Ward’s a very proud and independent man. He won’t like what I’ve done at all.’
‘So why have you done it?’ Anna asked her.
There was a brief pause before his mother, sounding heart-rendingly like a female version of Ward, told her seriously, ‘Because I wanted to know myself what the woman my proud and picky elder son has fallen so completely in love with is like.’
‘And you can tell that from a phone call?’ Anna derided gently.
‘You could tell you loved him through your amnesia,’ his mother retorted, before adding wisely, ‘Our sex have very well-attuned emotional instincts.’
‘And what you’re saying is that because I love him I should just ignore what he’s done, the way he’s behaved...’
‘Certainly not,’ Ward’s mother returned with a touch of asperity. ‘All I wanted to do, Anna, is to tell you plainly and simply that Ward loves you. I’m his mother; my natural instinct is to help and protect him—despite the fact that at forty-two he’s more than adult enough to take charge of his own life and to make his own decisions.’
‘And if I hadn’t told you that Ward got it wrong, that I had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Julian Cox’s shabby schemes, that I was as much a victim of him as your Ritchie, then how would you have felt?’
‘No different,’ Ward’s mother told her promptly and, Anna could tell, truthfully. ‘And to tell you the truth it pleases me more than you can imagine that Ward has been forced to admit that he loves you even though he thinks that you are in cahoots with Julian Cox. I’d begun to despair of him ever letting down his guard with anyone, or ever allowing himself to listen to his emotions. Had he produced some perfect woman he had chosen to become involved with because he thought she would make him a good wife, I would have been very upset. Ward needed to be shown that he’s only human, that his emotions cannot be controlled or contained. The fact that he thinks so badly of you and yet still loves you so much...’ She paused and then laughed before adding wryly, ‘Of course, I don’t pretend not to be very, very pleased to hear that my darling and oh, so idiotic son has got it so very, very wrong... I can’t wait to meet you for myself, Anna...’
Then it was Anna’s turn to laugh.
‘Don’t count your chickens,’ she warned her a little shakily. ‘Ward may have told you that he loves me and that my supposedly nefarious behaviour hasn’t destroyed that love, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to do anything about it, nor that I would want him to,’ Anna felt bound to point out a little hardily.
‘Oh, but he will,’ his mother told Anna very positively, pausing again before admitting, ‘I don’t believe in interfering in my sons’ lives—at least not normally—but during our...er...discussion it struck me that in the heat of the moment Ward might have been, shall we say, a little irresponsible—neglectful of the consequences of what he was doing...’
It took several seconds for what she was saying to sink into Anna’s consciousness fully, but once it had she sat bolt upright on her bed, her face flushing a hot pink with the recognition that Ward wasn’t the only one who had perhaps behaved irresponsibly.
‘Oh, but that’s...’ ‘Impossible,’ she had been about to say, but of course it wasn’t, and what was more... Anna took a deep breath. Suddenly her bedroom seemed to be filled with sunshine. Suddenly she felt absolutely on top of the world; suddenly that world had become a wonderfully exciting place.
A baby... Why on earth hadn’t she...?
‘There’s just no way Ward would ever turn his back on his child or its mother,’ Ward’s mother told Anna quietly. ‘But there is one point I should make, I think, Anna. When you do tell Ward the truth about your relationship with Julian Cox, don’t be surprised if he isn’t as pleased and relieved to hear it as you expect. He will be pleased, of course, but he’s also going to feel very much at a disadvantage with you because of it, and very ashamed of his own misjudgement of you. It will be one thing for Ward to offer you the generosity of his understanding of your errors, but he will find it very hard to accept your generosity over his.’
‘Yes,’ Anna agreed simply, know
ing what Ward’s mother had told her was perfectly true.
When she replaced the receiver she felt so elated and excited that she could barely contain her emotions. She wanted to get up, get dressed, sing, shout, laugh. Ward loved her... Ward had never meant to humiliate or deceive her; he had simply seized the moment, just as she had seized him!
A baby...
Anna made a soft crooning sound of pleasure beneath her breath.
* * *
DEE WAS JUST about to turn into Anna’s drive when she saw the large Mercedes behind her, signalling to do the same. Frowning, she stopped her own car and got out. She knew that Anna wasn’t expecting any visitors. Warily she approached the now motionless Mercedes.
Its driver was instantly recognisable to her from Anna’s description.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she demanded angrily.
Ward stared at her. Who on earth was this virago?
‘I was actually intending to visit Anna—not that it’s any of your business,’ he returned coolly.
The young woman standing in front of him was quite plainly on the warpath but Ward had no idea why she should be—nor did he wish to find out. All he wanted to do was to see Anna, to hold her in his arms, to tell her how much he loved her...
Dee stared at him. She could scarcely believe the man’s effrontery.
‘Don’t you think you’ve already done enough, hurt her enough?’ she demanded furiously. ‘I know exactly who you are and what you’ve done, and if you think for one minute that Anna could want to see you...’
Ward frowned.
‘She’s discussed me with you?’
‘She’s told me everything,’ Dee informed him acidly.
Ward’s frown deepened. This very angry young woman standing in his way wasn’t a complication he had expected.
‘Where is Anna?’ he asked Dee curtly, looking past her towards the house.
‘She isn’t here,’ Dee fibbed. ‘She’s gone away. And even if she was here,’ she told Ward fiercely, ‘there’s no way she would want to see you after the way you’ve lied to her, deceived her...’
