A Scandalous Innocent

by Penny Jordan

  Breakfast in bed. She was being spoilt, and on James’s instructions.

  Oh, God, what on earth must he be thinking of her, weeping all over him like that? It was so unlike her; she hadn’t even cried when her parents were killed. Her aunt had said that she mustn’t. She never cried, never behaved as she had done last night. She shivered, remembered how she had let James comfort her, blindly reassured by the sound of his voice, and most of all from simply being close to him. But why? He was her enemy. She hated him.

  It was like suddenly discovering that the ground beneath her feet, far from being solid and safe, was extremely dangerous; it was like straying into quicksand and then being too terrified to move in case one became trapped in it.

  But trapped in what exactly?

  Hurriedly, Lark poured herself a cup of coffee. She had wasted too much time on James Wolfe; she wasn’t going to waste any more.

  The representative from the computer company arrived after lunch. A pretty girl a couple of years older than Lark, she quickly and simply explained to both Lark and Mrs Mayers how much easier the new equipment would make their working lives.

  Mrs Mayers refused to be convinced. If she agreed to allow the equipment inside the house, then Lark would have to take full responsibility for it, she announced firmly.

  Lark hesitated, knowing quite well that if she went ahead and ordered the equipment she was going to have to stay with Mrs Mayers for far longer than a month. Before last night, that wouldn’t have bothered her at all, quite the reverse. But now… Despite the truce they had agreed, she wasn’t at all confident that she was going to be able to cope with the knowledge that James Wolfe had the right to more or less walk in and out of her life whenever he chose.

  How ironic that was, when one of her reasons for taking the job in the first place had been her fear that he might try to pursue her!

  And yet, despite that, she found herself agreeing that the equipment should be installed on a trial basis.

  ‘The work could be done while we’re in Boston,’ Mrs Mayers suggested. She turned to Lark. ‘I forgot to tell you, we’re going to have to leave for Boston almost immediately. Lark, an old friend of mine, a co-trustee of the charity’s funds, has had a heart attack and is in hospital. Would it cause you any problems if we left tomorrow?’

  ‘None,’ Lark assured her promptly. If anything, it would be a relief to get away. In Boston it would be far easier to put James out of her thoughts.

  She went to the front door with the computer salesgirl, who promised to get everything organised as quickly as she could.

  ‘By the way, did you see James when he came in last night?’ Mrs Mayers asked her when she went back.

  ‘Only briefly. Charlotte…Miss Vail is very pretty, isn’t she?’ she asked, desperately trying to change the subject. Why was it that the mere mention of James’s name was enough to make her start trembling with nervousness?

  ‘Very…but I’m afraid, as James says, she’s also very spoiled. Her mother and I were very close friends. I think Charlotte will improve when she marries. She needs someone older to take charge of her…keep a firm hand on her, so to speak. Oh, dear, that sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? But Charlotte has never made any secret of the fact that she wants to get married. She has no ambitions to be a career girl at all.’

  Not only did Charlotte know she wanted to get married, she also had her future husband picked out as well, Lark suspected. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to question her employer on the exact nature of the relationship between her son and her god-daughter, but it sickened her to think that James had come straight from Charlotte to her. That kiss might even have been meant for the other girl, a girl whom he considered too innocent to subject to the fierce male desire Lark had sensed. What would have happened if she hadn’t come to her senses in time?

  Oh, come on, she derided herself, you know what would have happened. He would have taken you to bed and made love to you.

  There it was, out in the open at last, that desire she had seen blazing from his eyes so briefly in the court room.

  And the worst of it was that she herself wasn’t immune to it. If she had been… She closed her eyes, not wanting to allow her thought to go any further.

  ‘Lark, are you all right?’

  She opened them again and smiled reassuringly. ‘Fine… If we’re going to Boston, oughtn’t I to start making some arrangements?’

  * * *

  Luckily Lark had a current passport which she had obtained while she was at university. The travel agent listed in one of Mrs Mayers’ many address books was able to provide them with tickets on a British Airways flight that left at lunch time the next day. The flight was a long one, almost eight hours, but because of the time difference they would arrive in Boston in the afternoon.

  Lark had known that Mrs Mayers had a home outside Boston, but what she had not realised was that she also kept a full-time staff there as well.

  ‘We’ll ring Hennessy and arrange for him to pick us up. It’s quite a long drive out to Marble Head, well over an hour. And then we’d better speak to Mrs Hennessy as well. She’ll want to know how long we’re staying. You’d better tell her at least a couple of weeks. Oh, and Lark, you might tell her that I doubt that we’ll be doing much entertaining. I want to spend as much time as I can with Jack, and there will be quite a lot of work to get through as well.’

  Lark didn’t mind. Work was exactly what she needed right now. It was the only way she had of keeping James out of her thoughts. She made the transatlantic call herself and heard for the first time what was soon going to become the familiar Boston twang.

  Mrs Hennessy sounded as calm and efficient as her British counterpart, and Lark suspected that Mrs Mayers had that rare gift of inspiring genuine respect and affection among those who worked for her.

  ‘Pack summer-weight clothes,’ Mrs Mayers warned her when they eventually sat down to dinner. ‘I know it’s still cool over here, but in Boston it will be much warmer. You will need a jacket of some kind, though. We’re right on the coast, and the breeze can be pretty sharp at night.’

  Mrs Mayers had made a personal phone call to the hospital to check up on her friend. He was still in intensive care, she told Lark, but responding well to treatment.

  ‘I’d like to go to see him as soon as we arrive. Hennessy can take us to the house and then take me back to the hospital. And then you must have at least a couple of days off, Lark. The house is rather isolated, I’m afraid, but if you wish, Hennessy could take you into Boston. I’ll have to try to organise something while we’re over there so that you can meet some other young people.’

  ‘I’m going to Boston with you to work,’ Lark reminded her gently. ‘Please don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough to think about.’

  ‘You’re such a kind girl, Lark, but you mustn’t be too selfless. You’re far too young to spend all your time with an old lady like me. When we get back, I must ask Charlotte to introduce you to some of her friends.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s kind of you, but really it isn’t necessary.’ Lark was caught between dismay at the thought of being thrust into the kind of social circle Charlotte Vail obviously inhabited, and amusement at the thought of the other girl’s reaction to her godmother’s desire for her to mix socially with one of her employees.

  ‘I’m really quite happy just as things are,’ she added, feeling that some explanation for her hasty denial was required.

  ‘Maybe, but you mustn’t shut yourself away from the rest of the world, Lark. I know how easy it is to do so. I fell into the same trap after my first husband died, but, emotionally, women aren’t designed to be alone. We need to be involved, nurtured.’ Lark suspected that the modern career woman would not agree with Mrs Mayers’ observations, and yet Lark was beginning to realise that the older woman was far more shrewd than she sometimes allowed people to think.

  After dinner, Lark went up to her room to pack. It didn’t take very long.

  Lightweight clothes
, Mrs Mayers had said. She looked grimly at the contents of her wardrobe. Apart from jeans and T-shirts, all she owned that fitted that description were a couple of inexpensive dresses bought when she was at university. Telling herself that it didn’t really matter if she wasn’t Charlotte Vail with a wardrobe full of expensive clothes to choose from, she lifted them out of the wardrobe.

  There were certain papers that Mrs Mayers wanted to take with her and, once she had finished her packing, Lark went downstairs to get them. While she was in the study the telephone extension bell rang. She picked it up without thinking, giving the number and her name.

  ‘Still working, Lark? I hope my mother is paying you overtime.’

  Lark tensed at the sound of James’s voice, her fingers gripping the receiver.

  ‘I understand you managed to persuade my mother to at least give the computer equipment a try.’

  With every word her tension increased. She was beginning to feel dizzy. She wanted to hang up on him and blot out the sound of his voice, but she was an employee working for his mother and her business training would not allow her to do so.

  Abruptly the tone of his voice changed.

  ‘Lark, about last night…’ Her hand felt sticky with nervous perspiration. She started to shake and she was sure she would have dropped the receiver, business training or not, if Mrs Mayers hadn’t unexpectedly walked into the room.

  Instead she thrust the receiver towards her, and said huskily, ‘It’s James, your son. I…’

  She fled from the room before she could betray herself completely. It wasn’t until she was upstairs that she realised how idiotically she was behaving. What on earth would Mrs Mayers think of her?

  Lark could only hope that she would put her odd behaviour down to her dread that James might decide to dismiss her. She wondered if James had already told his mother about their truce, and from there it was only one logical and very short step to asking herself why, when she no longer need fear that she would be dismissed, she should start shaking with that mixture of apprehension and excitement that was unique to her exchanges with James.

  Emotions—fear, such as the fear she had experienced in court—couldn’t simply be put on one side just because their perpetrator told her that they could. Yes, that was it, she decided thankfully. It was fear that made her react the way she did. Fear? She didn’t like the question mark her conscience hung over the word, niggling at her until she was forced to admit that the thrill of sensation that ran through her every time she spoke to James or saw him had not had its roots in fear.

  So she was not indifferent to the man. What did that prove, for heaven’s sake? she questioned herself impatiently. Nothing, nothing at all, other than the fact that she was as vulnerable as the rest of her sex to the power of sexual magnetism. It was just unfortunate that in her case that magnetism should be generated by a man she should more properly detest.

  When she realised that she had come upstairs without Mrs Mayers’ papers, she went back to the study. Mrs Mayers was still there. She looked rather confused.

  ‘Lark, did James say he wanted to speak to me? He seemed rather angry that you’d gone. I think he must have wanted to discuss the computer with you,’ she added vaguely. ‘Anyway, I told him that he’d have to wait now until we get back. I think he’s a little worried that I might change my mind, and he probably wanted to enlist your support.’ She gave Lark a wry smile. ‘It seems that, whatever your other differences might be, you and my son are united in your determination to drag me into the computer age.’

  ‘Only because we know that ultimately it will lessen your workload,’ Lark assured her. Here, at least, she was on safe ground, and so she spent a good ten minutes earnestly averring her belief that the new technology would be of tremendous assistance to her employer.

  ‘Only as long as you’re here to operate it, my dear,’ Mrs Mayers told her frankly. ‘And I said as much to James. I told him that I’d warned you there was no point in either of you expecting me to master the monster’s intricacies, and I also told him that you’d promised me that you wouldn’t leave if it was installed.’

  Lark had been sorting through some papers, but she looked up at the triumphant sound in Mrs Mayers’ voice.

  ‘You look tired,’ Mrs Mayers told her. ‘No working late tonight, Lark. I think James is beginning to suspect me of being a slave-driver. He told me this morning that you were still working when he came in last night.’

  ‘Only because I couldn’t sleep,’ Lark defended.

  ‘You should be spending your evenings dancing, not working. Forgive me if I’m prying, Lark, but your cousin—were you in love with him?’

  Lark shook her head and said honestly, ‘No. Oh, I know that the papers tried to suggest that we were more than just cousins.’ She stumbled a little over the words, remembering her shock and bitter disgust at the thinly veiled suggestions in many of the newspapers that she and Gary were lovers.

  ‘Was he in love with you?’

  Again Lark shook her head, slightly more forcefully this time.

  ‘No—if anything, we disliked one another.’

  ‘So there was no woman in his life,’ Mrs Mayers mused. ‘Strange, one would have thought from his behaviour that there was.’ She saw Lark’s face pale and exclaimed apologetically, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry like this. Do forgive me.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Lark told her shakily, unable to explain that her shock had been caused by how close Mrs Mayers had come to guessing the truth. If she could see it so easily, then why could no one else? she wondered a little bitterly. Why was it that Mrs Mayers was so easily able to believe her innocence, while her son could only see her as guilty? What did it matter what James thought about her? she asked herself fretfully, as she gathered up her papers and gripped them together.

  ‘We’ll need the minutes from the last meeting over here,’ Mrs Mayers started to say, and then checked as she saw the neatly typed list that Lark was holding.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said ruefully, ‘you’ve already got them, haven’t you? I’m sorry, Lark. I’m so used to my own inefficiency.’

  ‘You aren’t inefficient,’ Lark told her firmly. ‘It’s just that paperwork isn’t your forte.’

  She was surprised by the vigour of Mrs Mayers’ laughter.

  ‘My dear, you do have the most delightful and tactful way of putting things,’ she exclaimed when she had finished laughing. ‘You’re also a treasure of an assistant. While I know that you’re wasting your talents working here for me, I can’t help feeling glad that my son…’

  She broke off in some confusion, and Lark felt quick sympathy for her. No doubt she had been about to say that she was glad that James was allowing her to stay in his mother’s employment, but had realised that to admit that he did have the power to veto her decisions would not be tactful.

  * * *

  Lark had only flown on a couple of occasions before; once on a brief weekend visit to Paris with a group of fellow students, when they had been crammed on board a charter flight, which had proved to be a most uncomfortable experience. The other occasion had been a family holiday with her aunt and uncle and cousin early in her teens.

  Neither occasion had prepared her for the luxury and efficiency of first-class travel. When Mrs Mayers had realised how little luggage Lark was taking with her, she had been delighted.

  ‘I keep a wardrobe of clothes in Marble Head, and that’s all you’re taking. We shan’t have anything to check in at all.’

  She proved to be quite correct. Lark was told that her one small case could be classified as hand luggage and go into the first-class cabin with her.

  After their tickets had been checked, they were told that they could proceed to the Concorde Lounge to await the announcement for their flight. The lounge was a revelation to Lark; a world apart from the bustle and turmoil of the usual departures lounge.

  Here soft carpets hushed the sound of footsteps. Passengers relaxed in comfortable chair
s discreetly placed around small tables. The smell of freshly brewing coffee filtered temptingly around the room. The uniformed steward dispensed glasses of champagne and soft drinks in addition to a tempting array of light snacks.

  Lark watched in amazement as other arrivals went up to the counter and helped themselves to whatever they wanted.

  ‘It’s all part of the service,’ Mrs Mayers told her in amusement, watching her round-eyed disbelief.

  Lark flushed, mumbling that Mrs Mayers must find her very naïve.

  ‘Not at all,’ she was reassured. ‘In fact, it makes me appreciate just how very fortunate I am. After a while one tends to take all this for granted, which is wrong, really. Come and sit down and we’ll have a cup of coffee, or would you prefer champagne?’

  Lark shook her head. She had no head for alcohol at all and, besides, she remembered reading somewhere that it was the very worst thing one could drink on a long flight. In almost no time at all, or so it seemed, they were told that they could now board the plane.

  Again the luxury and space of the first-class cabin amazed Lark. There was room to spare to stretch out her legs in front of her. An attentive steward took Mrs Mayers’ coat and hung it away in a small closet. Lark felt she had scarcely time to take in her surroundings and fasten her seat-belt before they were actually taking off.

  She had brought a book with her to read, but there was so much to fascinate her that she found she had not even opened it when the steward announced that he would be coming round with lunch menus.

  Mrs Mayers, who had been lying with her eyes closed, opened them when she heard this announcement.

  ‘Lunch, excellent! Isn’t it amazing how hungry one gets when travelling?’