Time for Trust

by Penny Jordan

  Thinking of Jane reminded Jessica that she ought to leave the other girl a note. She was just writing it when Daniel walked into the kitchen with her case.

  ‘I’ve made you some sandwiches,’ she told him curtly. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’

  She saw the surprise lighten his eyes and felt a momentary pang of remorse, a longing for things to be different, and even a rebellious wish that she had never opened the door to her cousin—never learned the truth.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Daniel asked her, watching her closely.

  Hot colour scorched her skin. How he would laugh if he could read her thoughts.

  In addition to filling a flask with fresh coffee, she’d poured them both a mug. She knew she needed the reviving, caffeine-induced surge of energy the drink would give, and she suspected that, although he wasn’t showing it, Daniel must be feeling the effect of his long drive.

  Turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her face, she picked up one of the mugs and handed it to him, saying shortly, ‘No, of course not.’And then suddenly, as though in denial of her claim, her hand started shaking, slopping the coffee on to the table, and to her horror she felt her eyes filling up with tears as a mixture of fear and urgency swept over her. Hating herself for being so vulnerable, she added bitterly, ‘After all, it’s not as though I’ve any reason to feel shocked and upset, is it?’

  He gave her a cynical look. ‘If you’re trying to tell me those tears are for your father…’

  His jibe stung and she retaliated bitterly. ‘Just because I won’t allow my father to run my life for me, it doesn’t mean I don’t love him…that I don’t care…He is my father.’

  ‘Is he? I had the impression your relationship with your parents was something you preferred to pretend didn’t exist.’

  His accusation hurt her, leaving her bereft of any defences, and too vulnerable to the small inner voice that told her that there must have been many times in the past when she had unwittingly hurt her parents, more so than she herself had ever realised, if it were true that her mother had felt so unsure of her response that she hadn’t wanted to telephone her with the news of her father’s heart attack. She had to remind herself that even now he was not above using her vulnerability to reinforce his own position, to emotionally coerce her.

  ‘I never said that,’ she denied sharply.

  ‘Not in so many words, but you certainly gave me that impression. You don’t trust anyone who knows your parents—hardly the sentiments of a loving child,’ he taunted her.

  ‘Maybe not, but they were certainly justified, weren’t they?’ Jessica accused, anger overtaking vulnerability. ‘I may not share my parents’ views on the direction I want my life to take, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.’

  There was a small silence, and then Daniel said grimly, ‘Tell that to your father if—’ He broke off, but she knew what he had been about to say. ‘If he’s still alive.’

  Something broke apart inside her, spilling pain throughout her body, unleashing a veritable Pandora’s box of emotions so complex and agonising that she wanted to cry out in protest against them.

  ‘I can’t be the daughter my parents want,’ she said huskily, speaking her pain out loud. ‘I can’t sacrifice my life and emotions to the bank.’

  Daniel had finished his coffee.

  ‘Time to go,’ he told her curtly, cutting across her emotional outburst.

  * * *

  It was only later, sitting next to him in his car as he drove south, that she remembered that he had never given her back the money she had thrown at him in such anguish and disdain, and for some reason she couldn’t quite analyse that struck a tiny note of alarm somewhere deep inside her.

  They were on the motorway, which was mercifully free of heavy traffic at this time of night, and Daniel had been silent for so long that it was a shock to hear him saying smoothly, ‘I take it the bedroom you were in wasn’t very warm.’

  Astonishment made her turn her head to look at him, her expression unguarded and puzzled as she looked at his unreadable profile. He was concentrating on the road, not looking at her, even though she knew he must be conscious of her scrutiny. A car came up behind them, being driven far too fast, and he changed gear, pulling to one side to allow it to pass. The movement caught her attention, causing her to focus automatically on his thigh.

  A huge wave of sensation washed through her, her body quivering as her mind fought against the images flashing across her brain. It shocked her that such a small, mundane movement could have the power to arouse images of such sensuality and intimacy, and her mind recoiled, horrified by what the conscious part of it considered to be an unforgivable invasion into the privacy of another person.

  She had never before in all her life looked at a man and immediately conjured up a mental vision of him naked, aroused by desire, offering the pleasures of his body to her for her enjoyment. And what was even more disturbing was her own reaction to the wantonness of that imagery.

  Confused and ashamed, she forced herself to drag her gaze from his body and focus on his face, her mind swimming with shock and bewilderment.

  ‘My bedroom, cold?’she managed to stammer. ‘I…No…I don’t…What makes you think that?’

  ‘The nightdress you were wearing,’ he told her casually, momentarily and totally unexpectedly diverting his attention from the road to her.

  ‘My nightdress?’ She frowned, remembering how quickly she had packed for her journey north, wrenching out of a drawer a hideous winceyette nightdress which she had been given as a Christmas present one year, and by Emma, of all people.

  She felt herself go hot and then cold as she realised that if Daniel had found her nightdress, then he had doubtless found and packed her underwear as well, although why she should feel so embarrassed at the thought of him touching her things she really had no idea. If she was honest with herself, anyway, it wasn’t the thought of him touching the clothes he had removed from her drawer that disturbed her so much, but the remembered sensation of his hands removing them from her body.

  ‘Yes…yes, it was cold. The house doesn’t have central heating…’ She realised too late that she was babbling a panic-stricken explanation and fell silent, not sure which of them she hated the most, herself or him.

  ‘You realise that we still have to talk, don’t you?’ he continued calmly.

  ‘Talk?’ She jerked herself back to reality and gave him a bitter look. ‘What about? You can’t have anything to say that I want to hear.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed acidly. ‘You wouldn’t. All you want to do is run away, to punish me the way you punished your parents.’

  Jessica sucked in her breath, outraged that he should dare to accuse her.

  ‘I thought you were a woman,’ he went on inexorably, ‘but you’re not. You’re a spoiled, selfish child who isn’t capable of thinking beyond her own immaturity—’

  ‘You’re just saying that because you still think you can persuade me, convince me,’ she interrupted him hotly, only to fall silent as he said coldly,

  ‘No, Jessica. I have no intention of persuading or convincing you of anything. I was foolish enough once to offer you an explanation—an explanation of something that ought to have been taken on trust,’ he told her grimly. ‘But you have no trust. You couldn’t wait to believe the worst of me, could you?You couldn’t wait to reject me. Oh, no. I’m not your doting daddy. I’m not going to pander to you, coaxing and persuading you. Trust, love—they’re two-way things, and if you think I want to share my life with a woman who doesn’t respect me enough as a human being to know that I wouldn’t deceive her without some very good reason—’ He broke off and looked directly at her, and Jessica felt her heart plummet, and a horrid feeling of shame and misery engulf her. There was no love in his eyes, no warmth, no teasing, male appreciation, only a flat, metallic hardness that repudiated her and denied her, and for some reason she felt as though she were the one in the wrong.

  ‘I don’t
know why you’re telling me this,’ she said fiercely. ‘There’s no relationship between us any more.’

  ‘At least that’s something we can agree on,’ he countered coldly. ‘All I’m doing is making my position clear. I’m here on your parents’ behalf, not my own, so please disabuse yourself of any idea you might have that I’m going to try to coax or persuade you in any shape or form.’

  ‘I’m glad!’ Jessica snapped. ‘Because it wouldn’t work. We’ve both already agreed, it’s finished.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Daniel told her silkily.

  A tiny frisson of fear feathered down her spine. There was something in the way he spoke, something in the cold, hard way he smiled at her…

  ‘There’s still the matter of your twenty-nine pieces of silver. Poor Jessica,’ he mocked cruelly. ‘You couldn’t even get that right, could you? One day, not very far from now, you’re going to wish more than you’ve wished anything else in your life that you hadn’t made that gesture, Jess.’

  ‘Never,’ she told him quickly. ‘Never!’ And then wondered uncertainly why it was that she was having such a strong premonition of danger.

  It must have something to do with the power of his voice, she comforted herself, because there was absolutely no way he could be doing anything other than making the most outrageously impossible threats…Was there?

  CHAPTER TEN

  DESPITE Jessica’s insistence that he take her straight to the hospital, Daniel took her instead to a small and very obviously expensive private hotel, where he stunned her by announcing that he had booked her a room.

  ‘What for?’ she demanded.

  ‘Your mother will be at the hospital with your father. I suggest that it would be wiser to telephone and discover how your father is before rushing round there.’

  While she could see the wisdom of this, Jessica felt compelled to point out that she could quite easily have gone to her parents’ home in Kensington rather than come here with him.

  ‘Do you have a key to the Kensington house?’ he asked her quietly.

  Jessica’s face flamed. She didn’t, of course.

  ‘Your mother has enough to cope with without worrying about you. I told her I’d bring you to London and that I’d make sure you had a bed for the night.’

  ‘Very sure of yourself, weren’t you?’ Jessica stormed at him. ‘I suppose what you had in mind was my sharing your bed.’

  She was stunned by the look of acid disdain he gave her. It silenced her, leaving her throat dry and her muscles tense.

  ‘Now who’s guilty of coercion?’ he asked her softly, watching the colour rise up under her skin and then saying cruelly, ‘If you want to make love with me, why not be honest and just say so?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Jessica told him wildly, her heart pounding with shame and rage. ‘And anyway, it wouldn’t be making love—it would be just sex.’

  She felt her heart plummet as he looked at her, his mouth twisting.

  ‘You almost tempt me, but I don’t have the time or the inclination to play those kind of games. There’s a telephone here in the foyer. I suggest we ring the hospital from there, just so that neither of us gets any confusing ideas about each other’s motives. I was going to offer to take you up to your room, but under the circumstances…’

  Jessica had never felt so humiliated in her life, and the worst thing of all was that his accusation held a grim kernel of truth, even if she had only realised that fact herself after he had pointed it out to her.

  As he walked across to the public telephone Jessica wished she had the strength to dismiss him and tell him that she didn’t need his help, that she would make the call, but she knew that some part of her was frightened—frightened of what she might hear, frightened of the pain of learning that her father was dead, frightened of the burden of guilt that news would bring—and so, torn between resentment and anguish, she watched while he dialled the number and spoke once more to the ward sister.

  The conversation was brief, and she was unable to hear it without joining him in the cramped intimacy of the booth—something she had no desire to do. Another weakness, another failing, she taunted herself bitterly as she waited for him to rejoin her, her stomach in knots of tension, her mind clouded by fears.

  ‘He’s holding his own,’ he told her tersely. ‘He’s only allowed one visitor at the moment, and it’s your mother’s wish to stay with him.’

  ‘Does she know? Does she know I’m here?’ she asked him unevenly.

  ‘Yes. I told her you were here. The best thing you can do now is to try and get some sleep,’ he told her, turning his back on her, dismissing her, she recognised.

  She swallowed and said painfully, ‘If anything should happen to my father…’

  ‘I’ve asked the hospital to let us know.’

  She felt perilously close to tears, and ached for the warmth of his arms round her, holding her, protecting her…

  What was she thinking? There was no safety, no warmth, no protection for her in Daniel’s arms.

  She went up to her room alone. It was well appointed, and a good size. Someone had already taken up her case, and there was also a thermos of coffee and a plate of delicate sandwiches, the sight and smell of which made her stomach lurch protestingly with nausea.

  She spent what was left of the night tormenting herself with regrets for all that she had left unsaid and undone to show her parents how much she did love them.

  Daniel had made her see the different and hurtful construction someone else might have put on the way she had so determinedly detached herself from her parents’ lives—not knowing that it was because of her great fear that out of love for them she might commit herself to a life which she had known would ultimately lead to intense unhappiness for her.

  Had she been as selfish and thoughtless as Daniel had implied? Perhaps she could have explained in more depth to her parents just why she had felt too vulnerable, too fearful of succumbing to the need she had felt in both of them, but more especially in her father, that she should be a part of the chain that linked the past with the future.

  Only now, alone with the bleakness of her thoughts, did she realise that part of her fear, her resentment, had sprung from jealousy of the tradition which had made the bank such an important part of her father’s life; as though, in turning her back on it, she was making a childish attempt to demand from him a statement that she was more important than the bank, like a child jealous of its siblings.

  A flush of shame for her own immaturity stung her skin. Nothing would make her change her mind about the necessity for her to live her own life. She could never have made a career in the bank and found the contentment and satisfaction she found in her present work, but she could have explained in more depth, discussed, talked to her parents about her feelings, instead of seizing the excuse of her kidnap and thus foisting on them both, but more especially on her father, a burden of guilt that it was their fault that she had left the bank, that it was the bank raid and her subsequent ordeal at the hands of her kidnappers which had led to her desire to change her whole way of life, when in truth that had simply been an excuse she had seized upon because she was too weak to admit the truth.

  Dawn came and brought no surcease from her mental anguish. Her head ached; she felt sick, alternately hot and cold as she tried not to let her imagination portray her father’s death.

  As her feeling of nausea grew she put her hand on her stomach and prayed grimly that the only reason for her nausea was her fear for her father. To have conceived Daniel’s child would be the ultimate irony—her father would have his grandson, after all, or maybe a granddaughter, and she…She gave a fierce shudder and banked down hard on her too fertile imagination. Didn’t she already have enough to worry about?

  The discreet tap on her door startled her. For a moment she thought it might be Daniel, and the fierce thrust of emotion that speared her at that thought was its own betrayal, and didn’t need underlining by the swift downward plunge of disappointment
when the door opened and a smiling girl came in carrying a tray of tea.

  Thanking her, Jessica poured herself a cup, her hand shaking when she recognised the aromatic blend she herself favoured first thing in the morning. Only Daniel could have ordered that particular tea for her, and to her consternation her hand wavered and her eyes filled with tears. When he had already hurt her in so many harsher ways, why it should be this small, deliberate hurting that should cause her to waver on the edge of breaking down, she did not know.

  She looked at the phone. How long before she could ring the hospital? On impulse she picked up her clothes and hurried into the bathroom, showering and dressing before she had time to change her mind, leaving the cold tea undrunk as she found her handbag and let herself out of the room.

  The hotel foyer was deserted apart from the receptionist on duty, as well it might be at this early hour.

  Outside, the sun was struggling to emerge from behind a barrier of clouds, the air sharp and bitter, flavoured with the scents of the winter to come.

  The commissionaire found her a taxi, and as it traversed the still quiet city streets Jessica realised with a shock how close it was to Christmas.

  The knowledge brought a sharp stab of urgency, a need to see her father. Memories of past Christmases when she was a child flashed through her mind. How loved she had been, indulged but never spoilt. She closed her eyes in mental agony, wondering why it had taken Daniel to show her all she had deliberately blinded herself to.

  Outside the hospital she hesitated, half yearning to turn back, afraid to go forward, afraid of the pain that might be waiting for her, and then a smiling porter asked her helpfully if she was lost, and she told him she was looking for the intensive care unit.

  After he had directed her to it, he added warningly, ‘Not that they’re likely to let you in—not unless…’ but Jessica was already hurrying away, suddenly in a fever of urgency to see her mother.

  The doors to the intensive care ward were firmly closed. A nurse was seated outside at a desk, working on what looked like a horrendous mass of paper. She looked up curiously as Jessica approached her.