Jenna’s first feeling when she saw the slight blonde-haired girl in the wheelchair was one of intense compassion. Sarah lifted her head and smiled rather hesitantly at her, while James performed the introductions. Sarah was much shyer than Lucy and very withdrawn, not just with her, Jenna noted, but with James as well. She treated him like a distant acquaintance rather than a brother, and when he bent down to help her manoeuvre her wheelchair she snapped bitterly at him. ‘For God’s sake, leave me alone. I can do it myself.’
It wasn’t
a completely unexpected reaction from a pretty teenage girl who must resent being tied to a chair however temporarily, but Jenna sensed there was more to Sarah’s hostility than mere frustration over her physical disabilities.
‘If we have an early lunch there should just be time this afternoon to run you back to school, young lady,’ James told Lucy, glancing at his watch.
Although Lucy gave a brief pout, Jenna noticed that she didn’t argue with him and, once again, she was aware of an irrational feeling of jealousy, although this went quickly enough when Lucy turned to her and asked uncertainly, ‘What did they say, at school, I mean? What will happen when I go back?’
‘Nothing,’ Jenna assured her gently. She wanted to have a long talk with Lucy about her dislike of the school, to try and find out what Lucy really wanted, but once again it seemed that James had beaten her to it.
‘James says I may not need to go to boarding school once we all move to the old Hall. He says Sarah and I could both attend day school.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to move to Yorkshire,’ Jenna reminded her.
Lucy shrugged. ‘That was before…before I knew about you and James. I mean, it will be different now. We’ll be a proper family.’
If only Lucy knew!
‘You’re going to invite Bill and Nancy to the wedding, aren’t you?’ Lucy asked. ‘Where will it be?’
Jenna had not thought that far ahead yet. She was still trying to come to terms with the way James had forced her into a corner.
‘Since this is to be a first marriage for both of us, I think a church ceremony,’ James supplied.
Over Lucy’s head, Jenna stared at James.
‘I hope you don’t expect me to appear in a veil and a long white dress?’ she questioned him sarcastically.
His smile, a blend of tenderness and whimsicality, momentarily silenced her. He came towards her and took her hand in his, lifting it to his mouth. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her fingers, tiny shivers of sensation tingling over her skin. His eyes seemed to mesmerise her into standing quite still, even her breath suspended when he turned her hand palm upwards, and brushed a light kiss against the sensitive skin.
‘Whatever you wear, you’ll look radiant,’ he assured her.
Jenna longed to rail and scream at him that she would not take part in the subterfuge he had thrust them both into, that she would not play the role of lovers that he seemed to have cast for them both, but before she could get the breath to do so the sound of a crash from Sarah’s bedroom riveted her attention.
Both she and James moved at the same time, James’s longer legs ensuring that he covered the distance before her. Even so, Jenna was right behind him as he thrust open the bedroom door.
The wheelchair lay on its side, wheels spinning, while its occupant lay sprawled on the floor, sobbing noisily. As James bent over her Sarah raised her head from the floor and screamed, ‘Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me! I hate you! Why couldn’t you be the one to die? Go away from me.’
For the first time Jenna saw him look undecided about what to do, and instinctively she took charge.
Crouching down on the floor beside the weeping girl she slid one arm beneath her to support her head, and stroked the blonde hair with her free hand.
‘I think you’d better go,’ she told James quietly. ‘Should she have a doctor to check that she’s all right?’
‘I’ll see to it.’
As the door closed behind him Sarah sobbed bitterly, ‘I hate him! And I hate living here! I want to go home.’
Smoothing Sarah’s hair back off her hot forehead, Jenna sighed. ‘Sarah, I understand how you feel and so does James, but he can’t bring back your parents for you, and you know he can’t let you live alone in America.’
‘My folks would never have wanted me to live with James. He and my mother never got along. He was horrible to her when she first met Daddy.’
Without knowing why she should feel the need to defend him, Jenna found herself saying, ‘Sarah, wasn’t James very much the same age you are now when his father married your mother? Try to imagine how you would have felt if that had happened to you, if your mother had died and your father was going to marry someone else. It isn’t always easy to behave the way we know we should, is it?’
‘You mean James was jealous of my mother?’
She had stopped crying now and the fever heat was beginning to leave her skin. Jenna was glad because she had been afraid that Sarah might work herself up to near hysteria.