Stronger than Yearning

‘She took it surprisingly well…’

‘Then, where is she?’ Jenna cried desperately. ‘Where has she gone? James, she’s missing!’

‘She’s gone to see Bill and Nancy. I drove her there. She wanted to talk to someone who knew what had happened. I suggested Nancy and Bill and she agreed. She’ll be quite safe with them, Jenna.’

All at once it was too much for her. She started to cry silently, tears soaking her skin, her whole body shaking with shock and reaction. James got up and came towards her, but she flinched automatically from him. She heard him swear and then suddenly she was in his arms, his eyes almost black as they glittered into her own with fierce anger.

‘For God’s sake, why can’t you trust me a little?’ he grated. ‘Why must I always be cast as the villain of the piece? Your dislike of my sex as a whole I can understand—now! but you seem to have singled me out for special treatment. What have I ever done…’

‘What?’ Now that she knew Lucy was safe, some of her fear slipped away from her bringing in its wake restorative anger. ‘What about forcing me to marry you, humiliating me by making me…’ She bit her lip.

‘By making you what?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said wearily, ‘it’s all over now, James. You can have the old Hall, I just don’t care any longer.’

‘Damn you, Jenna,’ he swore softly, shaking her again. ‘I’m not letting you go. I love you far too much, and if you’d just give yourself a chance you might admit that you’re not totally indifferent to me…’

For minutes the shock of what she was hearing totally stunned her. Was there a slight plea in those final words? Jenna’s head spun as she tried to take in what he was saying.

‘You love me! But you can’t…’ she whispered in complete bewilderment.

‘Why not? Unlike you I have all the normal human frailties, Jenna. I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. The day you so obviously mistook me for some uncouth country lout,’ he added wryly, with a tight smile. ‘Remember?’

Did she? Of course she did…and everything that had happened between them since.

‘But you—you never said—you…’

His harshly derisive laughter silenced her. ‘Said what, Jenna? That I loved you? When did you ever give me a chance? You fought me every inch of the way. I had to trap you into marrying me and even then you demanded that it be a marriage in name only.’ His eyes met hers and he said softly, ‘Surely you realised then how I felt about you? I made a pretty poor show of concealing it and that’s a fact!’

‘You said you wanted me and…’ she shrugged helplessly.

‘And you believed that was all?’ He sounded incredulously angry. ‘Dear God, what sort of woman are you, Jenna?’

He saw the colour surge up under her skin and muttered something fierce under his breath, cupping her face, and taking her mouth with his own, kissing her with a feverish need that spoke more clearly than any words could have done.

‘There,’ he said hoarsely when he finally released her. ‘If I can’t tell you, I can at least show you. I love you, Jenna,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘More than anything else in this life. Yes, I wanted the old Hall originally because of my mother, but that was only a fleeting insipid emotion compared with the way I want you. I didn’t want this to happen. I never planned to fall in love. I had seen what it did to my mother. We have an awful lot in common, you and I, if you really think about it,’ he added softly. ‘We’ve both been hurt by events in our lives outside our own control. Don’t shut me out, Jenna. We could build something good together. You may not love me now…’

She started to shake in his arms, and after initially tightening they fell away from her. He took a step away and said with his back to her, his voice raw with weariness, ‘All right, Jenna, if a divorce is what you want…’

‘James, no…’ It was the pain in his voice that gave her the courage to cross the chasm of self-doubt and vulnerability that separated them. She touched his arm with her fingertips, instantly aware of the hardness of the muscles beneath his skin. He turned to look at her, and she saw suddenly how tense and strained he looked.

‘No, what?’ he asked her, his mouth wry and twisted. ‘I can’t go on like this, Jenna,’ he told her. ‘The strain of having to stay away from you, of not being able to touch you, of not having you as my wife in every real sense of the word, of having to guard everything I say to you in case I betray the truth, and, worst of all, to know that when I do get you in my arms it isn’t me who’s holding you but some damned——’

‘James, no.’ She said it more urgently this time, clutching his arm so that he had to look at her. ‘That was a lie,’ she told him quietly. ‘It’s true that I did dream I had a lover and that he was dressed much as one might expect to find your ancestor dressed, but his face was your face, James, his hands on my body your hands—even though at the time I fought to deny it even to myself. You’re my dream lover, James,’ she told him softly, ‘and I love you more than I can say.’

When they kissed it was as though it was for the first time, with no restraints or doubts between them. The sensation of James trembling with emotion in her arms was one that illuminated and humbled her. She ached to cradle him in her arms, against her body, to pour out for him the full measure of her love, to wrap him in her warmth and remove from his heart all pain.

‘So many mistakes…’ His fingertip traced her gently swollen lips. ‘So much unhappiness. I could have killed Wilde when you told me you wanted him to be your lover,’ he told her slowly. ‘And it sickened me to know that I was capable of so much violence towards a fellow human being.’ He paused and then said quietly, ‘Jenna, about your sister…I wish there was some way I could ease that hurt for you but——’

Her fingers against his mouth silenced him. ‘You have done,’ she assured him. ‘Last night…telling you about it acted as some sort of catharsis. I can’t explain it properly to you, I only know that for the first time since it happened I feel empty of all the bitterness and pain. It’s gone, James. I finally feel free of the past.’ A frown pleated her forehead. ‘I just wish that Lucy…’

The sharp peal of the telephone cut across her words. James answered it and listened silently for several seconds. ‘Fine, we’ll come and get her now.’

‘That was Nancy,’ he told Jenna when he had replaced the receiver. ‘Lucy is ready to come home. Jenna, why don’t you wait for her here?’ he suggested softly. ‘This will be hard enough for both of you. I’ll go and collect her alone, shall I?’

She nodded her head wearily, knowing that what he was saying made sense. He came over to her, kissing her gently, and in spite of her anguish her heart flooded with love.

She was sitting in Lucy’s bedroom when they came back. She heard the car doors slam and then slow footsteps on the stairs. When Lucy pushed the door open Jenna could only look at her, and then without a word Lucy ran towards her, tears cascading down her face. Jenna opened her arms instinctively hugging the lithe teenage body to her own.