‘Charles? Oh, I expect he wanted to know how I got on at the Abbey.’
‘Ah, yes, Caroline waxed most indignant after you’d gone about your plans to stop her selling the place.’
‘Not to stop her selling it, it’s the fact that she’s planning to sell it to a property developer, who will probably pull it down, that we’re objecting to.’
‘It’s a listed building, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but when did that stop anyone?’
‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Always a fault of yours. You always did enjoy painting the blackest picture possible.’
They drove some miles in silence before Fern piped up with several questions. Blake answered her with a calm assurance that Jamie found surprising, listening to him tailoring his replies so that the three-year-old would find them easily comprehensible. This was a side of him she had never seen before. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps, where Fern was concerned, he had had a change of heart and genuinely wanted to get to know his daughter. How would she be able to cope if Blake came back into her life as Fern’s part-time father? She had learned today it was easier to cope with never seeing him than with these brief exchanges, excruciatingly painful after the intimacy she had once shared with him.
With Blake’s powerful Ferrari it seemed no time at all before they reached the outskirts of the Forest. Fern laughed excitedly when the powerful car splashed through one of the fords, the jolting throwing Jaime against Blake’s hard shoulder. One hand left the wheel as he steadied her, his fingers resting against her body just below the full curve of her breast. She jerked convulsively against his touch as though it burned, watching the mocking arch of his eyebrows.
‘Once when you did that it was because you couldn’t wait for me to make love to you,’ he murmured softly, watching her.
The way she had craved his lovemaking almost as though it were a drug was one of the things that sickened Jaime most about her behaviour during their brief marriage, and, in a way, his physical possession of her had been a drug. In his arms, she could forget all her doubts and insecurities and convince herself that he loved her as much as she loved him.
‘Now, it’s because I can’t endure the thought of you doing so,’ she responded crisply, hoping that he couldn’t tell that she was lying. The proximity of him brought back memories she would much rather have suppressed. She had been shy and naive when they first met, but that had not stopped her from responding to Blake’s lovemaking with an ardency that had surprised her. If he turned to her now and took her in his arms—suppressing the acutely erotic images tormenting her, she shook her head, and turned round to talk to Fern.
Blake brought the car to a halt in one of the small clearings. Half a dozen mares and foals grazed peacefuly several yards away, Fern’s eyes widening with delight when she saw them. Jaime had taken the precaution of bringing a bag of stale bread with her, and Blake took it from her, demonstrating to Fern how to offer it to the ponies. When one finally deigned to take the bread from her small quivering palm, her serious little face was suffused with an expression of pure bliss.
Jaime caught Blake looking at her, something approaching pain darkening his eyes. An emotion stirred inside her, refusing to be quelled, and just for a moment, she gave in to the urge to make believe that they were a contented family unit; that she and Blake were still together.
‘She’s very much your child,’ she said softly to Blake, acting instinctively, wanting to banish the look of pain in his eyes.
‘Physically, yes, but in other ways she reminds me of your mother. She’s very self-sufficient. Don’t look at me like that,’ he added sardonically. ‘I’ve no intention of trying to deny paternity. Even if she didn’t look like me, I’d still know she was my child. You were so physically responsive to me, there couldn’t have been anyone else.’
Jaime’s face burned at the implications of his remark, and trying to change the subject, she demanded curtly, ‘Why have you come to Frampton, Blake? I don’t believe it was simply because you want to get to know Fern. Especially as you’re staying with Caroline.’
‘In point of fact, I’m not staying with her. I’m renting a cottage from her. The old Lodge—I didn’t even know it belonged to her until I answered the “ad” for it in The Times.’
‘Are you saying you did come to Frampton purely because of Fern?’
Some of her anxiety must have shown in her face because he said lazily, ‘I’m not going to attempt to wrest her from your maternal arms, if that’s what’s worrying you, but she is my child.…’
‘A child you never wanted me to conceive,’ Jaime reminded him hotly, glad that Fern was still engrossed in the ponies. ‘She’s three years old, Blake.…’
‘Which means she and I have three years to catch up on. You say she’s at playschool during the day. How about if I pick her up in the afternoon and have her with me until tea time?’
It was plain that she wasn’t going to get an explanation for his change of attitude towards Fern, and Jaime sighed, knowing the impossibility of getting Blake to talk about something when he didn’t want to. Part of her wanted to demand that he went away and left them alone, but did she have the right to deprive both Fern and Blake himself of their natural relationship?
‘She is my child, Jaime.…’
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
His mouth curled sardonically, ‘Well, when you have done, come and give me your decision. I’ll wait until Friday.’
‘Two days!’
‘It’s long enough, I seem to recall you made an even bigger one in two hours—that’s how long it took you to decide to run out of our marriage, wasn’t it?’
Jaime didn’t know what he was talking about. Two hours! She had waited two long weeks for him to come looking for her and take her home, but he had left the country two days after their quarrel, without making the slightest attempt to get in touch with her.
‘I think it’s time we went back,’ she said shakily. ‘It’s getting close to Fern’s bedtime.’
‘Same old Jaime,’ Blake taunted mockingly. ‘Always ignoring the unpleasant.’
They arrived back in the village several hours later with Fern asleep in the back of the car. Before Jaime could protest, Blake lifted the sleeping child out and carried her to the house. Her mother opened the door to them, and smiled at Blake without surprise.
‘If you tell me which room she’s in I’ll take her up,’ Blake drawled. Fern looked so right and at home in his arms that Jaime had to fight against the desire to cry. In sleep her tough independent daughter looked unfamiliarly vulnerable.
‘You go up and show Blake the way,’ Sarah suggested, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Charles came round to see if you were back,’ she added, answering Jaime’s unspoken question. ‘He told me you’d gone out with Blake.’
The cottage had only three bedrooms, but the third had been split to provide a small bathroom and a tiny room which could only be reached through Jaime’s bedroom. She saw Blake glance mockingly at her single bed as she indicated the small room which was Fern’s.
‘Very nunlike,’ he commented, as he carefully placed Fern on her bed. ‘I imagine your dates must find it frustrating if they ever get this far, to find you’re almost sharing a room with your daughter.’
‘There’s always their bedrooms,’ Jaime pointed out, angry at his mocking assumption that she lived the life of a nun, even if it was true. She doubted that he was any monk, and it galled her that he should assume that her life was bereft of the sexual involvement he no doubt had a surfeit of.
Just for a moment, his eyes seemed to darken, his mouth compressing.
‘I’ll