She shivered in spite of herself. Surely it hadn’t been a concerted effort on all their parts to enable him to talk to Tom alone? she thought wildly. But no. She shook her head. She was getting paranoid. Ben hadn’t even known her son was a Russell until he saw him.
But he had seen him now, she reminded herself tensely. He now knew what she had spent the last fifteen years trying to forget. That Tom was his son, not Philip’s. That, far from being the child of some mythical ‘other’ man, Tom was his own flesh and blood.
Her hands trembled, and she put the cup down with a clatter. He didn’t actually know it, she told herself fiercely. He suspected it. And she hadn’t denied it—yet. But he had no proof. Nor would he have, if she had anything to do with it. But what was the alternative? That he should tell Philip that he had a son? God, no! She couldn’t let him do that. She wouldn’t give Philip that kind of rod to beat her with.
Unable to sit still, when every nerve in her body was screaming for action, Jaime got up from the table and moved to the window. Beyond the narrow panes, the walled garden spilled its fecund beauty, and she tried to calm her clamouring senses in its familiar surroundings. The previous year she had saved enough money to have the central area dug out and block-tiled, and now an upper level of trees and flowering shrubs tumbled over the retaining wall. There was a stone bird-bath in the centre, and a wrought-iron table and chairs, where she and Tom sometimes ate their lunch on summer weekends. It was small, but attractive, and her father had said it was the nicest-looking garden he had ever seen. But then, he hadn’t seen the gardens of the Priory, she reflected bitterly. He was used to beer gardens, and pub yards, and the idea of sowing seeds or cultivating plants came very low on his list of priorities.
Jaime pressed her lips together. It all came down to what you could afford, she thought savagely. Until now, she had thought she had done fairly well by her son. He had been adequately fed and clothed, and given a comfortable roof over his head. And there had never been any shortage of love in his life. On the contrary, she had lavished all the love she had once felt for Tom’s father on his son, making him her reason for living. She hadn’t considered she was depriving him of anything. She hadn’t even thought of the kind of life he might have had as a member of his father’s family. The reasons for doing what she had done had seemed totally justifiable to her. But would they seem so justifiable to her son?
The unexpected sound of Tom’s footsteps on the stairs threw her into a momentary state of panic. She couldn’t talk to him now, she thought, looking desperately around the kitchen—but there was nowhere to hide. In any case, she had to face him sooner or later, and this was no time to be having an attack of nerves.
All the same, she couldn’t help remembering Tom’s ambivalence of the night before. It had been obvious that he couldn’t understand why she should have such a dramatic aversion to his uncle’s visit, and his own excitement at the prospect of pursuing the connection had vied with his usual loyalty towards his mother. The fact that she had refused to indulge his curiosity after Ben had gone had probably only fuelled his interest. She couldn’t remember him getting up this early on a Sunday morning before, and feeling resentful because Tom wanted to see his uncle again was only playing into Ben’s hands.
By the time Tom appeared in the kitchen doorway, Jaime had resumed her seat at the table. It seemed a more natural position to be in, and she assumed what she hoped was a casual expression of surprise as he came into the room. In his striped towelling bathrobe, with his hair rumpled, and the faintest trace of a soft stubble darkening his jawline, he suddenly looked exactly like Ben, and she wondered how she could have fooled herself all these years. Colouring wasn’t everything, she acknowledged ruefully. Tom’s resemblance to his father was more than physical.
But now was not the time to be having thoughts like these, she reminded herself grimly. If she wanted to keep her son’s affection, she had to stop acting as if she had something to hide. She had to learn to play the game Ben’s way—and that did not mean allowing someone who was a virtual stranger to come between them.
‘Couldn’t you sleep?’ she enquired now, but her friendly smile was not reciprocated. For once, Tom didn’t respond to her teasing, and her heart hammered nervously as he flung himself into the chair opposite.
‘Couldn’t you?’ he countered, his blue eyes dark and accusing. ‘You’re not usually up this early either.’
‘Oh—–’ Jaime lifted her shoulders in a dismissive gesture ‘—I was thirsty, that’s all.’ She indicated the teapot. ‘Do you want some tea?’
Tom looked as if he might refuse, but common sense won out. ‘Why not?’ he said, and for all her anxiety Jaime recognised he was not as confident as he appeared. She must stop investing Tom with adult sensibilities, she thought impatiently. He wasn’t Ben. He didn’t have Ben’s access to history. He was just a troubled child who needed reassurance.
Getting up from her chair, she took another cup and saucer from the cupboard, and poured his tea. Then, pushing it across the table towards him, she asked, ‘What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?’
It was a calculated risk, asking him outright, but she was glad she had taken it when he said, sulkily, ‘I don’t know, do I? I don’t know anything.’
Jaime sighed, resuming her seat. ‘I suppose this has to do with what happened last night, hmm? You want to know why I—why I don’t like Ben Russell.’
Tom looked at her over the rim of his cup. ‘Yes, but you don’t want to talk about it, do you?’
‘I didn’t. Last night,’ conceded Jaime carefully. ‘But I suppose I do owe you some explanation.’
Tom slurped his tea. ‘It’s up to you,’ he muttered, and Jaime pulled a wry face.
‘Well, either you do want to know or you don’t,’ she declared, her own confidence returning. ‘And please stop trying to annoy me. You’re not too old to be grounded, you know.’
Tom grimaced. ‘I am nearly fifteen, Mum!’
‘So?’
‘Oh—–’ it was obvious Tom was losing his enthusiasm for the fight ‘—all right. So you can make me stay in. But that won’t change anything, will it? I’ll still want to see Uncle Ben again.’
Jaime’s lips tightened, but she pressed them together so that Tom wouldn’t notice. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, choosing her words with care, ‘I won’t stop you. But—I think you should know that when—when I was married to—to your father, Ben Russell—assaulted me.’
JAIME regretted those words as soon as they left her lips. Looking at Tom’s shocked face, she knew she should have used a less emotive term. But what? What else could she have said? That Ben had attacked her? Which would have been worse, and wouldn’t have been true. That he had forced her to have sex with him? No! Infinitely worse, and definitely untrue. And she had wanted to say something that Ben couldn’t, in all honesty, deny. The fact that what had happened had been as much her fault as his was not something she intended to tell her son. She just had to give him a valid reason for not wanting to see Ben again. Her lips twisted. So much for her brave assertion that she wanted to tell Tom that Philip wasn’t his father, she thought disgustedly. Like any animal, when it was cornered, her only desire had been to protect herself.
‘He assaulted you?’ Tom echoed now, his young face stark with horror. ‘You mean—he punched you?’
Oh, the innocence of the young! thought Jaime painfully. Even in this savage world of sex attacks and pornographic videos, Tom still equated ‘assault’ with physical violence. But perhaps she ought to be grateful, she pondered. It could work to her advantage, and it was one way