“Hell, woman, I want to commit,” he roared. “Damn it, I’ve spent most of my life running scared of commitment. Now I’ve decided I want to go the whole nine yards, and you say you don’t? But I can feel you do!” He made a grab for her again, but she drew back and rose from the bench.
“No!” This time there was no laughter at all. There was fear.
He saw it, and his indignation died at once. He didn’t follow, just stayed sitting, watching her.
“Tell me, Jen,” he said softly. “What’s bothering you? What are you fearful of? Me?”
“No.” She hesitated. Maybe he had to know. She had to explain it to herself.
“Peter married me fast,” she said.
“How fast?” He didn’t make a move. He had the impression that if he did, she would retreat into silence. “Sit, Jen. And tell me.”
There was a long, drawn-out silence, and then, slowly, she sat and started speaking. And when she did, her voice sounded as if it came from a long way away.
“We met one fabulous weekend at the home of mutual friends,” she said. “Or rather, they weren’t really mutual friends. Henry and Kate were friends of mine, and Peter knew Henry from university. Henry had gone home to Peter’s for the weekend while they were undergraduates, and Gloria had pink fits because Henry’s mother worked as a char, and Henry was a scholarship student.”
“Gloria disapproves of the unmoneyed?”
“Absolutely. So Henry became a bone of contention between them. Whenever Peter wanted to infuriate his mother, he’d extend his friendship with Henry. When Peter had a fight with his mother, he took off to visit Henry. He even told her that. He was off to stay with his
“Oh, great.”
“Of course, I never knew that till later,” Jenny said, her voice bleak. “All I knew was that Henry’s friend was drop-dead gorgeous, and he swept me off my naive nineteen-year-old feet. We were married before I could blink- before I found out that he was marrying me so he could marry a totally
“He must have been nuts.”
“He was very mixed up,” Jen said sadly. “I’m not saying he wasn’t attracted to me. Like me and you, there was this…thing.”
“Like me and you?” He paused, hating the comparison. “So it’s the same?”
“I don’t know.” She flushed and looked at him. “No. It’s not. At least I don’t think so. With you I feel-” She broke off as he moved fractionally toward her, and her hands came out as if to fend him off. “No. I don’t know what I feel. But I do know that I’m rushing into no commitment here. You married me as a kindness, and there’s no way I’m taking it further. I’ve had one man already who was stuck with me.”
“Is that what Peter was?”
“Oh, yes. Honorably stuck, but stuck all the same,” she said bitterly. “He was a mix…half his father, whom I gather he admired because he had such a stiff upper lip and was all honor-he died some time ago-and half his mother, whom you’ve seen. And a bit of rebellion, which made him seem vulnerable. He just didn’t know where he fitted in. But he made me promise…” Her voice died away.
“He made you promise what?”
Her chin tilted, trying to make him see. Trying to make him understand a little.
“He regretted it, you see,” she said, faltering as she fought for the right words. “He tried to break free of his aristocratic bonds, and it didn’t work. So when he was dying, he made me promise to raise our child as he ought to be raised-as the next earl.”
Michael’s brows creased. “And you made that promise?”
“Peter was dying,” she said miserably. “And I still loved him-sort of. I’d grown, but he hadn’t. By the time he died it was more a maternal sort of love. I knew why he hurt me-why he acted like he did-but there was nothing he could do to change it. He was desperately injured. I was grief-stricken, in the early stages of pregnancy, alone in a strange country, and I was in shock. I’d have promised him anything if it would ease his distress.”
“But you didn’t mean it?”
“At the time, I did,” she told him bleakly. “I guess I thought I could do what he wanted-go home to England, live on the estate and become the next earl’s mother. There didn’t seem any choice. It was only after Peter’s death, when Gloria started laying down the rules, that I saw clearly what was involved. Or rather, that I wouldn’t be involved at all. I’d be welcome to have access visits as long as I didn’t take my son off the estate. I’d have a generous allowance as long as I gave my son none of my commoner ideals.”
“The woman’s an autocratic dragon! There’s no way you can do things her way.”
“Yeah, but I promised.”
“Jen, it’s unreasonable.”
“I know that.” A hint of defiance returned. “That’s why I’m still here. But it doesn’t make it one bit better. It’s like I can’t bury Peter in my mind. He’s hanging over me, like a sad ghost, reminding me that I’ve betrayed his last wish. And I can’t get on with anything.”
“You mean you can’t love me?”
She met his eyes. “Michael, I do love you,” she said softly. “You are the kindest, most generous person that I know. But I still feel that I’m married. As if part of me is still tied to Peter and will be forever, and in some stupid way it’s tied to that broken promise. Thank you for trying, Michael, but for now…let’s just leave it as it is. I need to come to terms with what I’ve done in my own way. For me, marriage-a proper marriage, with hearts involved, not the one we’ve made to keep me in the States-seems like one last betrayal.”
“When you kissed me then, it was because you wanted…”
“Because I wanted you,” she whispered, the faintest tremor behind her words betraying her turmoil. “But then, I’ve always wanted what I can’t have. Love.”
“Let me love you.” His voice was urgent-insistent-but she moved away.
“No. You mustn’t. Because betraying Peter again would drive me to the wall.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW COULD YOU fight a ghost?
There was no hope, and by the end of the following week, Michael decided he was going nuts.
This was some crazy situation, he thought grimly. All his life he’d run from emotional attachment, and now, here he was practically wearing his heart on his sleeve, and Jenny was holding him at arm’s length and flinching every time he laid a finger on her.
She was afraid. Afraid of him! Not of what he’d do to her. He knew her well enough to believe she trusted him. She was afraid of what she might feel if she let him close. So he’d walk into the room and she’d hug the dog or curl up on the end of the sofa with Socks between her and the world. Or she’d be out walking when he came home from some errand and she’d read a book after supper-or smile and talk him through his day, keeping the conversation casual, as if she were his best buddy instead of his wife!
And all the time there was this tiny glimmer of fear in the back of her eyes that drove him nuts. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss the fear away, tell her it was okay, he’d never hurt her and he’d never make her feel she was tying him down.
Damn, why had he ever told her he didn’t want emotional commitment? But he had, and that-along with Peter’s ghost-was enough to make her run scared.
“SO WHAT’S UP, bro?” Garrett caught up with him the day he came back to work. He only had to look at his little brother’s face to know something was wrong. Michael looked strained to breaking point. “I thought you just had a week off.”
“I did.”
“You look like you’ve run a marathon.”
“Yeah, well, you try sleeping in the same house as Jenny,” Michael growled, and Garrett’s eyes widened.
“Hey, she’s some lady. I wouldn’t think you’d mind sleeping in the same
