Campaign For Loving Read online

  Had she? It was news to Jaime, who suspected Mrs Simmonds was guilty of a little romantic daydreaming. When she replaced the receiver, she felt nervously tense. Although she knew Blake wouldn’t have deliberately given the impression that they were reconciled, it was going to be very embarrassing explaining once he had gone. She would just have to say that the reconciliation hadn’t worked out. Only she would know just how much she wished it might have been real.

  She must have dozed off to sleep again because the next thing Jaime knew was that she could hear Caroline calling Blake’s name. She came bursting into the study, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw Jaime.

  ‘Where’s Blake?’ she demanded peremptorily.

  Jaime noticed that her make-up wasn’t as immaculate as usual and her face seemed oddly flushed.

  ‘Out, I’m afraid. In Dorchester. Caroline . . .’ Jaime took a deep breath, coming to a sudden decision, ‘I’ve told the police about the threats you and Barrons have been making. I know who was behind that attack on the studio—who arranged for the brakes to fail on my car.’

  Caroline attempted to laugh . . . but her high colour betrayed her.

  ‘All right, it’s true,’ she said defiantly, ‘but you’ll regret going to the police, Jaime, when they trace everything back to Blake.’ She laughed victoriously when she saw Jaime’s stricken expression. ‘Blake’s been in it right from the beginning,’ she said triumphantly. ‘He agreed with me that I ought to be able to sell the Abbey to whomever I wanted. It is mine, and I need the money.’

  ‘Blake agreed. . . .’

  ‘Agreed! It was his idea,’ Caroline told her. ‘Oh, I know you’re still crazy about him, Jaime. That’s what we counted on.’

  Jaime felt dizzily sick. Never had she visualised this cruelty. She couldn’t believe it of Blake, wouldn’t have believed it, but Caroline’s voice was telling her it was true.

  ‘You’d better go back to the police and tell them that you made a mistake. Unless you want Blake to end up in gaol. Guy Barron’s a very generous man, as both Blake and I have discovered. . . .’

  Barrons had paid Blake. . .. No. She wouldn’t believe that. She tried to cry out a protest, but a thick, inky blackness was enveloping her.

  ‘Jaime, I have to see Blake,’ she heard Caroline saying urgently. ‘You must tell him when he comes back that I want to see him . . . Jaime. . . .’

  The world seemed to tilt forward as she tried to shake off Caroline’s fingers, tipping her into an inky black sea whose waters closed suffocatingly over her.

  It was the sound of the telephone ringing imperiously close to her ear that brought Jaime back to consciousness. She was slumped across Blake’s desk and she reached automatically for the receiver, trying to clear her mind.

  ‘Jaime?’

  She recognised the anxiety in Mrs Simmonds’ voice and knew instantly. She had heard the description, ‘a cold fist clutched her heart’, but had not known until then just what it meant. Something, some terrible, unbelievable fear had her heart in such a grip that its freezing touch almost burned.

  ‘Jaime, it’s Fern,’ Mrs Simmonds said tearfully. ‘She’s gone, and we can’t find her. One minute she was playing in the garden with the twins . . . the next. I’ve alerted the police. . . . Is Blake . . .?’

  ‘He isn’t here.’ Her voice was an agonised croak. Where was Blake when she needed him? When Fern needed him? If anything, the paralysing grip on her heart became tighter. Was there some special significance in his absence? Had he known. . . . But no . . . no . . . Blake was

  Fern’s father . ...

  The moment Mrs Simmonds hung up, Jaime dialled Caroline’s number with tense fingers. As she had half-anticipated, there was no response. She stood up cursing the weak trembling of her limbs. Where was the telephone directory? Feverishly she searched under B, but there was no listing for Barrons. Dear God, where was Fern? . . . Where was Blake?

  It was half an hour before she heard the sound of Blake’s car. Half an hour in which she cursed her isolation and immobility. Where was Fern? Where had they taken her? Jaime was in no doubt that she had been kidnapped on Guy Barron’s instructions. Hadn’t she already been threatened by one of his men?

  ‘Blake . . .’ she was half hysterical by the time she heard Blake’s footsteps outside the study, wrenching open the door, only to stand there, white and shivering, as she looked from his bleak face to the small bundle in his arms.

  ‘No, Jaime. . . . She’s all right; just tired out,’ he said huskily, correctly interpreting her thoughts. ‘She’d fallen out with the twins and decided to come home on her own apparently, only, of course, she got lost. The police used tracker dogs and they found her almost straight away.’

  ‘Mummy. . .’ the bundle in Blake’s arms stirred drowsily. Fern’s small wan face appearing from amidst the blankets. ‘I went for a walk and got lost, then this big doggie came and licked my face. Mummy, can we have a doggie?’

  Torn between tears and laughter, Jaime knew that in that instant she would have promised her daughter anything, but Blake intervened.

  ‘We shall have to see about that young lady. It seems to me that people who go off on their own when they aren’t supposed to don’t deserve to have a dog.’

  Blake’s firmly assured manner was what Fern needed right now, Jaime acknowledged. She herself was poised on the brink of too many powerful emotions to deal properly with the situation. Fern had obviously not suffered at all— unlike herself, but in many ways she was a sensitive child and Jaime did not want her to pick up on her own anxiety.

  ‘Straight to bed with you, chicken,’ Blake continued firmly. ‘I’ll take you up and then I’ll bring you some supper.’

  ‘Mummy, will you read to me?’ Fern appealed tiredly, ‘a story about a doggie.’

  Her bruised legs had stiffened up too much for Jaime to follow them upstairs. ‘Wait there,’ Blake ordered tersely. ‘I’ll come back down for you.’

  It was five minutes before he returned. Five minutes in which Jaime managed to convince herself that she wasn’t dreaming and that Fern was safe and well.

  ‘I would have rung you from the Vicarage, but I was anxious to get back with Fern. I knew how you must have been feeling. Mrs Simmonds had no right. . . .’

  ‘To what? To tell me that my daughter was missing?’ Anger flashed in Jaime’s eyes. ‘Then whom should she have told? Fern’s father? The father who. . . .’ She couldn’t go on. Sobs rose up and choked back the words, and then she was in Blake’s arms, her head pressed comfortingly into his shoulder.

  ‘It’s all right. . .’ he was rocking her as though she were Fern’s age. ‘Cry it all out. . . . My poor darling, I know how you must have been feeling. It was enough for me when I arrived early to pick Fern up and discovered what had happened.’ Blake didn’t know how she had been feeling, Jaime thought numbly. He didn’t know that she had believed that Fern had been kidnapped, and had not really gone missing—he didn’t know that she had thought him responsible.

  ‘Come on. I’ll carry you upstairs and then bring up something for Fern to eat. Children are amazing aren’t they? Do you know, the very first thing she said to me was “I’m hungry, Daddy”?’ Blake was carrying her upstairs, speaking quietly and soothingly to her, his voice stroking gently over her jagged nerves, easing her away from the precipice of hysteria on which she had hovered. By the time they reached Fern’s room, she was sufficiently in control of herself to smile wanly at her daughter.

  Fern was tucked up safely in bed, fast asleep, but still Jaime couldn’t bring herself to leave her bedside.

  ‘Come on, I’ll carry you to your own room, and then I’ll bring you something to eat.’

  ‘Blake, I’m not hungry,’ Jaime protested. ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

  ‘You must, you’re getting too thin as it is. I notice you disobeyed my instruction this morning. My book,’ he said dryly, ‘I found it on the study floor. Not an indication of how you felt about it, I trust.’
<
br />   ‘No ... I loved it, especially your heroine,’ she admitted half shyly. ‘Who on earth did you model her on, or is she a figment of your imagination?’

  ‘I only know one lady who comes anywhere near to approaching Helen for courage and intelligence,’ Blake responded, but he didn’t tell her who he meant, and Jaime wondered agonisingly if, somewhere in Blake’s life during the time they had been apart, there had been a woman he had loved as he had never loved her, but who, apparently, had not loved him equally in return.

  ‘The book must have fallen on the floor when Caroline called,’ she told him.

  ‘Caroline came here?’ His glance sharpened. ‘Did she say what she wanted?’

  ‘Yes, she wanted to see you—quite urgently. I forgot about it completely when Fern went missing.’

  ‘Then I’d better go and see her.’ His voice was clipped, and Jaime wondered bitterly what it was Caroline possessed that could make Blake rush so eagerly to her side. Whatever it was, she didn’t share it, she thought moodily.

  Once Blake had gone, she felt too mentally exhausted to sleep. Fern. . . . She shuddered deeply, forcing her aching limbs to carry her from her own room to Fern’s. Blake had left a chair drawn up by the bed, and Jaime subsided into it, watching her daughter’s sleeping face avidly.

  Dear God . . . if anything had happened to Fern. Gradually, the tension started to leave her body. She knew she ought to go back to bed, but the compulsion to stay where she was was too strong. Her eyes closed, her breathing evening out as sleep claimed her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JAIME tensed, awareness returning as she felt someone touch her shoulder. It was her worst nightmare come true. They had come for Fern. She tried to get up, only to be attacked by a dizzying spate of pins and needles in her cramped legs.

  ‘Jaime, keep still. I’m going to carry you back to bed.’

  Blake! Reality returned, banishing her dark imaginings. Of course, she and Fern were with Blake at the Lodge, and she had fallen asleep beside Fern’s bed.

  Her thin nightgown was no protection against the chill night air, and Jaime shivered, feeling Blake’s arms tighten around her in response.

  ‘You’re trembling. ’ His voice had an oddly hoarse undertone to it.

  ‘I’m cold.’ She was stiff as well, her bruised body screaming its painful protest as Blake put her down on the bed and her muscles refused to unlock.

  ‘What’s the matter? Did I hurt you?’

  Blake knew the room well enough not to have needed to switch the light on, and now Jaime could see him in the soft moonlight flowing in through the uncurtained window. His hair was tousled, his face unusually drawn.

  ‘I’m all right—just stiff,’ she told him, and then, because she was reluctant to let him go, she added hesitantly, ‘Did you see Caroline?’

  His face became so shuttered that she wished she hadn’t spoken. She had obviously intruded where she wasn’t wanted.

  ‘Yes.’ His response was terse. ‘I’ll get you something for those stiff muscles; otherwise, you’ll wake up later with cramp. Stay there.’

  ‘As if there was the slightest chance of moving anywhere,’ Jaime thought wearily, closing her eyes. They flew back open the moment she heard Blake’s firm foot tread on the polished wooden floor.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded suspiciously, as he approached holding a small bottle. ‘Horse liniment?’

  Blake laughed, the warm natural sound making Jaime realise anew how much she had missed his laughter.

  ‘No, it’s something I had last year when I pulled a muscle in my calf. It has to be massaged in. I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘He’s just feeling sorry for you,’ Jaime reminded herself as she felt the first, soothing movements of Blake’s fingers against her skin. Her muscles seemed to relax in obedience to his comforting stroking, although Jaime did tense when he pushed aside the hem of her nightdress and gently kneaded the aching muscles of her thigh. She knew she ought to tell him to stop. There was too much potential danger in letting him continue. Already, she was acutely aware of him; already she longed to reach out and run her fingers down his spine, to feel his body clench in the familiar prelude to lovemaking she remembered so well.

  ‘Better now?’

  At the withdrawal of his hands, a surge of disappointment swept over her. What had she expected? That somehow the deft hands that had soothed away her pain would become those of a lover?

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . fine.’ Her voice was muffled as she pushed back the covers and crawled into the cold double bed. She could hear Blake moving towards the door, and childishly closed her eyes, burying her face in the pillow so that she wouldn’t see him go.

  As she tried in vain to sleep, she could hear him moving about, going into the bathroom, the steady hiss of the shower tormenting her with a thousand vivid pictures of his nude body. She was so busy trying to suppress them that she didn’t realise that Blake was back in her room until she glanced up and saw him standing by the other side of the bed, a towel wrapped round his hips. The moonlight outlined the powerful lines of his body.

  ‘Move over,’ he said casually.

  Blake intended to sleep here, with her? On the verge of protesting, Jaime was silenced when Blake continued, ‘It’s no use arguing, Jaime. You need someone with you tonight, if only to keep the nightmares at bay. Perhaps we both do,’ he added in a sombre undertone. So Blake remembered the night terrors that sometimes haunted her dreams! It had only happened on three or four occasions during their marriage. Irrational and terrifying nightmares containing the father she had never known—a father she was constantly trying and failing to reach.

  Lost in her thoughts, it was several seconds before Jaime realised that Blake was calmly removing the towel.

  ‘You can’t sleep with me like that. . .’ she protested thickly, wondering irrationally why she was the one who felt the hot flush of embarrassment, and dragged her eyes away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blake’s brief shrug.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jaime. I always sleep this way, you should know that.’

  She felt the bed depress as he got in beside her and held her body taut, creeping as close to her edge as she could without falling off; her breath held in her chest in a painfully tight ball.

  Almost within minutes, Blake was asleep, the even rise and fall of his breathing calming the heavy thud of her heart. Beneath the covers she could feel the heat of his body reaching out to her, warming her chilled back. More than anything else on earth, she wanted to turn round and creep closer to him, cuddling up to him as she used to do. The harder she fought the compulsion, the stronger it grew, until, at last, with a small groan of self-contempt, she turned over, drawn inexorably towards Blake’s warm back.

  Some time later, Jaime was drowsily aware of Blake turning over, in his sleep, his arm automatically curving below her breasts and round her back as he settled more comfortably against the contours of her body. Jaime knew she ought to move away, but the temptation to stay where she was was too great. Ignoring all the urgings of common sense which told her she ought to move while she still could, she nestled closer to Blake’s warm body. The hand that had been supporting the small of her back moved to cup her breast. Jaime tensed as Blake moved in his sleep, her mind a complete blank as she tried to find an excuse to explain away her presence in his arms if he should wake. Panic stealing away her previous contentment, she tried to move, and found that she could not. Blake growled protestingly in his sleep, his hand closing more possessively on her body.

  ‘Jaime?’

  Jaime tensed as she heard the sleep-slurred question in his voice. ‘Why on earth are you wearing this damned thing?’ Blake continued. ‘You know I like to feel you against me.’

  He thought they were still living together, was Jaime’s first agonised thought. Still drugged by sleep, Blake believed they were still lovers.

  ‘Blake. . .’ she protested uncertainly, ‘Blake. . . .’

  ‘Umm. I’m here.’ H
e nuzzled the vulnerable arch of her throat, his free hand curling around it, his fingers stroking gently across her skin.

  Tiny fires started to burn wherever he touched, and Jaime shivered in mute response, knowing she should wake him up properly and stop him, and yet, despairingly, knowing at the same time that she was too weak to do so. She was here, in his arms, where she had longed to be so often in the long years they had been apart, her body already craving more than the gentle drift of his fingers against her skin and the warmth of his mouth tracing lazy kisses along her jaw.

  The fingers that had been tugging at her nightgown finally worked it free of her arm, and then returned to cup the smooth pale flesh of the breast they had exposed.

  His touch was as light as a sigh, Jaime thought lost in a daze of pleasure, and as potentially dangerous as dynamite. She stretched out her hand, genuinely intending to push him away, but the moment her fingers came into contact with the smooth wall of his chest, the touch she had intended as a repudiation became a hesitant caress.

  Beneath her fingertips she could feel his soft body hair, and, as though magnetised to it, her fingers stole downwards.

  ‘Umm, that’s good.’

  Jaime tensed. Her senses responding against her will to the husky, male appreciation in Blake’s voice. Confined by the warmth of his hand, she could feel her breast swelling yearningly, shuddering when Blake stroked his thumb softly against her nipple in recognition of her arousal.

  ‘Touch me again, Jaime.’ His voice seemed to come from deep inside him, a sensual purr that she could feel reverberating through his body. ‘Let’s get this thing off.’

  Deft hands tugged the whole nightie off. Blake wasn’t anywhere near halfway asleep now, and must know that they were no longer living as man and wife, but it was as though a spell had been put on Jaime’s speech, preventing her from bringing it to his attention. Instead she gazed bemusedly up at him as he lowered her back against the mattress, gently holding her hands at her sides as she automatically tried to conceal her nakedness from him.