Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘Oh, Livvy my dear, I heard about your mother. I’m so sorry,’ Ruth began saying compassionately as she sat down next to her on the wooden bench and put an arm around her.

‘No, that’s not it, not why … I’m not crying for Tiggy. I’m crying for myself,’ Olivia told her miserably. ‘I miss Caspar so much. I hate myself for saying it but part of me wishes that I’d never offered to stay … that I’d just gone with him.’

‘Oh, Livvy … it’s not too late,’ Ruth responded consolingly. ‘You could—’

‘No, he doesn’t want me any more. He believes that loving someone means putting them first, you see, and he thinks that I don’t love him. At least not enough, because according to him I didn’t, and even though I do love him, I’m not sure that I can live like that … with that … I would always feel that it was hanging over me. I …’

She started to cry again, her throat aching from the effort of trying to suppress her tears.

‘And anyway,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t go now … not with Dad …’

‘Your father’s over the worst and, by all accounts, well on the way to recovery. He’ll be back at work within a month and then … Olivia my dear, what is it?’ Ruth asked in dismay as Olivia buried her head in her hands and started to sob in earnest.

‘Oh, Aunt Ruth …’

‘Olivia, what is it …? What on earth’s wrong? What have I said …?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ Olivia replied tearfully. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything … I …’

‘Of course you can tell me,’ Ruth admonished her robustly. ‘You can and you must, and I’m certainly not leaving this bench until you do. Neither one of us is.’

Olivia gave her a watery smile.

‘That’s better,’ Ruth encouraged. ‘Now tell me what’s wrong.’

Hating herself for being weak enough to give in to the temptation to unburden herself, Olivia did just that. Ruth let her speak without trying to interrupt her and when the younger woman had finished, Ruth looked across the small pretty square in silence.

‘I … I shouldn’t have told you. You’re shocked and—’

‘No, I’m not shocked,’ Ruth countered lightly. ‘I’m not even particularly surprised. Now I’ve shocked you. I’m sorry, Olivia, but then, you see, I rather think I know your father slightly better than you do. You find it hard to accept that he could do something so … dishonest. A child needs to be able to trust and respect its parent, so that’s no bad thing.’

‘Except that I’m not a child.’

‘Maybe not, but it isn’t always easy to cast off ingrained modes of behaviour and beliefs … ideals. Perhaps that’s why it’s easier for me to accept than for you.

‘You see, to me, your father always has been and always will be the self-willed and rather selfish little boy who always so skilfully shrugged aside his responsibilities and used his charm and his father’s unfortunate tendency to spoil him to his own advantage, leaving Jon to be his whipping boy.’ She sat quietly for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. ‘Has Jon actually seen the accountants yet?’

‘No, not yet,’ Olivia told her tiredly.

‘Good.’ Ruth turned round and looked across the square to Jon’s office window. ‘I’d better go and see him, then,’ she said purposefully, a smile warming her face.

‘Go and see him …?’ Olivia frowned. ‘But—’

‘Do you know what I think you should do, Livvy?’ Ruth interrupted. Without waiting for Olivia to respond, she continued, ‘I think you should go and ring that young man of yours. You do love him,’ she reminded Olivia when she saw her expression. ‘All right, he may not be perfect, you may have problems to resolve, but tell me this. Which is the worst alternative, living your life with him, problems and all, or living your life without them and without him? Don’t waste your life in useless regrets, Olivia my dear. Not like … Go and ring him. I insist.’

‘Ruth …?’ Jon stood up as his secretary ushered Ruth into his office. She might only live across the square but he couldn’t remember the last time she had actually come to the office.

‘Sit down, Jon,’ she told him crisply. ‘We need to talk. Olivia has told me all about David,’ she announced forthrightly. ‘I take it that as yet no one outside the family knows what’s happened?’

‘As yet, no,’ Jon agreed heavily.

‘Good. Now tell me, how much exactly did David borrow from Jemima Harding?’

‘Borrow …?’ Jon gave her a dry look. ‘David didn’t borrow anything. David stole—’

‘No, he did not,’ Ruth corrected him authoritatively. ‘David, rather unprofessionally to be sure, asked Jemima for a loan. Or rather, I should say, a series of loans. The informal arrangement being that he would repay her on demand. Now with her death he naturally feels that the time has come to repay these loans, even though no specific repayment date was originally put on them.’

Jon shook his head. ‘If only … David can’t pay back that money. We both know that.’

‘David can’t,’ Ruth agreed, pausing before adding calmly, ‘but I can.’

Jon stared at her. ‘Ruth,’ he explained patiently, ‘it is really generous of you to make such a suggestion, but David took two million pounds from Jemima’s trust fund.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she acknowledged coolly.

Jon stared blankly at her. ‘You haven’t got two million pounds.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ she allowed. ‘I think at my last count it was closer to five million.’

‘Five million! You’ve got five million pounds!’

‘Jon, please don’t take offence, but if I were you, I really wouldn’t let my jaw sag like that. It really isn’t very flattering, not at your age,’ Ruth chided her nephew in a kindly voice. ‘And no, I haven’t gone senile.’ She gave him an amused smile. ‘I really do have the money, though I must admit I find it rather irksome to have to use it to save David’s skin, but then it isn’t just David’s skin that’s at risk here, is it?’ she asked Jon gently. ‘You and Jenny and most especially Joss are very special to me … most especially Joss. At my age one is allowed to have favourites and there is no way I would want to see his life and future marred by David’s weakness and stupidity.

‘I was left a quite substantial sum of money by my mother’s sister,’ she revealed with a smile. ‘No, not five million pounds, nowhere near anything like that, but this was many years ago, and I discovered rather to my own surprise that I seemed to have a talent for the stock market. You’ll have to see the bank and the accountants, of course. We can’t leave that to David. You can explain to them about David’s private arrangement with Jemima—’

‘They’ll never believe that Jemima agreed to lend David the money.’

‘Privately, maybe not,’ Ruth concurred, ‘but I think you probably will find that they’ll be as keen to see the whole affair sorted out as discreetly as we are. It won’t do anything to improve their professional standing if it gets out that David was raiding Jemima’s account right under their noses, will it?’ she asked Jon practically.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Jon asked his aunt quietly after a brief silence.

‘What?’ Ruth gave him a quizzical look.

‘I owe a duty to my family, Ruth, but I also owe a duty to my own profession. I am honour bound to report David for—’

‘No,’ Ruth interrupted firmly. ‘You may be honour bound to report your suspicions but that is all they are, Jon. You do not, after all, have any proof, do you, that David did not have some private arrangement with Jemima?’

‘Ruth …’ Jon protested.

‘Have you?’ she persisted.

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but we both know—’

‘We both know that David borrowed money from Jemima and that is all we know. I do understand, Jon,’ she went on more gently, ‘but while I might applaud the moral strength that makes you sacrifice your own career and life, I can’t say the same about what the prospect of your exposing David will do to the new generation. All of them will be tainted by it.

‘And besides, we can’t know what private arrangement David and Jemima may or may not have had,’ she repeated. ‘Jemima is now beyond answering any questions and as for David … Well, I wouldn’t like to say what effect it might have on his health if he were to be subjected to a rigorous questioning.’

‘Ruth, don’t do this to me,’ Jon begged her wearily. ‘You know—’