‘Why not say, if I had loved him? I did…I do…but love on its own isn’t enough, is it? I mistrusted him. I believed Emma without stopping to question what she was telling me. I refused to give him the benefit of the doubt, to listen when he asked me to. How much contact is Daddy likely to have with him, once…once he’s back on his feet?’ she asked obliquely.
Her mother sighed. ‘Well, the plan is that Daniel will take over as chairman, but he has asked your father to stay on in an advisory capacity, and, of course, your father will retain his seat on the board. I’m afraid there will be rather a lot of occasions when he’s likely to be a part of our lives. Of course, you no longer live here—’
She broke off, remembering just how close to Daniel Jessica did live, and it was left to Jessica to say quietly, ‘Yes, well, in the circumstances, I’m sure it would be the best thing all round if I found somewhere else to live.’
There was a sad silence, and then her mother offered, ‘Perhaps if your father or I were to explain?’ But Jessica shook her head firmly.
‘No. No more running. No more evasion. No more not facing up to the truth. I’ve learned that much, at least. No, there’s only one thing I can do—must do.’ She bit her lip and asked quietly, ‘Do you…do you have a telephone number where he can be reached?’
Her mother frowned. ‘Yes, I think so. It should be in your father’s diary.’
It was, but the efficient secretary Jessica spoke to could offer her no other information than to say that her boss was unobtainable and taking a few days’ leave of absence.
That left her with only one option.
She wasn’t going to deceive herself. There was no going back, no remote chance of undoing the wrong she had done him, but at least she could apologise, admit her error, make it easier for her parents in their business involved with Daniel and make it clear to him that, whatever her private feelings, she was not, like her cousin, going to make a nuisance of herself. In fact, she was going to make sure that after she had delivered her apology—paid her debt, so to speak—there would be no chance of their paths ever crossing again. If they didn’t she might, somehow, find the strength to go on living without him, but if she was subjected to the torment of seeing him…Her body shuddered with pain, her face deathly white.
Her mother willingly agreed to lend her her car when Jessica explained what she had to do, although she expressed concern about her physical health.
Jessica gave her a wan smile. ‘I have to do it, Ma,’ she told her. ‘Please don’t try to dissuade me.’ She pulled a wry face and admitted shakily, ‘If you did, I’m afraid I’m all too likely to succumb, and if I did that…’
Her voice tailed away, and she saw from the sympathetic way her mother was looking at her that she understood how important it was to her pride and self-respect that she admitted her error to Daniel—not because she entertained any foolish idea that he would forgive her, not even because she wanted to be forgiven, but because her own self-respect demanded that she do so.
It was going to be hard enough to build a life for herself without Daniel in it. It would be even harder if she also had to live with the knowledge that she had once again run away, found excuses for herself, refused to face up to her own responsibility for her own life.
* * *
She knew that Daniel wasn’t still staying at the hotel to which he had taken her when he had brought her back from Northumberland. She knew he wasn’t in his office. But that did not necessarily mean that she would find him at Little Parvham.
Nevertheless, she drove there, parking her mother’s car outside the Bell and forcing herself to walk into the bar and ask the landlady if she knew where Daniel was.
The landlady of the Bell was a voluble, cheerful woman who enjoyed talking. After she had questioned Jessica about her own recovery from the shock of being in the post office when the would-be robber walked in, she informed her that Daniel was, to the best of her knowledge, out at his house.
Thanking her, Jessica made her way back to her car, battling against a cowardly impulse to find some reason for delaying the moment when she would have to face him and admit how she had misjudged him…when she would have to apologise to him and beg his pardon for the inexcusable insults she had thrown at him.
It was probably just as well that the road was empty of any other traffic, because her concentration was certainly far from exclusively focused on her driving.
She was shaking inwardly with tension and nausea when she eventually turned into the drive. There was no sign of Daniel’s car when she haphazardly parked her own, but, assuming he had parked it to the rear of the property, she walked in through the open front door, hesitantly calling his name.
The silence of the dilapidated building was vaguely unnerving, but Jessica forced herself to walk into the middle of the hall, knowing that in reality her tension was not caused by the house, but by her own reluctance to see Daniel.
When her tentative call brought no response, she walked slowly upstairs.
What must have once been a very attractive gallery ran around three sides of the hallway, so that from below it was possible to look up to the roof and admire the ornate plasterwork of the domed ceiling above her, but where there must once have been an ornamental balustrade surrounding the gallery there were now yawning gaps, and as she reached the landing and glanced back down into the hallway below Jessica had a sickening sensation of giddiness. She had never liked heights, but, oddly, when she had been round the house with Daniel she hadn’t been aware of the potential danger of the unguarded landing, and, frowning a little, she felt sure that when they had come round there had been some sort of protective rail running round the gallery at waist height.
If there had, it was now gone, and, keeping well back from the edge, she called Daniel’s name again.
Silence…Frowning, she pushed open one of the bedroom doors and went to look down out of the window at the rear of the house. There was no sign of Daniel’s car. He wasn’t here.
Not sure whether it was relief or disappointment that was her sharpest feeling, she turned on her heel and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
The floorboards on the gallery were uneven and warped—rotten in places, she recognised, frowning as she noticed the betraying signs of damp and decay when she really studied the floor.
Still frowning, she suddenly remembered that Daniel had not shown her this side of the gallery,
explaining that the floorboards were in a very dangerously advanced state of decay, and that one of his complaints against his original builder had been the fact that he had removed the supporting beams from the hallway below without taking the trouble to shore up the floor with the appropriate props.
As she remembered Daniel’s warning, Jessica moved forward quickly—too quickly, she realised, gasping with shock as the floor beneath her suddenly gave way, causing her to lose her footing and fall heavily.
The sensation of the floor falling away beneath her was one of the most terrifying she had ever experienced. She clung desperately to it as it tilted and then dissolved around her, crying out sharply in shock.
‘Jessica! Don’t move. Lie still.’
Daniel was here. She drew a shaky sob of relief and opened her eyes, quickly closing them again when she saw how much of the floor had given way beneath her, and how very precarious the one remaining strut was that supported her.
‘Jess…Are you all right? Have you broken anything?’
Daniel was standing at the top of the stairs, his face unexpectedly strained, only yards away from her, but between where she was clinging to her strut and where he stood in safety was a yawning, empty gap where the floor had once been.
‘Jess!’
She tried to concentrate. Her fall had winded her, her arm ached, but she was sure nothing was broken.
She started to shake her head, stopping when Daniel called out quickly, ‘No, don’t move—not yet…’ but it was already too late. Jessica heard the ominous creak, felt the deathly ripple of movement that warned her that the joist couldn’t support her for much longer. She looked down at the floor so far below her, and wished sickly that she hadn’t, all too easily picturing what would happen to her vulnerable body if it plummeted on to it. Below her, the wreckage of the first fall had thrown up sharp spears of broken wood, and she shuddered, imagining them piercing her flesh, her organs…