Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

She was sure about one thing; it wasn’t because of Olivia’s sex. Jon, after all, had been the one who suggested, albeit rather tentatively, to both David and Ben when Olivia had first expressed an interest in training as a solicitor, that they take her on themselves as an articled clerk. It had been David and, of course, Ben who had vetoed the idea.

      ‘You don’t sound very keen,’ she pressed when he made no further attempt to answer her. ‘You can’t run the practice on your own,’ she told him. ‘You need—’

      ‘Yes. I do realise that, Jenny,’ Jon snapped, interrupting her. ‘But it would make my life much easier if certain members of this family would stop trying to decide what’s best for me and allow me to make my own decisions.’

      Jenny stared at him. She knew, of course, that by ‘certain members of this family’ he meant her, but his criticism was so grossly unfair and out of character that she could hardly believe he had uttered it.

      ‘Jon,’ she protested.

      ‘I have to go and see Tiggy,’ he told her curtly. ‘She’s getting herself into a terrible state over some problem or other with the bank and I promised her I’d go round.’

      ‘Olivia’s at home,’ Jenny reminded him, trying to keep her voice deliberately neutral. ‘I’m sure if she knew that Tiggy was worrying about something like that, she would sort it out for her.’

      ‘Yes, I’m sure she would,’ Jon agreed, ‘but perhaps Tiggy feels more at ease asking for my help rather than Olivia’s. She feels that Olivia disapproves of her … considers her too irresponsible. They do have rather conflicting personalities. You’ve said so yourself,’ he reminded her when Jenny remained silent.

      ‘I doubt I ever said that they have conflicting personalities,’ Jenny corrected him gently. ‘Different, yes. But I’m sure you’re wrong in accusing Olivia of disapproving of her mother.’

      ‘I’m not accusing Olivia of anything. Just repeating what Tiggy told me … a confidence she’s given me,’ he underlined. ‘You might try to be a little bit more compassionate and understanding yourself, Jen. I know you and Tiggy aren’t exactly close and that in the past she has tended to be rather dizzy, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel …’

      He paused, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious as though aware that he had said too much, betrayed too much. But since when had he felt it necessary to defend Tiggy from her? Jenny wondered grimly, and more importantly, why should he feel it necessary to do so?

      ‘Olivia has always been much closer to you than she has to her mother,’ he pointed out, but he couldn’t quite meet her eyes, Jenny noticed, and the way he was playing with the cutlery she’d been laying on the table for supper gave away his inner tension.

      ‘Olivia and I have always been close, yes,’ she agreed, ‘but that doesn’t mean … Tiggy can sometimes tend to overreact to situations,’ she began to explain carefully. ‘She needs—’

      ‘She needs help,’ Jon interrupted her, ‘and that’s not something she should be made to feel ashamed of needing.’

      ‘No, it isn’t,’ Jenny agreed. Her hands, she noticed distractedly, were trembling slightly as she reached up for a serving dish. Why? Not because Jon was defending Tiggy, surely. Uneasily she reflected on his implied criticism of her. All she had been going to say was that in her opinion Tiggy needed careful handling, but she could see that Jon was in no mood to listen to her, never mind welcome her interpretation of his sister-in-law’s volatile personality. In fact, in his present uncharacteristic mood, he would probably take any attempt on her part to put forward her own viewpoint as an unwanted disparagement of his own judgement of the situation.

      Once they would have sat down together and discussed the whole thing amicably, but recently he seemed to be so touchy and on edge, taking umbrage at the slightest thing. Only the previous evening he had lost his temper with Joss just because their son had quite innocently and unintentionally knocked over some papers Jon had been working on.

      Jon had apologised to Joss later, but normally such an apology would not have been necessary in the first place because her husband would never have lost his temper over such a trivial incident.

      Of course, Jenny appreciated the difficulties he was facing. David was his twin after all, but knowing he was carrying a double burden of anxiety both as David’s twin and his business partner, surely it made more sense for him to welcome Olivia’s offer of assistance instead of acting as though in making it she had given him yet another set of problems to deal with.

      ‘Things could be worse,’ she told him mildly, trying to inject some measure of light-heartedness into the situation. ‘It could have been Max who offered to stand in for David.’

      ‘Max!’ Jenny was unprepared for the look of loathing that suddenly darkened his eyes. ‘No, never! Max is far too selfish, too self-obsessed, too concerned with his own needs and not anyone else’s to even think of—’

      ‘Jon, he’s your son,’ Jenny felt bound to remind him, disturbed by such an explosion of antagonistic emotion from a man who was normally so placid and prone to give others the benefit of the doubt. She didn’t want to have to point out to him that Max’s selfishness had been increased a hundredfold by his grandfather’s, and to some extent David’s, thorough spoiling and indulgence of him.

      She herself wasn’t happy with her son’s behaviour any more than Jon, but like any mother she was sorely tempted to defend her child. She wanted Jon to see that the faults he so deplored in his elder son were the same faults to be found in his twin brother who had—or so it sometimes seemed to Jenny—been elevated in the combined consciousness of Jon and his father to a state approaching sainthood.

      However, this was quite obviously not the time to remind Jon that much of what was now happening could be directly attributed to David’s own refusal to moderate his lifestyle.

      ‘Max may be my son,’ Jon repeated in angry disgust, ‘but as we both know he’d much rather have had David as his father—even as a child he used to revel in the fact that people often mistook him for David’s son and perhaps …’ He stopped and shook his head, then without giving Jenny the opportunity to object he got up and walked over to the door, stopping only to tell her brusquely, ‘Don’t bother with any supper for me. I’ll eat with Tiggy.’

      ‘Mum … where’s Dad?’

      Hastily Jenny tried to regain control of her chaotic thoughts as Louise came into the kitchen.

      ‘He’s gone to see your Aunt Tiggy. She needs his help with something. Finish setting the table, will you please, Louise? It’s almost time for supper.’

      ‘Again,’ Louise grumbled as she picked up the plates. ‘He’s always over there. In fact, he might as well move in with her, then at least she wouldn’t be ringing him up all the time.’

      ‘This is a very difficult time for her, Louise,’ Jenny responded quietly.

      ‘It’s a very difficult time for all of us,’ Louise countered feelingly, ‘especially Dad.’

      ‘Yes, well, Olivia’s offered to come home and help your father out at the practice.’

      ‘Has she? I bet Caspar won’t like that. Still … I expect Hillary will do her best to comfort him. Are she and Saul going to get a divorce?’

      ‘Louise!’ Jenny warned. It was quite frightening at times to realise how much modern teenagers absorbed and how aware they were of adult concerns and personal problems, far more surely than when she had been a girl.

      ‘I like Saul. I think he’s very, very sexy,’ Louise pronounced, ignoring her. ‘I don’t suppose it will take him long to find someone else. It’s a pity that …’

      ‘That what?’ Jenny asked with maternal suspicion, but typically Louise refused to be drawn, simply shaking her head.

      Really, in far too