Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

would be easy to put her own sombre, reflective mood down to Saul’s revelations about his marriage but she knew that wouldn’t be entirely honest.

      Her doubts, her feeling that she and Caspar were not, after all, as harmoniously in step with one another as she had so naïvely believed, had not been brought on by the realisation that Saul’s marriage was in difficulty.

      She paused, her attention caught by the floodlit façade of the church, its Norman tower standing stoutly square. As she absent-mindedly studied the familiar sight, Olivia couldn’t help contrasting the staunchness of the faith of those long-ago builders not only in their God, but also in themselves and humanity, with the present-day malaise of world-weariness and cynical disaffection.

      It was indeed a truly awe-inspiring thought that in an age where merely to reach adulthood was an achievement, and to live much beyond one’s thirtieth year almost a miracle, that men, people, should have committed themselves to the construction of a building that would take not only their own lifetime to complete but the lifetime of their sons and grandsons after them, as well.

      Instinctively she shifted her gaze away from the church towards the row of Georgian houses where Ruth lived. As a young girl she had been puzzled by the fact that Aunt Ruth lived alone, that there was no uncle, no children; and later as a teenager she had been initially surprised and then had a vague sense of amusement and a slightly patronising superiority at the dullness of the life Aunt Ruth had chosen for herself compared with the wide horizons that were going to be hers.

      Oddly she had never felt curious about Ruth’s life, or her past, simply taking it for granted that she should accept worthy spinsterhood following the death of her fiancé.

      Her forehead puckered as she studied the windows of Aunt Ruth’s house. Where did this American, whom Caspar claimed her great-aunt had been involved with, fit into the picture and why had she never heard about him? Head down, deep in thought, she continued walking into the square when a group of noisy teenagers, laughing and tormenting one another, erupted into the square several yards away from her. A couple of them, she suspected from their coal-black hair and familiar features, were members of the semi-notorious Cooke family. One of them saw her watching them and paused to return her scrutiny with a bold-eyed, challenging sexual stare. Olivia grimaced as she looked away. He must be all of fourteen.

      She walked on until she reached the building that housed the practice’s offices. They were a world away from the modern hi-tech building where she had worked in London and from the life she would have shared in America with Caspar.

      Would have shared. Would still share, she corrected herself quickly. Caspar meant so much to her. She couldn’t bear to lose him and there was, in truth, no real reason for her to lose him, she reassured herself, quickening her pace as she hurried back to her car, suddenly, desperately, anxious to see Caspar, to be with him.

      Yes, maybe they did hold opposing views of what was happening here in Haslewich. They were, after all, both strong-minded, intelligent people who couldn’t always be expected to see completely eye to eye on everything. Indeed, sometimes they were bound to think and feel very differently, and the more important the issue, the more intense those differences were likely to be, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be resolved, that a compromise couldn’t be reached. She could quite simply follow Caspar to Philadelphia rather than arrive there with him, and in that time she could stay here and help Uncle Jon whilst Caspar picked up the threads of his life in America. It would only be for a few weeks. They could keep in touch via the telephone, even if they couldn’t …

      Her hands were trembling slightly as she unlocked her car door.

      There was a light on in her bedroom as Olivia drove up in front of the house and parked her car. Unlocking the front door, she took the stairs two at a time, aching, anxious to be with Caspar; to tell him what she had been thinking. She pushed open the bedroom door and then came to a full stop.

      Caspar obviously hadn’t realised she was already in the house. He was standing with his back to her, peering out of the window; his skin still had a damp sheen to it from his recent shower, minute droplets of moisture still edging their way down his spine and gathering in the small hollow at its base.

      Olivia’s mouth had gone very dry, her legs felt wobbly and her heart was thudding with so much excitement that it might have been the very first time she had seen him naked, she thought, and fighting down her urge to go up to him and wrap her arms tightly around him, she said his name instead, knowing even before he turned around that the moment he saw her face he would know exactly how she was feeling.

      She had never been any good at concealing from him just how much she wanted him, she acknowledged ruefully, as he responded to the soft sound of her voice saying his name.

      ‘Oh, Caspar,’ she whispered shakily, ignoring his stiff-armed attempt to hold her away from his wet body as she gave in to the temptation to be close to him and wrapped her arms tightly around him. ‘What are we doing to one another? Why are we arguing … quarrelling when …’

      ‘When what?’ Caspar demanded gruffly.

      She could feel the pressure of his hands gripping her upper arms but she was past worrying about what effect his wet skin might have on her clothes now, her only regret being the fact that they had become an unwanted barrier between them.

      ‘When we could be doing this,’ she told him huskily, lifting her face towards his and sliding one hand behind his head to guide his mouth down towards hers.

      For a moment he seemed to hesitate, looking deeply and searchingly into her eyes whilst she looked back at him, her pupils already dilated, her eyes cloudy with longing. Her whole body, her whole being was awash with a soft flood of aching tenderness from the full force of her new-found knowledge that what they felt for one another, what they had together, was far too important, too strong … too vital, to be threatened by any quarrel.

      Together they would find a way to reach a happy compromise.

      His mouth felt unfamiliarly immobile, cool and slightly dry, almost unresponsive, but even as she started to frown and draw back from him, Caspar reached for her, taking control of the kiss, taking control of her, she realised as his mouth moved firmly on hers, his hands cupping her face, his body …

      Eagerly Olivia moved closer to him.

      ‘You’re wearing too many clothes,’ Caspar told her rawly between kisses.

      ‘Mmm … I know,’ Olivia agreed, but her need to feel his mouth moving against hers, to hold on to their closeness and intimacy made her reluctant to stop kissing him, even for long enough to get undressed, and in the end, what had in recent times become a mundane chore relegated to the end of the day when both of them prepared for bed became instead a deliciously agonizing, passion-building and wickedly sensual extravagance of snatched kisses and caresses interspersed with fumbling fingers and hasty tugs as they both struggled to remove the damp clothes that obstinately clung to her body and cast them aside to lie unregarded on the floor before they finally collapsed onto her bed in a tangle of trembling but blissfully naked limbs.

      ‘Mmm … you feel so good, taste so good,’ Olivia marvelled in an ecstatic sigh as she licked her way as delicately as a small cat across Caspar’s torso.

      ‘Feeling good isn’t how I’d describe it,’ Caspar groaned as her tongue stroked tantalisingly below his ribcage and then drew a sinfully erotic circle around his navel. ‘In fact, right now, what you’re doing to me feels like … it feels like … oooh,’ he groaned through gritted teeth as her tongue dipped lower.

      Olivia tried to tease him mockingly by demanding huskily, ‘Go on, what does it feel like?’ although in reality she was just as aroused by their love play as he was.

      Turning the tables on her, he caught her off guard, picking her up and rolling her easily beneath him as he countered trenchantly, ‘Why don’t I just give you a demonstration, see how you like that kind of torture?’

      Only torture wasn’t the word she would ever use to describe the sensual movement of Caspar’s mouth against her body as he lovingly