Phantom Marriage. PENNY JORDAN

a meal; she recalled it vividly. He had eaten without appetite, and it was only years later, suffering from jet lag herself, that she had realised just how unwelcome her ministrations and cooking had probably been, but he had been too kind to let her see it. James had a weakness for children and lame dogs, but the trouble had been that she hadn’t been a child, although neither of them had realised it until too late.

      ‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’

      Mandy’s imperative cry broke through her thoughts. Tiredly she switched off the car and helped them out. The casserole she had prepared that morning before leaving for work smelled appetising as they walked into the kitchen. Sending both twins upstairs to change their clothes and wash, Tara set about preparing their meal. Although five o’clock was rather early for her to eat, she preferred to share her meals with the twins rather than eat alone; vivid memories of lonely meals eaten in solitude at the kitchen table while her mother looked on a strong deterrent against subjecting her own children to the same thing.

      Mealtimes were normally the highlight of her day. Over their food the twins normally regaled her with the happenings of their day, and she made a point of listening seriously. Simon normally spoke with wide-eyed solemnity but Mandy, almost too quick for her own good, could easily spot when an adult was simply indulging her.

      They came downstairs together dressed in identical dungarees.

      ‘Simon couldn’t fasten his sneakers,’ Mandy told her, ‘so I had to do it for him.’

      Suppressing a sigh, Tara inspected their newly washed hands. It was quite normal for Mandy to be more advanced than her brother at this stage, she knew, but she was concerned that Mandy’s possessively maternal attitude to her brother, although delightful, might prevent Simon from learning to stand on his own two feet.

      Both children ate hungrily. Tara was an excellent cook and mainly through firm insistence in their early years, neither twin was faddy about food. Her budget might not stretch to luxury items, Tara reflected, but at least the twins had a well balanced and healthy diet; and as far as she was concerned they were far better off without too many sweets and chocolates.

      Mandy promised to have her own slender build, but already Simon was heavier, and she suspected he would grow up to resemble his father.

      After dinner she always set aside an hour to play with the twins and read to them. Mandy with quicksilver impatience grew bored with reading, but Simon was always anxious for more. Almost identical in looks, by nature they were vastly different, Tara reflected.

      Her mother had started a campaign obviously intended to steer her towards marriage; its benefits to the twins always stressed whenever she went home, but so far Tara had resisted. For, one thing, marriage would mean telling someone about the twins’ paternity, which she had no desire to do; for another it meant exposing herself once more to their rejection.

      Other girls, she knew, suffered the same experience she had done without the same results, but then she had always been acutely sensitive; too sensitive, she acknowledged, recognising that some of her fear for Simon sprang from the fact that she feared he had inherited this vulnerability from her.

      It seemed almost incredible now that her body had ever experienced the aching pleasure which was now only a dim memory, but which had once driven her to forget all her principles and scruples to the extent that nothing mattered save for James’s possession of her, even though she had known quite well that at the time his actions were blurred and his mind dazed by a lethal combination of exhaustion and jet lag.

      Not a pretty memory, and one which had served to help her keep a cool control over her emotions ever since. He loved her, James had said, but his later actions had not borne out those words. What he had felt for her had simply been a momentary desire, and she, fathoms deep in love with him, had encouraged and incited him into making love to her. The twins were the result of that careless lovemaking, and on them Tara had poured out all the love she had been forced to bottle up inside her.

      Casual affairs were just not her thing, and while there had been plenty of men who had made it plain that they desired her, Tara had always held them at a distance. So far Chas had been the most determined, but Tara had held her ground, and it gave her no pleasure to know that Chas’s sudden spurts of temper against the models were fuelled by sexual frustration caused by her refusal to sleep with him.

      So far she had managed to walk the dangerously fine line of keeping their personal relationship completely separate from work. As a photographer Chas was a professional down to his fingertips, but Tara worried that one day he would break what was obviously a self-imposed rule, and remind her that he had it in his power to make her unemployed. So far he had not used that weapon, and she honoured him for it. However, there was this weekend job coming up involving taking some fashion shots at Leeds Castle. She had racked her brains for a legitimate excuse for not going, but so far none had been forthcoming. The twins could go with them, Chas had said easily when she commented that she could not simply abandon them for an entire weekend.

      It came to her that Susan’s invitation would provide a cast-iron excuse for refusing to go; it would also prevent Chas from guessing her fear that if she simply refused the assignment he would press his suit even harder, forcing the confrontation she had so far managed to avoid.

       CHAPTER TWO

      THE morning didn’t get off to a good start. For one thing, Tara’s alarm failed to go off on time, and she was eventually woken up by Mandy tugging impatiently at the bedclothes.

      Tara normally got up an hour before the twins, using the time to wash her hair and do her make-up. Although far from vain she considered presenting the right image an important part of her job, although sometimes it was hard to strike the narrow dividing line between appearing too glamorous or too staid. Normally she settled for simply keeping her hair clean and glossy, using the minimum amount of make-up and dressing in clothes that didn’t impede her work and yet still looked smart.

      This morning there was no time to wash her hair, and she plaited it quickly while she supervised the twins’ breakfasts.

      Simon for some reason had decided that he loathed boiled egg and was morosely engaged in pushing his sulkily round his plate.

      ‘Simon, eat up!’ Exasperation sharpened her voice and she sighed when the little boy’s face crumpled.

      ‘I’m sorry, darling.’ A swift hug and a kiss banished the threatening tears, although Simon was obviously not going to let her off easily.

      ‘My tummy hurts,’ he complained. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to go to school. Why can’t I stay at home with you?’

      ‘Because I have to go out to work,’ Tara told him firmly, surreptitiously checking his pulse and temperature. Both seemed normal. Simon’s pain was more imaginary than real, she suspected, and sympathised with him, remembering how often she had suffered similar afflictions.

      ‘Are we going to stay with that lady for the weekend?’ Mandy demanded as Tara bustled them outside to the Mini. ‘Where does she live?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Tara was forced to admit. ‘In the country somewhere.’

      ‘The country?’ Simon perked up immediately. ‘On a farm?’ he breathed hopefully.

      Although it was ridiculously early to be worrying about careers for the twins, Simon’s very evident love of the countryside and its inhabitants led Tara to believe that he would be happiest in some sort of outdoor life connected with farming.

      ‘Not a farm, I don’t think,’ Tara told him.

      ‘But we can go, can’t we?’ Mandy pleaded. ‘We never go anywhere. Everyone else in our class is always going away.’

      Allowing for childish exaggeration, Tara knew the criticism was well founded. The twins’ school fees meant that there was very little money left over for luxuries such as holidays, although they did spend weekends with her mother and aunt and uncle occasionally. These visits were