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She broke off as she saw Jennifer Bowers making her way quietly back towards the podium, her stomach muscles tensing slightly. She knew what was coming, and how much it meant to Adam.
She had been worried at first when they had married that her past relationship with Nick, and the fact that he and Adam were stepbrothers, might have an alienating effect on others, but Adam had swiftly told her that he did not care what anyone else thought; that if anyone, anyone at all dared to make her feel uncomfortable in even the smallest way, then they would leave, move somewhere else and make a completely fresh start. But to Fern’s relief she had discovered that their marriage was received far better than she had anticipated, and that Nick was not the popular figure he had always claimed; that in fact she, to her surprise, was better liked than her first husband.
Of course initially there had been some curiosity and speculation, but that had soon faded.
Adam had insisted on their marrying as soon as they possibly could, and when Fern had suggested tentatively that he might prefer to wait until after the council reelection, he had taken her in his arms and told her firmly that the council and everyone on it could go to hell as far as he was concerned, and that if she thought that being a member of it came anyway near to mattering one jot to him, then she understood him and the nature of his love for her far less well than he had believed.
Even so, the fact that he had been re-elected, almost triumphally so, had been a tremendous relief to her.
To discover less than a month later that she was pregnant had almost been more happiness than she felt she had any right to have.
She and Adam were now looking for a new house, somewhere large enough for themselves and the twins. They already thought they had found somewhere, a large, early Victorian villa on the outskirts of town, set in a very good-sized private garden and yet close enough to its neighbours not to be too isolated.
The present owner, a widower, was selling up because he wanted to move closer to his married daughter. Fern had already spent a blissful week with Adam planning the new nursery.
‘What is it… what’s wrong?’ he had asked her anxiously the previous evening, when he had discovered her curled up on the sofa, slow tears running silently down her face.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ she had told him. ‘I feel sometimes that I don’t deserve to be so happy, Adam.’
‘Rubbish,’ he had contradicted her as he smoothed the hair back off her face and kissed her. ‘You deserve to be happy more than anyone else I know. You make me happier than I ever knew or hoped I could be, Fern…’
Jennifer had reached the podium now. People were breaking off their conversations to turn towards her.
She picked up the gavel and rapped it on the desk.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. While officially I may no longer have any right to command your attention, before I finally step down from public office there is one more task I have to perform. I shan’t say a duty because it is very far from that. I know the reason we are all here tonight is to welcome and congratulate our new member of parliament, but I’m sure that Nick won’t mind if I use this occasion to thank and congratulate someone else.
‘None of you here will not be aware of the work that Adam Wheelwright has done for our local community. I know Adam himself would be the last person to want to receive praise and thanks for what I know he considers to be his civic responsibility for something—a project—which reflects with shining credit not just on Adam himself but on the whole community as well. I am referring of course to the Broughton House project.
‘As you may know, there was a good deal of serious opposition to the proposal when it was first mooted. People, quite understandably, were concerned that by turning Broughton House into a residential learning centre for young male offenders they would be putting their own property and peace of mind at risk.
‘Why should we, a small, quiet, peaceful middle-class market town, take on the responsibility and all the potential problems that would go with having within our community these young people who had already proved that they had scant respect for the law?
‘What sane community would actually welcome into its midst what amounted to an open prison?
‘It is to Adam’s credit that he managed, quietly and calmly, to re-educate us all; to show us that we had a duty to help these young people; that by establishing Broughton House as a place where they could serve out their sentence and at the same time learn not just the physical skills which will help them to earn a living, but also the social and emotional skills which will help them to integrate fully into society, we would hopefully benefit not only them but ourselves as well.
‘It is by example that we can help them and, in doing so, ourselves, not by rejection, Adam told us. I know there are still those who are doubtful, those who will be watching what happens when Broughton House has its first intake of young offenders, those who will secretly be hoping that Adam is proved wrong, but thankfully their number grows smaller and smaller every day, and I suspect that it is not just his erring boys that Adam secretly hopes to convert, but all our Doubting Thomases as well.
‘For a crusader and innovator, Adam is a man of extreme modesty, preferring what our media moguls refer to as a “low profile”, but no one having seen him in action these last few months can doubt that he is a man of very serious determination and intent, ready to move mountains to achieve his goals if he perceives it necessary.
‘I am not going to ask Adam to make a speech—not here this evening, though I am sure he will have plenty to say to us at the official opening of Broughton House next month; but what I would like to do is to thank him on behalf of all of us for opening our eyes to the needs of others, and for teaching us that it is our fear of our fellow man and his potential power against us which is more destructive, more dangerous than our hatred.
‘Adam…’
Smiling at him, Fern disentangled herself from her husband’s side, watching him walk towards the podium. Where were they now, his detractors, those who had scoffed that he was out of his mind even to suggest such a plan, that he was deliberately trying to destroy the community to advance his own half-baked ideas?
Well, one of them was here.
Fern’s smile died as she looked across at Nick.
Despite his Armani suit, despite all the expensive hype that surrounded him, despite all the money Venice had poured into publicising and promoting him, despite the fact that he now surely had all that he wanted, his face, his expression had an unhappy, pinched bitterness about it. Poor Nick. She almost felt sorry for him.
* * *
‘He can’t do this!’ Nick exploded as he watched Adam take the podium. ‘I’m not letting him or that bitch Jennifer Bowers get away with this. I’m the MP, not him. He’s nothing… nothing… just a small-town
councillor. I’m going to…’
