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Somehow or other she managed to make her short speech and hand over the cheque, although her hands were trembling violently when Ian took it from her.
Afterwards, when it was all over, Jessica came hurrying anxiously towards her, asking her if she was all right.
‘You had such an odd look on your face when you were on the stage. I even thought for a moment you were just going to get up and walk out. I know you were nervous, but I hadn’t realised…Anyway, it’s over now,’ she comforted her.
Lacey gave a vague smile.
‘Never mind, Ma, you were brill, despite your nerves,’ Jessica told her, tucking her arm through her mother’s. ‘And now how about that meal you promised me, before one of your admirers pounces on you and persuades you to let him join us?’
Lacey gave her a wan look. In reality the last thing she felt like doing was going out to eat. Her stomach was still performing somersaults and her heart felt as though it had literally been squeezed in a vice.
She felt both sick and shaky, like someone suffering from the aftermath of a nerve-shattering shock. She told herself that she was being ridiculous; that she was a grown woman, and surely long past the stage of reacting like that simply because she thought she had seen a man whose memory she ought to have put behind her years ago.
‘Quickly,’ Jessica hissed. ‘Tony’s heading this way.’As they headed for the exit she added drily, ‘Honestly, Ma, I don’t know why you don’t marry poor Tony. He adores you, you know, and he always has. Think of the life you’d have—he’d spoil you to death.’
‘I like him, but I don’t love him,’ Lacey told her, surprising herself as much as her daughter, who stopped and turned to look at her. ‘Is that so very shocking,’ she asked Jessica defensively, ‘that at my age I should consider love a prerequisite for marriage? I suppose to someone of your age it probably is.’
‘No…you’ve got it all wrong. Of course I don’t think you’re too old to fall in love. I was just surprised that you should want to. I’ve always had the impression that because of what happened with…with my father that we…that you’d written sexual love out of your life so to speak. I thought that you’d actually prefer the kind of relationship you could have with Tony—him spoiling you…pampering you…’
‘That wouldn’t be fair to him,’ Lacey told her quietly.
‘No, I suppose not. But there must be times when you feel lonely…when you want—’
‘Sex,’ Lacey supplied bluntly for her, surprising herself a second time.
Jessica gave her a sideways look. ‘Well…yes…although I wouldn’t have put it quite as directly as that,’ she told her a little defensively.
Lacey shook her head, and then wondered if she was being entirely honest. Weren’t there times even now when she woke up tense and aching, her body reminding her that there had once been a time when she hadn’t slept alone, when she had known the caresses of a lover, when she…
‘What I want right now is my dinner,’ she fibbed, completely redirecting the conversation. ‘I’ve booked a table at that new Italian place. It’s supposed to be very good.’
IT WAS—at least to judge from the enjoyment Jessica was exhibiting. For her part, Lacey found that she just simply didn’t have any appetite.
‘Ma, what’s wrong?’Jessica started to ask her, and then broke off to say admiringly, ‘Mm…now that’s what I call a man! Pity he’s too old for me.’
Lacey turned her head in automatic response to Jessica’s comment.
Three men had just walked into the restaurant, but she only saw one of them. This time there was no possibility of a mistake…no doubt. It was like a massive blow to the heart, numbing her body into complete immobility.
Lewis. It was Lewis!
‘Ma, what is it…what’s wrong? You look as though you’ve just seen a ghost,’ Jessica told her worriedly.
A ghost. She gave a deep shudder, her mouth twisting painfully.
Behind her she could hear Lewis’s voice—deep, masculine, so agonisingly familiar, so shockingly clearly remembered.
‘Jess, I’m not feeling very well,’ she said shakily. ‘Would you mind if we left?’
The men had walked past them now, leaving Lacey free to stand up as she kept her back towards them. Small chance of Lewis’s recognising her; why should he? she reflected with an unfamiliar stab of sharp bitterness.
She meant nothing to him. He probably didn’t even remember that she had ever existed. She wondered if he was still with her, the woman he had left her for, or if she too had suffered her fate; if he had gone on to fall out of love with her as well.
She pushed herself free of the table, shivering sickly, glad of Jessica’s warm protective arm around her shoulders as her daughter came to her side and said anxiously, ‘Ma, something’s wrong. Look, let’s get you home, and then I’m going to call Ian Hanson.’
Behind her she was aware of movement, of someone tensing, turning, but she couldn’t look back, couldn’t do anything other than freeze and shiver, aching to escape, knowing it was impossible to explain to Jessica just what was wrong, hating herself for causing her daughter this anxiety and for spoiling their last evening together…but how could she turn to Jessica now and say ‘You know that man you were just admiring? Well, he’s your father’?
She had always been honest with Jessica about her marriage, and told her when she was in her teens that she would never stand in her way if she ever felt she wanted to contact her father, but Jessica had remained adamant that she didn’t, that she wanted nothing to do with the man who had treated her mother so cruelly, even though Lacey had painstakingly explained to her that Lewis had known nothing of her pregnancy…had not realised that she was already carrying his child when he’d announced that he wanted a divorce.
