youthful teenager her father had accused her of resembling, she turned and fled from the room.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ Stephen asked in confusion when she had gone. ‘Is it one of those women’s things…?’
‘No. It’s not that.’ Sarah Jane shook her head, her forehead pleating in an anxious maternal frown.
‘I’m worried about Samantha, Stephen. I know she’s always been inclined to be a little up and down emotionally—she’s so passionate and intense about everything—but that’s what makes her the very special person she is…But, well…this last year…’ She paused, her frown deepening. ‘I’m glad she’s going on this visit with Bobbie. She never says it, but I know how much she misses her.’ She paused and gave him a wry smile.
‘Do you remember when they were growing up how it was always Sam who played big sister to the other kids on the block and how, when Tom came along she fussed over him like a little mother? We always said then that Sam would be the one to get married first and have children and that Bobbie would be the career girl.’
She saw that Stephen was looking a little nonplussed.
‘What is it you’re trying to say?’ he asked her.
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘I just know that something’s upsetting Samantha.’
‘Well, she and Liam have never exactly seen eye to eye.’
‘No, it isn’t Liam,’ Sarah Jane told him positively. ‘Poor Liam, I do feel for him.’ She gave a small chuckle. ‘I rather suspect that if he hadn’t been sitting at our dinner table there was a moment this evening when he might definitely have reacted more forcefully to Sam’s remarks.’
‘Mmm…He and Sam have never got on,’ her husband agreed.
Sarah Jane’s eyes widened.
‘Oh, but…’ she began and then stopped. ‘Do you think he’ll seriously consider getting married in order to strengthen his position in running for Governor?’
‘Not purely for that,’ Stephen announced positively. ‘He’s far too honest—and too proud—to stoop to those kinds of tactics, but like I said earlier, he is thirty-seven and, despite all the hassle Sam gives him about his girlfriends, he’s never given me the impression that he’s the kind of man who needs to feed his ego with a constant stream of sexual conquests—far from it.’
‘Mmm…I think you’re right. In fact—’ She stopped. ‘With his ancestry it’s entirely feasible that Liam’s rational exterior could hide a very emotional and romantic heart indeed. In fact I think that Liam, contrary to what Sam said, is looking for love and commitment—he just hasn’t found the right woman yet, that’s all.’
She got up from the table and dropped a loving kiss on her husband’s cheek as she walked past him.
‘I’d better go up and see if Sam’s okay.’
A week later Samantha gave a small sigh of achievement and relief as the clasps on her large suitcase finally responded to the pressure of her weight on top of the case and snapped closed.
‘Thank goodness,’ Sam muttered under her breath.
She would be way over the weight limit, she knew that, but what the heck. A series of long excited conversations with her twin over the intervening week had elicited the information that there were a series of social events coming up in both Chester and Haslewich which Bobbie intended to have her twin join in.
‘There’s the Lord Lieutenant’s Ball at the end of your stay. We’ve already got tickets for that. It’s going to be especially wonderful this year as the current Lord Lieutenant is stepping down. You’ll need a proper evening gown for that, and then there’s the charity cricket match and the strawberry tea afterwards. The bad news, though, is that Luke has three very important court cases pending so he could be called away at short notice. And of course with the baby due soon I shan’t be able to do as much as I would have liked. However, once he or she arrives, you and I are going to do some serious fashion shopping, I’m so tired of maternity clothes.’
‘Mmm…’ Sam had enthused. ‘I’ve read that Milan is the place to shop right now, the prices are really keen and you know how I love those Italian designers.’
‘Mmm…Which reminds me, don’t forget to bring some clam diggers, will you, and some jeans. They just don’t do them over here like they do back home. Oh, and dungarees for Francesca and shirts for Luke and for James…’
‘How is James?’ Samantha had asked her twin coyly.
‘He’s fine and he’s certainly looking forward to seeing you,’ Bobbie had taunted her.
Samantha had laughed back. Bobbie had taunted her mercilessly at the time of her own wedding that James had fallen for her, but then Samantha had simply thought of him as a very nice soon-to-be in-law and member of the large Crighton clan.
Now, though, things were a little different.
Milan wasn’t the only city to boast fine designer shops and she had paid an extended visit to Boston prior to doing her packing. The resultant purchases were all designed to underscore the fact that being tall did not in any way mean that was not wholly and completely a woman. A satisfied smile curled Samantha’s mouth as she contemplated the effect of her new purchases on her intended victim. James, she knew instinctively, was the kind of man who preferred to see a woman dressed like a woman.
Her smile was replaced by a small frown as she studied her closed suitcase. Closed it might be, but it still had to be gotten downstairs and there was no point in calling the man who helped with the garden to assist her. Hyram was a honey, but he was close on seventy and there was no way he could lift her case.
Nope…There were occasions when being tall and healthily muscled were an advantage—and this, she decided, was one of them.
She negotiated the suitcase to the top of the stairs so that she could leave it in the lobby ready for her early morning flight and had just paused to take a rest, muttering complainingly at the overstuffed case as she did so. Her face felt hot and flushed and the exertion had made her hair cling in silky strands to the nape of her neck and her flushed cheeks. Turning her back towards the stairs, she eyed the suitcase.
‘It’s not just my clothes,’ she told it sternly. ‘It’s that sister of mine and…’
‘What the…’
The unexpected sound of Liam’s voice on the stairs behind her caused Samantha to jump and turn round, forgetting that she had momentarily balanced the case precariously on one of the stairs whilst she leaned against it to hold it in position.
The result was inevitable.
The suitcase, disobligingly ignoring her wailed protest, slid heavily down the stairs, past Liam, bouncing on the half landing before coming to a halt against a solid wooden chest where the combined effect of its speedy fall and its heavy weight caused the clasps to burst open and the contents of the case to tumble out all over the stairs.
‘Oh, there now, see what you’ve done,’ Samantha accused Liam angrily. ‘If you hadn’t crept up on me like that…’
‘I
