Marriage at a Distance (Presents, 2093)

by Sara Craven

  It’s better the way it is. At least I still have my pride.

  She moved abruptly, pushing herself away from him.

  He reached for her. ‘Joanna.’ His voice was gentle, almost rueful.

  She said in a small, high voice, ‘I—I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well.’

  She slid off the bed, a hand pressed to her mouth, and ran across to the bathroom, closing the door and bolting it behind her.

  It wasn’t altogether a lie. She felt sick with self-betrayal.

  She ran the taps in the basin and splashed water onto her face and wrists. After a decent interval she flushed the lavatory and emerged from the bathroom, dabbing her lips with a tissue.

  Gabriel, still fully dressed, was standing by the window, looking out into the darkness. He turned, brows raised, and surveyed her.

  Joanna gave him a tremulous smile. ‘That was awful. It must have been the champagne.’

  ‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing else, after all, that could have turned your stomach.’

  She halted uncomfortably, disturbed by his unwavering scrutiny.

  ‘I hope you’ve never had leanings towards becoming an actress,’ he went on conversationally. ‘You’re not very good at it.’

  She felt colour invade her face. ‘I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Your recent performance as the dying swan,’ he said derisively. ‘But you won’t have to sink to any more of these undignified ploys to keep me at bay. Enough is quite enough.’

  He paused, the tawny eyes sweeping her contemptuously. ‘I think I’ll do us both a favour, and find some other form of entertainment.’

  He walked past her to the door. ‘I’m going back to London. You can tell my father I had an early meeting, or make up what story you like. It really makes no difference.’ His smile flickered at her like a cold flame. ‘Goodbye, my sweet wife.’

  Joanna realised dazedly that she was standing in the middle of the study with her eyes shut and her hands pressed tightly to her ears, as if—two years on—she could somehow shut out the sound, the image of that night, and by doing so reduce its pain.

  But that, she reminded herself bleakly, had never been possible. And with Gabriel’s return it would all begin again. The day after tomorrow, Henry Fortescue had said. Forty-eight hours, maybe less, and she would have to face him.

  Yes—on the positive side—forty-eight hours and the official dissolution of their marriage could begin.

  She would leave the letter she had written him on the desk for him to find.

  She took a long look around her. The chances were she would never enter this room again. The house that had been her home was hers no longer.

  I have to move out, she thought. Move out—and move on.

  And, whatever emotional furore Gabriel’s return would cause, there were still practical details to be dealt with.

  She went out of the study, crossing the big panelled hall to the dining room, where Mrs Ashby was laying the table for dinner.

  The housekeeper’s elderly face was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. Joanna remembered with compassion that she had lived at Westroe in one capacity or another for over thirty years, arriving when Gabriel was still a baby.

  The smile she sent Joanna was a travesty of her usual cheerfulness. ‘Will Mrs Elcott be down for dinner, madam? Or should I prepare a tray?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, but I’ll find out.’ Joanna paused. ‘Mr Verne will be here for the funeral, Grace. Would you get a room ready for him, please?’

  Grace Ashby shook her head. ‘What a sad home-coming for him, madam.’ She hesitated awkwardly. ‘I suppose it should be Mr Lionel’s room, but all his things are still there. I—I haven’t had the heart to touch anything, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Just prepare the room he used to have for the time being,’ Joanna said gently. ‘He can decide for himself what he wants to do once things—settle down a bit.’ She sighed. ‘Now, I’ll go and tackle Mrs Elcott.’

  The lamps had been lit in Cynthia’s bedroom, and she was reclining against her pillows in a pale blue wrap, watching television. A copy of Vogue was open on the bed beside her, together with a half-eaten box of chocolates.

  ‘Hi.’ Joanna smiled at her, trying not to wince at the over-heated, perfume-laden atmosphere. ‘How are you feeling? I came to see if you felt like coming down to dinner this evening.’

  ‘I’ll have a bowl of soup up here.’ Cynthia gave her a tragic look. ‘I’m afraid I can’t face anything more solid.’

  And nor could I if I’d eaten my way through nearly a pound of chocolates, Joanna thought with irony.

  Aloud, she said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Cynthia waved a hand. ‘Some of us are just more sensitive than others. It’s the burden we have to bear in life.’

  She thought of another one. ‘And how many more visitors can we expect today?’ she demanded peevishly. ‘The doorbell seems to have been ringing non-stop. It’s been quite impossible for me to rest.’

  ‘It’s natural for people to express their condolences,’ Joanna said levelly. ‘Lionel was very much loved.’

  ‘You think you have to tell me that?’ Cynthia snatched a handful of tissues from a box and applied them to her perfectly dry eyes. ‘Really, Joanna, you can be so tactless. I sometimes wonder if you have a heart at all.’ She paused. ‘I notice none of them came up to see me. I suppose I can expect to be disregarded from now on.’ She sighed. ‘And things might have been so different.’

  ‘They’re going to be.’ Joanna cleared a handful of lingerie and filmy stockings from a chair and sat down. ‘My last visitor was Henry Fortescue.’

  ‘Old Fortescue?’ Cynthia sat up abruptly, her wrap slipping from her shoulder. ‘Did he mention Lionel’s will, by any chance? Give a hint how things had been left?’

  Joanna was used to her stepmother by now, but there were still moments when Cynthia’s capacity for self-interest left her stunned.

  ‘No,’ she returned tautly. ‘The will’s going to be read after the funeral.’ She swallowed. ‘When Gabriel is here.’

  ‘Of course.’ Cynthia gave a slow, sly smile. ‘The return of the prodigal heir. No wonder you’re so edgy.’

  Joanna was about to retort irritably that she wasn’t edgy at all, but stopped herself just in time.

  ‘How do you feel about seeing him again?’ Cynthia helped herself to another chocolate. ‘And, more importantly, how’s he going to feel about seeing you? He must blame you for the fact that he hasn’t been near the place for two years.’ She began to roll the paper wrapping into a tiny ball. ‘After all, he hasn’t just been separated from you, but from his father as well, and now the separation’s permanent.’

  ‘You don’t have to remind me of that,’ Joanna said bleakly. ‘I should have been the one to go.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be a fool,’ Cynthia said impatiently. ‘Lionel would never have allowed that.’ She examined a fleck on her nail. ‘You do realise he was madly in love with your mother, don’t you?’

  Joanna stared at her in silent shock. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Your father told me all about it.’ Cynthia shrugged nonchalantly. ‘It was one of those boy-girl things, and the families discouraged it because they were first cousins, but Jeremy reckoned he carried a torch for her all his life.’ She gave Joanna a sidelong smile. ‘Why do you think I brought you here after your father was killed? I knew all I had to do was tug a few heartstrings and we’d have a home for life.’

  ‘I think that had more to do with Lionel’s strong sense of family than any secret passion,’ Joanna said dismissively. ‘You’re surely not suggesting he married Valentina on some kind of rebound?’

  Cynthia shrugged again, giving an irritable hitch to her slipping wrap. ‘God knows why he married her, because of all the ill-matched couples…’ She pursed her lips. ‘Can you imagine? A Roman beauty, descended from centuri
es of aristocratic decadence, buried alive in the English countryside. She must have thought she’d died and gone to hell.’

  ‘And yet they stayed together,’ Joanna objected.

  ‘By the skin of their teeth.’ Cynthia yawned, and ate another chocolate. ‘Jeremy told me they used to have the most spectacular rows—real plate-throwing, screaming jobs. You can see why Gabriel’s no angel, in spite of his name.’

  She paused, her expression soulful. ‘I think that is why poor Lionel was so scared of actual commitment for a second time. If only we’d had more time together, I might have been able to reassure him.’

  At the same time keeping a close watch for flying pigs, Joanna thought drily.

  Whatever her stepmother’s ego might suggest, Joanna herself had never seen in Lionel’s behaviour towards Cynthia anything more than a rather studied courtesy. On the other hand, the full-length portrait of his late wife still occupied pride of place on the wall of the Jacobean Room, with its big carved four-poster bed, which they’d shared during their marriage and he’d occupied until his own death.

  Cynthia directed a malicious look at her. ‘Did Gabriel ever bung any plates in your direction? No, I suppose he was far too civilised—although I often thought there was something pretty volcanic seething under that calm exterior.’

  Joanna’s lips tightened in distaste. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Cynthia laughed. ‘Oh, I’m quite sure of that, darling. Another marriage from hell,’ she added reflectively. ‘Gabriel must have cursed the day he allowed himself to be manoeuvred into it.’

  ‘Probably.’ Joanna got to her feet. ‘And soon you’ll have every opportunity to ask him about it. Although I doubt if he’ll tell you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too certain about that.’ Cynthia stretched like a cat in the big bed. ‘There’s less than six years’ difference in our ages, you know. He might welcome—a confidante.’

  There was something in her voice that stopped Joanna in her tracks.

  ‘What exactly are you saying?’ she asked slowly. ‘That having failed with the father you’re going after the son?’

  Cynthia’s blue eyes took on a steely glint. ‘Crudely put, my sweet, but not altogether inaccurate,’ she retorted. ‘God knows, I’ve got to do something. Unlike you, I can’t count on Lionel’s will to rescue me. If we’d been officially engaged it would have been very different, of course. I might have had some claim. Although I’m pretty certain he’s left me Larkspur Cottage. Certainly I dropped enough hints.’

  She paused. ‘And why should you quibble, anyway? You don’t want Gabriel, so why be a dog in the manger?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Joanna had a feeling of total unreality. ‘And please don’t let the fact that we’re still married to each other stand in your way either.’

  ‘No, I shan’t,’ Cynthia returned. ‘And neither, I suspect, will Gabriel.’

  It was all Joanna could do not to bang the bedroom door as she left.

  Her heart was hammering, and she felt oddly nauseous as she went into her own room to change for dinner.

  Gabriel and Cynthia, she thought. Cynthia and Gabriel.

  Could such a relationship exist in the realms of possibility?

  She swallowed past the sudden constriction in her throat, trying to think dispassionately about her stepmother as she reached into the wardrobe and extracted a woollen long-sleeved blouse and a plain black skirt.

  Cynthia was thirty-seven against Gabriel’s thirty-two, she thought, but she didn’t look her age. She never had. She was a regular patron of the nearby health farm, using the gym almost as much as the beauty salon. She played tennis in the summer, squash in the winter, and golf all the year round. Her clothes and make-up were always immaculate, and her blond hair skilfully highlighted.

  Superficially, at least, she was a far more obvious and decorative chatelaine for the Manor than Joanna had ever been—or ever could be, she thought, giving her straight brown hair, pale skin and clear hazel eyes a disparaging glance in the mirror.

  And Cynthia was undoubtedly a man’s woman. She wasn’t simply attractive, she had a deep, inbuilt sex appeal that announced itself in her voice, her body language and mannerisms whenever she was in male company.

  Lionel might have been resistant to her allure, but he’d been an exception. Joanna had seen sensible, responsible men become quite silly when Cynthia turned her honeyed charm on them.

  My own father, for one, she thought sadly.

  From the first, Cynthia had pursued Lionel quite single-mindedly. But what would have happened if she’d made Gabriel the object of her attentions instead? Lionel might not have approved, but would he really have raised any serious opposition to their marriage—if that had been what they both wanted?

  Gabriel never wanted me, she thought. So why not Cynthia?

  I’m divorcing him, so what can it possibly matter who he chooses—the second time around?

  And then she saw the sudden flare of colour along her cheekbones, felt the angry knock of her heart against her ribcage and the burn of anger in her eyes.

  And she knew that beyond all logic and reason, and without any doubt, it mattered a great deal.

  A realisation which terrified her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DINNER was a sombre and solitary affair. Joanna drank the vegetable soup and picked at the grilled chicken breast, conscious all the time of the empty chair at the head of the table.

  Jess and Molly, Lionel’s two retrievers, lay dejectedly in the doorway, silky golden heads pillowed in bewilderment on their paws.

  ‘Poor old girls.’ She bent to give them each a consolatory pat as she left the room. ‘No one’s been taking much notice of you, and you don’t understand any of it. Never mind, I’ll take you both up on the hill later.’

  She drank her coffee by the drawing room fire, the dogs stretched on the rug at her feet. The morning paper lay on the table beside her, still neatly folded. Usually she and Lionel would have been arguing companionably over the crossword by now, she thought, with a pang of desolation.

  She drew a sharp breath. ‘I’ve got to stop looking back,’ she whispered fiercely to herself. ‘Because that brings nothing but pain.’

  The future was something she dared not contemplate. Which left only the emptiness of the present.

  She knew she would deal with that unwelcome moment of revelation she’d experienced before dinner. It was essential to rationalise and somehow dismiss it before Gabriel came back.

  I’m in an emotional low, she told herself. I’m bound to be vulnerable—prey to all kinds of ridiculous imaginings.

  Or maybe Cynthia’s right, and I’m just a dog in the manger.

  I could live with that, she thought. But not with the possibility that Gabriel is still of importance in my life.

  Determinedly, and deliberately, she switched her attention to another of Cynthia’s bombshells—that Lionel had been affected his whole life through by his passion for Joanna’s mother. Could it be true? she wondered.

  Certainly she’d never heard him say anything that gave credence to such an idea. However tempestuous his marriage had been, she’d always believed that he’d loved Valentina Alessio. And he had never seriously contemplated putting another woman in her place—whatever Cynthia might choose to think.

  Henry Fortescue had described Mary Verne as Lionel’s favourite cousin, and that was how she still planned to regard their relationship.

  A low whine from one of the dogs reminded her that she’d promised to take them out.

  She pulled on some boots, shrugged on her waxed jacket, and wound a scarf round her neck.

  She collected a flashlight and let herself out by the side door, the dogs capering joyfully round her. They went through the garden, across the field, and onto the hill via the rickety wooden stile.

  The temperature had fallen, and a damp, icy wind was blowing, making Joanna shiver in spite of her jacket.

  Cold enough for snow, she thought
as she followed the gambolling dogs up the well-worn track.

  ‘Don’t get too excited,’ she warned them. ‘We’ll go as far as the Hermitage and then I’m turning back.’

  It was a stiff climb, and the ground was slippery and treacherous with loose stones. She was breathless when she reached the awkward huddle of rocks on the summit, and quite glad to lean her back against the largest boulder and shelter from the penetrating wind.

  The dogs were hurtling about in the dead bracken, yelping excitedly. Joanna clicked off the flashlight to save the battery, and shoved it in her pocket.

  It was a good spot for star-gazing, but tonight the sky was busy with scudding clouds.

  Joanna looked back the way she had come. The Manor lay below her in the valley. There was a light in the kitchen wing, and one from Cynthia’s bedroom, but the rest of the house was in darkness.

  A week ago it would have been ablaze with lights. Lionel had liked brightness and warmth, and had never mastered the theory that electricity switches operated in an ‘off’ position too.

  The blank windows said more plainly than anything else that the master was no longer at home.

  The wind mourned softly among the fallen stones. Local legend said that centuries before a man had come to this place and built himself a stone shelter where he could pray and do penance for his sins in complete solitude, and that the keening of the wind was the hermit weeping for his past wickedness.

  And so would I, thought Joanna, adjusting her scarf more securely. She called the dogs and they came trotting to her side. As she reached for her torch they stiffened, and she heard them growl softly.

  ‘Easy,’ she told them. ‘It’s only a sheep—or a deer.’

  They were too well-behaved to go chasing livestock, but something had clearly spooked them. Or someone, Joanna thought with sudden alarm, as she heard the rattle of a stray pebble nearby. Her fingers tightened around the unlit torch. Normally she’d expect to have the hill to herself on a night like this.

  Perhaps it was the hermit, who was said to wander across the top of the hill in robe and cowl, usually when the moon was full, she thought, her mouth twisting in self-derision.