Marriage At A Distance. Sara Craven

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.