Marriage Reclaimed: Marriage at a Distance / Marriage Under Suspicion / The Marriage Truce

‘I’m glad you said that.’ While they’d been talking she’d managed to work her ring off her finger. She held it out to him. ‘I’ll return this to you now. I’m sure you can find a good use for it.’

She saw something flare briefly in his eyes, then vanish.

He said silkily, ‘I came across Dad’s old riding crop yesterday. I could find an even better use for that. Don’t push me too hard, Joanna.’

The silence between them, the space that divided them, crackled with sudden tension.

Joanna bit her lip. ‘Careful, Gabriel. That famous charm of yours seems to be slipping.’

‘I never remember it cutting much ice with you anyway, darling.’ The endearment was almost an insult. ‘Now, put the ring back on and come downstairs. Be a brave girl for just a little longer,’ he added derisively.

Shaking with anger, she hesitated, then thrust the ring into her skirt pocket and followed him down to the hall.

Outside the drawing room door, she halted. ‘There’s something I need to ask you.’

‘Yes?’ He spoke with thinly veiled impatience.

‘The letter I left for you. Did you find it?’

He nodded. ‘Found it and read it.’

‘So—what did you think?’

He shrugged. ‘That what it lacked in style it made up for in content.’

She hung onto her temper. ‘That was not what I meant, and you know it. I asked you for a quick, no-fault divorce. I’d appreciate an answer.’

‘Yes or no? Right here and now?’ His brow lifted.

‘Please. If it’s not too much trouble,’ she added icily.

‘Not at all.’ He was silent for a moment, observing her flushed face, the mutinous tilt of her chin. ‘The answer’s yes, Joanna. You can have your divorce. And the sooner the better. We’ll discuss the details later.’

As her lips parted in shock, he took her arm and propelled her into the drawing room.

She felt suddenly blank, emptied of all emotion. But why should she feel like that? After all, she’d got exactly what she wanted—what she needed. And she should be jubilant. Or as jubilant as the present circumstances allowed, she amended hurriedly.

She saw Cynthia’s sidelong glance as they passed, and had to repress a malicious impulse to give her a ‘thumbs-up’.

Apart from her stepmother, and Henry Fortescue, the room was occupied by Mrs Ashby with her husband Tom, who was the head gardener, Graham Welch, the estate manager, Sadie, the groom, and the rest of the staff.

Joanna wanted to shout her freedom aloud, but common sense told her this was neither the time nor the place. For the next half-hour at least she would continue to play her designated role.

But then we’ll see, she thought.

Teeth gritted, she allowed herself to be taken to a chair, managing not to flinch as Gabriel perched himself beside her on its arm, his hand resting on her shoulder in apparent solicitude.

Henry Fortescue did not waste time on lengthy explanations. The bulk of Lionel’s estate, he said, went to Gabriel, but there were a few personal bequests, and he would begin with the smaller ones.

Every member of staff, right down to Mrs Kemp, who came in to clean, had been remembered with characteristic generosity.

‘To Cynthia Elcott,’ read Mr Fortescue, ‘I bequeath the Victorian oil painting known as Low Tide, which she always admired.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Joanna saw her stepmother smile complacently and wait to hear the rest of her good fortune.

But that, apparently, was it. Because Mr Fortescue had moved on. ‘And to my beloved daughter-in-law, Joanna Catherine Verne, I leave the detached house in Meadow Lane, Westroe, known as Larkspur Cottage.’

Joanna heard Cynthia’s gasp of fury, but her attention was fixed almost painfully on the solicitor, who was telling her that Lionel had also arranged for an annuity of fifty thousand pounds a year to be paid to her.

Tears stung her eyes, and her throat closed. She thought, Thank God. I can sell the cottage and move as far away as I want. I could even live abroad. Darling Lionel. He did understand.

But Mr Fortescue hadn’t finished yet.

‘Both these bequests are conditional on the said Joanna Catherine Verne remaining married to my son Gabriel Verne,’ his even voice went on. ‘And residing with him at Westroe Manor for a year and a day from the reading of this will.’

The silence which followed was absolute. Joanna could feel all the faces in the room turned towards her, could sense the discreet surprise, Cynthia’s narrowed eyes, and, above all, Gabriel’s fingers tightening like a vice on her shoulder.

She wanted to cry out—no—but her throat refused to utter the sound.

She stared at Mr Fortescue, her eyes pleading with him to say it was all a sick joke. That Lionel couldn’t have imposed such a cruel—such an unworkable restriction on her.

But the lawyer’s tall figure seemed to be receding, becoming smaller in some strange way, as if she was looking down the wrong end of a telescope.

She tried feebly to wrench away from Gabriel’s hold and follow Henry Fortescue—appeal to him—but suddenly there was only darkness, and she fell forward into it.

A voice was saying her name insistently, over and over again. A voice she didn’t want to hear, that made her moan feebly in rejection.

She opened unwilling eyes and found herself stretched out on one of the sofas. Gabriel was sitting on its edge, facing her, holding a glass of water.

‘What happened?’ She struggled to sit up, looking round the deserted room. ‘Where is everybody?’

‘I sent them away when you fainted.’ His tone was matter-of-fact.

‘Fainted?’ she echoed. ‘But I’ve never fainted in my life.’

‘There’s always a first time for everything.’ He paused. ‘Now, lie still, and drink some of this.’ He held the glass to her lips, and Joanna forced herself to swallow.

‘Everyone was very understanding,’ he went on silkily. ‘They all realise what terrible stress you’ve been under all week.’

Her head was swimming unpleasantly, and she leaned back against the cushions, closing her eyes.

She said wearily, ‘They don’t know the half of it.’

She felt vaguely nauseous, and made herself drink some more water.

At last she ventured to look at Gabriel. His face was expressionless, the tawny eyes hooded and meditative.

She said, ‘I—I’m sorry for behaving so stupidly. It was just such a shock.’ She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe that Lionel would do something like that to me.’