LITMIR.BIZ

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go up and change. I’ll come down and have a cup of tea with you in the kitchen afterwards, if you don’t mind.’

      ‘Bless you, you know you’re—–’ began the housekeeper, only to break off abruptly as the door to the right of the hall opened and a burly man of medium height appeared in the aperture. Wearing a city suit, Howard Rogers, as always, was dressed to fit his role as her father’s—and now her stepmother’s—legal adviser, but Joanna uneasily retained the notion that his appearance belied the true measure of his character. She didn’t like him. She never had. And she drew back now, wishing he had not overheard their low-voiced conversation.

      ‘Joanna!’ he exclaimed heartily. ‘I thought it must be you. Marcia said you’d be out for the rest of the afternoon, but obviously she was wrong. Come in, come in. I’d like to have a word with you.’

      Giving Mrs Morris a rueful look, Joanna acknowledged his greeting and stepped past him into the library. The last thing she needed right now was to play gooseberry with him and her stepmother. Marcia would not appreciate it, and most definitely, nor would she.

      But to her surprise, the library was unoccupied, and when Howard closed the door behind them she glanced round almost apprehensively. She had never been alone with him before, and although she knew he was old enough to be her father, she felt an unwelcome sense of anxiety at the sudden glitter in his pale eyes.

      ‘I—where’s Marcia?’ she asked, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt, and Howard walked across the room to take up his stance before the fireplace. Although the house was centrally heated, her father had always kept an open fire in the library, and the solicitor put his hands behind his back to warm them at the blaze.

      ‘Marcia is getting changed,’ he replied, after positioning himself to his satisfaction. ‘I’m taking her out to dinner this evening. I thought we’d drive into the country. I know a rather attractive hotel in Sussex, with an extremely good wine cellar.’ He paused, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels and toes. ‘Wine is so important to a meal, don’t you think so, Joanna? Food is a necessity, but wine adds that something extra, the gilding on the gingerbread, so to speak.’

      ‘Er—what did you want to talk to me about, Mr Rogers?’ enquired Joanna, blinking rather owlishly behind her tortoiseshell rims. She had no wish to prolong this conversation, and she didn’t like the way Howard was acting. As if this was his home, and she was the visitor.

      ‘There’s no hurry,’ averred Howard smoothly. ‘Marcia will be ages yet—you know what she’s like. It will take her half an hour to decide what dress she’s going to wear.’

      Joanna expelled her breath resignedly. ‘Mr Rogers—–’

      ‘Howard. Why don’t you call me Howard?’ he suggested jovially. ‘After all, we’re friends, aren’t we? And you’re not a little girl any more, Joanna. By no means, no. You’re quite a young lady. How old are you now? Seventeen? Eighteen?’

      ‘I’m nineteen, and I think you know that, Mr Rogers,’ responded Joanna tautly. ‘Please, get to the point. I—er—I’m going out this evening myself.’

      ‘Are you?’ Howard’s reddish-grey brows arched. ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ retorted Joanna with some heat. ‘Mr Rogers—–’

      ‘Oh, very well.’ His thin mouth tightened. ‘If you will persist in this childishness, I have no option but to treat you as one. Marcia—Marcia and I—your stepmother and I, that is—–’ Joanna’s nerves jangled, ‘—Marcia and I are going to get married.’

       ‘To get married!’

      If there had been a chair behind her, Joanna would have sank into it, but there wasn’t, and she stood there on legs that threatened any moment to give out on her, staring at him as if he had pointed a gun at her head.

      ‘Don’t look so horrified.’ Howard shifted a little uncomfortably nevertheless. ‘It shouldn’t come as such a shock to you. You must have realised that Marcia and I were—well, close friends at least?’

      Joanna shook her head. She couldn’t speak. She felt as if her throat had closed up, and she stood there like an automaton, frozen in an attitude of dumb disbelief.

      ‘For goodness’ sake!’ Howard’s initial sense of discomfort gave way to a cajoling impatience. ‘Don’t look like that, Joanna, or I shall begin to think you don’t like me, and I know that’s not true.’ He stepped diffidently across the floor towards her, halting in front of her and looking encouragingly into her pale stunned features. Because he was not a tall man, they were almost on eye-level terms, and she longed to shrink away from that fawning insincerity. ‘Joanna,’ he said, wheedlingly, ‘this isn’t like you. This isn’t like my pretty little girl.’ He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of dark hair back from her forehead. ‘Such a lovely girl,’ he breathed, his voice thickening. ‘If your father had just been a little less besotted—–’

      ‘Don’t touch me!’ With an abrupt movement, Joanna recoiled from the pudgy hand that lightly grazed her cheek, and Howard’s expression hardened as she shuddered in distaste.

      ‘There’s no need for that, Joanna,’ he declared harshly. ‘I should watch my step if I were you. It’s only through my good offices that you’re still here, in this house. Marcia would have cast you out long ago. Only I persuaded her that you weren’t ready, that you needed time—–’

      ‘—that it wouldn’t look good for my father’s widow to throw out his only daughter within weeks of his funeral!’ snapped Joanna in disgust. ‘Don’t pretend you had any real thought for my feelings.’

      ‘You’re wrong, Joanna.’ Howard clenched his fists angrily. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have been working in some shop or café by now, slogging your guts out all day, and dragging yourself home to some sleazy bedsitter! As it is—–’

      ‘As it is, I’m to be thrown out now, is that it?’

      ‘No.’ Howard took another step towards her. ‘Not if you play your cards right.’

      ‘Not if I play my cards right?’ Joanna stood her ground, staring at him distrustfully. ‘What is that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?’

      ‘I’m talking about art school, that’s what I’m talking about,’ exclaimed Howard triumphantly. ‘That is what you want to do, isn’t it? Go to art school?’

      ‘Well—yes—–’

      ‘Very well, then,’ Howard hesitated a moment, before putting his hot fingers beneath her chin and tilting her face to his. ‘If you stop treating me like a leper, I’ll promise to put in a good word for you. Between us, we should be able to persuade Marcia—–’

      Joanna was appalled, but she forced herself to remain motionless as his thumb rubbed insinuatingly along her jawline. Dear Heaven, her thoughts raced, what was he suggesting? That she should allow him to—to—– Her mind baulked at the obvious conclusion, but her spirits rose again at the thought of what Marcia would say when she told her the truth—–

      ‘I mean,’ Howard was going on, his whisky-scented breath fanning her cheek, ‘you know that if your father had made you his heir—–’

      The sound of the handle of the door being turned effected the reaction Joanna was about to make. It caused Howard to step abruptly away from her, and by the time Marcia Holland came into the room, he was back in his position before the fire, apparently conducting a casual exchange with her stepdaughter.

      Marcia Holland was small and blonde and petite, the exact antithesis of Joanna. Having seen pictures of her own mother, Joanna had sometimes wondered whether Andrew Holland had married Marcia because she was the absolute opposite of what his first wife had been. Joanna’s mother had been an extremely capable woman. Marcia appeared not. She behaved the way men expected a woman like her

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