Marriage at a Distance by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page B

looking very pale, my dear,’ said the wife of the local MP. ‘I’ve told that charming husband of yours that he should take you away for some winter sun. A second honeymoon, perhaps,’ she added archly.
    Joanna, encountering a sardonic look from Gabriel standing only a few feet away, coloured to the roots of her hair and muttered something disjointed.
    People were beginning to drift away, and while Gabriel was outside on the drive saying a few last goodbyes Joanna took the opportunity to go up to her room.
    One more ordeal—the reading of the will—to be faced, and then she could get on with her life, she thought, picking up a comb and running it through her hair.
    Mrs MP, however out of touch with a particular local situation she might be, had nevertheless been right about one thing.
    Joanna did indeed look pale. And subdued, and drab and totally unexciting in her cream lambswool polo-neck sweater and pleated navy skirt, she added silently, pulling a face at her reflection. Although her uninteresting appearance was probably no bad thing, under the circumstances.
    She didn’t want to be noticed, she reminded herself. She wanted to fade into the background and then disappear altogether and without trace.
    Now she lingered at the window, reluctant to return downstairs, even though she knew Henry Fortescue would have been buttonholed by Cynthia by now, and be looking for rescue.
    It had snowed overnight, and a faint powdering still touched the top fields with white. The sky was unremittingly grey, and the whole landscape looked bleak and frozen.
    Like me, she thought ironically. But the weather suits the day. Brilliant sunshine wouldn’t have been appropriate at all.
    With a sigh, she turned away from the starkness of winter and surveyed her room instead.
    She’d started to pack up some of her more serviceable things, sorting them from the smart clothes and cocktail wear, which could go to the local charity shop, and putting them in the old suitcase which she’d arrived with all those years ago. Not in the matched luggage which had accompanied her on honeymoon, she thought, swallowing. That would stay behind with her jewellery, already collected together in its leather case. Only her wedding ring remained, but that was purely temporary.
    And she’d been through the classified ads in the county newspaper, looking for possible posts as resident housekeeper, and had written to several of the most likely. If all went well, she could be gone within the week.
    But she would miss this room, and the refuge it had provided for so long. Not least in the past two years.
    She would probably miss the Manor itself, although it had already begun to change. With Lionel there had always been noise—raised jovial voices, laughter, dogs barking.
    Now the place hummed with a quieter, different kind of energy, as if a powerful dynamo had been switched on. There was a new vibrancy—an edge in the atmosphere.
    Lionel’s study was now unrecognisable. The day after Gabriel’s return, a large van had brought a computer and every electronic aid to communication known to the mind of man. The old desk had been sidelined, and in its place was a vast modern affair, bristling with equipment and reminiscent of Mission Control, Houston.
    Clearly Gabriel planned to use the Manor as an extension of his office.
    So, he won’t be using pressure of work as an excuse to stay away in future, Joanna thought. Perhaps the freedom to do exactly what he wants when he wants isn’t quite so important to him any more.
    He had taken total control of the house—and only once had she seen that control slip. She had been on her way to bed the previous night when she’d noticed a light in Lionel’s room. She’d walked down the passage and through the open door, had seen Gabriel on his knees beside his father’s bed, his head buried in his folded arms, his whole body shaking…
    For a moment every instinct she possessed had urged her to go to him and comfort