Power of a Woman by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

only if she is enrolled at Oxford.
    It seemed to Stevie at that precise moment that a load had been lifted from her shoulders. Just Power of a Woman / 57
    making the decision was a blessed relief. The tight pain in her chest, which had been like a steel band since four o’clock that morning, was beginning to ease at last.

4
    N O MATTER HOW BUSY SHE WAS, STEVIE ALWAYS
    found time at some point each day to write in her daily journal. And so that morning, while she waited for her mother, Derek, and Miles to arrive, she opened her current diary and wrote: Thanksgiving Day 1996: Connecticut , then sat staring at the page, lost in her thoughts.
    She had kept a journal for years, most of her life, and there were volumes of them locked away in a cupboard at the other side of the upstairs study, where she now sat at the desk.
    Thirty-four years had been recorded in them since her mother had presented her with her first diary when she was twelve. That had been in 1962. It seemed very far away now; so much had happened to her in the intervening years. She had lived a lifetime and then some, or so it seemed to her.
    Her first diary had had its own little lock and 60 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    key and it had withstood the test of time very well; she had looked at it recently and been amazed that it had weathered the years so well. The paper was a bit yellowed at the edges, the ink faded on some pages, but that was the only damage, if you could even call it that.
    On the whole, a miracle of preservation, Stevie thought, and put down her pen, sat back in the chair, her thoughts turning to her mother, who had also kept a diary most of her life. They had always been close, had had a symbiotic relationship when she was a child. Her father, Jerome Anderson, had not been the right husband for Blair, nor had he been a very good father, and this had brought her and her mother even closer together.
    Newspaperman, ladies’ man, bon vivant, and man-about-town, Jerry had not been cut out for family life, and that was exactly what her mother had craved. Beautiful, glamorous, international supermodel Blair Connors had wanted only to be a wife and mother. She was the success she was because of her face and figure, the way she dominated the catwalk and made love to the camera. It was certainly not because of drive or ambition. Even at the height of her career she had wanted to stay at home and cook, raise children, be a housewife, a mother, and a good wife to the right man. Domest-icity was her idea of bliss.
    Derek Rayner, English classical actor par excellence, handsome matinee idol and movie Power of a Woman / 61
    star, had seemed such an unlikely candidate for the role Blair had cast him in all those years ago. The wrong man, as far as Blair’s friends were concerned.
    But as it happened, he had been the right man, the perfect choice, the perfect mate. Blair and Derek had been married for over thirty years and still adored each other. Their only disappointment was that they had not had any children of their own. Perhaps that was one of the reasons they were inseparable, and Derek never went anywhere without his beautiful and accomplished wife.
    Stevie was relieved they were coming to spend Thanksgiving with her. On the phone yesterday her mother had sounded worn out, which was unusual for her. She had mentioned that Derek was exhausted after twelve weeks on location making a movie in Arizona, then looping at the studio in Los Angeles. The film assignment had come right on top of his long run in the Broadway revival of Becket .
    According to her mother, it was now essential that he get a good rest.
    “No more work for a while,” Blair had said. “He’s really looking forward to the long weekend with you, Stevie, before we fly back to London next week,” her mother had added, and Stevie was determined to make it a wonderful few days. She wanted her mother and Derek to have the great luxury of peace and quiet in comfortable surround-ings, with