THE air in the study was stale and cold. It was gloomy, too, with the curtains at the long windows half drawn against a February dusk.
But the girl who sat curled up in the big leather chair beside the fireplace had not switched on any of the lamps, or lit the neatly laid fire waiting in the grate.
Her only response to the chill in the room had been to spread an old velvet smoking jacket over her legs like a rug. And every so often she looked down at it, touching the worn pile gently, breathing the faint aroma of cigars that rose from it.
Impossible to think that Lionel would never wear it again. That he would never come in through that door, large, loud and unrelentingly kind, rubbing his hands together and exclaiming about the weather, his face red from tramping over the hills with the dogs, or riding out on his latest hunter.
When the new chestnut had come back yesterday without him, Sadie, his girl groom, had said dourly that sheâd warned him the horse was too fresh. But the worst theyâd expected was that Lionel had been thrown, perhaps suffered a broken collarbone.
Instead, as Dr Fraser had told them, the massive heart attack that heâd suffered had probably knocked him from the saddle. It was also, heâd added gently, the way Lionel would have wanted to go.
Joanna could accept that. Lionel had always been restless, she thought. Always active. Since his retirement as chairman of Verne Investments five years ago, heâd been forever looking for ways to fill his days. He would never have wanted to be chronically ill, perhaps bedridden, the rush and bustle heâd thrived on denied him.
But that did not make it any less of a shock for those left behind, she thought, the muscles in her throat tightening.
And the question endlessly revolving in her tired mind was, Whatâs going to happen to me now?
Because Lionelâs death had changed everything. Taken all the old certainties away with him.
Until yesterday sheâd been Joanna Verne, his daughter-in-law. The girl who ran the house for him and dealt with all the boring domestic issues he hated to be plagued with.
Twenty-four hours later she was little better than a displaced person. The estranged wife of Lionelâs son and heir, Gabriel Verne, who had spent the last two years of their inimical separation storming round the globe, building on the success of Verne Investments, turning his father and himself from the merely rich to the mega-rich.
Gabriel, who would now be coming back to claim Westroe Manor, and also to rid himself finally of the wife heâd never wanted. And her stepmother, she acknowledged wryly.
In the distance she heard the doorbell jangle, and she pushed the encumbering folds of the jacket away and got to her feet.
Sheâd asked Henry Fortescue, Lionelâs solicitor, to call, and she didnât want him to find her lurking here in the dark like this. She owed it to herselfâand to Lionelâto put a brave face on things.
She moved swiftly, rattling the curtains along their poles to exclude the last remnants of grey daylight, switching on the central pendant, and kneeling to put a match to the kindling. By the time Mr Fortescue was shown into the room by Mrs Ashby, the flames were licking at the coal and the study looked altogether more cheerful.
Henry Fortescueâs face was strained and sad. He and Lionel had been close since boyhood, she remembered sympathetically as she rose from the hearthrug, dusting her hands on her denim jeans.
He came across to her and took her hand. âJoanna, my dear. Iâm so sorryâso very sorry. I can still hardly believe it.â
âNor I.â She patted his sleeve. âIâm going to have a whisky. Will you join me?â
The surprise on his face brought a reluctant smile to her lips. She said with gentle irony, âI am old enough. And I think we could both do with one.â
âAnd Iâm sure youâre right.â He smiled back at her with an effort. âBut only a very small one, please. Iâm driving.â