Marriage at a Distance Read Online Free PDF Page B

conscious all the time of the empty chair at the head of the table.
    Jess and Molly, Lionel’s two retrievers, lay dejectedly in the doorway, silky golden heads pillowed in bewilderment on their paws.
    ‘Poor old girls.’ She bent to give them each a consolatory pat as she left the room. ‘No one’s been taking much notice of you, and you don’t understand any of it. Never mind, I’ll take you both up on the hill later.’
    She drank her coffee by the drawing room fire, the dogs stretched on the rug at her feet. The morning paper lay on the table beside her, still neatly folded. Usually she and Lionel would have been arguing companionably over the crossword by now, she thought, with a pang of desolation.
    She drew a sharp breath. ‘I’ve got to stop looking back,’ she whispered fiercely to herself. ‘Because that brings nothing but pain.’
    The future was something she dared not contemplate. Which left only the emptiness of the present.
    She knew she would deal with that unwelcome moment of revelation she’d experienced before dinner. It was essential to rationalise and somehow dismiss it before Gabriel came back.
    I’m in an emotional low, she told herself. I’m bound to be vulnerable—prey to all kinds of ridiculous imaginings.
    Or maybe Cynthia’s right, and I’m just a dog in the manger.
    I could live with that, she thought. But not with the possibility that Gabriel is still of importance in my life.
    Determinedly, and deliberately, she switched her attention to another of Cynthia’s bombshells—that Lionel had been affected his whole life through by his passion for Joanna’s mother. Could it be true? she wondered.
    Certainly she’d never heard him say anything that gave credence to such an idea. However tempestuous his marriage had been, she’d always believed that he’d loved Valentina Alessio. And he had never seriously contemplated putting another woman in her place—whatever Cynthia might choose to think.
    Henry Fortescue had described Mary Verne as Lionel’s favourite cousin, and that was how she still planned to regard their relationship.
    A low whine from one of the dogs reminded her that she’d promised to take them out.
    She pulled on some boots, shrugged on her waxed jacket, and wound a scarf round her neck.
    She collected a flashlight and let herself out by the side door, the dogs capering joyfully round her. They went through the garden, across the field, and onto the hill via the rickety wooden stile.
    The temperature had fallen, and a damp, icy wind was blowing, making Joanna shiver in spite of her jacket.
    Cold enough for snow, she thought as she followed the gambolling dogs up the well-worn track.
    ‘Don’t get too excited,’ she warned them. ‘We’ll go as far as the Hermitage and then I’m turning back.’
    It was a stiff climb, and the ground was slippery and treacherous with loose stones. She was breathless when she reached the awkward huddle of rocks on the summit, and quite glad to lean her back against the largest boulder and shelter from the penetrating wind.
    The dogs were hurtling about in the dead bracken, yelping excitedly. Joanna clicked off the flashlight to save the battery, and shoved it in her pocket.
    It was a good spot for star-gazing, but tonight the sky was busy with scudding clouds.
    Joanna looked back the way she had come. The Manor lay below her in the valley. There was a light in the kitchen wing, and one from Cynthia’s bedroom, but the rest of the house was in darkness.
    A week ago it would have been ablaze with lights. Lionel had liked brightness and warmth, and had never mastered the theory that electricity switches operated in an ‘off’ position too.
    The blank windows said more plainly than anything else that the master was no longer at home.
    The wind mourned softly among the fallen stones. Local legend said that centuries before a man had come to this place and built himself a stone shelter where he could pray and do penance for his