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      Philippa had stared at her brother, willing back the angry tears she could feel prickling her eyes as she swallowed down the huge swell of anger threatening to overwhelm her.

      ‘I didn’t know,’ she told him quietly.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You must have had some inkling. You were his wife. An intelligent woman, or so you’ve always claimed. You must have guessed …’

      ‘I knew he was having financial problems, but he wouldn’t discuss them with me,’ she had told him woodenly.

      ‘The whole world and his wife knew he was having financial problems. I told him months ago that there was no point in panicking the way he was doing, letting everyone know that he couldn’t hold the business together. I warned you at the time against marrying him, Philippa,’ he had added critically, while Philippa had gritted her teeth and then said as slowly and quietly as she could,

      ‘No, you didn’t, Robert. You wanted me to marry him. You said he would be a good husband for me.’

      ‘Rubbish … I never said any such thing.’ He’d given her an angry look. ‘Not that it matters now. What’s past is past, and what we have to do now is to get this whole mess cleaned up as quickly and quietly as possible.’

      ‘How?’ she had asked him.

      He had shrugged impatiently and turned his back on her, walking over to look out of the French windows. ‘Well, the bank will have to be informed, of course, if they don’t know already, and after that it’s their problem …’

      ‘Their problem …’

      He had swung round then, eyeing her irritably. ‘Oh, come on—you must have realised for yourself that the reason he killed himself was because of the business. I don’t know what the exact financial situation is, of course, and in my position I obviously can’t afford to get involved—not now. No, your best bet is to leave everything in the hands of the bank. They’ll do everything that’s necessary. Look, Philippa, there’s nothing I can do …’

      Nothing you can do, or nothing you will do? she had asked herself after he had gone and she was mentally reviewing her brother’s assets: the huge house he and Lydia owned, the château in France they had bought three years ago which he constantly boasted had now practically trebled its value, not to mention the rental money it brought in from carefully vetted holidaymakers.

      What would he have said if she had told him that it wasn’t his financial help she had actually wanted, but the help, the support, the sturdy male shoulder to lean femininely and weakly on as she had been conditioned to do since birth?

      She had grimaced at herself as she passed the hall mirror.

      What good were a pretty face and even prettier manners going to do her now?

      And from the past, an echo of a pain she had long ago told herself she had never, ever felt, never mind forgotten, had come the taunting words to haunt her.

      ‘Yes, you’re pretty, Philippa, as pretty and prettily packaged as a little doll and just as insipid and lifeless. What I want is a real woman, a woman who laughs and cries, who sweats and screams when she makes love, who is a woman who thinks and feels … a woman who isn’t afraid to be a woman, who cares more about what goes on inside her head than on her face, a woman who thinks it’s more important to nourish her intellect than her skin—in plain fact, a woman full stop, and not a pretty cut-out cardboard doll.’

      A woman who didn’t need a man to lean on and turn to … A woman who could stand alone … A woman such as she could never be … Had never been allowed to be.

      ‘So you’ll stay here at school until the end of term and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do,’ she told the boys now. She had already made up her mind that they would not attend the funeral. It was a farce to dress them up in black as her family would expect her to do, and to grieve for a father they had never really known, never mind loved.

      They were her sons, she decided fiercely, her responsibility, and she would bring them up as she thought best; if that was not the way in which her family approved …

      She saw the headmaster before she left, pleased to discover that he supported her decisions.

      She was a very pretty woman, Henry Carter reflected as he watched her go. The first time he had met her she had been with her husband and the older man had completely overshadowed her. He had thought her pretty then, but docile and slightly boring. Today she had looked different—sharper, more alert, the substance of the woman she obviously was rather than merely a shadow of her husband.

      He had never particularly liked the man and had wondered wryly if he had ever realised how much of his real personality and insecurity he betrayed to others with his hectoring manner and his need to ensure that others knew of and envied his material success.

      Small wonder that he had felt unable to face life without the support and protection of that success. Henry Carter sighed slightly to himself, he might not have particularly liked him but he would nevertheless not have wished such a fate on him.

      The recession was biting deeply into the lives of the boys and the school, with fees unpaid and pupils leaving at the end of one term and not returning at the beginning of another without any explanation. So far Andrew had been their only suicide, but there were other tragedies that went just as deep even if they were far less public.

      It occurred to him as he ushered Philippa to the door that almost as strong as his pity for her was his contempt for her late husband.

      When she reached home Philippa parked the car and climbed out tiredly. Her body ached almost as though she had flu. It was probably delayed shock, she decided distantly; the doctor had warned her to expect it, even offering to prescribe medication to help her overcome it.

      She had felt a fraud then, seeing herself through his eyes, a shocked, distraught wife abruptly made a widow by her husband’s own hand, her grief too heavy a burden for her to bear.

      She had been shocked, yes, but her grief … where was that?

      So far her emotions had been a mixture of disbelief and confusion, the woolliness with which they had clouded her brain occasionally splintered by lightning flashes of an anger so intense that she instinctively suppressed it.

      The house felt cold. She had turned off the heating this morning when she’d left, economising. She had very little idea what personal financial assets Andrew had had.

      Robert had seemed to think that she would be reasonably well provided for, but that did not allay her guilt and concern about what might happen to Andrew’s employees. According to Robert the company was virtually bankrupt.

      That was something else she would have to do: see the bank. Robert had offered to go with her but after his refusal to help her with the far more worrying problems of the company she had curtly refused his offer.

      In the kitchen she filled the kettle and plugged it in.

      The hand-built waxed and limed wooden units and the gleaming scarlet Aga had cost the earth; the large square room with its sunny aspect and solid square table should have been the perfect family environment, the heart of their home, but in reality it was simply a showpiece for Andrew’s wealth. The only time the kitchen, the house, really СКАЧАТЬ