Man Of Stone. PENNY JORDAN

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      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Concept Page

       About the Author

       Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Copyright

       End Page

CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SO THERE’S NO money, then; no money, no house, no anything.’

      Her stepsister’s light voice had hardened fractionally, and Sara winced as she looked up and saw a matching hardening in Cressy’s pale blue eyes.

      This was so difficult for Cressy, she acknowledged painfully. She herself had been more prepared. Her father had warned her only a few months ago about the precariousness of his financial position.

      Once a fashionable and sought-after painter, he had no illusions about himself or his talent. In the days when he had commanded large sums for his paintings, he had spent lavishly. Now those days were gone, and it seemed that even the Chelsea house had not actually been owned by him, but was on a lease from someone else.

      With his death that lease was cancelled, which meant… Which meant that from the end of the month they would all three of them be homeless, Sara recognised bleakly.

      For herself, she could perhaps have managed. Although she had always been the one to run the house, to do her father’s books and take charge of the household, she had had a secretarial training that, with a little polishing, could equip her to earn her own living. But there were other things to be taken into consideration.

      ‘So what are you going to do about Tom?’ Cressy asked her in a hard voice. ‘There’s no way I can take charge of him, and he won’t be able to stay on at school. There won’t be any money for private school fees now.’

      Tom, the eight-year-old half-brother born of the marriage between her father and Cressy’s mother. Tom, with his delicate constitution and his tendency towards asthma attacks. Tom, who, she had known since they first gave her the news of the accident, would be her responsibility.

      It was pointless wishing that Cressy was different; Cressy was Cressy.

      She looked across the kitchen at her beautiful stepsister and sighed.

      ‘I never understood why on earth my mother married your father,’ Cressy complained. ‘Mother was so beautiful. She could have married anyone.’

      By anyone, Cressy meant a man with money, and Sara neglected to point out that when they had first married her father had been comparatively wealthy. Instead, she said softly, ‘They were in love, СКАЧАТЬ