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No one else could overhear the remark because Saul had his back to the room and she was almost through the door.

‘Yes,’ she agreed curtly. ‘It belonged to my mother and she willed it to me.’

There! Let him make what he liked of that!

The remainder of the meal passed all too slowly for Lucy. She was aware of Saul and Fanny conversing, but made no attempt to take part in their conversation. Saul praised the salmon and its accompanying sauce, looking at her this time, but she made no response. His remark about the furniture still hurt. Hurt? She examined the word covertly. Why should she feel hurt? Anger would be far more appropriate.

‘Do you see much of Neville these days?’

The unexpected question caught her off guard and, remembering how she and Neville had treated him that summer, she coloured a little.

‘Oh Neville’s a regular visitor,’ Fanny answered for her, giving her a teasing smile. ‘Although she always denies it I suspect Lucy has a soft spot for him. Of course he’s a very popular young man, more so since he’s taken over his father’s position in the business. Did you know about his connection with Holker’s, the publishers? He was most helpful to Lucy with her book, wasn’t he darling?’

Lucy felt her spirits plummet. It was all too easy to guess at the conclusions Saul had arrived at from Fanny’s artless speech.

‘It was my uncle who recommended Bennett’s to me, not Neville,’ she reminded her stepmother. ‘We don’t see quite so much of Neville as we once did.’ she added, looking directly at Saul, ‘but he does come down occasionally.’

He ignored her last statement to comment, with what she was sure was faked admiration, ‘So you’re writing a book. I’m most impressed Lucy. What’s it about?’

As though he, too, had sensed the derision behind the surface pleasantry of the words, Oliver answered for her.

‘It’s all about the Martin family … And Lucy spends hours in the library reading all about them. It’s going to be really good when it’s finished.’

Fanny laughed indulgently. ‘Really, Oliver darling. He quite dotes on Lucy,’ she told Saul over the latter’s head. ‘Sometimes I feel quite jealous. But then of course the children have been spending so much time with her recently. And then of course, living here … in her house.’

There was a sudden silence while Lucy gazed incredulously at her stepmother. Did Fanny resent the fact that the Dower House had been left to her?

She frowned, shocked by the thought, swiftly banishing it. It was because Saul was here that she was having these unfair thoughts.

‘Tell me more about this book of yours.’

Saul’s question caught her off guard, a faint frown pleating her forehead as she looked at him.

‘There isn’t very much to tell really. I’ve finished the draft of the first book, and I’m due to go to London next week to discuss it with the publishers.’

‘Mmm. What is it exactly? A history of the Martin family?’

‘No … not really, although I have used family papers and diaries as a background. It’s a fiction work not a factual one, but by using the family documents I’ve been able to give it a strongly factual framework.’

He was looking at her in rather an odd way and rather belatedly Lucy realised that she had betrayed herself into her usual enthusiasm for her project. Instilling some of her earlier coldness into her voice she added, ‘Of course, if you would rather that I don’t use the library at the Manor from now on I shall understand.’

‘Magnanimous of you.’

His dry tone made her flush as she realised how easily the cool voice she had used as a defence could be misconstrued as being rather haughty and supercilious.

She remembered now, too, how she and Neville had mocked his American accent, so different from their own British accents. How silly she had been to think it would be easy to wipe out the slights of the past. It was plain to her now that Saul felt nothing but contempt for her, and would doubtless laugh in her face if she were to attempt to apologise.

All in all she was extremely glad when he stood up and said that he had to leave.

‘I have to go into Winchester to see the solicitors; apparently there’s still a few loose ends to tie up.’

His smile when he left was for Fanny, not her, and it amazed her to realise how much that hurt.

CHAPTER THREE (#u62d09216-3d05-5c49-ae5d-26804c4ed1b1)

FOR the rest of the week Lucy took care to avoid going anywhere near the main house and was rewarded by seeing nothing of Saul.

Tara had seen him, though, and the little girl appeared to have developed a rather unlikely case of hero-worship for him. George Martin had not been the sort of man to cherish his daughters and the feeling of desolation that bloomed inside her whenever Tara peppered her conversation with ‘Saul said …’ was an extremely disturbing one. Surely she couldn’t be jealous? And if so, what of? The fact that Tara seemed to be transferring some of her dependence from her to Saul? Or the fact that Tara had found the solid male refuge a tiny part of herself had always secretly yearned for and been denied? It was impossible to give herself an answer.

Saul had been living at the house for five days when Fanny announced that she was spending the day in Winchester.

Lucy looked at her over her coffee cup. Both children had finished breakfast and were outside playing.

‘Do you want to take my car?’

Fanny shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right. Saul’s taking me.’

Slowly Lucy lowered her coffee cup, keeping her attention on it. As far as she was aware, Saul had not been down to the Dower House since that first visit, which must mean that Fanny had gone to see him. But without mentioning it to her?

Silly to feel hurt and yet she did. She and Fanny had always got on well together despite their very different temperaments, and never in a thousand years could she imagine Fanny deliberately deceiving her.

‘I wanted to talk to him about the children’s trusts.’

Numbly Lucy realised how defensive her stepmother sounded.

‘After all, Saul is the head of the family now, Lucy.’

The head of the family? What on earth was Fanny implying? Lucy knew how muddle-headed she could be, but surely she could not possibly believe that Saul owed them that sort of responsibility?

‘He was very kind and understanding,’ Fanny added. ‘And he’s taking me to see Mr Patterson, so that he can explain everything to me.’

‘But Fanny, he already has.’

Philip Patterson, the family solicitor, had visited them on several occasions, just before and then after George Martin’s death to explain at length the ramifications of his will and the trust he had set up for Oliver and Tara.

‘Yes, but he spoke to you, not me,’ Fanny said stubbornly.

Lucy frowned. ‘But Fanny, you were there with me …’

Across the table Fanny shrugged petulantly.

‘Well yes. But I was so upset about your father. I couldn’t take any of it in.’

There was a small silence while Lucy tried to assimilate her feeling of alienation and then Fanny said defiantly, ‘I know you don’t like Saul, Lucy, and that you resent him taking your father’s place, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to share your feelings.’

The unfairness of the criticism really hurt. So much so that for one awful moment she almost thought she might burst into tears. It was the unexpected direction from which the blow came rather than its weight, she told herself as she struggled to suppress the bleak desolation enveloping her. And Fanny was wrong; she did not dislike Saul.

‘Luckily Saul’s aware of how you feel about him. He told me he found you very anti when he came over that summer. I explained to him that it was quite natural really … what with you being aware that you couldn’t inherit and that he would. It was bound to make you resent him.’