The Failed Marriage. Carole Mortimer

had ever met the man, Moira having dealt with all the details herself, he being one of those people who couldn’t stand doctors or anything to do with them. He had been given hell by his wife because he had only been able to force himself to visit her at the clinic twice in all the time she was there.

      But the mere fact that the man was in Harley Street meant he had to be in his thirties or forties at least. Maybe the man had a son with the same name that this woman was married to?

      Joanna was aware of none of James Colbrook’s curiosity about her, glancing at the gold watch on her slender wrist, picking up her clutch bag, her nails painted the same deep red as her lip-gloss. ‘I’m afraid I have a luncheon appointment,’ she told him smoothly. ‘I have to go.’

      ‘Oh, but I usually take new authors out for lunch—–’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she stood up, the high heels on her black sandals adding to her diminutive height, ‘but I do have to go. I wouldn’t want to be late for my appointment.’

      James Colnbrook stood up too, a look of exasperation on his still handsome face. Tall and dark, with an air of distinction he obviously cultivated, he wasn’t a man accustomed to being dismissed by women, especially women as beautiful as Joanna Radcliffe.

      But Joanna knew enough of tall distinguished men not to be impressed. After all, she was married to one.

      ‘When am I going to see you again?’ James demanded.

      ‘Perhaps your secretary could call me,’ she dismissed, already at the door.

      ‘But—–’

      ‘I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Mr Colnbrook. And I’ll give the idea of writing more books some thought. Goodbye.’ She left with her head held high, not seeing James Colnbrook sink dazedly back into his chair, shaking his head in bewilderment.

      Joanna nodded coolly to the secretary on the way out, easily stopping a passing taxi once she was outside to take her to the restaurant where she was lunching with her mother. No one looking at her could have guessed at the thoughts going through her beautiful head.

      She was going to have a book published! She, Joanna Proctor Radcliffe, had written a children’s book good enough to be published! After years of feeling as if she were no more than Joshua’s wife, she was at last able to claim she had done something without his help or influence. Not that there would be much money in her writing, James Colnbrook had already warned her, but just to have some sort of independence, if only an intellectual one, was something to her. And she didn’t need the money; she was married to a rich man, was rich in her own right from a legacy left to her by her grandmother several years ago. No, this feeling of accomplishment was what she needed, what she craved.

      Her mother was already seated at their table when Joanna hurried into the restaurant, several minutes late despite her hasty departure from the publisher’s office. And her mother made no secret of her dislike of unpunctuality; just her look of disapproval was enough to dispel some of Joanna’s inner elation.

      ‘Sorry I’m late, Mother.’ She glided into the seat opposite the other woman, accepting with a smile the sherry the waiter placed in front of her, her preferences being well known in this particular restaurant.

      ‘That’s all right, Joanna.’ Her mother’s voice was sharp; she was an older version of Joanna, her hair kept the same glowing blonde as her daughter’s by a gifted hairdresser she frequented, her face and body still beautiful in her forty-fifth year.

      Joanna flushed at the lack of sincerity in her mother’s voice, feeling, as she always did in her presence, like the gauche schoolgirl she had once been and not a woman who had been married for five years. ‘I was delayed at the publishers’.’ She sipped the sherry, dry, just as she liked it.

      The two women made a startling pair as they sat together, looking more like sisters than mother and daughter. Cora did everything cosmetically possible to maintain her youth, while Joanna had a maturity beyond her years.

      ‘What did he say?’ Her mother’s query was made out of politeness. Joanna refused to show any hurt caused by her mother’s obvious lack of interest, not expecting any gold medals from anyone in her family for anything she did. Her father was a prominent banker, her mother his accomplished hostess, and Joshua—well, Joshua was a success at whatever he did. Her minor achievement would be unimportant to them all. Only she would know of the new inner pride in herself.

      She shrugged coolly, accepting the menu placed in front of her. ‘They’re going to publish it.’

      ‘Really?’ her mother’s eyes widened. ‘It’s about a collie or something, isn’t it?’ she said vaguely.

      ‘A boxer,’ Joanna corrected flatly, wondering why she tortured herself with these weekly luncheons with her mother. She always ended up being hurt by her mother’s indifference to anything that happened in her life; it would have been more sensible just to have gone to the monthly Sunday visits with Joshua the only time she ever saw her father. Both her parents lived such hectic lives that they didn’t really have the time for her. They never had done; she had accepted that very early in her life. Her marriage to Joshua had been her one redeeming feature as far as they were concerned, although in the beginning even that had been heralded as a disaster. ‘Like Billy,’ she added softly.

      ‘Really, Joanna,’ her mother snapped. ‘The dog has been dead for years!’

      ‘Maybe. But I loved him.’ When she was a child her father had impulsively bought her a boxer. He had forgotten her birthday one year, and had seen the puppy in a pet-shop window on his way home, going in to buy it without considering the fact that his wife might not approve. Joanna had loved the puppy from the first, and despite shrill protests from her mother had somehow persuaded her father to let her keep him. Billy had chewed any and everything in sight, from the furniture to her mother’s shoes, and it was after finding half a dozen expensive pairs of the latter chewed beyond repair that Billy had been banished to the garden and kitchen only. Not that he seemed to mind, enjoying chasing butterflies in the summer, and falling asleep in the warmth of the kitchen in the winter. And Joanna had made no complaints either, just being relieved to be able to keep the dog.

      Billy had been her constant companion for nine years, until a mad excited dash into the road after a car had caused his sudden death. She had never forgotten him, or the unselfish love he gave her, and the character of Billy Boxer was based on him and the endearing—and often mischievous—things he did.

      Her mother gave her order for lunch, waiting while Joanna did the same before speaking again. ‘You mean a publisher is actually willing to pay you money to write about a pest of a dog?’ she derided in her haughty voice.

      ‘Yes,’ Joanna bit out resentfully.

      ‘I don’t know what the world is coming to,’ Cora shook her head. ‘What does Joshua think of all this?’

      Joanna’s mouth firmed angrily, and she looked nothing like the composed young woman who had left James Colnbrook’s office half an hour earlier. ‘He hasn’t said a lot about it,’ she mumbled.

      ‘I should think not! A man of his reputation and standing having a wife who writes children’s stories!’

      Joanna stiffened. ‘I didn’t say he disapproved of it, Mother, we just haven’t discussed it very much.’ They didn’t discuss anything any more, they were barely civil to each other!

      Her mother opened her mouth to say something, then stopped as the waiter began to serve their meal, the avocado pear deliciously ripe, the prawns nestling in its well pink and juicy.

      ‘You were saying, Mother?’ she prompted after the first mouthwatering spoonful.

      She received an irritated look. ‘Not while we’re eating, Joanna. We’ll talk later.’

      Joanna ate her meal with unhurried grace, her wrists small and delicate, her hands long and slender, seeming weighed down by the rings on her wedding finger.

      The coffee stage of