impatiently. What did it matter? There was no one to care how she looked here, of that she had few doubts. Lucy was accepting her because of Emma, and Robert …
A sliver of apprehension caused an involuntary shudder. She would not think of the past. She would think only of the present. And to hell with the rest.
She rose from the dressing-table stool and smoothed the skirt of the one and only evening dress she had carried with her, a slim-fitting gown of dark blue crepe jersey, that brushed her ankles and accentuated her excessive fairness and slenderness of figure. Her hair she wore as she always wore it, straight as a silver curtain about her shoulders.
When she was satisfied that there was no improvement she could make she emerged from her room and walked slowly along the panelled hall to the double doors of the lounge. A faint odour of continental coffee pervaded the air, and she sniffed appreciatively. She was not hungry, she had eaten little of Halbird’s spread at teatime, but she did enjoy good coffee.
Lamps illuminated the lounge, giving a curiously intimate atmosphere to a room that could never be described as such. And yet it was warm and comfortable, and deserted at the moment.
Julie closed the doors behind her and walked across to the plate glass windows. Venetian blinds had been let down and through them she could see the panorama of the city glittering with a myriad lights below her. And yet for all that they were in the heart of the city, it was silent up here, silent and isolated, and remote like the cabin of an airliner. One could not fail to get an inflated feeling of one’s own importance living here, thought Julie ruefully.
She was startled into awareness by the closing of the door and swinging round to face Robert Pemberton she paused to wonder how long he had been standing there, watching her. He was not wearing a dinner jacket but had shed the informal suede for a charcoal grey lounge suite that fitted his lean body closely, accentuating the length of his legs and the hard muscles beneath the rippling material. From the dampness of his hair, she guessed he had recently stepped out of the shower.
His gaze flickered over her for a moment, taking in the fragility of her appearance, and then with a casual movement of his shoulders he walked across to where an opened cabinet displayed an assortment of bottles.
‘What will you drink?’ he inquired, turning his back on her and uncorking the whisky bottle, scooping ice out of its container, chinking it into a glass.
Julie took a deep breath. ‘Gin and tonic, please,’ she replied, taking care that her voice should reveal none of her thoughts.
Robert made the drink and turning walked across to hand it to her. As he did so Julie caught his gaze, and taking the initiative, she said: ‘Are you going to tell me now why we’ve been brought here?’
Robert hesitated, rubbing his palms together where the condensation on the chilled glass had dampened them. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked briefly. ‘I can assure you my motives were purely unselfish ones.’
‘What sam I supposed to gather from that remark?’
‘What I say. My mother is incapable of accommodating you. Naturally as Michael’s widow you are welcome here.’
‘You don’t sound very welcoming.’ Julie sipped her drink to hide her nervousness.
‘Don’t I?’ Robert made an indifferent gesture. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re not sorry at all!’ Julie burst out, and then regretted it. Taking another trembling breath, she hastened on: ‘What I can’t understand is why your mother should have written and offered Emma and me a home now that – now that she’s alone, and not really mean it.’
‘Would you have come if you’d known it was I who was offering you a home?’ inquired Robert coldly.
Julie pressed her lips together. ‘Of course not.’
‘There you are, then.’ Robert turned away to get his own drink and Julie gave a helpless gasp.
‘You mean I was brought here under false pretences?’
‘Stop being dramatic, Julie. It was necessary that you should be brought back here. This was the only way.’
Julie was indignant. ‘But why was it necessary? I – your mother never wanted me when – when Michael was alive. Why should she want me now that Michael is dead?’
Robert swallowed half his whisky at a gulp and then looked at her again. ‘My mother is changing for dinner. We don’t have much time. I want you to tell me what happened – before she comes back.’
‘About Michael’s death, you mean?’
‘Naturally.’
Julie bent her head. ‘Why naturally? You haven’t shown much interest up until now.’
Robert uttered an expletive. ‘I don’t want to waste time arguing with you, Julie. Just tell me the facts. I could hardly discuss this in front of Emma, could I? And my mother’s too emotional about it for us to have a coherent conversation in front of her.’
Julie looked up indignantly. ‘And I’m not emotional, of course. He – he was my husband, that’s all!’
Robert reached for a cigar from a box on a low table, lighting it with suppressed violence. She could see it in the hardening of his facial muscles, in the grim way his teeth held the cigar, in the impatient flick of the table lighter.
‘What do you want me to say, Julie?’ he asked, straightening. ‘Do you want to hear platitudes from me? I think not. We’d both know they were not sincere. But I did love my brother, whatever you may think, and I want to know about his death. Now – will you tell me?’
Julie turned her back on him. She couldn’t bear to look at him while she spoke about something that was still painful to her.
‘You – you had the doctor’s reports,’ she said tightly. ‘You didn’t come to see him.’
‘No. A fact I bitterly regret.’ His voice was harsh.
‘Do you?’ Julie sounded sceptical, but she didn’t pursue it. ‘Well, I don’t know what more you want to hear. I didn’t know about the first attack, if that’s of any interest to you. Michael forced the doctor to keep the truth to himself. I thought he was overworked, tired. I never suspected the heat was affecting his heart. He had put on weight, of course. He drank quite a lot, but then so did everybody. In any event, I don’t believe Michael took it really seriously himself. But when the second attack came, so soon after the first, he hadn’t the strength to fight it …’ She broke off, fighting back the emotionalism that threatened to overwhelm her. Michael had been such a young man, a good man; he had not deserved to die.
‘I see.’ She heard Robert move and pour himself another drink. ‘Was he in much pain, before he died, I mean?’
Julie shook her head. ‘Oh, no. The drugs they prescribed kept him more or less comatose. Sometimes he didn’t even recognize me. But I think he guessed it was hopeless.’
‘You should have sent for me.’ Robert’s voice was abrupt. ‘You knew I would have come if I had known – if I had guessed—’
Julie looked unseeingly through the slats of the venetian blind. ‘He
