As the driver drew up outside Kyle House in Berkeley Square, she felt that, whatever the difficulties that lay ahead, nothing could be worse than all that she had endured these past months since her father had remarried.
Looking back, she recalled how she had thought at first that by being subservient to Isobel and apologising for the deficiencies that her stepmother found in everything she did and said, she could somehow change her attitude.
Then, as she realised that every time Isobel looked at her she hated her more and more, she knew that the best thing she could do was to keep out of her way and try to be invisible in her own home.
But of course it was impossible.
She felt at times as if Isobel’s dislike of her was eating into her like a canker, and was poisoning the very air she
