She didn’t offer him tea or coffee. Not at first. Instead she stood in silence, regarding him with a frosty stare as he emptied his bag on to the table. She waited until he sat down and began methodically arranging the papers in front of him before blurting out the real purpose of the meeting:
‘Stephen, I know that something was worrying Charlie before he died, something to do with the business and my family. And I want you to tell me what it was.’
He looked up at her in alarm. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Joyce.’
‘I think you have, Stephen,’ said Joyce, calling his bluff. ‘You were Charlie’s best and oldest friend. You worked together. In any case, Charlie made it clear in his letter that something was troubling him and that you knew all about it.’
She saw his eyes flicker, she was sure of it.
‘Well, there you have the advantage of me, Joyce,’ he said. ‘I have no idea what was in Charlie’s letter. And I find it hard to believe that he had any worries about the business. Charlie was a happy and successful man. He enjoyed his work. He had you and the kids. And he had all this.’
Stephen waved both arms as if trying to encompass the whole of Charlie Mildmay’s world.
‘You must have noticed his moods, for God’s sake,’ said Joyce.
‘Well, yes, he had black days, but don’t we all,’ said Stephen. ‘Pressure of work and all that.’
‘You seriously expect me to believe it was nothing more than that?’ asked Joyce.
Stephen shrugged. ‘What else could there be? Charlie had everything. He loved his family. He had no financial worries. He had a great life.’
‘Yes, and all of it provided by my father,’ Joyce said bitterly. ‘Perhaps it all came with a price tag, and the price was more than Charlie could stomach.’
Stephen looked even more alarmed.
‘Joyce dear, it’s understandable that you’re upset. But I think you’re imagining things.’
‘Don’t you dare patronize me!’ Joyce snapped. ‘I have a letter from my dead husband which makes it clear that I’m not imagining anything. It’s more a case of my eyes having been closed until now, isn’t it?’
‘Joyce, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Look, why don’t you show me the letter? Then perhaps I can help. I’m totally in the dark here.’
‘Are you sure you need to be shown the letter?’ said Joyce. ‘Are you sure you haven’t read it already?’
‘Joyce, what sort of a man do you think I am?’ asked Stephen, aghast. ‘Do you really think I would read a personal letter between a man — and not any man but, as you say, my best friend — and his wife? Do you think I would do that?’
‘You were prepared to shag his wife though, weren’t you?’
‘His widow,’ countered Stephen, his brows puckered into a hurt frown. ‘I would never have acted upon my feelings for you while Charlie was alive, even though I never stopped wanting—’
‘Shut up, Stephen!’ Joyce was aware that she was being hard on him. It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. If anything, she’d been the one who made the first move. But she somehow couldn’t stop herself venting her anger at him.
‘I want to know about the letter,’ she persisted. ‘Why did it take six months to get to me. Why was that?’
‘Oh, Joyce, it got misfiled, that’s all. It should have been in with our copy of the will but it got put somewhere else. Janet’s a first-rate PA, but even she makes mistakes sometimes. When she found the letter she sent it off straight away. It was human error.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, do I get to see it?’
She carried on staring at him, but Stephen had one of those faces that gave nothing away. Unless he wanted it to.
‘The letter was personal,’ she said coldly. ‘I think I’ll keep it to myself.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Oh, and I’ve changed my mind about all that financial stuff.’ She waved a hand dismissively at the papers spread across the kitchen table. ‘I mean, it’s not as if it matters a damn whether I understand it or not, does it? No doubt you and my father will only ever show me what you want me to see. And you two will still control everything, whatever I think or do.’
‘Joyce, it’s not like that, I promise you,’ said Stephen, looking even more hurt and misunderstood. ‘Charlie has left you very well off. You will be a wealthy woman in your own right once all the legal stuff is settled and a death certificate issued. Nobody would want to stop you from looking after your own finances. It is what Charlie would have wanted, and it’s what Henry wants too. And I can assure you that neither Henry nor I would ever interfere. Of course, if you were to require help, we would be only too happy to—’
‘I’ll bet you would!’ retorted Joyce. ‘I’m afraid I’m not too convinced by any of your assurances right now, Stephen. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’
‘But I’ve only just arrived.’ He smiled seductively. ‘And we were getting on so—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she cut him off.
‘No, I have very real feelings for you, Joyce. I always have. And I was hoping last week might be the beginning of something new for both of us. All I want is to take care of you, to make you happy again.’
‘Please go, Stephen,’ she told him.
There had been a moment earlier when she’d almost felt sorry for him, but now she was merely angry. He must have the skin of a rhinoceros, she thought, to make such a remark after the way she had treated him.
‘Why does everybody want to take care of me?’ she continued. ‘It was one shag, Stephen. That’s all we had. One shag after a quarter of a century. And you caught me at a weak moment. I am not ready for new beginnings. Not with you. Not with anyone.’
‘Oh, Joyce, I would never rush you. But you have to know it wasn’t just a sh-sh...’
He seemed to have difficulty even getting the word out.
‘Not just a shag,’ he managed eventually. ‘Not for me, anyway.’
The sight of his stricken face only made Joyce even angrier.
‘Go, Stephen. Please go!’ She shouted the words at the top of her voice, surprising not only Stephen but herself as well.
Stephen re-packed his bag, doing so as carefully as he did everything, perhaps as a kind of protest against her behaviour, and perhaps in the vain hope that she might calm down and change her mind.
Joyce could not explain why she was in such a rage. And neither could she explain why she had vented at Stephen. She hadn’t intended to. She had intended to be calm and cool and clever, yet somehow she’d failed dismally in all three respects.
As Stephen got back in his car and drove off, Joyce’s rage began to re-focus. Now she was furious with herself. In allowing her temper to get the better of her she had not only revealed her hand, she had laid her cards out on the table. Worse, she had learned absolutely nothing in the process. And having alienated Stephen, it was unlikely that she ever would learn anything from him.
The plan she’d been so pleased with when she woke that morning had failed at the first hurdle, and there was no plan B.
Five
Stephen usually found the hum of his F-type Jaguar’s motor and the comfort of its upholstered leather seats sufficient to soothe away most cares and worries. Not today though. He was too shaken by Joyce’s outburst.
She should never have been allowed to see that letter. Her reaction was proof that Henry’s policy of shielding women from the harsher realities was a sound one. Women — even educated women like Joyce — were loose cannons, incapable of conducting themselves rationally when their emotions were engaged — and that was the last thing you wanted in a business environment. Particularly a business like theirs.