Yet, she thought as she finished the flowers and went upstairs to change, she had succeeded in most things in getting her way. She had lost over the reservoir, which at the time had mattered more than anything else. It had been a desecration of land which had been in the family for years. She could not expect Marcus to understand. He had no real responsibility for the place. He had claimed that he had done all he could to protect it, that they had taken the matter to court, that compulsory purchase meant just what it said, but she had been able to tell all along that his heart had not been in the fight. His fight, she knew, was about getting more compensation than he had the right to expect, not in saving the land. She could not bear it, but she supposed she would give him the benefit of the doubt. She would maintain the appearance that they were a united and supportive couple and keep her contempt to herself.

When Simon Barton came home from work in Appleworth, Joanna was still in the pottery and had made no attempt to prepare for the party at the Cadver. He was mildly irritated, as he was by much that she did. Grenville was her father, after all. Simon minded the dinner parties less than she did. He had little time for the other guests but the food was always good and Marcus Grenville knew more about wine than he did about natural history. Besides, Marcus was being especially pleasant to him at the moment. Simon was an environmental consultant and Marcus saw him as a free source of unbiased expertise. It was rather flattering to have one’s opinion so assiduously sought. After working for some years for a conservation charity he had recently set up in business on his own, hiring his services to advise industries that had been forced to become more environmentally sensitive. He worked from a small but attractive office in Appleworth and needed all the contacts Marcus Grenville could make for him. The week before, he had been approached by a major oil company to do an environmental impact assessment along a west coast pipeline and he suspected that Marcus had recommended him to the firm. It was good for his business image to be linked with a man so prominent in the conservation world. He should, he thought, be gracious.

Joanna was sitting on one of the low wooden chairs that had been left behind when the school had closed, dressed in jeans and the old shirt of his which she wore as an overall. Her hair was short, rather spiky on the top. She was thirty-five but seemed not to have aged since they had married ten years before.

‘Shouldn’t we be getting ready?’ he asked carefully. The dinner parties always made her tense, unsettled.