Kal by Judy Nunn

Author:Judy Nunn [Nunn, Judy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: C429, Extratorrents, Kat
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 1996-01-21T13:00:00+00:00

PRUDENCE LAVERTON HAD finally achieved the social standing to which she had always aspired. She attended the first day’s play of the Test match between Australia and England at Lord’s; she was always offered the best house seats at Drury Lane Theatre on opening nights and she maintained a regular box during the Covent Garden opera season. And all because she was, indeed, Lord Lionel’s favourite daughter-in-law, a role which opened far more doors than that of the youngest son’s wife. But it was a hollow victory. The wives of the other three sons detested her, as did both of the Laverton daughters. It was jealousy, she knew-they were all of them jealous that the old man openly preferred her, desperate as they were to curry favour with him before he died. They’d have a long wait. Although he was in his late seventies, Lord Laverton was as strong as an ox.

Prudence couldn’t even take pleasure in the old man’s alleged affection. He still terrified her and she wasn’t sure whether she hadn’t preferred it when he simply failed to notice her. Besides, it wasn’t really affection at all, Prudence realised; it was gratitude for the way she had behaved that day and for the days and months that had followed as they were hounded, more mercilessly than ever, by the press.

‘By God, she’s a true Laverton woman, this one,’ Lionel had boasted to the rest of the family. ‘You’d do well to take a leaf out of her book, I’ll tell you.’

During the three-month sea voyage to England, Prudence Laverton had had no idea she was pregnant. She thought she was just seasick. So frightfully seasick that even her monthly cycle, which normally arrived with clocklike precision, had been disrupted. Things would return to normal, she told herself, once they were at the family estate in Hampshire. A holiday in the English countryside was exactly what she needed.

But then, to her horror, she had discovered that they had not returned to England for a holiday at all.

‘You didn’t even tell your wife!’ Lord Lionel had roared. ‘Good God, man, what’s the matter with you? It’s times like these a man’s wife must be seen standing beside him. Family support, that’s what it’s all about.’ Lord Lionel had always despised his youngest son. Weak. No backbone. It was why he’d sent him off to Australia in the first place. Perhaps the outback would make a man of him. He’d obviously been wrong. ‘The trial’s in two months for God’s sake,’ he snarled, ‘so you better start setting her straight on a few of the facts right now!’

‘What trial?’ Prudence had asked after her father-in-law had stormed off. ‘You said we were coming home to see the family.’ Then Richard, with the aid of half a decanter of brandy, had painstakingly narrated the whole sordid story.

He was to stand trial for misrepresenting the mine’s yield. The monthly reports he’d been sending to the London board of directors had been false. ‘I’ve

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