House of Storms Read Free Page A

of some of the delightful girls he's known, especially Sharon Chandler. My heart was set on Sharon for a daughter-in-law, and Jack knew it! In¬stead he had to go and marry that uneducated little dancer from a musical show, and I could have told him straight away that it was doomed; a man of Jack's powers in harness to that Sindy doll with her whispery voice!'
    'Mama,' Zandra murmured, 'she is dead, and after all she was Jack's choice and even if you didn't care for her, I'm sure he did.'
    Debra listened to the enlightening conver¬sation and ate her sandwiches, which had a delicious salmon spread inside them. As Nanny Rose had hinted, the marriage which had produced young Dean had not been approved of by Jack Salvador's family, and even though Lenora doted on the boy she had despised his young mother.
    Poor Pauline . . . Debra now had an image of her, a curvacious, child-like blonde who had danced for a living until meeting the famous writer of fine novels who, because of his lone¬ly profession, would have found the young showgirl amusing and diverting and probably seductive.
    Debra could well imagine the reaction when Jack Salvador had walked into the house with her . . . maybe he had carried her over the doorstep in the traditional way, only to be met by the snobbish disapproval of his mother! A widow very unlike Debra's mother, whose years of toil and unselfishness had paid off when she had met the charming, middle-aged man to whom she was now married.
    Although Lenora Salvador was a beautiful, elegant and well-preserved woman, it seemed that a second chance at love had eluded her. She was like a diamond, Debra thought, a little too hard and cutting. As her daughter had reminded her, Pauline was dead, and in dying she had left her husband so grief-stricken that he had gone off, no one knew where, in order to try and recover from the loss of his pretty wife.
    'Can't I tempt you to a cake, Zandra?' Lenora extended a plate with a selection of cream cakes on it. 'You used to love eclairs when you were a schoolgirl.'
    'And look what all that cream and chocolate did to me.' Zandra waved the cakes away from her. 'I was such a podge that I got left out of all the most exciting activities at school and it hurt like hell. I swore I'd never be fat again— however I feel sure Miss Hartway won't say no to a sweet and creamy cake.'
    'I'm afraid I shall,' Debra contradicted her. 'I haven't a sweet tooth, as it happens.'
    'You do surprise me,' Zandra drawled. 'Miss Tucker lived on cakes and chocolate bars; she really believed in tucking into sweet things, a compensation, don't they say, for being an old maid?'
    'I really wouldn't know, Miss—Salvador.' Debra's hesitation went unnoticed. It would have been impolite not to address her by name, and the actress's married title was not known to her.
    'You've a boy-friend, then?'
    Debra shook her head. 'I don't think it would worry me to be single.'
    'You have to be kidding!' Zandra looked scornful. 'It's true that men are hard to live with, but at the same time it's hard living without them. Maybe you don't attract them, eh?'
    Debra's eyes dwelt on the sculptured face with the ironic and rather discontented mouth, an actress with a brittle kind of brilliance, as if her heart was never fully involved in anything she did. Never having been poor, she hadn't been tempered in the anxious fires of wonder¬ing where the next meal was coming from. Her success, Debra decided, was based on her appearance rather than her innate talent... it was her brother who had the more expressive and worthwhile gifts.
    Zandra was reading Debra's thoughts in her large eyes, the kind with such a mixture of colours there was no telling their dominant colour until she was aroused to temper, when they turned green. A scowl darkened the classic face of Jack Salvador's sister.
    'I suppose you think you're damned smart,' she snapped. 'And I suppose you keep your angel wings fastened down with sellotape?'
    'Zandra,'