Winners and Losers by Linda Sole Page A

same rate as his usual room, of course.’
    â€˜You will lose fifty pounds, Mrs Danby.’
    â€˜Yes, I know – but it is my fault. I was careless and it is all I can do. Will you explain to them when they arrive, please?’
    â€˜You won’t tell them yourself? I imagine they will be delighted to get an upgrade for free.’
    â€˜Yes, I dare say.’ Frances smiled oddly. ‘I have an appointment this afternoon. I don’t think I shall be back by the time they arrive.’
    â€˜Yes, well, I can explain,’ Tara said. ‘Are you going somewhere nice?’
    Frances glanced at herself in the wall mirror. She was dressed in a plain navy suit with a cream silk blouse and navy court shoes. Her soft hair was dressed back in a pleat. She thought she looked older than her years but preferred to dress severely. Looking attractive encouraged men to flirt and that was the last thing she needed or wanted. She had learned not to trust anyone – except perhaps Emily.
    Frances sighed inwardly. She didn’t see her sister often enough. Emily was always asking her to visit, but Frances wasn’t sure why she didn’t take more time off. Her staff were perfectly capable of running the hotel, perhaps more so than she was herself these days. She had been feeling so tired recently and she wasn’t sure why. Yes, she worked long hours, but the work was not hard labour. She was still a young woman, but sometimes she felt years older – and she looked it. Especially when she’d had one of her bad nights.
    She picked up her bag, a smart navy leather two-strap that matched her shoes. Both bag and shoes were expensive. Frances could afford the best, but she didn’t find much pleasure in shopping these days. She supposed that she was still bitter over what Sam Danby had done to her – and the way Marcus had let her down.
    She had thought herself the luckiest woman in the world when she’d married. Her husband’s father, Sam, was one of the richest men in the district, and she and Marcus seemed to have a glittering future, but it had all gone wrong when her husband came home from the war. Marcus had changed. He drank a lot and quarrelled with his father. When he died in a car accident Frances had believed it was because he was drunk, but when she discovered what had been haunting Marcus she had begun to understand why he had simply given up: he had survived the war only to discover that most of his father’s money came from prostitution.
    Sam was a bully and he’d tried to force Marcus to work for him. Marcus refused, but then his drinking had got so much worse. Frances had come to blame Sam for her husband’s death, and to hate him. She knew that she had made him turn against her by blackmailing him over his secret, but he had done such awful things to her.
    Frances could never forgive and she couldn’t forget either. Sometimes there was such a terrible darkness inside her. She had wild rages that she tried desperately hard to hide from everyone around her. She had found that the best way to cope was simply to shut herself away until she was feeling better. Emily expected her to put the past behind her and get on with her life. Frances had tried, but she didn’t have her sister’s resilience. She brooded on the past too much.
    Frances couldn’t help envying Emily her life. It was the reason she refused to visit, even though she missed Emily. If Emily came here, it was all right, but Vanbrough was such a wonderful place and she envied her sister’s feeling of peace, of belonging. Emily had been loved. Vane had loved her and so had Robert’s father. She might have suffered an unhappy marriage but she had got over it quickly, because she was in love with someone else.
    Frances thought she had loved Marcus when she married him, but now she wasn’t sure – she wasn’t certain she knew what love was about. She knew about loneliness