Matriarch

      ‘I speak the truth, not so much as I

      would, but as much as I dare; and

       I dare a little more, as I grow older.’

      MONTAIGNE

CHAPTER 1

      Emma Harte was almost eighty years old.

      She did not look it, for she had always carried her years lightly. Certainly Emma felt like a much younger woman as she sat at her desk in the upstairs parlour of Pennistone Royal on this bright April morning of 1969.

      Her posture was erect in the chair, and her alert green eyes, wise and shrewd under the wrinkled lids, missed nothing. The burnished red-gold hair had turned to shining silver long ago, but it was impeccably coiffed in the latest style, and the widow’s peak was as dramatic as ever above her oval face. If this was now lined and scored by the years, her excellent bone structure had retained its clarity and her skin held the translucency of her youth. And so, though her great beauty had been blurred by the passage of time, she was still arresting, and her appearance, as always, was stylish.

      For the busy working day stretching ahead of her she had chosen to wear a woollen dress of tailored simplicity in the powder-blue shade she so often favoured, and which was so flattering to her. A frothy white lace collar added just the right touch of softness and femininity at her throat, and there were discreet diamond studs on her ears. Otherwise she wore no jewellery, except for a gold watch and her rings.

      After her bout with bronchial pneumonia the previous year she was in blooming health, had no infirmities to speak of, and she was filled with the restless vigour and drive that had marked her younger days.

      That’s my problem, not knowing where to direct all this damned energy, she mused, putting down her pen, leaning back in the chair. She smiled and thought: The devil usually finds work for idle hands, so I’d better come up with a new project soon before I get into mischief. Her smile widened. Most people thought she had more than enough to keep her fully occupied, since she continued to control her vast business enterprises which stretched halfway round the world. Indeed, they did need her constant supervision; yet, for the most part, they offered her little challenge these days. Emma had always thrived on challenge, and it was this she sorely missed. Playing watchdog was not particularly exciting to her way of thinking. It did not fire her imagination, bring a tingle to her blood, or get her adrenaline flowing in the same way that wheeling and dealing did. Pitting her wits against business adversaries, and striving for power and supremacy in the international marketplace, had become such second nature to her over the years they were now essential to her well-being.

      Restlessly