What infuriated Isobel perhaps more than anything else was that Sandra was quite unselfconscious and seemingly unaware of her beauty, and talked and moved with a naturalness that she was sensible enough to know was something she could never emulate in a thousand years.
She, at first, attempted to conceal her feelings about her stepdaughter.
Only to herself did she wail that it was grossly unfair that she should be inflicted with a cross she had not expected on reaching what she had believed to be the zenith of her ambitions.
Then her resentment turned to hatred and it was an emotion she could not suppress or conceal except when her husband was present.
She was far too clever to attack Sandra when her father was there or to abuse her behind her back.
She could only contrive by everythi
