Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 2: The House on Willow Street, The Honey Queen, Christmas Magic, plus bonus short story: The Perfect Holiday

‘Good evening, Suki,’ said Antoinette, a gracious smile fixed on her face. ‘How lovely to see you. You do look well.’

Antoinette regally proffered both cheeks for a brief kiss, a habit picked up on travels to Europe. Though she would have preferred to shake hands, Antoinette was nothing if not an elegant hostess and her manners almost never slipped, not even when greeting the woman she considered had come close to ruining the political career of her first-born.

Greetings over, Antoinette withdrew, sat primly on a couch and gestured for Suki to do the same.

‘What have you been up to, Suki dear?’

Suki smiled back. Two could play this game. Bloody bitch probably knew exactly what she’d been up to: living in that pokey house, struggling to resurrect her career and make ends meet. If Antoinette was half the matriarch she pretended to be, she should have made damn sure that anyone connected with the Richardson family didn’t need to scrape a living by doing appalling lectures in cold college halls.

‘This and that,’ Suki replied, smiling as if she’d been accepting Pulitzers and heading the UN all the while, instead of worrying about money. ‘And how are you, Antoinette? And Kyle Senior – how is he?’

‘Fine, really fine. He’s away tonight. Junior will be here any minute now though.’

Antoinette’s face warmed when she spoke of her son. It always had. Junior brought out both the best and the worst in her.

Mrs Lang came in with the sherry tray. Antoinette disapproved of liquor being kept in any of her rooms, although Senior insisted on a full bar in his study. So sherry was brought in before family dinners and cocktail trays before dinner parties.

Suki accepted a thimble of sherry with a smile. It was going to be a long night.

Half an hour of excruciating small talk later, Junior rolled up in his Porsche. Hearing the growling engine, Suki wondered if he’d brought his second wife with him. She didn’t mind Leesa. She was beautiful in a very WASP-ish way, with a straight nose and a slim, boyish figure, and she was gloriously stupid. She was sweet to everyone, said things like ‘I’m not a brain surgeon, folks,’ and deferred to Junior like a child to Daddy. Thatwas the only thing that annoyed Suki about Leesa.

Ten minutes later, Junior and his wife appeared, obviously having rushed down because Antoinette didn’t like being kept waiting.

‘Hello, everyone!’ said Leesa excitedly, going over and giving Antoinette a big hug.

To Suki’s intense surprise, Antoinette seemed pleased to see her daughter-in-law. There was a definite show of warmth as Leesa embraced her. Now this Suki couldn’t figure out. She felt a frisson of irritation: Antoinette was the type of woman who would never approve of any woman her darling son was married to. Suki had always assumed that was why Antoinette had hated her.

And Leesa was precisely the sort of woman she’d have expected Antoinette to look down her patrician nose at. Even though Leesa had all the right connections, came from old money and had no aspirations for herself beyond taking care of Junior, she was entirely brainless and invariably had to be kept away from reporters at fund-raisers in case she said the wrong thing.

Yet Antoinette seemed to like her. Crossly, Suki drained her sherry and wished it was a double vodka tonic.

Junior was looking well. He was a tall, well-built man, tanned from lots of outdoor pursuits, and he had the same mane of leonine hair as his father. The difference was that Kyle Senior looked like the wily old lion that he was, while Junior was a slower, duller version. Not that this seemed to have harmed his inexorable rise in the direction of the Republican presidential nomination.

‘Good evening, Suki,’ he said, giving her a dutiful peck on the cheek. She could feel the frost in the air.

‘Hello, Suki,’ said Leesa, holding out a hand for Suki to shake, as if she were a duchess.

Suki felt herself getting angrier.

She could have been the wife who’d get Junior into the White House, not this idiot. Instead, she was being made to feel like a total outsider – and it hurt.

As usual, Antoinette didn’t beat around the bush but got straight to the subject everyone else would have preferred to avoid.

‘We must discuss this wretched book,’ she said. ‘I’ve had four telephone calls this week from friends who’ve been approached by his researchers. They’re all saying the same thing: Redmond Suarez wants to hear “the real story” of the Richardsons.’

She paused while Mrs Lang came in with drinks for Leesa and Junior. Suki was outraged to see that they were getting cocktails. Leesa’s drink looked suspiciously like a martini. Nobody had offered her a martini.

‘I think we need someone we can trust to meet him and find out what he knows,’ said Leesa.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snapped Suki. ‘That’s like saying, We’ve got something to hide, so tell us what you have found out.’

Antoinette interrupted. ‘I think Leesa has a point,’ she said. ‘Not one of us, not one of the family. But we need someone who is loyal to us to meet with this Suarez.’ She spat the name out. ‘Kyle Senior has some ideas on how to do this …’ She coughed and took a sip of the water on the small table beside her.

Leesa got up and sat beside her mother-in-law, patting her gently on the arm.

‘Don’t get all worked up, Antoinette, my dear. You know what the doctors told you, you’ve got to take care of your heart.’

‘What doctors?’ demanded Suki.

Junior looked lazily at her over the top of his highball glass. ‘Mother had a minor heart attack last month,’ he said.

‘You should have told me!’ said Suki, shocked.

‘I wanted to keep it very private,’ Antoinette announced. ‘Keep it in the family—’

‘I was family once,’ Suki said quietly. She stared at her former mother-in-law and ex-husband. Both of them knew why she was no longer a part of the family, and she needed their help to keep Redmond Suarez out of her life too.

Perhaps they needed reminding of the past.

‘Immediate family,’ Junior said coldly.

Suki knew then that she hadn’t been imagining the polar blast she’d felt when he’d said hello. She was truly on the outside now, it seemed. They’d obviously decided that she had sunk so far down the totem pole that what she knew couldn’t hurt them.

Well, she’d get him back. He knew what had happened, he had to know that it hadn’t really been her fault. And if he’d given her a decent divorce settlement, then she wouldn’t need to scrape to make a living. She bet bloody Leesa had never done a day’s work in her life.

‘Suki, you mustn’t be upset,’ soothed Leesa, sensing the anger raging inside her but misunderstanding the reason. ‘Mother didn’t want anyone to know, and the easiest way to keep it quiet was to tell nobody, that’s all.’

Suki forced herself to smile. ‘How are you now, Antoinette?’ she asked, as politely as she could. ‘Was there any damage to your heart?’

That was a joke – Antoinette had a heart of cold, black stone, so how could that be damaged? Suki had a sudden vision of herself leaking the news of Antoinette’s heart attack to the papers. She could see the headline now: Antoinette Richardson Has a Heart – Doctors Astonished.

Antoinette talked about how awful it had all been and how she was so grateful to Junior and – she smiled up at her doting daughter-in-law – to darling Leesa for being there for her. Jacqueline and Anastasia, Junior’s younger sisters, had both been away at a wedding in Europe when it happened, so Antoinette had had to rely upon Leesa for so much.

Jacqueline and Anastasia were always away. Both had married rich men and spent their time trailing round the world on endless holidays with friends. Suki didn’t know what they had to take holidays from,since neither of them had worked a day in their lives.

When Mrs Lang came back into the room to check on drinks, Suki ordered a martini.

‘Make a strong one, Mrs Lang,’ she muttered grimly. ‘Make it a Kyle Senior Special.’

That was code for double measures of everything. Suki had never asked for such a thing in the Richardsons’ house before – that was the prerogative of Kyle Senior – but she didn’t feel like playing the dutiful ex-daughter-in-law right now. A martini with a powerful kick was what she needed.

When dinner was ready, the four of them made their way to the dining room and sat in state at the huge dining-room table.

The food was good, but there wasn’t enough wine. Suki emptied her glass quickly and had to wait an age before anyone filled it up. They were on to a cheese and fruit course before the subject of the unauthorized biography was raised again.

‘Father says that nobody –’ Kyle stared hard at Suki – ‘nobody is to cooperate with this man.’

Suki glared back at him. ‘I have no intention of cooperating, and I’m insulted at the implication that I might,’ she snapped. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know where all the bodies are buried in this family, but I have never spoken about any of that, to anyone.’ She paused purposefully and looked Antoinette straight in the eye. There was a silence and then Antoinette intervened.