Innocent Mistress

“Mum tell him.” Ralph scratched his forehead violently.

“No, Ralphie—no.” Myra pleaded, her voice tremulous.

Ralph stared at his mother for a bit, giving a can-you-believe-this roll of his eyes. “Listen,” he said very quietly as though addressing someone mentally challenged. “This won’t take long then you can take to your bed. For the rest of your life if you like.”

“I think she needs her bed right now,” Jude said, trying to keep the disgust out of his voice. “This has been a bad shock.”

“Get it over with, Jude,” Melinda advised, returning with his briefcase. In her own way she appeared as eager to hear the will as her brother. “I’ll look after Mum. She’s stronger than she looks. Dad hammered away at her for years.”

“Yes, get it over, Jude,” Myra’s opposition suddenly collapsed, as if she thought both her children were about to ostracize her.

“Okay.” Against his better judgment Jude deferred to their wishes. “Mel, you might like to settle your mother in a more comfortable chair.” Myra was perched like a budgie on the edge of a small antique chair that looked like it was only good for decoration.

Melinda put her arm around her mother, leading her to an armchair. Myra took her time, her movements those of a woman twenty years her senior. Jude suspected Dr Atwell had given her medication to get her through the service. She was pretty much out of it. Meanwhile, Ralph was shaping up to be as nasty as his late father.

“Sit the hell down, Mum,” Ralph confirmed Jude’s assessment by crying out in utter exasperation.

“You’re awful, Ralph,” his sister croaked, as if she couldn’t get past the big lump of misery in her throat. “A real pig.”

“Like Dad.” Ralph looked back at her out of his deep-set dark eyes. “Okay, Mr Hotshot, read the will.”

Jude stepped right up to him, two inches taller, a stone or more lighter, but obviously fitter by far. “Jude will do, thanks, Ralph, and a little more respect all around. I’m your late father’s lawyer, not your lackey.” Jude didn’t give a damn about how much money the Rogans had. Never had. It showed in the sapphire glitter of his eyes.

“So take it easy.” Swaying slightly from side to side, Ralph backed off. “Surely you can understand I’m anxious to hear how Dad left things between the three of us.”

“Of course.” Jude took a seat in the armchair nearest the big Oriental style coffee table so he could put the document down to read it. He withdrew the will from his briefcase, the collective eyes of the family trained on him. They wouldn’t be seeing shades of his father. Jude bore little physical resemblance to him, apart from his height. He even had his mother’s dimple in his left cheek just so he could never forget her.

“Hang on a moment I’ll get myself a drink. Anyone else want one?” Ralph lumbered off looking over his shoulder.

“Haven’t you had enough, Ralph?” Myra roused herself sufficiently to ask.

Ralph snorted. “Been countin’, Ma?” He poured himself a generous shot of whiskey from a spirits laden trolley, tonging a couple of ice cubes into it. “You, Jude?”

“Thank you. No.” As instructed, Jude wanted to get on with it, his expression as professional as any lawyer’s could get.

Ralph positioned himself on the opposite side of the coffee table, swirling the amber contents of his crystal tumbler, hunkering down his broad shoulders.

Jude showed them Lester Rogan’s will with the seal intact. He viewed their faces intently, then he broke open the long, thick envelope, beginning to read with suitable gravitas…

“This is the last will and testament of me, Lester Michael Rogan…”

Instantly he was interrupted by Myra’s stricken cry, one of many to be ripped from her throat. Was this for real? Jude agonised, wanting to shake his head in amazement. She had no reason to love her husband. Mel grabbed her mother’s hand and held it. It didn’t appear to be a gesture of comfort, more to shut her mother up.

“Would you mind keeping a lid on it, Ma. Is that too much to ask?” Ralph slewed another disgusted look at his mother. “Continue, Jude.”

Jude continued, managing from experience to keep his voice perfectly level despite the rippling shock he felt. “This will is to be held in terrorem,” he announced, looking up for a reaction.

“What the hell’s that? I haven’t a clue.” Ralph waved his glass, empty now except for a melting ice cube.

It means this will is going to be one big surprise, Jude thought without immediately responding. Any member of the family who contested Lester Rogan’s wishes could finish up with nothing. Ralph pre-set to take over his father’s real estate empire was visibly disturbed.

“Why don’t you let me read on,” Jude suggested. “I’ll explain all the legal jargon later.”

“Fine,” Ralph muttered through gritted teeth.

“This relates to disposition of property,” Jude advised them. “To my wife, Myra…” Not the usual beloved, that would have been too much to ask. This highly dysfunctional family knew little about love, Jude thought. It took five seconds for Myra to let out another agonized wail this one so sharp Jude winced. Both of her children however ignored her, continuing to stare fixedly at Jude. “To my wife, Myra,” Jude started off again, “I bequeath sole possession of the family home, land and all the contents therein plus the adjoining five acres. In addition she is to receive the sum of ten million dollars which should allow her to see out her days comfortably. In the unlikely event she remarry, the house and all land reverts to my son, Ralph. Myra can do what she likes with the contents.”

Ralph made a dramatic grasp at his heart. He had expected his mother was due for heaps more. Lester had to be worth around $85 to $100 million. Everyone knew he’d been shovelling money in! Wasn’t Myra legally entitled to a sizeable percentage of the estate? Ralph wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was she wouldn’t put up a fight. More for him. Like his dad, Ralph couldn’t seriously believe another man would lavish love on his mother.

Jude continued. “To my daughter, Melinda—” again no expression of affection, this was becoming a habit “—I bequeath an annual income of seventy-five thousand dollars to be paid from the trust established for this purpose. The payments will continue up until such time as she marries. On her wedding day she will receive as final payment five million dollars.” No gifts, no mementos, not even a pair of Lester’s favourite cuff links. What code had Lester stuck to?

Peanuts, Ralph was thinking, a triumphant laugh escaping him. “Mean old bastard.” That only meant one thing. He was the big winner. At long last after all these years of humiliation he was going to score big time. He’d have control of everything. As long as he lived he’d never have to take anything from another living soul. He was powerful. Rich. Ralph’s bloodshot eyes began to gleam. He could buy and sell Golden Boy Conroy.

“To my son, Ralph, named after a man he couldn’t in any way hold a candle to, I bequeath my collection of sporting trophies and motor cars, my motor yacht, Sea Eagle, my portrait by Dargy in the study and the sum of five million dollars in the hope he can do something with himself in the future.” Jude glanced up. The tension in the room was so thick he could have cut it with a knife.

“Go on, go on.” Ralph jumped to his feet as though he’d been attacked with an ice pick. “There’s more. There’s gotta be more. I’m the heir!”

“Of course there’s more, dear,” Myra consoled him, albeit fearfully, the pale skin of her face and neck mottled red.

“Of course there’s more,” Melinda chimed in, characteristically satisfied with her lot. “Please sit down again. Go on, Jude.”

Jude felt a certain tightness in his chest. He didn’t want to say this. “To Jude Kelsey Conroy, son of the only man I’ve ever trusted, Matthew John Conroy, a most honourable man, and in recognition of Jude’s devotion to his father and his own outstanding merits I bequeath the sum of one hundred thousand dollars knowing he will use it wisely. The residue of my estate, land, houses, rental properties, share portfolio I hereby bequeath to Catherine Elizabeth Costello, spinster, of the…”

Whatever else Jude, more dismayed than pleased with his windfall, was about to say, it was cut off by Ralph’s bull roar. It would have been pretty scary to a lot of people.

Jude wasn’t one of them. “Do you want to hear the rest of this, Ralph?” he asked crisply. “I should say I knew nothing of my bequest.”

“When your dad drew it up?” Ralph snarled with a curl of the lip. “I bloody well don’t want to hear any more of this.” He picked up his crystal tumbler and hurled it across the living room where it smashed to smithereens against a large bronze sculpture of a rodeo rider atop a bucking horse. Rage, shock, contempt was written across his face.

“Did the old fool go mad?” he demanded of them all, though no one came up with an answer. “Catherine Elizabeth Costello. Who is she? Some fancy whore he had on the side? What hold did she have on him? I can’t believe this. It’s like my worst nightmare. Who is this woman? The woman he wanted to marry? Not Ma?”

Jude was struggling hard to master his own shock. Now he knew for certainty that Cate Costello and trouble went together. He stared at each member of the family in turn. “Do none of you know her?”

Myra shook her head vigorously. At least she seemed to have snapped out of her catatonic state.

“I know of her,” Melinda admitted, staring at Jude. She looked the very picture of bewilderment, which seemed to be her general condition. “She runs a gallery, the Crystal Cave, near the beach.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Ralph bellowed, reaching down for his father’s will with the obvious intention of tearing it to bits.

Jude swiftly removed it from harm’s way, while Ralph glared at him. “You knew about this?” he demanded.

Jude shook his head ready to give Ralph a good shove if he decided to get nasty. Not that he altogether blamed him. Who was Catherine Elizabeth Costello and what had she been to Lester Rogan? “You saw me break the seal. I’m as shocked as you are.” For various reasons he didn’t announce to the family he had already met Rogan’s heiress. One of them was to protect her, another was to avoid getting into a fistfight with Ralph. Ralph in this mood was as destructive as a boxer with a sore head.

“She’s young,” Melinda frowned hard in concentration, gripping her mother’s hand as if it might assist her recollections. “Younger than I am. She’s beautiful. She has the most wonderful hair. The colour’s sort of indescribable, red-gold. I’ve seen her in the town any number of times but we’ve never actually met.”

“She moved here,” Ralph growled, banging his muscular arms together. “I remember now. The chick at Mandel’s old place. I’ve had her description from quite a few of the guys. To think I meant to check her out when I had the time! Dad saw I had as little spare time as possible. I don’t get this? What would a good-looking young chick have to do with my big ugly geriatric dad?”

Myra whistled indignation through her nostrils. “No one could have called your father old or ugly,” she burst out, in her loyal, long-suffering wife mode. “He wasn’t even sixty. Sixty these days is young I might remind you. Your father was handsome as you’re handsome but you’d better lose some weight. And very soon. I’m amazed you can still get into your clothes. For Heaven’s sake, Jude,” She turned her attention away from her near apoplexic son. “You have to advise us. This has taken us all by shock. You’re telling me Lester has left the bulk of his estate to a young woman none of us knows?”