Guardian to the Heiress

Carol shook her head. “Tracey will be taking out an apprehended-violence order on him within a day or two. None of you has to go anywhere. I’ll be picking up the rent, although you can pay the phone and electricity. It will teach you how to mind your pennies.” That was a shot at Amanda, who was always broke, always borrowing.

“That’s a good one!” Amanda hooted with joy. “We have pennies. You’ll have millions!”

“I know. The luck of the draw. But I’m going to do some good with it,” Carol said with a zealot’s fervour. “Are you availing yourself of my offer or not? I know quite a few who’d jump at the chance. Tracey can have my room. Does that suit, Trace?”

Tracey’s expression was relieved beyond words. “Everyone needs a friend like you, Caro,” she said with feeling. “Do you think Damon will remember about me?”

“Count on it.” Carol placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He’s a guy who makes time. He wouldn’t miss a trick.”

“And he’s really your solicitor? I’m hugely envious.”

“He is, for my sins.”

Amanda gave a sly laugh, but Emma broke in naively. “Gosh, how thrilling! That guy has the wow factor!” She puckered her long nose. “You don’t see guys who look like that every day. He’s my idea of Mr Romance! I love those dark, brooding types. You should consider yourself a very lucky girl, Caro.”

Carol did, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. “Don’t get excited over nothing, Em. I have no romantic notions about him. And I’m darn sure he doesn’t have any about me.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Caro.” Amanda licked some spread off her fingers. “That guy would make even choosey little you jump for joy.”

“I’ll say!” Emma seconded with enthusiasm. “I’d kill for a guy like that. He could even make me his love slave.”

Amanda nearly choked. “All those romances you devour by the basketload have got to you, Em. They’re just fairy-tales. They should come with a warning: this isn’t for real.”

“Is, too!” said Emma doggedly. “Our Mary got the Crown Prince of Denmark.”

“By virtue of the fact she looks more royal than the royals,” Amanda chortled.

No one was going to argue with that.

By the time they finished breakfast, all was settled. Amanda was given the job of roping in a couple of fellow students to help Tracey move out of her flat, while Carol wrote a cheque to cover two weeks of Tracey’s rent in advance.

Tracey burst into tears.

Carol didn’t spend long on the phone talking to her mother. She had found out the hard way she couldn’t trust her.

“Why didn’t you tell me Poppy wanted custody of me?” she asked with a feeling of great sadness.

“Stop using that ridiculous name,” Roxanne fired back. She’d been wondering for years when the truth would out. “He wanted no such thing. He was just as mean as ever a man could be.”

“You’re lying, Roxanne.” Her mother had insisted on being called by her first name for years now. “Mum” was considered indecently ageing.

“Think what you like.” Roxanne made a rude yawning sound. “You’re not going to his funeral, are you? It’s a mystery to me why anyone would turn up.”

“It’s a private funeral at Beaumont,” Carol was glad to point out. “I’m going with my solicitor. It appears Poppy has included me in his will.”

A moment of silence, then Roxanne let out a screech that would have done justice to a cockatoo in the wild. “He what?”

“Ah, you’re shocked.” Carol felt pleased. “It appears he thought of me at the end. At the beginning, too, as I’ve recently found out. I bet he paid for my uni tuition and my car?” she hazarded, intuiting it could be true. It was her mother who was mean. “You’re not invited, Mother. Neither is Jeff. A decision I’m entirely in agreement with. I’ve always known you tried to poison my mind against my grandfather.”

Roxanne’s laugh was low and derisive. “Just because he’s remembered you doesn’t mean you’re going to get much. Your grandfather was quite eccentric. Maurice, pathetic failure that he is, and that moon-faced wife of his—she’s totally descended into a frump—will get the bulk of it. Troy will get the rest after all the tax breaks—the charities—get their share. If you’re lucky, he might leave you some of those God-awful Chinese pots.” She laughed again, as though enjoying a huge joke. “I never told you I deliberately broke one before I left. I had an overwhelming urge to destroy something as I walked out of the entrance hall. You were already in the car. It was very valuable, I believe.”

“Not the blue-and-white meiping vase?” Carol gasped. It had stood in the hallway on a tall rosewood stand.

“What the hell? Your grandfather neglected to take me on as a pupil, so I wouldn’t know, except I couldn’t help noticing his face went white as the vase hit the marble tiles. The man was really obsessed. He had far too many vases and pots as it was. Who the hell did he think he was, Ali Baba? When is the funeral?” she asked. “When are you leaving?”

“Is it vital to know?”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Roxanne warned.

“It’s what I always am, remember? But, to answer your question, I’m waiting on a phone call.”

“Do you feel sad?” Roxanne gave a heartless coo.

“I do, actually. It must be strange being you—completely indifferent to anyone else’s pain but hyper-sensitive about yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Roxanne reacted angrily to criticism. “I do know all you ever did even as a child was try to wind me up. Do give my love to dearest Maurice. Never had the guts to get rid of Dallas,” she added quite bitterly.

That was news indeed to Carol. “Did he want to get rid of her?” she asked, astonished.

“You bet he did!” was Roxanne’s startling reply.

“Well, well…” Carol was having a job absorbing this further piece of news. “My solicitor isn’t Marcus Bradfield, by the way. It’s another member of the firm, Damon Hunter.”

Roxanne gave a follow-up shriek. “You’re having me on. Damon Hunter?”

“You know him?” It was very possible. Her mother and Jeff attended just about everything.

“I know of him.” Roxanne shifted into honeyed tones. “We haven’t as yet met but I’ve seen him at various functions. Hard to miss, really. He’s going with Amber Coleman at the moment. The betting is she’ll get him to the altar. Gorgeous-looking man. Very sleek. Reminds me of a glossy black panther. Don’t imagine for a minute he’d be interested in you, my dear. Amber is magnificent, a real love goddess.”

“Who flunked university.”

Roxanne laughed. “Dumb of you to think a beautiful woman needs a university education.”

“Easy for an airhead to catch a man—miracle for her to hold on to him,” Carol returned. “Bye now, Mother.”

“You let me know what happens.” Roxanne returned to her hectoring tones.

“I’ll call the minute I know.”

Roxanne registered the sarcasm. “Don’t you forget, young lady, how good I was to you. You had the best of everything—your precious education, your car.”

“I won’t say thanks, because I now suspect that was Poppy.”

“Go to hell!” said Roxanne.

Carol was doing her best to control her emotions. But, now that they were well into their journey, she could feel the panic coming. The family once the will was read would hate her all the more. Not that they had ever loved her.

Her father had loved her. She realised now her mother had always been jealous of her in a way. When she’d been a child her father had doted on her—possibly to the exclusion of his wife? Roxanne was one of those women who demanded all attention be focused on her. She wasn’t sure her parents had been happy. She remembered the arguments even from when she’d been a little girl. Her mother was a very volatile person. Her memory told her it was her mother who had initiated the shouting matches. Nothing had ever suited her mother, even when she was living in such affluence. In retrospect Carol considered it a miracle the marriage had lasted as long as it did. Her parents appeared to have been hopelessly mismatched. She thought it was a word she had overheard her grandfather once use.