Guardian to the Heiress

They had been driving for around forty minutes, so they weren’t that far off the estate. It was situated in the Southern Highlands of the state, some three-thousand feet above sea level; an area of spectacular beauty, with a cool temperate climate, less than seventy kilometres south-west of Sydney. The region was known not only for its breathtaking scenery but its beautiful parks and gardens and the many stately mansions built in much earlier times as summer retreats for the wealthy. The National Park, with its waterfalls and limestone caves, offered great walking tracks, look-outs and picnic facilities.

Probably the most attractive town in the area was the garden town of Bowral, not far from the estate. The town was also home to the Bradman Museum with a bronze statue of Sir Donald Bradman right outside. Her father had once taken a photo of her sitting on the plinth at Sir Donald’s feet. He told her Sir Donald had been the greatest batsman of all time. She remembered Tulip Time, too. It was a town festival that lasted for a couple of weeks when thousands upon thousands of tulips came into exquisite bloom. She always bought tulips in season to this day.

“You’re very quiet,” Damon commented after a while.

She turned her head to look at him. He had a very striking profile; finely chiselled straight nose, the firm, clean-cut jaw and above all the mouth. She imagined what it would be like to be kissed by that mouth. She had to turn away. Physical attraction, she was forced to consider, was a very real thing. She wondered if he might be attracted to her. She expected he would consider her far too young for his tastes. It was in those dark eyes when they fell on her: just a baby.

She looked down at her hands in her lap. “Memories. I find myself getting caught up in them. I have to admit to a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know the family is going to bitterly resent me. Amanda’s parting advice, was ‘watch your back.’ It’s still ringing in my ears.”

“Carol, the will is airtight. They can resent all they like. Your grandfather left the bulk of his personal fortune to you. I should point out your uncle and your cousin, Troy, have been very handsomely provided for. Your grandfather was, after all, a very rich man.”

“What about Dallas?” Carol remembered her uncle’s wife as a good-looking, dark-haired woman, but not kind, at least to her. Dallas’s one soft spot was for her son, Troy, older than Carol by six years.

“Dallas doesn’t get a mention,” Damon told her. “Which suggests the marriage won’t break down. Your aunt by marriage has always been extremely well looked-after.”

“So who’s going to run everything now that my grandfather is gone? Who is fit to step into his shoes? I can’t, for heaven’s sake.”

“No one is expecting you to,” he said gently. “But at some point you will want a seat on the board. Lew Hoffman, your grandfather’s right-hand man, will step into the role. He’s a very capable man, very highly regarded. The board will eventually vote on chairman and CEO. I would expect Hoffman will remain in place, at least for the foreseeable future.”

“And how will Uncle Maurice feel about that?”

“Relieved, I would think.” His tone was dry. Everyone in the city knew Maurice Chancellor didn’t have a head for business.

A sharp bend, then a tree-lined road straight ahead: it led directly to Beaumont, the Chancellor country estate.

“The estate wasn’t always in the family,” Carol said. “My great-grandfather bought it some time in the late 1940s.”

“I knew that.”

“Did you? Silly of me—you would have done your homework. He saved the once-splendid Victorian residence from the wreckers’ ball. The original family had lost sons to two world wars, after which the estate went into a serious decline.”

“As did the fortunes and the lifestyle of the Wickhams,” Damon supplied.

“How sad.” Carol felt echoes of their pain. “At least my great-grandfather saved the estate.”

“Legend has it he paid the Wickhams beyond the asking price.”

“That’s good to hear. How did you find out?”

He shot her an amused glance. “Fairly common knowledge, Carol, at least in the legal world.” God, how she delighted his eye! No getting away from it. If she were a few years older, and not Selwyn Chancellor’s granddaughter and his client, he would make it his business to get to know her much better.

She was wearing a very pretty dress, very feminine—an upmarket sundress, wide straps over her shoulders, tiny bodice, full skirt, with white sandals on her feet. I didn’t want to wear anything black. In her pink flower-sprigged white dress she was springtime. Her whole aura reflected the flower world. She had pulled her glowing mane back into a Grecian knot showing off her delicately carved features and the length of her slender neck. He hadn’t forgotten what she had told him about her cousin, Troy. He could well imagine Troy Chancellor lusting after her, cousin or not.

“Well, I didn’t know,” she was saying. “But then there’s lots I don’t know. My great-grandfather hired the finest architect of the day to restore the house. He made extensive additions in the form of the two wings to either side.”

He nodded. “It gave the original house rather regal dimensions.”

“I knew my way around it,” she said proudly, remembering the little girl she’d been. She was finding it so easy to talk to him, when she rarely if ever confided family matters to others. “It was supposed to be a happy house in my great-grandfather’s day, a happy house in the early years of my grandfather’s tenure. Then happiness seemed to have fallen away. Even as a child I was aware my gentle grandmother, Elaine, had issues. I was never able to plumb the depth of them, but as an adult I’ve interpreted some of those issues as extreme shyness. She could even have been mildly autistic. There’s an avenue I will have to look into as a charity, now that I’m in a position to do so.”

He knew she meant it and found it admirable. “Not the most helpful characteristics for the wife of a highly successful man destined to go higher,” he observed gently.

Carol gave a sigh. “My grandmother always lived at Beaumont. She shunned the city except on those special occasions when Poppy talked her into it. The coup de grâce, the final blow, came with the death of my father. My grandmother retreated from life. She retreated from everyone including me. Finally she chose to end it. Maybe my family is cursed.” She turned her head so she could register his response.