A Mother's Love(35)

Tom blew smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Not really. Mother brings daughter up on her own, tells daughter who her real father is, daughter goes looking for him, which is natural. Father feels guilty he wasn’t around when she was growing up so includes her in his will. Nothing fishy about that.”

“It’s just a feeling,” Roberta persisted. “You’re all much too trusting.”

“Look, Dad isn’t around to answer our questions,” said David. “The only person who knows the answers, and most likely not all of them, is Phaedra. I suggest we ask her when we next see her.”

“You’re not thinking of seeing her again, are you?” Roberta looked horrified.

“Why not? Don’t you want to know some answers?” David replied.

“God, you’re going to invite her back, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps,” David replied.

“With your mother’s permission,” Rosamunde interrupted.

Roberta turned to her husband for support. “Josh, aren’t you going to say something?”

“I think you should calm down, darling, and wait until we know what’s in the will,” he suggested. “She might have been given so little it’s not worth making a fuss.”

“Or she might have been given a great deal, in which case it is,” said Roberta firmly.





3

Antoinette lay on her big brass bed and allowed her weary gaze to meander around the room. Her bedroom was her sanctuary—the only place in the house where she was safe from her mother-in-law. It was large and light, with a high ceiling bordered in a bold fleur-de-lis cornice. Portraits of her sons as little boys hung on the pale-yellow-striped wallpaper, with paintings of dogs and eighteenth-century landscapes. Primrose-yellow curtains dropped from thick wooden poles where latticed windows looked out over the lawn and ancient woodland beyond. A wardrobe dominated one wall, a chest of drawers another, while a delicate dressing table stood in front of the window where Antoinette often sat before the Queen Anne mirror to brush her hair and apply her makeup. There had been little room for change when she had moved into the house just over twenty years ago, for the Framptons had traditionally been avid collectors of art and antiques from all over the world, and George liked it as it was. But she had decorated her bedroom exactly the way she wanted it.

It is the custom in great houses for the husband and wife to inhabit separate bedrooms, so George’s dressing room was positioned on the other side of the adjoining bathroom from Antoinette’s. He had rarely slept in there—only when he had drunk too much or was coming home late—but all his clothes were kept there, along with sentimental trinkets and the customary ashtray full of loose change. He had always hated to throw anything away, so the drawers were packed with old theater tickets and ski passes, letters and postcards dating right back to before they married. The mantelpiece was adorned with trophies for ski-club races and tennis tournaments, and framed photographs of his school days. The biggest frame contained a black-and-white photograph of Antoinette as a young debutante in the early 1970s, with her dark hair drawn up into a beehive, her false eyelashes long and black. She had seldom entered that room, for she couldn’t abide the chaos, but now she didn’t dare because she was too scared. The appearance of George’s illegitimate daughter raised the possibility that he might have kept other secrets from her. She had never mistrusted him in life, but in death a shadow had been cast over his integrity.

She pondered the unexpected appearance of Phaedra. It didn’t surprise her that George had had girlfriends before he married—he had been a handsome, sharp-witted, and charming young man—but it did surprise her that he had never mentioned Phaedra’s mother. She thought she knew all the names that related to his past—at least, all the important ones. And if Phaedra was thirty-one, then she was only a year older than David. She and George had married the year before David was born, but they had courted for eight months before that. Was there a chance that George had been unfaithful during that time? She wished George were alive to answer her questions and defend his honor. She wished he were there to put her mind at rest and reassure her that he had loved her, and only her.

But Phaedra’s mother plagued her thoughts. In her imagination she conjured up a woman not unlike the daughter—slim and feminine, with pretty gray eyes and flawless skin—and envied her beauty. Antoinette was not beautiful. Her father had called her “comely,” which was the closest he had ever come to a compliment. Her mother had told her she had a “sweet face” that reflected her “gentle nature.” She knew that she had unusual navy eyes and that her dark hair was thick and lustrous, but there was nothing remarkable about her features. She had been beautiful in only George’s eyes, which was really all that mattered—but perhaps she hadn’t been beautiful enough. Had Phaedra’s mother caught his attention during their courtship and taken him to bed for one fateful night? Could her beloved George have betrayed her like that?