The housekeeper stood holding the door handle. 'The car is here. Are you ready, Mam?' she asked.
Oh, how I miss being back in warmth of the Southern states again. Everyone here was just so damn polite and so hidden. There were layers and layers of mannerisms to trip on and show yourself up as the foreigner, the person who did not belong.
'Yes,' I told her nervously.
'Good. It's getting late and the car is waiting downstairs.'
'Thank you, Mary.'
She nodded and closed the door softly.
I went to the dresser and picked up a framed photograph of Robert and me. My arms were thrown around him. The sun was shining and we were both laughing. It was taken during my first summer in Barrington Manor. I didn't know he was ill then. He did though. My heart felt like it was in a vise. I put the photograph down, slipped into a thick woolen coat, and pulled on my black gloves. Deep breath, I told myself and went down the curving stairs and out through the great doors.
Outside it had stopped snowing, and there was neither wind nor cloud. Just sub-zero temperatures and everything covered in a pristine layer of white. Even the leaf stems were white and sharp. Winter was always my favorite time at Barrington Manor. I looked around at the still wonderland with a kind of dull pleasure. I recognized its beauty even though I was too heavy hearted to actually appreciate it.
Still, how bizarre! All this now belonged to me.
The chauffeur opened the back door of the black Rolls Royce. I walked up to the car and with a grateful smile in his direction, slipped into it. It was warm inside the car. I breathed in the apple scented air-freshener and arranged my skirt over my legs. Then I leaned back and calmly stared out of the window at the passing scenery. My mind was mercifully blank. I would make it through this ordeal. I would wear my brave face. No one would ever know what I was really feeling.
Let them think I was a cold bitch.
CHAPTER 3
Tawny Maxwell
As soon as we reached the church I spotted my stepchildren.
Robert's oldest child, Rosalind, looked at me. Her eyes were shining with malice and hatred. She was the most dangerous and most vindictive of his children. At twenty-nine she was a tall, dark-haired, plain woman who had unfortunately inherited Robert's big nose and strong jaw. She was married to a spineless man who hardly spoke at all and had two young children I had never met.
The middle child, Bianca, was much prettier since most of her genetic identity came from her mother. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for me she was not the sharpest pencil. She was engaged to a well-known footballer who was standing beside her looking rather ill at ease. She was what my grandma would have called an undercover hater. She flashed me a fake smile before turning back to her fiancé and leaning her fair head dramatically on his shoulder.
The youngest was Robert's only son, Dorian. He was the best looking of the three. He had a full head of straight, dirty blond hair, smoldering blue eyes, and dimples when he smiled. He had charm and confidence, but underneath it lurked something dark. Much darker. In truth I was very wary of him. Slowly, he winked at me.
It was so insolent, so inappropriate, and so disrespectful, I felt something crumple up and die inside me. Robert was wrong. I couldn't handle these people. Not in a million years. Not alone, anyway. They were a totally different species than me. They were devious and cunning and false.
My shocked gaze ricocheted away from Dorian and fell upon Ivan. He stood head and shoulders above everyone else. He was wearing a dark coat and his hair was slightly disheveled from the wind.
Still, it was his face that made me freeze.
Against the whiteness of the snowy landscape it was as if it was hewn from stone. His eyes were almost silver and shone out of his face like lights directly into my eyes. Through the distance something passed between us. Something electric that made the hairs on my body stand. I couldn't look away. It was the strangest feeling. As if I had been walking for a long time in the wilderness and I was finally home. I had come home. As if even the life that I had lived was not my own. My life was with him.
Then he nodded at me and I inclined my head before my eyes slid away to the woman with him. The obligatory blonde. Beautiful, spoilt and from the same class as him. How many times I have seen them, and yet this time I knew a moment of piercing pain. Where I come from we just call it jealousy.
The jealousy surprised and confused me.
Must be the grief, I told myself. He is not for you, but he will be there for you.
No matter how cold and distant he was to me I could trust him. He was the only one I must trust. Robert had said so and I trusted Robert. That man will fight your corner, he said.
I turned my eyes towards the church entrance. Yes, I could do this. I would die before I let Robert down.
Ivan's secretary hurried up to me.
'Good morning, Mrs. Maxwell.'
'Hello, Mrs. Macdonald,' I said. All of a sudden I felt a jolt of panic. I clutched her hand. 'The flowers on the top of the casket. They are dusky pink roses, aren't they?'
She smiled faintly. 'Yes, they are.'
'Oh good. For a moment there I thought I forgot to tell Janice.' Janice was Robert's secretary and she had liaised everything with Mrs. Macdonald.
'You didn't,' she said gently.
'They were his mother's favorite flowers,' I explained.
'I see.' Her voice was polite.
Mrs. Macdonald's gaze slipped down to my pendant. I understood. She could not help herself. It was so special. In a rush her eyes came up again, her expression almost guilty.
'Come this way,' she said and led me inside the cold, damp cathedral filled with hundreds of people. A sudden hush fell upon the gathered mourners. We walked up to the front pew silently, our shoes loud on the limestone floor. I could feel all their heads turn to watch me. Some were curious, others were openly envious or resentful. I am the American girl who appeared from nowhere, married a multimillionaire, and in two years was the heiress of a sizeable fortune. They don't know I loved him entirely, the good, bad, the ugly. I loved all of it. They could not see my silent grief.
They just saw the gold digger.
All I could see was the rosewood coffin. Pale morning light streamed in through the stained glass of the cathedral's windows and fell on his fine casket with its gilt handles and a lush arrangement of dusky pink roses on it. Inside I knew it was silk-lined and perfumed with sandalwood oil.
Robert was lying inside.
I took my seat on the hard bench and listened to minister's words and the well-spoken words of all those people who had not come to see him in his last months. They waxed lyrical about what a wonderful man he was. Then Rosalind took the pulpit for her tribute. I kept my eyes to the grey flagstones while dry-eyed, she told the world about her great love for her father.
'I sat on his knees. I loved him. Before he lost his mind he knew I loved him. But the sickness, it turned his brain to mush and he could no longer tell the difference between true love and the lies of strangers. People who were only there for what they could get. Daddy, I love you. Always. Wherever you are.'
Then it was Ivan's turn. I looked up and his gaze met mine. I dragged my eyes away in confusion.
I sat staring at the floor and listened to old stories about Robert. Things I never knew. He loved to hunt. I never knew. He could out drink any man. I never knew. There was so much I didn't know. I only knew him when he was sick and diminished.
My eyes became wet, but I did not even realize that I was crying until my ribs began to heave as if they were suddenly too full of sorrow. I put my head down and closed my eyes. It was good that he was gone. He was in pain. It was a good thing.
Of course, I did not take the stand. I told him I wouldn't. 'Please, Robert, don't make me do it.' And he had smiled. 'No, your love is pure. What is pure must never be examined. It will hurt the impure.'
So I didn't speak at his funeral service. Instead there would always be a part of me still dressed in full black, sitting on the front pew at his funeral, listening to 'The Lord Is My Shepherd.'
CHAPTER 4
Tawny Maxwell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEUgORVsECs
There were six pallbearers dressed in black suits and white gloves. The gold handles glinted in the sunlight as they lifted the casket onto their shoulders. I saw Ivan go up to the man in front, tap him on the shoulder, and take his position. I stared at him. Why, he must have loved Robert too. I stood at the bottom of the church steps and watched them carefully load Robert into the back of the hearse.
I tried to imagine him, lying in there as if sleeping. Finally peaceful.
They closed the doors and I turned away and walked towards the convoy of stationary black cars. My car was at the head of the long line. As I was about to get into it I felt a hand on the sleeve of my coat. I turned around, startled.
Rosalind smiled at me. Her dry-eyed crying had not smudged her make-up at all. Everything was perfectly in place.