Second Chance with the Millionaire(3)

       
           



       

Despite all these sensible thoughts Lucy could not quite stifle the  apprehension burgeoning to life inside her. As yet they had no idea when  Saul would arrive, but she was being meticulous about vacating the  Manor just as quickly as she could. She was also being meticulous about  what she took with her-only the furniture which had been her mother's  and nothing more.

Fortunately the Dower House was furnished, although somewhat haphazardly  as up until quite recently it had been tenanted, but no doubt the  furniture that had been her mother's would make it seem more like home.

With the help of Mrs Isaacs, their daily, Lucy had already cleaned the  house from top to bottom. Nearly all the rooms needed redecorating and  she had promised herself that this was a task she would tackle just as  soon as she had time. With the income from the trust funds her father  had established for Oliver and Tara they would be able to manage  financially-just about. Oliver's school fees would take a large slice of  these funds, but Fanny had been adamant that her son must go to prep  school at the start of the new term, as had been planned.

The school which had been chosen was George Martin's old school, and  even though privately Lucy thought it was almost an extravagance to pay  out such a large sum of money annually just so that Oliver could be  educated at her father's old school, she had not had the heart to oppose  Fanny.

It was her opinion that of the two of them Tara was the cleverer and  inwardly she was determined that when the time came Tara would somehow  be given the same opportunities as her brother. Fortunately at the  moment that was one problem which could be shelved, unlike the jumble of  packing cases now littering the ballroom floor.

She and Mrs Isaacs had brought them here mainly because of the large  area of empty floor space, and tomorrow morning Mr Isaacs and his two  large sons were going to drive up from the village with their van and  spend the day transporting the cases over to the Dower House.

From the ballroom window it was possible to look right across the park  that surrounded the house and Lucy caught her lip between her teeth as  she glanced at the view. They had almost the same view from the Dower  House, which was surrounded by a very pleasant garden.

With hindsight Lucy could recognise that her father's decision to  divorce the Dower House and a certain amount of land from the main house  had probably originated with Oliver's birth; even then he must have  been planning to do everything he could for his illegitimate child, she  thought wryly. But, in doing so, there was no getting away from the fact  that he had stripped the Manor of anything that might usefully have  been sold to provide its new owner with funds. The farmlands had now all  gone, the last few acres having been sold just prior to her father's  death.

Those paintings which had not been sold previously to cover death duties  had been auctioned at Sotheby's eighteen months ago, along with the few  good antiques they had left.

Now the house had a forlorn, neglected air, almost an air of desolation  and desertion. What on earth Saul would do with the place she had no  idea. Sell it most likely; she could not see how he could do anything  else.

Sighing faintly she turned away from the view and surveyed the packing  cases. She had written in chalk on each one what it contained,  meticulously refusing to pack the Meissen dinner service or what was  left of the family silver. Those went with the house and she was  determined that they would stay with it.

Whatever wealth the Martin family had once possessed from trade and a  sugar planation in the West Indies had been dissipated by the time of  the First World War, and since then the family had survived by gradually  selling off its assets. It was true that her father had held several  directorships which had brought in a reasonable income, but the house  simply devoured money.

The same Martin who had added the Georgian frontage to the house had  also commissioned the Dower House, and its Georgian elegance had always  appealed to Lucy. She knew their solicitor found it strange that it had  been left to her and not to Fanny, but Lucy understood the reason why.

Her father had thought that the security of the family would be safer in  her hands than Fanny's and indeed her stepmother was, in some ways,  very much another child. She had leaned on George Martin during their  marriage and Lucy suspected that now she would lean on her.                       
       
           



       

Fanny didn't really care for the country and spent as much time as she  could in London, staying with friends. Neither was she particularly  maternal, allowing Lucy to take day-to-day charge of her half-brother  and sister. Fortunately the three of them got on well together, but it  was typical of Fanny's nature that she should not consider that a single  woman of twenty-five might not want the responsibility for a stepmother  and two children.

The one thing she would miss about the Manor was the library, Lucy  reflected half an hour later as she went downstairs. Her book, although  fiction, relied heavily on information she had discovered among the  family papers and diaries and she was hoping that Saul would allow her  to use these for her work. She could of course simply take them and he  would be none the wiser, but her own strict code of ethics would not  allow her to do that. The unhappy, shy teenager, who had allowed her  older male cousin to bully her into being unkind to their colonial  relative, had long since been superseded by a woman who knew her own  mind and how to stick to her own decisions and assessments.

She grimaced faintly as she stepped into the kitchen. This was one room  she would not miss. Large and old-fashioned, it was ill-lit and  ill-equipped, unlike the kitchen at the Dower House which had been  installed by one of their tenants.

After her father's death, in an attempt to cut back on costs, Lucy had  been obliged to let Mrs Jennings, who had acted as their  cook-cum-housekeeper, go. She had been eager to retire and more than  happy with the generous cheque Lucy had given her, but Fanny had not  stopped grumbling, complaining that it was too much to expect her to  provide meals for all of them.

Because of this Lucy had discovered that she was the one doing the  cooking, something which in other circumstances she might not have  minded, but which in addition to all her other responsibilities had the  effect of making her heart sink every time she entered the kitchen.

Tonight they would have to make do with beans on toast, she decided  ruefully, anticipating Oliver's objections to this meagre fare. Tomorrow  night she would make it up to them, she decided, but for tonight a  snack would have to do. She wanted an early start in the morning and was  already far too tired to start preparing a large meal.

This physical and mental exhaustion was something which seemed to have  dogged her since her father's death, exacerbated by the discovery of  Oliver's true parentage. In many ways it shocked her that her father  should have been so imprudent, and what of Oliver himself? Telling  herself that now was not the time to start worrying about the future,  she started laying the table.

Tara came in just as she was finished.

'Mummy says she's got a headache,' she informed Lucy, 'and she wants to have her supper in her room.'

Stifling the exasperated sound springing to her lips, Lucy said nothing.  She tried to be patient with Fanny, telling herself that after all her  stepmother had lost a husband, while she had merely lost a father who  had not been particularly close to her. She could still remember the  acute devastation of losing her mother, whom she had truly loved, and if  Fanny was experiencing just one tenth of the anguish she had  experienced then, then she did indeed deserve her sympathy and patience.

Fanny wouldn't want beans on toast anyway. Perhaps if she boiled her a couple of eggs …

'Go and tell Oliver to wash his hands and come down to eat, will you,  Tara?' she instructed the younger girl. 'I want you both to have an  early night tonight because we've got a lot to do tomorrow.'

'Yes. I've already told Harriet all about her new paddock,' Tara  responded importantly. 'Do you think she'll really like it there, Lucy?  She'll miss Cinders, won't she?'

Cinders was the small tabby cat who lived in the dilapidated stables;  suppressing a smile, Lucy said seriously, 'Oh, I think we can take  Cinders with us.'

'But you said that we couldn't take anything that belonged to the Manor.'

So she had, but privately Lucy could not see that her cousin was going  to object too much to the removal of one small cat, and, as Tara had  said, her pony was very attached to the little animal.