B004D4Y20I EBOK by Lulu Taylor

whatever she wanted and even managed to melt their mother’s frostiness. And it was not all an act. As a girl she had been lost in a world of her own, busy playing make-believe all the time. Tara always felt that Poppy had been protected against the harsher realities of the world and for all she protested that she didn’t want her money and that she was more interested in saving the planet than going shopping, she’d never really had to strike out on her own. It was down to the great scare of Poppy’s childhood, when she’d fallen seriously ill and they’d thought they were going to lose her. After that, their parents had pampered and petted her. She became the light of their mother’s life, the only one able to make her eyes soften and those stern lips smile. It was hard for the other two, but they learned to forgive Poppy for it – her kittenish charm was too hard to resist for long. Besides, there was someone else they were able to unite against …
    Tara sighed and stared out of the window as Hyde Park passed by without her seeing it. Poppy thought of herself as independent but she wasn’t really. How could she live in Bloomsbury, daubing away on her canvases or whatever else it was she did, without the help of the family money? There was no way she would be any use whatever when it came to Trevellyan – she just didn’t have the first clue, or even care, about business.
    It made the fact that Poppy had been left Loxton all the harder to swallow. Tara bit her lip at the thought of it. Rationally, she knew she didn’t need or want Loxton. She didn’t care for the house itself and her memories of her childhood there were not particularly fond ones. But she couldn’t help feeling wounded by the fact that it had been denied her, lock, stock and barrel. Not a single piece of it had been held over for her. Mother hadn’t left her so much as a brooch or a necklace to remember her by.
    She drummed her fingernails against the seat and shifted anxiously as she remembered her trip to her mother’s bedroom and the missing jewellery. Had it been sold? All of it? Or had someone removed it for safekeeping and had it sent to the bank? It was a puzzle, but one Tara was determined to solve. Her mother might have had few friends and little affection to show her daughters but she did love something passionately, and that was jewellery. She had a desire for it that put Elizabeth Taylor’s in the shade. And she had sometimes used it to blackmail her daughters.
    ‘I shall leave
you
my diamonds,’ she’d say to whoever was in favour that day, though Tara suspected that secretly Yolanda would have preferred to take them with her into the next world. In fact, she probably regretted leaving her jewels behind more than she did her daughters. On Jemima’s wedding day, Yolanda had put one of her most magnificent pieces, the great pearl and diamond choker, around Jemima’s neck herself, smiling at the brilliant sparkle of the diamonds nestling between the luscious, creamy sheen of the pearls. The bestowal of the choker was a mark of how Jemima was in high favour that day, although there was no question but that it would be going back to Yolanda the minute it came off her daughter’s neck. Poppy had been lent the emeralds and Tara the amazing diamond and sapphire necklace and earrings. Those stunning party pieces lived in the bank most of the time; their mother only kept her personal favourites in her bedroom: a few ropes of pearls, the diamond earrings, some cocktail jewellery, her rings and the locket.
    Tara was certain her mother would have taken great care of what would happen to the jewels. Yet there was nothing about them in the will, unless they were included in Loxton’s contents. To treat her precious stones so carelessly was entirely out of character. So where were they?
    ‘Here we are, ma’am,’ said John through the intercom. They had drawn up in front of the impressive white façade of her Holland Park mansion. He