Property of a Noblewoman by Danielle Steel

given her antibiotics, but she said they weren’t working.
    “Maybe it’s pneumonia. I should get an X-ray next week,” Winnie said nervously.
    “I think you’ll be fine,” Valerie said calmly, and handed her some magazines she’d brought her to distract her.
    “I had a flu shot before Christmas, and a pneumonia shot. I don’t think they worked,” Winnie said, looking panicked. She was going to be seventy-nine on her next birthday, nearly eighty she often said, which frightened her. She was terrified of dying, and went to the doctor all the time.
    She drank the orange juice, and then took a swig of Maalox in case it gave her heartburn. She took a dozen different vitamins every day, and still got sick. Valerie tried not to make fun of her or tease her about it. Winnie took her health very seriously, although her daughter Penny said she was strong as an ox and would outlive them all.
    “So what have you been up to this week?” Valerie asked her, trying to get her mind off her health.
    “Nothing. I’ve been sick,” she said, as they sat down in the little sitting room where Winnie watched TV alone at night. She didn’t go out as often as her sister, had few friends, and no activities that interested her, except playing bridge, twice a week. She was good at it. Valerie thought it was incredibly boring, but didn’t say so. At least it gave her something to do that involved other people.
    “We missed you at the museum party on Thursday night. We had a good table. I took Phillip.” Valerie knew that if she’d gone with Winnie, her sister would have insisted on leaving right after dinner. She hated staying out late, and said she needed her sleep. “Have you talked to Penny?”
    “She never calls me,” Winnie said sourly. Her relationship with her daughter had been strained for years, and she complained that her grandchildren never came to visit. They loved visiting Valerie and exploring her studio, but she never told her older sister, nor the fact that she and Penny had lunch occasionally so she could vent about her mother. Penny’s complaints about her mother were similar to what Valerie had felt about her own. Winnie and their mother were cold women, who always saw the glass as half empty and never half full.
    “Phillip is working on an estate at the moment,” Valerie said to distract her. It was hard coming up with subjects Winnie wouldn’t say something unpleasant about. She was constantly annoyed at something – taxes, or the fees charged by the bank, her losses in the stock market, her rude grandchildren, a neighbor she was feuding with. There was always something. But Phillip’s estate sale seemed like a neutral subject. “The surrogate’s court had him appraise the contents of an abandoned safe deposit box, and they found jewelry in it worth millions. The woman it belonged to died intestate, and no heirs have turned up, so they’re selling it all at Christie’s, for the benefit of the state.”
    “As high as our taxes are, the state doesn’t need millions in jewelry,” Winnie said sourly. “If she had all that jewelry, why didn’t she leave a will?” It seemed stupid to her.
    “Who knows? Maybe she had no one to leave it to. Or maybe she was sick or confused. She was American and had married an Italian count during the war. It’s sort of a romantic story, and a coincidence – her maiden name was Pearson, like ours. And even more so, her first name was Marguerite. Phillip asked if we might be related to her, if she was a cousin or something, but I don’t know of anyone in our family who lived in Italy or married an Italian count. She died seven months ago at ninety-one. Actually,” Valerie said, suddenly looking pensive, “that’s the same age our sister would have been. That’s even weirder.” And as she said it, she felt as though puzzle pieces were slipping into place or cogs in a machine. “I’ve never thought of it, but what if Marguerite didn’t die when we were kids,