England when the news of the court case reached Aunt Mindy, but that had certainly made leaving the States a little bit easier. No tears at the airport. °
‘Please fasten your seat belts for our final descent into London. The ground temperature outside is sixty degrees and it’s a cloudy day …’
No kidding. Becky shivered and made to draw the fabric strap tight around her tiny waist.
The chauffeur was waiting for her as she came out of customs; they had taken one look at her passport and waved her through.
‘Let me get your bags, miss.’ He had an accent Becky recognized from the movies as being Cockney. ‘The car’s this way, if you’ll just follow me.’
‘Of course.’ She hoped it wasn’t too far into the city. She felt amazingly tired, and the travelling wasn’t done yet. In the chr park, the driver pulled up in a gleaming P,,olls t
57
months of deportment training at Mrs Porter’s on the Upper East Side. The driver noted her slim calves with appreciation, but Becky was too exhausted to notice. They pulled into traffic and hit the motorway, the
car gliding over the road as smoothly as a gondola in Venice.
The chauffeur touched his cap in the mirror.
‘Well, Miss Lancaster,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Welcome ‘ome.’
‘When exactly is she going to get here?’
The Honourable Mrs Henry Whitlock tapped impatiently on the mahogany dining-room table in front of her and fixed her husband with a look. It was very important to know exactly when her niece was arriving. There would be nothing lacking in Fairfield, she thought bitterly. She and Henry had cleared out of the rooms she’d occupied for the last twenty years to that new and ordinary house in Gloucester; an attractive enough townhouse with a garden full of roses, but not Fairfield, her Fairfield. She still couldn’t think of the place as belonging to her niece. But it did, that was the law, and she wasn’t going to allow Christy’s daughter to have any complaints; her brother’s orphan heir, maybe, but marrying that dreadful American woman had been Robert’s mistake.
As far as Victoria Whitlock was concerned, his daughter Rebecca was just an extension of that mistake. Who knew, with Christy’s dismal record of jazz parties and martini lunches, if Rebecca was even her brother’s child? Victoria thought furiously. The snapshots she had seen showed a young woman with every indication of taking after her mother. Indecently long blonde hair and swirling print dresses - what was there of Robert in that, except maybe her almost masculine height? Rebecca was five eight and still wore heels. Obviously she liked to attract attention to herself. And that was most certaiMy not the Lancaster way.
When Lord and Lady Lancaster, Rebecca’s parents, had taken that motoring trip around the Riviera and been killed by a drunk driver it had been a black day for Victoria. Of course she mourned her brother, and even Christy hadn’t deserved to die. Divorce had been more along the lines of Victoria’s daydreams. And little Charles, just six months, strapped into the back seat of Robert’s Aston Martin and killed instantly. Leaving the direct line with no male heir. Victoria tried hard to suppress the occasional thoughts of what-if that drifted through her mind unbidden. What if the nanny bringing Rebecca out to the airport to join her parents, one year old and the apple of Robert’s eye, had not hit that traffic jam? What if she hadn’t decided to take the next flight? Of course Victoria hadn’t wished her niece dead, but there was no dewing
58
that if Rebecca had been in that car, she, Robert’s only sibling, would have inherited Fairfield.
If wishing the girl had been in that car was beyond the pale, resenting her for coming home was not. Rebecca had
‘Please fasten your seat belts for our final descent into London. The ground temperature outside is sixty degrees and it’s a cloudy day …’
No kidding. Becky shivered and made to draw the fabric strap tight around her tiny waist.
The chauffeur was waiting for her as she came out of customs; they had taken one look at her passport and waved her through.
‘Let me get your bags, miss.’ He had an accent Becky recognized from the movies as being Cockney. ‘The car’s this way, if you’ll just follow me.’
‘Of course.’ She hoped it wasn’t too far into the city. She felt amazingly tired, and the travelling wasn’t done yet. In the chr park, the driver pulled up in a gleaming P,,olls t
57
months of deportment training at Mrs Porter’s on the Upper East Side. The driver noted her slim calves with appreciation, but Becky was too exhausted to notice. They pulled into traffic and hit the motorway, the
car gliding over the road as smoothly as a gondola in Venice.
The chauffeur touched his cap in the mirror.
‘Well, Miss Lancaster,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Welcome ‘ome.’
‘When exactly is she going to get here?’
The Honourable Mrs Henry Whitlock tapped impatiently on the mahogany dining-room table in front of her and fixed her husband with a look. It was very important to know exactly when her niece was arriving. There would be nothing lacking in Fairfield, she thought bitterly. She and Henry had cleared out of the rooms she’d occupied for the last twenty years to that new and ordinary house in Gloucester; an attractive enough townhouse with a garden full of roses, but not Fairfield, her Fairfield. She still couldn’t think of the place as belonging to her niece. But it did, that was the law, and she wasn’t going to allow Christy’s daughter to have any complaints; her brother’s orphan heir, maybe, but marrying that dreadful American woman had been Robert’s mistake.
As far as Victoria Whitlock was concerned, his daughter Rebecca was just an extension of that mistake. Who knew, with Christy’s dismal record of jazz parties and martini lunches, if Rebecca was even her brother’s child? Victoria thought furiously. The snapshots she had seen showed a young woman with every indication of taking after her mother. Indecently long blonde hair and swirling print dresses - what was there of Robert in that, except maybe her almost masculine height? Rebecca was five eight and still wore heels. Obviously she liked to attract attention to herself. And that was most certaiMy not the Lancaster way.
When Lord and Lady Lancaster, Rebecca’s parents, had taken that motoring trip around the Riviera and been killed by a drunk driver it had been a black day for Victoria. Of course she mourned her brother, and even Christy hadn’t deserved to die. Divorce had been more along the lines of Victoria’s daydreams. And little Charles, just six months, strapped into the back seat of Robert’s Aston Martin and killed instantly. Leaving the direct line with no male heir. Victoria tried hard to suppress the occasional thoughts of what-if that drifted through her mind unbidden. What if the nanny bringing Rebecca out to the airport to join her parents, one year old and the apple of Robert’s eye, had not hit that traffic jam? What if she hadn’t decided to take the next flight? Of course Victoria hadn’t wished her niece dead, but there was no dewing
58
that if Rebecca had been in that car, she, Robert’s only sibling, would have inherited Fairfield.
If wishing the girl had been in that car was beyond the pale, resenting her for coming home was not. Rebecca had
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