While Philip was placed in the hug of the stone statue, friends and family members looked on, Leighton included, at what was clearly a bizarre event. Philip hadn’t even been particularly religious, yet the church he had chosen was a Christian one of common denomination. Alexis half believed this was her late husband getting back at them from beyond the grave, in what would be his last act of control. It was enough that people had to stare at him after all of this was done without having to be put through the rigmarole of the ceremony as well. She couldn’t wait for it to be over. She also couldn’t wait for the will to be read and for Philip’s business accounts to be unlocked and passed into her name. Just getting to this point had been hard enough. The autopsy was more than she expected, but according to the lawyers, every single one of them, her own included, who was considerably less talented than the gamut Philip had put together, it was what Philip and not the police had requested. The last thing she needed was the police sniffing around and a hold being put on the cash as well as the credit cards while they started to investigate. She’d seen enough detective series and dodgy daytime soaps to know that as soon as a wealthy man died, the police were all over it like flies to shit. The problem was that her husband, as well as being eccentric, was also a little paranoid. Someone bumping him off was exactly the kind of thing he believed would happen, more so from someone who had a chance to gain directly from his death.
Alexis was the first one out when the ceremony was over. She made a point of kissing the urn, wiping a fake tear from her cheek and grabbing the nearest person to her to help her should she faint. That person happened to be Leighton, and it wasn’t just by chance that he found himself alongside her.
“You must be devastated”, Leighton commented.
Alexis had to lower her glasses just to take a look at the man she now had her arm around. She was always good at picking them, she thought. Even today, the day they were putting her husband into his grave, in a manner of speaking.
“The day just got way better”, she said, grabbing hold of Leighton’s arm a little more tightly should someone pull him away.
“He was a horrible man really”, Alexis confessed as they walked back to the cars. “Egotistical, crazy, tight as well. You know, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I’m-”
“Leighton?” Pandora said, cutting her mother off. She hadn’t seen him before now, and began striding purposefully across the grass to get to him.
“Hello Pandora”, Leighton said.
“You two know each other?” Pandora and Alexis said in unison.
“We were about to get to know each other right before you decided to poke your nose in. Leighton was helping me to the car.”
“Is that right?” Pandora said, wrapping her arm around Leighton’s free one. “Then seeing as we are travelling together, mother, we can both take you.”
Alexis grumbled silently but she knew just as well as most that fifty percent of something was better than a hundred percent of nothing. Pandora had inherited her womanly ways, and she knew that when her daughter got her claws into something, she rarely let go. She felt proud of her for that. Like mother like daughter.
“Is this the business you were talking about, Leighton?” Pandora purred, taking the opportunity to stroke his arm and wrap her slender fingers around his bicep muscle, of which she was pleased to note there was plenty.
“Business, what business do you have with my dead husband? Your not another lawyer are you? Please don’t tell me you’re another lawyer. There won’t be any left in the county.”
“No, I’m not a lawyer”, Leighton said.
They’d arrived at the cars, the peloton behind them closing in like a flock of hungry crows. Leighton took off his sunglasses, and both Pandora and her mother gasped a little at the perfection of his eyes. “I’m a businessman”, he continued. “Much like Philip was. We worked on a project together a long time ago and I came when I heard he was ill. To be honest, I wasn’t Philip’s biggest fan, but I was in the area so I thought I’d drop by the hospital.”
“You went to see him?” Pandora said. She’d reluctantly broken away from Leighton, feeling as though hanging on to him still might have broken social convention.
“I did”, Leighton confessed.
“Then that means you must have met-”
“Hello Gracey”, Leighton said, his eyes lighting up so much that Pandora couldn’t help but see it.
“Perfect”, she said in disbelief.
“Hi Leighton”, Gracey said, black sunglasses covering crying eyes, her arms folded protectively across her chest.
“We’re just missing the dunce now”, Pandora said. “Then you’ve got a full house.”
“Don’t be pejorative about your sister, please”, Alexis crowed. “We’ve had enough disruption in this family to last us a lifetime.”
As if on cue, Isabella came over to join them.
“Hi”, she said in a tone completely out of place at a funeral.
“Leighton this is the other sister, Isabella. Isabella, this is Leighton.” Pandora said, taking charge.
“The guy from the bar”, Isabella said, pointing at him. “I remember you. You’re hot.”
Leighton couldn’t help but smile.
“Thank you”, he said, coyly. “But the pleasure is all mine. It’s been a long time since I’ve been surrounded by such perfect examples of beauty.”
Gracey groaned but she couldn’t hide her blushes. Pandora couldn’t do anything else but think of Leighton’s cock. Isabella, meanwhile, was thinking about the spread of food that she knew would be awaiting them at the house.
“Come on girls, leave the man alone”, Alexis said, linking her arm back in Leighton’s. “I’m sure he doesn’t want you all fighting over him.”
“No-one is fighting over him”, Gracey made a point of mentioning.
“Now tell me, Leighton”, Alexis said, guiding him to her waiting car, what was it about my husband you so disliked?”
***
The banquet was indeed sumptuous. Philip had nurtured a love of the finest quality food for long time, and even though nothing had been set aside in the will to cater for the hungry guests after the ceremony - some of whom he had invited, most of whom he hadn’t - there was enough in the cellar to provide the fifty or so hangers-on a suitable feast. Philip’s lawyers were in the process of inventorying the entire house, but Alexis knew where he kept his wines and had set aside several dozen good bottles while he convalesced for this very moment of celebration.
His credit cards had been put on hold while the whole mess of the will was being sorted out, the house staff had been put on temporary suspension, and the hard cash had almost run out, but Alexis wasn’t going to let it bother her. Pandora felt it would only be a matter of time until the things she had already mentally inherited would be passed on to her for real, and Isabella knew very little other than the fact she hadn’t yet got her pony. Gracey was the only one harboring a little concern. Six lawyers, an autopsy and a complete inventory of the house was not something she entirely expected, but the thing that was bugging her most was Leighton, and she couldn’t put her finger on why. There was something about him being here that didn’t seem entirely incidental. Although there were other business partners and former employees amongst the assorted crowd, none of them seemed to interest her in the same way. It wasn’t just the fact he was sexy, which was obvious, any idiot could have seen that, or athletic, and well-turned out, it was more than that, or maybe it was just that. Gracey was confused, and when she was confused, she liked to eat. At the buffet table she bumped into the one man she would have preferred to avoid for a while - Leighton.
“Your mother tells me there are some complications with the will”, Leighton said.
Gracey made a careful selection of food items she deemed the least grotesque. Nobody looked appealing when they ate.
“My stepfather was a complicated man”, Gracey said. “I’m sure you knew that.”
&
nbsp; “I’m sorry he passed Gracey. He may not have been on my Christmas card list, but I understand he was very important to you.”
“It doesn’t matter”, Gracey said, but that felt far from the truth.
Leighton placed his finger under her chin and tilted her face towards his. It was the first time Gracey had been touched in that way by anyone, let alone a complete stranger. “If you need someone to talk to, for anything, you know you can come to me.”
Gracey laughed it off and pulled her head away, not dramatically so it looked like she felt awkward, but slowly, like she was in control of the situation. Her beating heart said otherwise.
“It’s ok”, Gracey said, her eyes back down, scanning the food but not taking any of it in.
“I know what you are feeling”, Leighton said. “My father died when I was very young. It took a long time to get over it.”
Gracey took the moment to look at him, perhaps to check to see if he was lying.
“He wasn’t my father”, she said.
“I know”, Leighton said. “Just let me know if you need me.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the infernal rattle of a silver knife against a champagne bottle. Alexis was up on a chair, both of them wobbling a little.
“I want to thank you all for coming. My husband, Philip, was an absolute bastard.”
Nervous laughter and silence filled the room, while Alexis looked out challengingly and Gracey held her head in her hands to hide herself. Her mother continued.
“And now he’s dead. Hooray. With any luck, when the lawyers have finished counting his various belongings, his will and last testament will be read. When it is, you’ll all have to come back and I’ll throw you a proper party. In the meantime, eat and drink as much as you can, because the champagne is already running out and this might be the only thing you get from him. To Philip.”
“Fucking hell”, Gracey said and went to help her mother down from her chair.
Chapter 5
Sat across a main table as though at a press conference, the six lawyers put in place by Philip before his death and the one put in place by Alexis after, waited for all of the invited attendees to sit down before beginning.
There were a vast number of people in the crowd, much more so than had attended his funeral, a lot who found themselves sat next to complete strangers, wondering what it was that had brought them here, some from huge distances. Seeing them all pile in, take chairs and stand up around the back of the room when none remained nearly gave Alexis an apoplectic fit. She had to put out her cigarette and light up another one just to stop herself from fainting.
“What the hell are all these people doing here?” she complained to Pandora, who for once in her life didn’t have an answer.
Leighton hovered around the back of the room, ready to leave as soon as was necessary.
The lawyers were talking amongst themselves and hesitating to begin and it was making Alexis feel nervous, particularly because the lawyer she had contracted seemed not to be part of the discussion.
There was rowdiness and impatience in the room, none more than which came from the recently widowed and two of her three children. Gracey just wanted the whole thing over so she could get her life back on track, and concentrate on University. If she couldn’t do that, she didn’t know what might come of her.
“Get on with it”, Alexis shouted.
With all of the invited attendees present, and the large doors to the great hall that Philip once used as an exercise run for his beloved pooch, the lawyer sat in the middle of the seven, a rotund man with a pockmarked face called Egdon Alabaster, finally started the proceedings.
“Thank you all for coming, and I must apologize for the unconventional way we have all been forced to handle this particularly delicate situation. It has been most bizarre, but I can promise you there have been reasons for secrecy, mostly tied into the elections that Philip made before his death and left in sealed envelopes with myself and my five esteemed colleagues.”
“Just get on with it”, Pandora shouted.
“Right”, Egdon continued. “It’s just that legally speaking, I’m required to do this as Philip intended. We’ve had to follow his directions to the letter of the law so to speak.”
“You see anyone complaining?” Alexis rebuked.
Poor Egdon wasn’t making much sense, and he could tell his audience were on the edge of mounting the table to castrate him, before reading the contents of the will themselves. In light of this, he continued with as much expediency as he felt like he was allowed.
“Amongst other instructions I won’t trouble you with, Philip left a list of people he wanted to attend the reading, and a date on which his will would be read. That date is today. We have no idea what the contents of the will are, nor who Philip intends to be the recipient or recipients of his estate and its contents. We have spent the last week itemizing and creating a detailed inventory according to his specific instructions, comparing our findings with the latest incarnation of that list that Philip left, almost seven months ago. It seems there is little discrepancy between the two lists, such was his eye for detail, apart from a number of expensive bottles of wine and champagne which we were unfortunately unable to locate.”
“And never will”, Alexis spat under her breath.
“The inventory list is available upon request to anyone who would like to see it, and will also be made public after the will has been read.”
Egdon eyed the audience over his half frame glasses, pushed papers about on his desk and found the relevant envelope marked Philip Mandrake de Vries: Last will & testament.
“So this is it”, he said, and stood up.
Alexis grabbed Pandora tightly. This was a matter of formality to her but there was still something that cast a shadow of doubt over the whole thing. Without Philip’s finances, she had nothing. Literally nothing. That was a situation she had never had to face in her whole life. For the whole time they had been married, Philip gave her an allowance, which was sufficient for herself and her daughters. Everything else he kept completely separate and made great pains to do so. She didn’t even know who the benefactor of his life insurance would be, even though she assumed it had to be her. Essentially, they led a separate life financially, and a married one only in name. The house was his, the cars were his, the ludicrously expensive bottles of wine, the silverware and the antiques. They were all his. Alexis was feeling a little nervous. The six lawyers opened the envelopes in synchronization. While Egdon read, the five others on Philip’s team made sure there were no differences between the documents. At the end of the table, Alexis’s lawyer, looking very much out of his depth, and wondering perhaps if he’d ever get paid for his work, tried desperately to read the will over their shoulders.
“Oh my”, Egdon said, and then cleared his throat. “Firstly, the matter of my beautiful dog Alexander-”
“Fucking hell, here we go”, Pandora whispered.
“Who I named after my caustic wife Alexis.”
A pantheon of eyes turned to pick her out of the crowd while Egdon paused to let them, seeing the word written in the script in brackets. When the murmurs had quietened down, and Alexis had told a select few to mind their own business, Egdon continued.
“Alexander was everything that my wife was not. Warm, friendly, obedient and inexpensive. I loved my dog and because of this, I leave him and everything that was his, which includes every single toy, piece of bedding, piece of clothing, accessory or item of a canine nature, to the only person I know will love him as I did in my absence. To that measure, I give Alexander, my precious pet, to my stepdaughter Gracey.”
“Thank fuck for that”, Pandora said, which gained her a slap on the knee from Alexis for cursing.
The five lawyers exchanged looks with each other, having had the time to read ahead at what else was written on the card. Egdon hadn’t had a chance yet, but would soon become aware himself. Everyone else, including the lawyer Alexis had employed, who had
by now given up trying to look over their shoulders and sat with his arms crossed and his back towards them facing away and into the gardens of the estate beyond, sat on tenterhooks waiting to hear the rest.
“Everything else that I own, absolutely everything else without exception, down to the last crumb of bread in the box in the kitchen, to the dust that lines the paintings in the hallway, the estate in which you sit, the chairs you sit on and the extensive fortune I’ve squirrelled away in several different bank accounts, I give to the one person I owe more to than anyone else in this world. I feel a deep regret for what happened between us, for never being able to come to terms with what I did, for never apologizing and attempting to make things right. I wasn’t ever the easiest person to get along with, nor did I often make the right decisions, and I’m hoping that this decision goes someway to repairing the gigantic hole that exploded between us. Alexis-”
At this point, and upon hearing her name, Alexis’s heart actually stopped for almost a second. It was what followed that helped start it again.
Donkey Doubled: A Twin Stepbrother Menage Romance Page 21
