Guardian to the Heiress

by Margaret Way

  He knew she meant it and found it admirable. “Not the most helpful characteristics for the wife of a highly successful man destined to go higher,” he observed gently.

  Carol gave a sigh. “My grandmother always lived at Beaumont. She shunned the city except on those special occasions when Poppy talked her into it. The coup de grâce, the final blow, came with the death of my father. My grandmother retreated from life. She retreated from everyone including me. Finally she chose to end it. Maybe my family is cursed.” She turned her head so she could register his response.

  “Not many families escape tragedy, Carol,” he said, looking straight ahead at the sun-dappled road. “You’re not cursed. You have a very bright future. You’re going to study hard in your final year. You’ll gain a first-class degree. I have it on good authority you will, if you work. You’re going to need a legal background in the years ahead. Increasingly you’ll be in a position of power.”

  “You already are,” she pointed out rather dryly. “You have power over me.”

  * * *

  Massive black wrought-iron gates soared to some ten feet. They were closed. She gave a wry laugh. “Looks like they don’t want us to come in. Never mind—I’ll open the gates.” She had one hand on the door of the car.

  “Carol, no need.” He stopped her. “I’ll call through to the house.”

  “Hey, that’s new,” she said, sighting for the first time the impressive-looking button-entry intercom panel. It was set into a stone pillar, with a stone pineapple on top.

  Damon lowered his window and punched in a five-digit code. Afterwards he told Carol the code.

  “I got it the first time,” she said. She was very good with numbers.

  “You’re sharp.”

  “Indeed I am, Damon Hunter, so remember.” Her glance was blue flame.

  “There should be a lot more security on the house,” he said seriously. “There are places anyone could—”

  He broke off as a woman’s flatish voice came through the speaker. “Who is this, please?”

  “Identify yourself, Damon,” Carol joked sternly.

  He threw her a half smile. It made really sexy little brackets to frame his mouth. “Damon Hunter with my client, Carol Emmett. I rang ahead.”

  There was no reply, but the huge gates started to open inwards.

  “Good to know we’re welcome,” Carol spoke dryly. “It’s a big comfort to have your support, Damon.” He had such a strong presence. “That wasn’t the lady of the house.”

  “No, it’s the housekeeper, Amy Hoskins. She’s not Mrs Danvers, but she’s definitely channelling her.”

  Carol recognised the name as that of the daunting housekeeper in Daphne Du Maurier’s famous novel Rebecca. “I guess I could fire her, come to that. I’ve read Rebecca twice. Never could find a copy of the movie. Mrs Hoskins sounds like she’s taken a set against me already.” She spoke lightly, when her stomach was knotted with nerves.

  “Then, as you say, she can go. You own this house, Carol, the entire estate. You own the house at Point Piper. Your uncle retains the Point Piper apartment where your cousin lives at the present time.”

  “The house at Point Piper?” Carol gasped in dismay. “Whatever would I do with that? I don’t want all this money. All these possessions. The Point Piper house is a city icon. It must be worth...” She couldn’t begin to guess.

  “Around fifty million dollars even in these depressed times.”

  She drew in her breath. “That kind of money is obscene. How can any house outside a palace or one of the great stately homes of England and Europe be worth that kind of money?”

  “Well, it does have a magnificent view of Sydney Harbour,” he said dryly. “Which means arguably the finest view in the world. I happen to know your grandfather was approached last year by a Chinese businessman based in Hong Kong. I believe he has a comparable house on Victoria Peak. Of course, it doesn’t have a bad view, either.”

  * * *

  Like Rebecca’s nameless heroine, she couldn’t believe she was back. She couldn’t believe all this was hers. It would take ages and ages for it to sink in. The extensive parklike grounds, and beyond them the woodlands, were filled with large numbers of exotic trees and indigenous gums. She caught a glimpse of the man-made lake through the clearings. Anyone coming onto the property would have thought it a natural lagoon, only natural lagoons didn’t occur in the area. She remembered the wonderful tree ferns that grew around the verge, the great clumps of white arum lilies and Japanese iris.

  She had been an observant little girl, with a great love of nature, both her father and her grandfather had fostered. Her grandmother, too, on her good days. Carol wasn’t a bad artist, either. She had painted the abstract in the flat in a single Saturday afternoon. Even she thought it looked good—which wasn’t to say she was a real painter, but she did have talent. Her art teacher at her very good girls’ school—Guy Morris, a recognised artist himself—had tried hard to encourage her but she couldn’t seem to concentrate on any one thing in those days.

  The house lay ahead. Even after her long years of absence it looked just the same; time might have stopped. The gravelled driveway encircled a focal point, the big beautiful Victorian fountain with its pond raised high above ground, the three-tiered fountain higher. The fountain in turn was surrounded by a gravelled walk. Around the walk, borders of lush green lawn some two feet wide made a striking foil for the prolifically flowering rose gardens. In this area of the gardens, fronting the house, the beds hosted only the colour pink, from the blush pinks through the salmon pinks to the deepest rose pink. It suited the rose-coloured bricks used in the house’s construction and the deep-blue shutters. That had been her grandmother Elaine’s idea. She clearly remembered one late afternoon when all had been quiet, her grandmother taking her by the hand for a stroll around the playing fountain that set sparkling jets of water cascading down into the pool.

  Her grandmother had not thrived like her roses.

  * * *

  “Too much to expect the welcome mat. What now?” They stood out on the gravelled drive, looking up at the house. The high and wide front door, framed by very elegant acid etched side and fan lights, was shut.

  “We proceed.” He took her arm, tall and commanding, with born authority. It was a huge asset, Carol thought. Damon was in control.

  As they moved up the short flight of stone steps, the panelled front door opened to admit them.

  “Maybe she thought we were going to storm in?” Carol whispered, seeing some humour in the situation.

  A tall broad-hipped woman in a slate-blue outfit with a white collar—clearly a uniform—stood there. Not to greet them, precisely; there was no welcoming smile on her face, not even a civil spread of the lips. It was a bit too early for smiles, perhaps.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Hoskins.” Damon took charge.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Hunter. Ms Emmett,” the housekeeper responded, her glance whipping over Carol from head to foot, fixing onto the ruby-red hair as though the colour was not to her taste.

  “I take it the family are already assembled?” Damon asked.

  The woman suddenly looked flustered, her cheeks turning red. “Mr Maurice is in the library. Mr Troy hasn’t as yet arrived from the city. Mrs Chancellor will be down presently.”

  “Then perhaps you can show us into the library,” Damon suggested. “I don’t have a great deal of time.”

  “Certainly, Mr Hunter.” She straightened her shoulders. “Would you care for tea or coffee?”

  “Carol?” Damon turned to her. She looked porcelain-pale, otherwise composed. This would be a traumatic time for her.

  “Coffee would be nice. Thank you, Mrs Hoskins.” Carol’s answer was brisk, not impolite, but rather like someone who had grown up with lots of people to look after her. To the manor born, Damon thought wryly, to put a pun on the original ‘manner.’ But then, she had been manor born and her mother and stepfather lived in considerable style. “I know my
way to the library. We’ll go through.”

  The housekeeper’s head came up, as if affronted by this red-headed youngster taking charge. “I should announce you.”

  “We’ll announce ourselves.” Carol’s reply was very direct. Damon didn’t have to utter a word.

  The housekeeper put a hand to her forehead, then for a well-built woman made a mouselike scurry away.

  “I take it you’ve started out as you mean to go on?” Damon asked with amusement.

  Her gaze flashed to his. “Don’t have much alternative, do I? If they think they’re going to intimidate me, they’ve got another think coming.”

  “Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey,” he cautioned.

  She knew he was trying to calm her. “I thought it was ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’? Where did the expression come from anyway?” she asked, her eyes ranging over the familiar furnishings of the imposing entrance hall. The rosewood stand that had once held the meiping vase her mother had smashed now held a lesser Chinese porcelain vase. “Obviously somewhere people wanted to catch monkeys. India, Asia?”

  “It would have to refer to British colonial rule,” Damon said. “I’ve read some say the founder of the Boy Scouts, Lord Robert Baden-Powell when he was stationed in Ghana. Others say soldiers posted to the Far East often wanted to catch monkeys as pets. Snaring them must have taken a lot of patience. Either way, I think we can adopt it as a guiding principle, Carol.”

  “Especially when one comes into some serious money.”

  He quietly laughed.

  They found Maurice Chancellor in the library, the core of the house. He was seated in a magnificent Russian Empire armchair that had carved and gilded front legs in the form of a lion’s head and paws. Carol remembered how her grandfather had told her the gilded lion symbolised power. So her uncle was making a statement. The library was a very large, handsome room in which a series of tall mahogany bookcases were set into niches. A pair of large early nineteenth-century terrestrial and celestial globes on stands stood to either side of the near doorway. A magnificent room-sized Indian Agra rug with an all-over floral design covered the floor, the field dark ruby-red, the border green. A George IV rosewood library table with an inset green leather writing surface stood beneath a splendid bronze and Baccarat crystal chandelier with a seven-foot drop.

  The moment they entered the room, Maurice Chancellor stood up.

  Her uncle. Her father’s younger brother.

  She would have recognised him anywhere. He was very like her father, tall and handsome with a full head of hair, once a dark red but faded to tawny, with the contrasting dark brows Carol herself possessed. Of course he was much older now. His blue eyes were hooded and he had put on weight, but he was still a strikingly handsome man. He came towards them, a welcoming figure, a smile on a generous mouth, perhaps a shade slack.

  It was a well-calculated act, Damon thought, well used to people who thought they had power. Power tended to lend a lot of arrogance and snobbery. He was instantly on the alert, instantly protective.

  “My dear girl, welcome home!” Maurice Chancellor’s voice was a deep, dark cultured purr. “Hunter.” He transferred his gaze momentarily to acknowledge Damon.

  He was all bon homie.

  It should have been reassuring, only for a paralysing moment Carol was overcome by panic. Panic didn’t even cover the way she felt. Her uncle was smiling at her, yet she felt terror. The terror of a child. Like a curtain in a theatre, the curtain in her mind was trying to go up, only to drop back heavily. Memories; memories were inevitably overlain by what happened afterwards in life.

  Acutely attuned to her reactions, Damon moved to stand at her shoulder. He was so close to her he was able to record the nervous tremors in her body. He thought her reaction strange. It was as though she was frozen on the spot. Perhaps it was understandable, but most unexpected. She was such a spirited young woman. Hadn’t he been witness to her mettle when she’d been fronting a dangerous thug?

  Just as he started to get concerned, she shrugged the moment off. Gone. She looked up at him for a moment as if to say I’m okay, then she moved forward with balletic grace to meet her uncle.

  “Uncle Maurice.” Her clear voice was full of a sardonic self-assurance. “Such a very long time since I’ve seen you—what, fifteen years? It’s taken Grandfather’s passing to redress that. Please accept my sincere sympathy.”

  Maurice Chancellor looked momentarily taken aback. As well he might be. He fancied he saw a lot of both his father and his brother in his niece. “Sad times,” he acknowledged, producing a suitably sombre tone. “Sad times.”

  “All I can think of is how much I missed out on seeing my grandfather,” Carol replied, knowing now she had her own mother to thank for that.

  “Terrible way to treat you,” Maurice Chancellor said with more than a smidgeon of shame.

  As Carol somehow dreaded he might, he took her by the shoulders, bending to kiss her on both cheeks. He smelled of cigars, the most expensive kind, and a faintly cloying cologne. “Come, sit down,” he bid them, the suave host, turning to include Damon. “A good trip?” he asked.

  “No problems,” Damon responded, trying to decode what was going on. Maurice Chancellor was play-acting; he was certain of that. Damon was proud of Carol. He was strongly on side, as he had been from the beginning. Given a little time, he thought she would develop into a remarkable young woman. She had to. She would have huge responsibilities.

  “I’ll have Mrs Hoskins bring—what?—tea or coffee? Both?” Maurice Chancellor looked from one to the other, waving them into a couple of very grand chairs.

  “I’ve already told Mrs Hoskins we’d like coffee, Uncle Maurice,” Carol said. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait for Dallas and Troy? We have to return to Sydney after the will is read. Mr Hunter has numerous commitments, as you can imagine.” There was a further barely detectable sting in the tail.

  “Of course, of course.” The indulgent smile slipped a little. In the world Maurice Chancellor frequented, no one talked down to him or even treated him like an equal. His niece was doing that now, albeit in a polished way. It didn’t fool him at all. It came to him that she had been an exceptional little girl, much smarter than his son. The stand-out grandchild, just as her father, Adam, had been the stand-out son. What a hell of a role he’d had to play in life, always second best.

  He turned to Damon Hunter who was fast gaining an impressive reputation in the city. He had come with Marcus Bradfield’s full recommendation, though he wasn’t as yet a partner. He was young yet, but it was just a matter of time. Hunter was the embodiment of all the things his son, Troy, was not. Hunter was waiting courteously until Carol was seated in a mahogany leather-buttoned armchair that swallowed her up before he took a wing chair near her. “Why did my father never tell me he had you handle his last will and testament, instead of Marcus Bradfield?” Maurice asked, beetling his dark brows.

  “I expect he settled on me after I proved helpful in other areas,” Damon offered by way of explanation.

  “He always did the unexpected, my father.” There was a faint note of unease in Maurice’s tone. “Ah, here’s Dallas!” He broke off as a woman in late middle age entered the room. Both Carol and Damon stood up respectfully.

  Neither the open door nor the warm welcome. With a spasm of regret, Carol registered how her aunt by marriage had physically gone downhill. Dallas couldn’t hold a candle to her mother—never could have—but she had been an attractive woman. Sadly, she hadn’t been looking after herself.

  Dallas Chancellor flashed them both a steely glance and a curt nod. She stood well back. “Good afternoon,” she said as though determined not to say another word.

  Now, here’s the interesting bit, Carol thought. At least I know where I am with Dallas. Dallas wasn’t going to make a grand show of fussing. There would be no happy hugger-mugger encounter, she thought in relief. Her mother had passed the remark that Dallas had turned into ‘a frump.’ Dalla
s unfortunately had. She had grown surprisingly chunky, when Carol remembered her as having been slim. But she was still expensively dressed, not a hair on her head out of place. These days her hair was an indescribable colour—maybe beige. Two things stood out: husband and wife weren’t in perfect accord. And Dallas wasn’t going to play her husband’s game.

  Carol and Damon responded with a good afternoon. They threw themselves into their allotted roles.

  “Troy not here yet?” Dallas addressed her husband as though she suspected he had locked their son in a cupboard.

  “My dear, have you ever known Troy to be on time for anything?” Maurice Chancellor replied with gentle mockery, but surely it was hostility that leaked from his eyes?

  Just as Dallas was about to reply, the housekeeper came to the door, pushing a laden trolley on rubber wheels. Dallas, who had taken a seat at the library table, signalled her in as if to say ‘let’s get this over.’ As she did so, she sent one of the leather-bound books on the rosewood table flying.

  Damon bent to retrieve it, noticing a photograph that had been lying between the pages fly out then glide under the table. He decided he’d rescue it later. He’d seen only a flash, but he’d registered the photograph was of a very pretty girl, perhaps sixteen, wearing the uniform of a prestige girls’ school. Who had taken the photograph then placed it inside a book? He thought Carol might like to know.

  Carol had noticed the flight of the photograph but had only seen the back. She gave him a quick look. He answered with the slightest movement of his dark head.

  * * *

  Over coffee and delicious little cupcakes Dallas Chancellor managed a passing semblance to a hostess, if not a close relative. “You haven’t grown tall, Carol,” she said in a fit of bitchiness. She stared at her husband’s niece as if it would take Carol a lifetime to attain a reasonable height.

  Not a promising start, but Carol was undismayed. She could have made the comment that Dallas had piled on the kilos but she kept that to herself. She considered herself too well-bred, though most of what she had learned of etiquette was out of books. Roxanne had been anything but a hands-on mother.