“This isn’t the time or the place for us to get reacquainted,” he went on, addressing her, focussing on her, ignoring her mother. “Perhaps after the meeting at the solicitor’s office tomorrow.”
“You’ll…be…there?”
Sally barely got the words out as her mind tumbled over the startling news that he would be at the reading of the will, and the fact that the solicitor had insisted they come to his office suddenly took on a very ominous meaning. As did Jack’s comment to her mother about memories being the only treasure she’d be left with. Had her father handed everything over to his son?
“I will most certainly be there.” The confirmation was delivered with a cruel little smile, which stayed on his mouth as his glittering blue gaze swept around all three of them. “Until then, ladies.”
He walked away.
No, he strode away.
Like a conqueror who’d succeeded in laying waste the enemy, leaving carnage behind him.
The funeral director moved in to usher them to the car for the mourning family. The back door of the hearse had been closed. It was time to go to the cemetery.
Would he be there when they arrived?
Sally didn’t think so.
Jack Maguire had done what he’d come to do… making his presence felt as a force to be reckoned with and leaving them squirming over what might happen in the solicitor’s office tomorrow.
One weight had just been added to the lighter side of the scales.
CHAPTER TWO
ALL the way to the solicitor’s office, Sally’s mind had been hopelessly torn, her family’s needs warring against the natural justice in Jack Maguire’s right to be his father’s heir.
Her mother, of course, had been railing against the black-sheep son’s right to get anything, almost convincing herself that yesterday’s scene at the funeral had just been a brazen front, a vengeful slap in the face for denying him a place with the family. There was too much evidence of something very different, Sally thought, but she’d held her tongue, careful not to feed the rage being vented, reducing her sister to a trembling mouse.
“What will we do if he gets it all?” Jane had asked her fearfully when they’d finally escaped their mother’s tirade.
“I don’t think that will happen,” Sally had answered soothingly.
“But what if it does?”
She’d sighed. “Well, let’s face it, Jane. We’ve been very lucky to have had it good all these years. If our luck runs out, we’ll just have to take charge of our own lives instead of being looked after.”
Her sister had shaken her head hopelessly. “I’m not strong like you, Sally.”
True. Jane had spent her whole life trying to please, seeking approval, happy when she got it, crushed when she didn’t. She simply wasn’t geared to standing on her own two feet. The training, discipline and determination required to compete successfully on the showjumping circuit had put a lot of steel in Sally’s backbone. She knew she wouldn’t crumble under adversity. Unfortunately, wishing she could give Jane some of her own steel was futile. Her sister’s nature was too different… sweet, gentle and, more often than not, exasperatingly weak.
“Don’t worry, Jane. We’ve been sisters all these years. I won’t abandon you, no matter what,” she’d said, and then had to mop up a flood of grateful tears.
Abandonment had run through all of Jane’s nightmares. Sally had often wondered if it was a common fear of adopted children. She had the same insecurity, which had probably driven her to make the most of all the wonderful opportunities being in the Maguire family had brought her, never quite sure when or if they would be taken away.
There’d always seemed to be a price to be paid for being adopted…dutifully meeting her mother’s demands, doing her utmost to hold on to her father’s approval. The only unconditional love she’d ever felt was with Jane, even though they weren’t blood sisters. Should the privileges they’d been granted come to an end now…well, they’d still have each other.
They were asked to wait in the reception area until Mr. Newell’s secretary came to collect them. Her mother interpreted this as VIP service, which put her in a less fractious mood, especially when the secretary, a rather plump woman in her fifties, treated her with great deference as she escorted them into an elevator and poured out sympathy over Sir Leonard’s unexpected passing while they rode up to the right floor.
Lady Ellen was responding very graciously to the secretary who ushered them to what looked like a men’s club private meeting room. Five dark-green leather chairs were placed around an oval table of highly polished mahogany. Bookshelves full of serious leather tomes lined the walls. An elegant traymobile was set up with various refreshments.
Five chairs. Would the secretary take one of them or was the fifth chair for Jack Maguire? Had he been bluffing about being at this meeting yesterday, giving them a night of worry as a payback for the rotten feelings her mother had undoubtedly inflicted on him with her letter?
The secretary directed them to the three chairs around one end of the table and proceeded to the tray-mobile, asking for their preferred drinks. Sally and Jane decided on simple glasses of water but their mother went for the whole ceremonial fuss of requesting Earl Grey tea with a slice of lemon. They were all served with little plates of finger sandwiches and dainty pastries. Neither Sally nor Jane felt like eating anything but their mother suddenly found a cheerful appetite. Apparently she had decided there was no longer any cause for concern.
Satisfied with her ministering, the secretary excused herself to go and tell Mr. Newell they were waiting for him.
“Will she come back?” Jane whispered anxiously, nodding to the fifth chair.
“I don’t know,” Sally murmured, nowhere near as sure as her mother that Jack Maguire was out of the picture.
“What are you girls muttering about?” their mother demanded.
Jane instantly shrank back in her chair.
“We’re just a bit nervous about what’s going to happen next,” Sally answered.
“Obviously we are the beneficiaries of your father’s will.” Declared with confidence.
“Yes,” Sally quickly agreed. Raising doubts would instantly snap that good humour, so she kept them to herself. Better to keep quiet and simply wait, but she couldn’t help feeling tense. Until the fifth chair was occupied by someone else, the spectre of Blackjack Maguire was hanging over it, certainly darkening Jane’s dreams.
As for her own…what did she want?
The bottom-line truth was she wanted to see Jack Maguire in that chair even though it meant he was a threat to the life she’d had up until now. She wanted him to get something from his father. It would be wrong if he didn’t. But more than anything else she wanted to see him again, wanted to feel the physical thrill of his presence, wanted him to pursue an acquaintance with her as he had suggested yesterday.
It
