Arthur said, fighting to keep his voice steady as he pictured his father at the last. Uther’s once hearty frame had been reduced to little more than skin stretched over bone by the cancer that had ravaged him in a few short months.
‘But how am I supposed to survive on the pittance he’s left me?’ Helena wailed.
Arthur gripped the phone so hard his fingers turned white. God, she had a bloody nerve. ‘Technically, he didn’t owe you a penny.’ Helena had walked out on the four of them before the triplets’ second birthday, declaring her duty done, and had barely looked back. Even after she’d demanded a divorce to marry her second of four husbands—and counting—his dad had continued to support her financially over the next twenty-five years and had insisted on a final settlement for her in his will, one which the over-stretched estate could ill afford.
‘How can you say that? He owed me! Giving birth to the three of you ruined my figure and destroyed my career.’ Her voice wavered, and Arthur braced himself for another round of crocodile tears.
‘One feature in a magazine thirty years ago doesn’t exactly amount to a modelling career, Mother.’
‘That’s because I met your father shortly afterwards, and I had to give it up. I gave him everything he wanted—an heir, a spare and even a bloody brood mare to carry on the family line and look how he repays me!’
Anger shot through him. He hated the dismissive way she talked about them, especially Iggy. ‘That’s enough, Mother. The terms of Dad’s will have been settled and there’s nothing more to be said about it.’ He’d cut out his own tongue before he’d admit to her the mess they were in. It was his business—well, his, Iggy’s and Tristan’s because they’d refused to let him shoulder it alone—and no one else’s.
‘But you’re Baronet Ludworth now, Arthur.’
‘Not officially.’ In order to inherit his father’s title, Arthur had been required to apply to the Department for Constitutional Affairs to be formally recognised and have his name entered onto the official Roll of the Baronets. As with most things of that nature, the wheels turned slowly, and he was still awaiting confirmation. He’d tried in vain to appeal to them for Iggy to be recognised as the rightful heir, but had been advised, not unsympathetically, that the restrictions laid down could not be overturned.
‘Oh, you know what I mean.’ His mother’s formerly shrill tones turned soft and wheedling. ‘You control the estate.’
Arthur laughed, a bitter snap of sound. ‘You’ll get nothing out of me, Mother. Not one more penny.’ Even if the estate finances weren’t teetering on the brink, he had nothing to give the woman who’d ruined his father’s life.
‘He’s turned you against me! Listen, Arthur, you don’t understand—’
Bloody hell, the nerve of the woman! His dad had never said a bad word against her, had done everything in his power to keep a relationship between his beloved children and the mother who’d never given two hoots for them. Arthur had shed his last tears for her after she’d failed to turn up to collect the three of them from school for a long-promised weekend. They’d been 13 at the time. Tristan and Iggy had given up after an hour and gone back to their rooms, but Arthur had stayed on the front steps convinced she’d come motoring up any second complaining about a holdup with the traffic. As each hour past he’d gone from excited, to hopeful, and eventually to worried she’d had some terrible accident. His housemaster had finally coaxed a tearful, frozen Arthur inside after putting in a call to his father who’d tracked Helena down at Ascot races. Having received an invitation to someone’s box, she’d chosen to spend the day seeing and being seen by her society friends and couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about.
With an echo of that sad boy in his heart, Arthur cut off her protestations. ‘You abandoned us without a second thought, there’s nothing left to understand. If you need money, I suggest you ask your current husband for it.’ Arthur ended the call before any more of the bitterness welling up inside him could spill out. Shaking himself like one of their Labradors emerging from the pond after a dip, Arthur shed the cold shards of disappointment threatening to seep into his heart. She was never going to change. He’d known that at 13, and now, at 27, it was time to acknowledge it.
‘What did she want?’ Tristan entered the family room bundled up in a navy padded jacket and a bright yellow scarf, a locked metal box balanced carefully across his arms.
‘Money.’
‘I hope you told her to get stuffed,’ said Iggy who’d entered on Tristan’s heels, equally well wrapped up and carrying Arthur’s coat which she thrust at him.
‘Close enough.’ Accepting his coat, he tugged it on then moved to give Tristan a hand with the box. It wasn’t heavy, but they didn’t want to risk any accidents. ‘Are we ready for this?’
‘Nope, but let’s do it anyway.’ With a shrug, Iggy pulled a white knitted cap over her dark hair then tugged on a pair of matching gloves. God, she looked so sad. Arthur bet if he looked in a mirror right then, the same haunted look in her hazel eyes would be reflected in his. ‘I’ve put your boots by the front door,’ she said, pointing to the thick woollen socks on his otherwise bare feet.
‘Cheers, Iggle-Piggle.’ The hated nickname earned him a punch on the arm, but at least it eased some of the pain tightening her face.
It also sent him jostling into Tristan, who staggered a couple of steps, trying to keep the box steady. ‘Careful! We don’t want Dad going off by accident.’
Iggy patted the metal box with one gloved hand. ‘Sorry, Dad.’ The three of them laughed at the absurdity of it, further easing the stress of what was to come.
Steadying the box between them, Arthur and Tristan followed their sister through the echoing vaulted central chamber of the great hall. Once the beating heart of Camland Castle, it now belonged mostly to the dogs whose sprawling mass of beds and pillows occupied pride of place before the enormous fireplace which Arthur—at just a shade under six-feet tall—could still walk inside without ducking. Thick, evergreen boughs decorated with sprigs of blood-red holly berries and creamy-white clumps of mistletoe covered the high mantle, scenting the air with fresh pine. A matching display filled the middle of the enormous, age-scarred circular table positioned in the exact centre of the room.
As he did every time he passed through the space, Arthur paused to admire his sister’s handiwork. Born with a green thumb, according to their great-aunt, Morgana, Iggy was never happier than when she could escape into the gardens and woodland stretching out around the castle.
Their progress halted by the front door for Arthur to stuff his feet into the dark-green wellingtons his sister had previously put out for him. Ever practical, she’d also left a large torch beside his boots, something he’d completely forgotten to think about when they’d been planning this evening. Arthur watched Iggy’s face as she pulled opened the left-hand side of the imposing oak front door. The moment the chilly December air touched her skin, her whole body seemed to lift and lighten, as though she were some kind of sprite, only able to truly thrive out of doors.
Standing to one side, she ushered Arthur and Tristan out then shooed several disappointed dogs back into the warmth of the hall. ‘No walkies for you tonight, darling, you won’t like the noise,’ she said, rubbing the silken ears of Nimrod, one of a pair of greyhounds they’d adopted from the local shelter.
Knowing they had the space to accommodate them, the shelter would often call if they were struggling to rehome any dogs. Large dogs;
