in a state of dread. I won’t even look sideways at you if you don’t want it.’
‘Don’t look at me at all might be better.’
He gave a hard, impatient laugh. ‘I can’t go so far as to promise that. So don’t expect it. Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we? And do try to remember I’m not a married man. Not engaged either, last time I checked.’
Douglas McFadden, distinguished senior partner of McFadden, Mallory & Crawford, the Forsyth family solicitors, was seated behind the late Sir Francis Forsyth’s massive, rather bizarre mahogany desk in the study. The desk was lavishly decorated with ormolu mounts and lions’ feet, the gilded claws extended. Francesca had been truly frightened of those claws as a small child.
Like the rest of the mansion, the ballroom-sized study was hugely over the top. A life-size portrait of Sir Francis in his prime—some seven feet tall and almost as wide, its colours enriched by the overhead light—hung centre stage on the wall behind the desk. It said a great deal for her grandfather—undeniably a strikingly handsome man, if not with the look of distinction the Macallans had in abundance—that the portrait was able to dominate such an impressive room. The artist was quite famous, and he had captured her grandfather’s innerness, Francesca thought. The man behind the mask. Francesca found herself looking away from those piercing, somehow gloating blue eyes.
The beneficiaries, some fourteen in all, looked suitably sober. With the exception of Bryn they were all Forsyths, like herself: some the offspring of her grandfather’s two younger sisters, Ruth and Regina, who wisely lived very private lives, well out of their brother’s orbit. Four of the grandsons, however, worked for Titan. Sir Francis himself had recruited them, as some sort of gesture towards ‘family’. They did their best—they were clever, highly educated—but they could never hope to measure up to Bryn Macallan in any department. At least one of them—James Forsyth-Somerville—knew it. Bryn Macallan was his hero.
Bryn, the outsider, sat as calm and relaxed as though they were all attending a lecture to be given by some university don. Possible topic: was Shakespeare the real author of his plays? Or was it much more likely to have been the brilliant and aristocratic Francis Bacon, or even Edward De Vere? Anyway, it was a talk Bryn appeared to be looking forward to. He sat wedged—the delectable filling in a sandwich—between herself and Carina. The two Forsyth heiresses. She had to recognise she was that. Much as she had sought to remain in the background, she was an heiress—a Forsyth, like it or not.
‘I don’t care where the hell you sit, as long as Bryn is with me!’ Carina had snapped at her as they had entered the study, lined with a million beautifully bound books her grandfather had never read.
Bryn, however, had taken his place on Francesca’s right. ‘Okay, I hope?’ he’d asked with faint mockery, causing Carina, who had seated herself dead centre, directly in front of the desk, and had patted the seat beside her, indicating for Bryn to take it, to jump up and grab the other chair, pure venom in her eyes.
In the end everyone was arranged in a two-tiered semicircle in front of the huge mahogany desk. It was difficult to believe Sir Francis was dead. One of the great-nephews, Stephen, kept looking behind him, as though expecting Sir Francis’s ghost to walk right through the heavy closed door.
Francesca had noticed her uncle Charles had poured himself a stiff whisky before positioning himself to one side, as though instead of being her grandfather’s only surviving son and heir he didn’t think he would figure much in the will. How very odd!
A quick glance at Bryn confirmed it. ‘Could be a rocky ride!’ he murmured, just beneath his breath. He looked tremendously switched on. Ready for the performance to begin.
The elder of Sir Frank’s two sisters, Ruth, choked off a little sob, probably thinking there was still time to show a little grief. She hadn’t been able to manage it up to date. Carina, however, wasn’t impressed by the display. She swung about to frown at her great-aunt. ‘For God’s sake, not now!’
Ruth leaned towards her, murmuring a falsehood. ‘But I’m missing him so!’
‘Rubbish! You haven’t so much as spoken to him for months,’ Carina flashed back, before turning to address the always dapper solicitor, with his full head of snow-white hair of which he was justifiably proud. ‘Well, what are we waiting for, Douglas? Read it out.’
Bryn leaned in towards Francesca, his voice low. ‘A command—and a very terse one at that! Frank couldn’t have done better.’
Francesca prayed fervently there wouldn’t be more outbursts from Carina. If their grandfather had been a tiger, Carina was a tigress in the making.
As though in agreement, Charles Forsyth sank back heavily in his chair. The room stank of danger! Ruth gave another hastily muffled moan. She too was unnerved by the fact that her great-niece had turned into what looked very much like the female version of her late brother. Frank might have come back from wherever he had gone.
Francesca stole another glance at Bryn, thinking that in some strange way they were acting very much like a pair of conspirators. Bryn reacted by raising his brows slightly, his smile laced with black humour. He was inoculated against Carina’s outbursts.
Francesca sat quiet as a nun, pale as an ivory rose, her elegant long legs to one side, and her head, with her hair in a sort of Gibson Girl loose arrangement, inclined to the other, showing off her swan’s neck and the delicate strength of her clean jawline. She might have been the subject of a painting herself, Bryn thought. A study of a beautiful, isolated young woman. He vowed to himself that state of affairs wasn’t going to continue. The sleeping princess had to wake up.
Douglas McFadden responded impassively to Carina’s rudeness. He had had half a lifetime of it from Sir Francis. ‘Very well, Carina,’ he said obligingly, picking up his gold-rimmed glasses. He did, however, take his time to settle them on his beak of a nose. Once done, he appeared to take a deep breath, then launched into the reading of the last will and testament of Sir Francis Gerard Oswald Forsyth …
Already Francesca had begun to panic. She desperately wanted it all over. Great wealth ruined people. She had seen it with her own eyes. But none of them, with the exception of Charles Forsyth, was prepared for what was to come.
It was Carina who tempestuously brought proceedings to a halt.
‘It can’t be true!’ She catapulted out of her chair, sending it crashing to the floor. Her blonde hair flew around her visibly blanched face. Her furious blue eyes lashed the solicitor. ‘What kind of bloody lunacy is this?’ she shouted, her voice loud enough to shock the profoundly deaf. Her arms flailed wildly in the air, causing her copious eighteen carat gold bracelets to out-jangle a brass band.
‘Carrie … Carrie.’ Charles Forsyth very belatedly tried his hand at remonstrating with his headstrong daughter, while the great-aunts moved their chairs closer together, in case things got so bad they might have to cling to each other for support. Their menfolk stared steadily at the Persian rug, their faces varying shades of red.
Bryn moved smoothly to pick up Carina’s chair, setting it right. ‘Why don’t you sit down again, Carrie?’ He placed a kindly restraining hand on her shoulder. He didn’t appear at all shocked by Carina’s outburst, Francesca noticed. Indeed, he was looking about him, as though deciding on the next object Carina might send toppling.
‘You’re supposed to be here to support me, Bryn!’ she protested, not sparing a glance in her father’s direction. She ignored him. As she would from
