which she used unmercifully to protect what she considered to be hers, and that had included her parents and all her friends. Chris had not found it easy to accept her unwanted role as “orphan”, and many times during those early days she had retreated to her bedroom to indulge in secret tears when Natalie had taunted her about her orphaned status. “You would have had to go in a home if you hadn’t come here,” had been one of Natalie’s favourite taunts, often with the threat tagged on of “…and if I don’t like you, you will still have to go there.”
Under that threat Chris had weakly, hating herself for her weakness, given in to many forms of blackmail, which ranged from the subtle never-expressed pressure from Natalie that she would always keep herself in the background, to open demands for “loans” from Chris’s pocket money.
Sighing Chris moisturised her skin. She could see now that Nat had just been insecure. There had been a bond between aunt and niece that had never truly existed between mother and daughter. Even in looks she had resembled her aunt, Chris acknowledged, and Natalie with the perception that most children possessed had sensed her mother’s leaning towards her sister’s child and had bitterly resented Chris for it.
Nat, on the other hand had always been her father’s favourite. Uncle Roger had adored his small, dark-haired daughter, “his little pixie fairy” as he had called her. His death in a road accident when Nat was fourteen had severely affected her. Funnily enough she herself had never shared Nat’s deep resentment of their relationship, and as she had grown older she had adopted a protective instinct towards her younger cousin, knowing without anything being said that she was entering a conspiracy with her aunt which involved a constant feeding of Nat’s ego; a never-ending soothing of her insecurities. As a child Nat had grown used to her father describing her as the “prettier” of the two cousins, and with her dark curls and smaller, frail frame she had possessed a pretty delicacy that Chris lacked. When, as a teenager, Chris had started to blossom Natalie had been bitterly resentful.
“Boys hate tall girls,” she had told Chris spitefully. And Chris could still remember the occasion when, one very hot summer, she had been sent for by the Headmistress, because Nat had told her teacher that her cousin bleached her hair, strictly against the rules of the school. In point of fact, its extreme fairness that summer had been the result of more sunshine than usual, and when pressed for an explanation as to why her younger cousin should try to get her into trouble deliberately, Chris had leapt immediately to Natalie’s defence. She could still remember her headmistress’s words on that occasion.
“Chris, my dear,” she had told her firmly, “your desire to protect Natalie is very natural and praiseworthy, but in the long run you would be helping her more if you allowed her to take responsibility for her actions. That’s the only way we learn to think carefully before we commit them.”
Would life have been any different if she had heeded that advice? Grimacing, Chris extracted fresh underwear from the drawer. It took two to commit treachery; Natalie alone could not be blamed for the destruction of all her bright—and foolish—dreams.
It was another half-an-hour before she discovered the letter. She had just mixed herself a cooling fruit drink and sat down, when she caught sight of it, protruding ominously from among a stack of mail, the solicitor’s name and address in one corner, the airmail sticker in the centre.
She had grown used to correspondence with Messrs Smith & Turner during the weeks following her aunt’s death. On her marriage Natalie had deliberately, and to Chris’s mind, quite heartlessly cut off all ties with her mother. “She always loved you best,” she had told Chris spitefully, when she tried to talk to her about it. “I never want to see her again.”
It had been a couple of years after that that Chris had actually noticed the oddness of her aunt’s behaviour and another harrowing seven months before her condition had been correctly diagnosed. The specialist, sympathetic and understanding had told Chris of an excellent nursing home which specialised in such cases, and where her aunt would receive every kindness and the very best of care.
The fees had been astronomical. Chris had written to Natalie, believing that she would want to make her peace with her mother in view of her failing health, but Natalie had never even replied, and it had been more than Chris could have endured to go down to Little Martin and talk to her. In order to pay the nursing home fees she had committed herself to a gruelling number of assignments, and for the last four years she had barely had time to take a breath.
Now it was over, and she presumed the letter from Smith & Turner related to the final details surrounding her aunt’s estate, if her few belongings and the house in Little Martin could be classed as that.
It had come as no surprise to Chris to discover that her aunt had left her the house. She had bought it after Uncle Roger’s death, selling the larger property and investing the difference. Chris had always loved the thatched cottage, despite its many inconveniences, but Nat had hated it. She had never forgave her mother for selling the larger property, and constantly complained about their drop in living standards. In anyone else Chris would have denounced her cousin’s behaviour as brutally selfish, but because of her childhood conditioning Chris was constantly finding mental excuses for her. Although there was one sin she could never forgive her…Idly sliding her nail under the sealed flap she extracted the sheets of paper inside.
Her heart thumped as she read the first line, barely taking in its message, her eyes racing back to the beginning and tracing the words once again. “…regret to inform you of the death of your cousin, Natalie James ne´e Bolton, and would inform you that…”
Without reading any further Chris lifted her eyes from the paper. Natalie dead! She couldn’t believe it. She was only twenty-four. What had happened?
She glanced at the date on the letter and her heart dropped sickeningly. Natalie had been dead for six weeks! Six weeks, during which she had travelled from Nassau to Rio, then on to Cannes and finally to New York.
She dropped the letter on the floor, filled with a mixture of nausea and guilt. How often during the last seven years had she wished Natalie out of existence? How often had she prayed that she might wake up and discover that what had happened was all just a nightmare? Only now could she admit to herself the frequency of such thoughts, generally after she had just had to point out to yet another male that being a model did not mean that she was also available as a bed mate. She had never wanted her present life; it had been thrust upon her in a manner of speaking; a means of salvaging her pride and her dignity, and also a means of…of what? Escaping her own pain?
No. Not entirely. Deep inside her had been the unacknowledged thought that by leaving somehow she was giving something to Natalie’s unborn child—Slater’s child. The child that should have been hers.
The doorbell rang and she slipped the intercom switch automatically, shocked out of her involvement with the past when she heard Danny’s familiar New York accent.
“Danny, I’m not ready yet,” she apologised. In point of fact she had lost what little desire she had possessed to go out with the brash New Yorker, who had forced his way into her life three weeks ago. Tall, fair, good looking, and well aware of his attractions Danny had been chasing her from the moment of her arrival, and was, Chris was certain, supremely confident that in the end he would catch her. She, however, had other ideas. Charming though Danny was he couldn’t touch the deep inner core she had learned to protect from the world. No man had touched that since Slater.
Ten minutes later she was down in the lobby with Danny, the poise she had learned over the years covering the innate inner turmoil.
They were dining out with a business associate of Danny’s. He wanted to show her off like a child with a new and status-symbol toy, it was an attitude she had
