‘Molly’s father came to collect her. He’ll be looking after her from now on,’ Gladys declared. ‘That’s how it should be.’
Stunned by that announcement, Ophelia gasped. ‘But how did her father find her here? I don’t even know who Molly’s father is! Mum would never talk about him—’
‘Molly doesn’t belong here with us and you’ll have to accept that. She’s not your responsibility any more, she’s her father’s.’
Ophelia would never forget the pain of that sudden cruel separation from the little girl she had adored from birth. At first she had assumed that she would be able to stay in touch with Molly through letters and visits. When there had been no contact her grandmother had simply shrugged and insisted that she had no further information to offer. Ophelia, however, had long been convinced that there was more to the story than she was being told.
But now Ophelia had to deal with the reality that if she turned her back on her inheritance, Molly would lose out as well. When she finally found her sister, how would Molly feel about that decision? Molly was only seventeen years old. Would Molly forgive Ophelia for putting family pride and principles ahead of the chance of a substantial legacy?
‘Possibly I’ve been a little hasty in turning down Lysander’s offer,’ Ophelia muttered heavily. ‘But that’s his fault—he made me so angry I couldn’t think straight!’
Pride made Ophelia baulk at an immediate climb-down, which she felt would make her seem like the sort of woman who couldn’t make up her mind and keep it for five minutes. The prospect of agreeing to a marriage of convenience with a guy she totally loathed, hated and despised also disturbed her sleep that night. It was frustrating to discover, then, that the phone number he had given her only led to a super-protective aide and not, as she had naively assumed, to the man himself. She learned that Lysander was abroad and was offered an appointment in London the following week.
Left to stew in her own juice, Ophelia became increasingly curious about the contents of the letter her grandmother had set aside for delivery on her wedding day. That mysterious letter seemed as peculiar a piece of work as the will for the unsentimental older woman. What could possibly be in it? Ophelia tried to recall her late grandparent’s cryptic remarks about the house and her sister.
Gladys had brought Lysander Metaxis to Madrigal Court by naming him in her will, knowing how keen he was to regain the house. Her grandmother had also declared that Madrigal Court could make Ophelia’s every hope come true. Could that mean that if Ophelia did as she was told in the will and married Lysander Metaxis, might some information about Molly’s whereabouts be delivered in that letter as a reward? All of a sudden, Ophelia had a much stronger motivation for agreeing to the marriage.
What would it cost her? A meaningless link with a man she despised which would soon be severed again. She refused to think of it in terms of actual marriage, for it would not be a marriage in any real sense. Moreover, she had no doubt that Lysander would continue to exercise his evidently overactive libido below the roof of Madrigal Court. She grimaced at the prospect of a parade of predatory beauties wandering about her home at all hours of the day and night. They would no doubt all cling brainlessly to Lysander like burrs and behave in sexually provocative ways that embarrassed her. She winced in distaste and reminded herself that her bedroom was in the rear wing and she could doubtless stay outdoors or out of sight most of the time that he was around.
That same day Ophelia’s gloomy ruminations were interrupted by an unexpected phone call from the solicitor, Donald Morton, who asked her to come and see him at his office. There he explained that he had received a visit from one of Lysander Metaxis’s lawyers, along with a formal request for her to cease her use of the walled garden.
Ophelia studied the older man in utter bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘It has been brought to my attention that twelve years ago your grandfather sold the walled garden and the three fields beside it to a local farmer. Your grandmother appears not to have appreciated that the walled garden was included in the sale.’
Twelve years earlier, Ophelia hadn’t even been living at Madrigal Court because her mother had still been alive. ‘Of course, I knew that those fields were sold off ages ago…but the walled garden can’t have been sold with them.’
‘I didn’t handle the sale, but I have copies of the documents here and I can assure you that it was part of the parcel.’ The solicitor explained that the farmer’s son had intended to open a market-gardening business, but when he had died unexpectedly the walled garden had been left undisturbed because his father had had no use for it.
Ophelia listened in mounting consternation. The Metaxis estate had bought out the farmer four years earlier and had somehow overlooked the fact that the walled garden formed part of the acquisition.
She honestly felt as though she had had a giant rock dropped on her from on high. ‘You’re telling me that I’ve been trespassing on someone else’s land for almost five years? That Lysander Metaxis legally owns my garden?’
‘And anything you have built within those walls.’
Pale as milk, Ophelia nodded like a marionette, while the solicitor expressed his sympathy for her position while advising her that there was nothing whatsoever she could do about it.
In a daze Ophelia drove straight to the walled garden, or at least she tried. The Metaxis estate installed swanky green farm gates at all the entrances onto their land. Such a gate was already in the process of being erected at the foot of the lane that led up to the walled garden. She drove past the workmen and leapt out of her vehicle outside the mellow brick walls that surrounded the nursery. She was shocked to see that the tall wrought-iron gates were now padlocked shut, barring her from the garden that was the living result of years of her dreams and her work.
As she boiled with rage Ophelia thought darkly, If I marry Lysander Metaxis, I will surely kill him for doing to this to me! Because not for a moment did she doubt the identity of the culprit responsible for dividing her from her beloved plants…
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