In time I’ll fuck Tawny, of course. That was always the grand plan, but it would have to be on my terms. She would be nothing but a toy. My toy. One of my many toys. Eventually when I got tired of her, I would walk away.
I was not making the mistake Robert made.
I was not falling for her.
No. No. Fucking no.
Never.
No woman would ever make me stay.
Tawny Maxwell
The day dawned, freezing cold and white.
I stood in front of the mirror in full black: felt hat; knee length, two-piece suit; tights and shoes. My nearly waist-length, straight hair neatly knotted at the nape of my neck.
Yet, I did not look very funereal.
Black simply accentuated the smooth alabaster of my skin, and made not only the blue of my eyes dazzle like the brightest sapphires, but my blonde hair shine like spun gold.
I went back into the walk-in closet and stood looking around it. At the white carpet, the lovely French oil painting of a young ballet dancer, the velour tailor’s dummy, the pure white doors and drawers that moved or swiveled noiselessly to expose the expensive designer clothes, bags, shoes, belts, scarves, hats, and accessories.
This was my favorite place in that whole house. Sometimes I came in here and sat for hours. No matter what problems I had, just being in here on my own calmed me. This was my zen space. Maybe it was because I still couldn’t believe that this closet was almost as big as our entire trailer back home in Tennessee. I looked around longingly. How I wished I could simply hide in here amongst my sweet smelling clothes for the next few days.
But it was not to be.
Today had to be faced.
I keyed in the safe’s code, opened the heavy door, and selected a slim velvet box from inside. I lifted the lid and held up the large teardrop sapphire pendant necklace lying inside. I looked at it and felt no emotion. I could still remember gasping with shock when I first saw it. I had never seen anything so fabulously beautiful. Even my untrained eye could tell that it must have cost Robert a small fortune.
Two point five million pounds, actually.
I could still remember that day like it happened yesterday. It was my eighteenth birthday. The weather was bad and we had decided to stay in. Just the two of us. In those days he was still well enough to come downstairs so we sat in the blue drawing room by the big fire. Him in his big armchair and me curled up at his feet on the carpet.
Oh, we had so much to talk about then. He had so much knowledge and I was like a sponge. Soaking everything up. I was his Eliza Dolittle. I arrived at this house a teenager bringing with me all my trailer trash talk. Patiently, slowly, day by day, he had polished away all the rough edges.
On that day he had leaned back in his chair and watched me with indulgent eyes as if I was a particularly exuberant puppy.
‘Oh my little Tawny, if only you had come into my life sooner,’ he whispered.
‘I’m here now,’ I told him.
That was when he pulled the box out of his dressing gown pocket. I started crying with joy and sadness. Even then we already knew his time was short. Then he cried and, later, when we were both drunk on champagne vodkas, he insisted I must wear it at his funeral.
With a sigh I fixed the necklace around my neck. The metal was cold. I turned around and looked at the mirror. Against the pallor of my skin it glowed like blue fire. I stared at my reflection and heard his raspy voice again.
‘It’s going to be all old money, so venerable, so impeccable, so I want you to blow their silly socks off. Don’t hold a dreary wake for me. Throw a party. Serve the most expensive champagne. Hire musicians, dancers and fire-eaters. Make an inappropriate toast to me. Celebrate. But whatever you do don’t try to please those painted peacocks. They’ll despise you for it.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘You will be richer than most of them. Let them bloody well try to please you.’
‘Won’t they just hate me all the more?’ I asked.
‘So be it,’ he said cryptically.
I frowned, confused. ‘Why? Why make them hate me more?’
His eyes gleamed with unholy light and I got a glimpse of the cutthroat businessman he must have been before he became sick and weak.
‘Because a greater prize than my money waits for you, my darling.’
No matter how much I asked he would not explain what he meant. ‘Trust this old man,’ he said.
As I stood in front of the mirror, the memory of that night was so clear I could almost smell the burning logs, see the wicked gleam that shone in his cunning eyes, and hear the rich timbre of his voice. I touched my hat and his voice filled my head.
‘A good hat is a thing of beauty, but worn at the right angle it is a work of art.’
Of their own accord my hands moved to tilt the hat to a rakish angle.
I smiled at the effect. ‘You were right, Robert. A small tilt makes all the difference.’
Without warning, pain like a stone wedged in my chest. Oh, Robert. I will never see your kind, clever face again. Suddenly the cocoon of protective numbness was ripped from around me and I felt as if my world was spinning out of control. Oh my God! All those people waiting for me and every single one of them bearing hostility and envy in their hearts. I felt as nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I placed my palm on my midriff and took deep breaths.
You need to be one hundred percent, Tawny. It’s an elite club you’ve wandered into. You can’t let our side down.
I looked into the mirror, my eyes were wide and panicked. No, this won’t do. I forced myself to think of my mother.
‘Oh, Mama. I’m afraid,’ I whispered.
The last thing she told me before she died floated into my head. ‘Ain’t nothing to be afraid of, honey. Take a deep breath and count to what you are. A ten.’
I started to count. There was a discreet knock on the door and I whirled around and walked quickly into my bedroom. ‘Come in,’ I called.
The housekeeper stood holding the door handle. ‘The car is here. Are you ready, Mam?’ she asked.
Oh, how I miss being back in warmth of the Southern states again. Everyone here was just so damn polite and so hidden. There were layers and layers of mannerisms to trip on and show yourself up as the foreigner, the person who did not belong.
‘Yes,’ I told her nervously.
‘Good. It’s getting late and the car is waiting downstairs.’
‘Thank you, Mary.’
She nodded and closed the door softly.
I went to the dresser and picked up a framed photograph of Robert and me. My arms were thrown around him. The sun was shining and we were both laughing. It was taken during my first summer in Barrington Manor. I didn’t know he was ill then. He did though. My heart felt like it was in a vise. I put the photograph down, slipped into a thick woolen coat, and pulled on my black gloves. Deep breath, I told myself and went down the curving stairs and out through the great doors.
Outside it had stopped snowing, and there was neither wind nor cloud. Just sub-zero temperatures and everything covered in a pristine layer of white. Even the leaf stems were white and sharp. Winter was always my favorite time at Barrington Manor. I looked around at the still wonderland with a kind of dull pleasure. I recognized its beauty even though I was too heavy hearted to actually appreciate it.
Still, how bizarre! All this now belonged to me.
The chauffeur opened the back door of the black Rolls Royce. I walked up to the car and with a grateful smile in his direction, slipped into it. It was warm inside the car. I breathed in the apple scented air-freshener and arranged my skirt over my legs. Then I leaned back and calmly stared out of the window at the passing scenery. My mind was mercifully blank. I would make it through this ordeal. I would wear my brave face. No one would ever know what I was really feeling.
Let them think I was a cold bitch.
CHAPTER 3
Tawny Maxwell
As soon as we reached the church I spo
tted my stepchildren.
Robert’s oldest child, Rosalind, looked at me. Her eyes were shining with malice and hatred. She was the most dangerous and most vindictive of his children. At twenty-nine she was a tall, dark-haired, plain woman who had unfortunately inherited Robert’s big nose and strong jaw. She was married to a spineless man who hardly spoke at all and had two young children I had never met.
The middle child, Bianca, was much prettier since most of her genetic identity came from her mother. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for me she was not the sharpest pencil. She was engaged to a well-known footballer who was standing beside her looking rather ill at ease. She was what my grandma would have called an undercover hater. She flashed me a fake smile before turning back to her fiancé and leaning her fair head dramatically on his shoulder.
The youngest was Robert’s only son, Dorian. He was the best looking of the three. He had a full head of straight, dirty blond hair, smoldering blue eyes, and dimples when he smiled. He had charm and confidence, but underneath it lurked something dark. Much darker. In truth I was very wary of him. Slowly, he winked at me.
It was so insolent, so inappropriate, and so disrespectful, I felt something crumple up and die inside me. Robert was wrong. I couldn’t handle these people. Not in a million years. Not alone, anyway. They were a totally different species than me. They were devious and cunning and false.
My shocked gaze ricocheted away from Dorian and fell upon Ivan. He stood head and shoulders above everyone else. He was wearing a dark coat and his hair was slightly disheveled from the wind.
Still, it was his face that made me freeze.
Against the whiteness of the snowy landscape it was as if it was hewn from stone. His eyes were almost silver and shone out of his face like lights directly into my eyes. Through the distance something passed between us. Something electric that made the hairs on my body stand. I couldn’t look away. It was the strangest feeling. As if I had been walking for a long time in the wilderness and I was finally home. I had come home. As if even the life that I had lived was not my own. My life was with him.
Then he nodded at me and I inclined my head before my eyes slid away to the woman with him. The obligatory blonde. Beautiful, spoilt and from the same class as him. How many times I have seen them, and yet this time I knew a moment of piercing pain. Where I come from we just call it jealousy.
The jealousy surprised and confused me.
Must be the grief, I told myself. He is not for you, but he will be there for you.
No matter how cold and distant he was to me I could trust him. He was the only one I must trust. Robert had said so and I trusted Robert. That man will fight your corner, he said.
I turned my eyes towards the church entrance. Yes, I could do this. I would die before I let Robert down.
Ivan’s secretary hurried up to me.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Maxwell.’
‘Hello, Mrs. Macdonald,’ I said. All of a sudden I felt a jolt of panic. I clutched her hand. ‘The flowers on the top of the casket. They are dusky pink roses, aren’t they?’
She smiled faintly. ‘Yes, they are.’
‘Oh good. For a moment there I thought I forgot to tell Janice.’ Janice was Robert’s secretary and she had liaised everything with Mrs. Macdonald.
‘You didn’t,’ she said gently.
‘They were his mother’s favorite flowers,’ I explained.
‘I see.’ Her voice was polite.
Mrs. Macdonald’s gaze slipped down to my pendant. I understood. She could not help herself. It was so special. In a rush her eyes came up again, her expression almost guilty.
‘Come this way,’ she said and led me inside the cold, damp cathedral filled with hundreds of people. A sudden hush fell upon the gathered mourners. We walked up to the front pew silently, our shoes loud on the limestone floor. I could feel all their heads turn to watch me. Some were curious, others were openly envious or resentful. I am the American girl who appeared from nowhere, married a multimillionaire, and in two years was the heiress of a sizeable fortune. They don’t know I loved him entirely, the good, bad, the ugly. I loved all of it. They could not see my silent grief.
They just saw the gold digger.
All I could see was the rosewood coffin. Pale morning light streamed in through the stained glass of the cathedral’s windows and fell on his fine casket with its gilt handles and a lush arrangement of dusky pink roses on it. Inside I knew it was silk-lined and perfumed with sandalwood oil.
Robert was lying inside.
I took my seat on the hard bench and listened to minister’s words and the well-spoken words of all those people who had not come to see him in his last months. They waxed lyrical about what a wonderful man he was. Then Rosalind took the pulpit for her tribute. I kept my eyes to the grey flagstones while dry-eyed, she told the world about her great love for her father.
‘I sat on his knees. I loved him. Before he lost his mind he knew I loved him. But the sickness, it turned his brain to mush and he could no longer tell the difference between true love and the lies of strangers. People who were only there for what they could get. Daddy, I love you. Always. Wherever you are.’
Then it was Ivan’s turn. I looked up and his gaze met mine. I dragged my eyes away in confusion.
I sat staring at the floor and listened to old stories about Robert. Things I never knew. He loved to hunt. I never knew. He could out drink any man. I never knew. There was so much I didn’t know. I only knew him when he was sick and diminished.
My eyes became wet, but I did not even realize that I was crying until my ribs began to heave as if they were suddenly too full of sorrow. I put my head down and closed my eyes. It was good that he was gone. He was in pain. It was a good thing.
Of course, I did not take the stand. I told him I wouldn’t. ‘Please, Robert, don’t make me do it.’ And he had smiled. ‘No, your love is pure. What is pure must never be examined. It will hurt the impure.’
So I didn’t speak at his funeral service. Instead there would always be a part of me still dressed in full black, sitting on the front pew at his funeral, listening to ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd.’
CHAPTER 4
Tawny Maxwell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEUgORVsECs
There were six pallbearers dressed in black suits and white gloves. The gold handles glinted in the sunlight as they lifted the casket onto their shoulders. I saw Ivan go up to the man in front, tap him on the shoulder, and take his position. I stared at him. Why, he must have loved Robert too. I stood at the bottom of the church steps and watched them carefully load Robert into the back of the hearse.
I tried to imagine him, lying in there as if sleeping. Finally peaceful.
They closed the doors and I turned away and walked towards the convoy of stationary black cars. My car was at the head of the long line. As I was about to get into it I felt a hand on the sleeve of my coat. I turned around, startled.
Rosalind smiled at me. Her dry-eyed crying had not smudged her make-up at all. Everything was perfectly in place.
‘Would you mind terribly if I rode in the car with you? Seeing that you are alone and ours is overcrowded with my obnoxious brother.’
I didn’t want her in the car with me, but there were people all around us avidly watching the stepmother and daughter’s interaction, and I could hardly turn her down. Mercifully, the ride to the cemetery was a short one.
‘Of course,’ I said.
With a triumphant smile she stepped in front of me and slid into the car. She did not close the door as if she expected me to close it for her and go on over to the other side. I stood bemused, the color rising into my cheeks.
Fortunately, Barry hurried around and closed the door. Looking at me kindly he said, ‘Come around to the other side, Mam.’
I cleared my throat and, keenly aware of many eyes watching, followed him around the back of the car to the passenger door on the opposite side. Barry opened the door and I murmure
d my thanks and sat stiffly on the seat, leaving as much space between her and me.
As soon as Barry turned out of the church’s driveway and into the main street, Rosalind ordered Barry to put the partition glass up.
I turned to her, my face devoid of expression.
Her face was equally drained of any emotion. ‘Can you tell me why we are all being summoned to Barrington for the reading of the will as if all of this was a particularly bad Hollywood production?’
I frowned at her. ‘How else would the solicitor tell us what is in the will?’
She sighed elaborately. ‘I realize that you are a bit of a redneck, but it is actually customary for all beneficiaries to simply receive written notification from the solicitor.’
‘Right,’ I said slowly. She said redneck like it was a bad thing. Still, it was in Hollywood movies that I learned of the custom of reading a will to a gathering of people.
‘I’ll take it then that you have no idea,’ she said coldly.
I put on my sweet face. ‘No. Ivan made all the arrangements.’
She narrowed her eyes skeptically and let them slide to my pendant. An ugly look crossed her thin, proud face. ‘Do you know the contents of my father’s will?’
Suck it up buttercup. He didn’t leave it to you. ‘Not really. I guess we’ll know after the funeral.’
‘But most of it’s going to you, isn’t it?’
I took a deep breath. This needed to be said. ‘You want his money, but you never once came to see him in the last six months.’
Her eyes widened with fury. ‘How dare you lecture me on my relationship with my father?’
‘You hurt him when you never brought your children to see him once in the last two years. He wanted to get to know them.’
‘Are you mad? Do you think I would expose my children to that pedophile?’
Dirty Aristocrat Page 3