by Nora Roberts
A Will and a Way
Nora Roberts
www.millsandboon.com.au
It was worse than winning the lottery—much worse. This bequest might mean more money, but the strings attached had Pandora McVie tied up in knots. Respecting Uncle Jolley’s last wishes meant spending time isolated in the Catskills with Michael Donahue, her least favorite—though best looking—distant relative and co-beneficiary.
Living with a carrot-topped termagant wasn’t Michael’s idea of a good time, either, but he realized they were stuck. Jolley was a matchmaker to the end—and apparently for some time beyond. What could happen in six months? Michael answered that one himself: almost anything.
For my family members, who, fortunately, aren’t as odd as the relatives in this book.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter One
One hundred fifty million dollars was nothing to sneeze at. No one in the vast, echoing library of Jolley’s Folley would have dared. Except Pandora. She did so with more enthusiasm than delicacy into a tattered tissue. After blowing her nose, she sat back, wishing the antihistamine she had taken would live up to its promise of fast relief. She wished she’d never caught the wretched cold in the first place. More, she wished she were anywhere else in the world.
Surrounding her were dozens of books she’d read and hundreds more she’d never given a thought to, though she’d spent hours and hours in the library. The scent of the leather-bound volumes mixed with the lighter, homier scent of dust. Pandora preferred either to the strangling fragrance of lilies that filled three stocky vases.
In one corner of the room was a marble-and-ivory chess set, where she’d lost a great many highly disputed matches. Uncle Jolley, bless his round, innocent face and pudgy fingers, had been a compulsive and skilled cheat. Pandora had never taken a loss in stride. Maybe that’s why he’d so loved to beat her, by fair means or foul.
Through the three arching windows the light shone dull and a little gloomy. It suited her mood and, she thought, the proceedings. Uncle Jolley had loved to set scenes.
When she loved—and she felt this emotion for a select few who’d touched her life—she put everything she had into it. She’d been born with boundless energy. She’d developed iron-jawed stubbornness. She’d loved Uncle Jolley in her uninhibited, expansive fashion, acknowledging then accepting all of his oddites. He might have been ninety-three, but he’d never been dull or fussy.
A month before his death, they’d gone fishing—poaching actually—in the lake that was owned and stocked by his neighbor. When they’d caught more than they could eat, they’d sent a half-dozen trout back to the owner, cleaned and chilled.
She was going to miss Uncle Jolley with his round cherub’s face, high, melodious voice and wicked humors. From his ten-foot, extravagantly framed portrait, he looked down at her with the same little smirk he’d worn whether he’d been making a million-dollar merger or handing an unsuspecting vice-president a drink in a dribble glass. She missed him already. No one else in her far-flung, contrasting family understood and accepted her with the same ease. It had been one more reason she’d adored him.
Miserable with grief, aggravated by a head cold, Pandora listened to Edmund Fitzhugh drone on, and on, with the preliminary technicalities of Uncle Jolley’s will. Maximillian Jolley McVie had never been one for brevity. He’d always said if you were going to do something, do it until the steam ran out. His last will and testament bore his style.
Not bothering to hide her disinterest in the proceedings, Pandora took a comprehensive survey of the other occupants of the library.
To have called them mourners would have been just the sort of bad joke Jolley would have appreciated.
There was Jolley’s only surviving son, Uncle Carlson, and his wife. What was her name? Lona—Mona? Did it matter? Pandora saw them sitting stiff backed and alert in matching shades of black. They made her think of crows on a telephone wire just waiting for something to fall at their feet.
Cousin Ginger—sweet and pretty and harmless, if rather vacuous. Her hair was Jean Harlow blond this month. Good old Cousin Biff was there in his black Brooks Brothers suit. He sat back, one leg crossed over the other as if he were watching a polo match. Pandora was certain he wasn’t missing a word. His wife—was it Laurie?—had a prim, respectful look on her face. From experience, Pandora knew she wouldn’t utter a word unless it were to echo Biff. Uncle Jolley had called her a silly, boring fool. Hating to be cynical, Pandora had to agree.
There was Uncle Monroe looking plump and successful and smoking a big cigar despite the fact that his sister, Patience, waved a little white handkerchief in front of her nose. Probably because of it, Pandora corrected. Uncle Monroe liked nothing better than to make his ineffectual sister uncomfortable.
Cousin Hank looked macho and muscular, but hardly more than his tough athletic wife, Meg. They’d hiked the Appalachian Trail on their honeymoon. Uncle Jolley had wondered if they stretched and limbered up before lovemaking.
The thought caused Pandora to giggle. She stifled it halfheartedly with the tissue just before her gaze wandered over to cousin Michael. Or was it second cousin Michael? She’d never been able to get the technical business straight. It seemed a bit foolish when you weren’t talking blood relation anyway. His mother had been Uncle Jolley’s niece by Jolley’s son’s second marriage. It was a complicated state of affairs, Pandora thought. But then Michael Donahue was a complicated man.
They’d never gotten along, though she knew Uncle Jolley had favored him. As far as Pandora was concerned, anyone who made his living writing a silly television series that kept people glued to a box rather than doing something worthwhile was a materialistic parasite. She had a momentary flash of pleasure as she remembered telling him just that.
Then, of course, there were the women. When a man dated centerfolds and showgirls it was obvious he wasn’t interested in intellectual stimulation. Pandora smiled as she recalled stating her view quite clearly the last time Michael had visited Jolley’s Folley. Uncle Jolley had nearly fallen off his chair laughing.
Then her smile faded. Uncle Jolley was gone. And if she was honest, which she was often, she’d admit that of all the people in the room at that moment, Michael Donahue had cared for and enjoyed the old man more than anyone but herself.
You’d hardly know that to look at him now, she mused. He looked disinterested and slightly arrogant. She noticed the set, grim line around his lips. Pandora had always considered Donahue’s mouth his best feature, though he rarely smiled at her unless it was to bare his teeth and snarl.
Uncle Jolley had liked his looks, and had told Pandora so in his early stages of matchmaking. A hobby she’d made sure he’d given up quickly. Well, he hadn’t given it up precisely, but she’d ignored it all the same.
Being rather short and round himself, perhaps Jolley had appreciated Donahue’s long lean frame, and the narrow intense face. Pandora might have liked it herself, except that Michael’s eyes were often distant and detached.
At the moment he looked like one of the heroes in the action series he wrote—leaning negligently against the wall and looking just a bit out of place in the tidy suit and tie. His dark hair was casual and not altogether neat, as though he hadn’t thought to comb it into place after riding with the top down. He looked bored and ready for action. Any action.
It was too bad, Pandora thought, that they didn’t get alo
ng better. She’d have liked to have reminisced with someone about Uncle Jolley, someone who appreciated his whimsies as she had.
There was no use thinking along those lines. If they’d elected to sit together, they’d have been picking little pieces out of each other by now. Uncle Jolley, smirking down from his portrait, knew it very well.
With a half sigh she blew her nose again and tried to listen to Fitzhugh. There was something about a bequest to whales. Or maybe it was whalers.
Another hour of this, Michael thought, and he’d be ready to chew raw meat. If he heard one more whereas… On a long breath, Michael drew himself in. He was here for the duration because he’d loved the crazy old man. If the last thing he could do for Jolley was to stand in a room with a group of human vultures and listen to long rambling legalese, then he’d do it. Once it was over, he’d pour himself a long shot of brandy and toast the old man in private. Jolley had had a fondness for brandy.
When Michael had been young and full of imagination and his parents hadn’t understood, Uncle Jolley had listened to him ramble, encouraged him to dream. Invariably on a visit to the Folley, his uncle had demanded a story then had settled himself back, bright-eyed and eager, while Michael wove on. Michael hadn’t forgotten.
When he’d received his first Emmy for Logan’s Run, Michael had flown from L.A. to the Catskills and had given the statuette to his uncle. The Emmy was still in the old man’s bedroom, even if the old man wasn’t.
Michael listened to the dry impersonal attorney’s voice and wished for a cigarette. He’d only given them up two days before. Two days, four hours and thirty-five minutes. He’d have welcomed the raw meat.
He felt stifled in the room with all these people. Every one of them had thought old Jolley was half-mad and a bit of a nuisance. The one hundred fifty-million-dollar estate was different. Stocks and bonds were extremely sane. Michael had seen several assessing glances roaming over the library furniture. Big, ornate Georgian might not suit some of the streamlined life-styles, but it would liquidate into very tidy cash. The old man, Michael knew, had loved every clunky chair and oversize table in the house.
He doubted if any of them had been to the big echoing house in the past ten years. Except for Pandora, he admitted grudgingly. She might be an annoyance, but she’d adored Jolley.
At the moment she looked miserable. Michael didn’t believe he’d ever seen her look unhappy before—furious, disdainful, infuriating, but never unhappy. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have gone to sit beside her, offer some comfort, hold her hand. She’d probably chomp it off at the wrist.
Still, her shockingly blue eyes were red and puffy. Almost as red as her hair, he mused, as his gaze skimmed over the wild curly mane that tumbled, with little attention to discipline or style, around her shoulders. She was so pale that the sprinkling of freckles over her nose stood out. Normally her ivory-toned skin had a hint of rose in it—health or temperament, he’d never been sure.
Sitting among her solemn, black-clad family, she stood out like a parrot among crows. She’d worn a vivid blue dress. Michael approved of it, though he’d never say so to Pandora. She didn’t need black and crepe and lilies to mourn. That he understood, if he didn’t understand her.
She annoyed him, periodically, with her views on his life-style and career. When they clashed, it didn’t take long for him to hurl criticism back at her. After all, she was a bright, talented woman who was content to play around making outrageous jewelry for boutiques rather than taking advantage of her Master’s degree in education.
She called him materialistic, he called her idealistic. She labeled him a chauvinist, he labeled her a pseudo-intellectual. Jolley had sat with his hands folded and chuckled every time they argued. Now that he was gone, Michael mused, there wouldn’t be an opportunity for any more battles. Oddly enough, he found it another reason to miss his uncle.
The truth was, he’d never felt any strong family ties to anyone but Jolley. Michael didn’t think of his parents very often. His father was somewhere in Europe with his fourth wife, and his mother had settled placidly into Palm Springs society with husband number three. They’d never understood their son who’d opted to work for a living in something as bourgeois as television.
But Jolley had understood and appreciated. More, much more important to Michael, he’d enjoyed Michael’s work.
A grin spread over his face when he heard Fitzhugh drone out the bequest for whales. It was so typically Jolley. Several impatient relations hissed through their teeth. A hundred fifty thousand dollars had just spun out of their reach. Michael glanced up at the larger-than-life-size portrait of his uncle. You always said you’d have the last word, you old fool. The only trouble is you’re not here to laugh about it.
“To my son, Carlson…” All the quiet muttering and whispers died as Fitzhugh cleared his throat. Without much interest Pandora watched her relatives come to attention. The charities and servants had their bequests. Now it was time for the big guns. Fitzhugh glanced up briefly before he continued. “Whose—aaah—mediocrity was always a mystery to me, I leave my entire collection of magic tricks in hopes he can develop a sense of the ridiculous.”
Pandora choked into her tissue and watched her uncle turn beet red. First point Uncle Jolley, she thought and prepared to enjoy herself. Maybe he’d left the whole business to the A.S.P.C.A.
“To my grandson, Bradley, and my granddaughter by marriage, Lorraine, I leave my very best wishes. They need nothing more.”
Pandora swallowed and blinked back tears at the reference to her parents. She’d call them in Zanzibar that evening. They would appreciate the sentiment even as she did.
“To my nephew Monroe who has the first dollar he ever made, I leave the last dollar I made, frame included. To my niece, Patience, I leave my cottage in Key West without much hope she’ll have the gumption to use it.”
Monroe chomped on his cigar while Patience looked horrified.
“To my grand-nephew, Biff, I leave my collection of matches, with the hopes that he will, at last, set the world on fire. To my pretty grand-niece, Ginger, who likes equally pretty things, I leave the sterling silver mirror purported to have been owned by Marie Antoinette. To my grand-nephew, Hank, I leave the sum of 3528. Enough, I believe, for a lifetime supply of wheat germ.”
The grumbles that had begun with the first bequest continued and grew. Anger hovered on the edge of outrage. Jolley would have liked nothing better. Pandora made the mistake of glancing over at Michael. He didn’t seem so distant and detached now, but full of admiration. When their gazes met, the giggle she’d been holding back spilled out. It earned her several glares.
Carlson rose, giving new meaning to the phrase controlled outrage. “Mr. Fitzhugh, my father’s will is nothing more than a mockery. It’s quite obvious that he wasn’t in his right mind when he made it, nor do I have any doubt that a court will overturn it.”
“Mr. McVie.” Again Fitzhugh cleared his throat. The sun began to push its way through the clouds but no one seemed to notice. “I understand perfectly your sentiments in this matter. However, my client was perfectly well and lucid when this will was drawn. He may have worded it against my advice, but it is legal and binding. You are, of course, free to consult with your own counsel. Meanwhile, there’s more to be read.”
“Hogwash.” Monroe puffed on his cigar and glared at everyone. “Hogwash,” he repeated while Patience patted his arm and chirped ineffectually.
“Uncle Jolley liked hogwash,” Pandora said as she balled her tissue. She was ready to face them down, almost hoped she’d have to. It would take her mind off her grief. “If he wanted to leave his money to the Society for the Prevention of Stupidity, it was his right.”
“Easily said, my dear.” Biff polished his nails on his lapel. The gold band of his watch caught a bit of the sun and gleamed. “Perhaps the old lunatic left you a ball of twine so you can string more beads.”
“You haven’t got the matches yet, old boy.” Mi
chael spoke lazily from his corner, but every eye turned his way. “Careful what you light.”
“Let him read, why don’t you?” Ginger piped up, quite pleased with her bequest. Marie Antoinette, she mused. Just imagine.
“The last two bequests are joint,” Fitzhugh began before there could be another interruption. “And, a bit unorthodox.”
“The entire document’s unorthodox,” Carlson tossed out, then harrumphed. Several heads nodded in agreement.
Pandora remembered why she always avoided family gatherings. They bored her to death. Quite deliberately, she waved a hand in front of her mouth and yawned. “Could we have the rest, Mr. Fitzhugh, before my family embarrasses themselves any further?”
She thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she saw a quick light of approval in the fusty attorney’s eyes. “Mr. McVie wrote this portion in his own words.” He paused a moment, either for effect or courage. “To Pandora McVie and Michael Donahue,” Fitzhugh read. “The two members of my family who have given me the most pleasure with their outlook on life, their enjoyment of an old man and old jokes, I leave the rest of my estate, in entirety, all accounts, all business interests, all stocks, bonds and trusts, all real and personal property, with all affection. Share and share alike.”
Pandora didn’t hear the half-dozen objections that sprang out. She rose, stunned and infuriated. “I can’t take his money.” Towering over the family who sat around her, she strode straight up to Fitzhugh. The lawyer, who’d anticipated attacks from other areas, braced for the unexpected. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’d just clutter up my life.” She waved a hand at the papers on the desk as if they were a minor annoyance. “He should’ve asked me first.”
“Miss McVie…”