Smokescreen

‘Well—no,’ Adam shrugged. ‘Was he informed?’

‘As I have no idea where he is, that would have been difficult,’ Olivia replied tautly. ‘Henry said something about his living in Africa, but Africa’s a big place, and he never heard from him.’

‘No.’ Adam nodded. ‘No, of course not.’ He flicked open the lid of his briefcase. ‘Shall we begin?’

Olivia scarcely listened to the preamble. It wasn’t long. Henry had no close relatives, other than herself and Alex, of course, and his bequests to the members of his staff were characteristically few. Five hundred pounds here, a thousand pounds there; Francis Kennedy received a bonus in the form of a five-thousand-pound block of shares in Gantry Chemicals; but otherwise the vast sum of his estate remained intact, to be administered by his wife, Olivia, providing certain conditions were adhered to.

Olivia straightened her spine. ‘What conditions?’ she asked Adam, her green eyes alight with suspicion, and the elderly lawyer exhaled a sigh before explaining the situation.

‘It’s quite simple,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’ll find them onerous. H.R. simply wanted to ensure that his business empire survived his death.’

Olivia sprang to her feet. ‘You said the estate was mine!’

‘I said you were his heir,’ said Adam mildly, his eyes showing faint bewilderment. ‘My dear, surely you consider an income of some quarter of a million pounds a year an adequate commission for sustaining Henry’s controlling interest in the Gantry corporation?’

‘What are you saying?’ Olivia gazed at him. ‘That I can’t dispose of it?’

Adam looked confused. ‘Why should you wish to do that? Olivia, you’ll have everything anyone could ever want—money, power, position——’

‘But not complete power,’ she exclaimed harshly ‘You’re saying that the estate is entailed.’

Adam regarded her with evident perplexity. ‘My dear, you’d be a fool to sell, even if you were able to do so. In this time of recession, the corporation has continued to make a comfortable profit for its shareholders, and now that the economic crisis seems to be bottoming out——’

‘I know all that.’ Olivia turned away, her hands pressed to her cheeks, a sick sense of defeat replacing the nervous anticipation inside her. God, she had been a fool! Her mother had been a fool! They should have known that Henry would find some way to perpetuate his memory. It had been naïve to imagine he would give her complete control. He had alleviated his conscience. He had left her well provided for. But the capital investment remained within his grasp, even after death.

‘There is one more thing.’ Adam spoke tentatively, his tone indicating his continuing mystification at her attitude. ‘It concerns the future, Olivia. If—if you should decide to get married again, your position as nominal head of the corporation will be withdrawn. You will receive a settlement of three hundred thousand pounds, but your controlling interest will, at that time, be taken into trust for H.R.’s grandchildren, should Alex ever produce any.’

Olivia steeled herself to look at him. ‘And this house?’

‘All H.R.’s houses are yours, so long as you wish to live in them,’ replied Adam.

‘But—if I marry?’

‘Again the situation changes. The houses are part of the Gantry estate.’

Olivia nodded. She felt immensely weary suddenly. It seemed as if it had all been for nothing, she thought painfully. Her mother’s schemes, her mother’s desire for revenge—it had all been futile. Oh, she was wealthy now, more wealthy than she had any right to be, and that was part of her disillusionment. She had not wanted to be wealthy. She had not wanted Henry’s money. And although at the time it had seemed a cruel irony, perhaps it was as well now that her mother would never learn how unnecessary her sacrifice had been. In her confused state, she might well have suspected Olivia of being a party to this all along.

It was so unfair! For a moment, a tearful sense of outrage gripped her. She had given up her career, her future, her life! Maybe another girl would have found it fair recompense. Olivia did not. She had been inveigled into a marriage that was abhorrent to her, persuaded it was the only way to restore her mother’s health, only to find that Henry’s desire to make amends had been as empty as his proposal. He had only wanted a scapegoat, she could see that now, someone to deprive his son of his inheritance.

Adam folded the will and laid the copy in his briefcase. Then he said stiffly: ‘I suggest you sleep on it, Olivia. Obviously, this is neither the time nor the place to go into further detail. Perhaps you’d allow me to make an appointment for you to come and see me in a day or so. We can continue this discussion at that time.’

‘Wait——’ Olivia put out her hand instinctively, forcing a note of apology into her tone. After all, this was not Adam’s fault, and it would not serve any purpose she had to make an enemy of Henry’s trusted business advisor. ‘I—I want to thank you,’ she said, adopting a rueful expression. ‘I’m afraid you must think me very ungrateful. It’s just that—well, I suppose the fact of Henry’s death hasn’t really sunk in yet.’

That was an outright lie, and she thought that perhaps Adam identified it as such. But he was evidently prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, and he took her hand automatically as he made his farewells. His attitude gave Olivia pause, and almost incredulously she realised that so far as Adam was concerned, she still wielded a hefty weapon. Henry had given her the power to administer his controlling interest; how she actually used that power was her decision to make. She could be the symbolic, but silent, partner they expected, or she could exercise her rights to offer her opinion. How far that opinion would be listened to remained to be seen, but one thing seemed certain: no one, not Adam Cosgrove, or Francis Kennedy, and most particularly not Henry himself would expect her to involve herself in the corporation’s affairs.

Adam left, not altogether satisfied, she knew, with her explanation, but prepared to put it down to the inconsistency of her being female. His departure seemed to signal to the others that it was time they, too, made their farewells, and in ones and twos they took to their cars, their expressions of sympathy ringing in Olivia’s ears long after the steel gates had sealed behind them.

Francis had left, too, after offering to remain behind and being refused. He had suggested she might need company over dinner, but as Olivia had little taste for food right now, she had declined his proposal.

‘It’s very kind of you, Francis,’ she said, ‘but I’d prefer to be alone. I—have a lot to think about. We’ll talk again in the morning. Join me for breakfast. I—I have something I want to talk to you about.’

He had been curious, she had known that, and vaguely wary of any proposition she might devolve. But like Adam before him, he was sufficiently in awe of her position not to argue, and Olivia had known an unexpected surge of excitement as she flexed the reins of power for the first time.

It was only as she was leaving that Olivia remembered Drusilla. The other woman had not been mentioned among the few bequests Henry had made, and Olivia felt a wave of compassion sweep over her for the bitterness Drusilla must be feeling. It was typical of Henry Gantry, of course. He never forgot an insult, and Drusilla’s behaviour at the time of his marriage had created an unpleasant scene.

‘I’m sorry,’ Olivia said quietly, as Mrs Stone passed her on her way out to her car. She made no further explanations. None was necessary. But Drusilla was not prepared to accept her dismissal gracefully.

‘You will be,’ she declared spitefully, her eyes glittering. ‘One day you’re going to regret you ever laid eyes on Henry Gantry, and you can be sure I’ll be around to see it!’

Olivia found she was trembling when the door finally closed behind the last of her guests, and the housekeeper, Mrs Winters, exchanged a knowing look with Hamish Murdoch. Surprisingly enough, the members of the household staff had all grown to like and respect the young Mrs Gantry, and her quiet manner and unassuming ways had won her many friends among their ranks.

‘It’s been too much for you, Mrs Gantry,’ the housekeeper exclaimed, but Olivia resisted her efforts to urge her back into the library. ‘I said it would be, and I’ve been proved right. You look as if every drop of blood has drained out of you!’

Olivia managed a faint smile for both of them. ‘I’m all right, really,’ she assured them. ‘Just—tired, I think.’ She paused. ‘I think I’ll take a bath before dinner. Do you think I could eat from a tray this evening? I really don’t feel like facing the dining room alone.’

‘Why don’t you get straight into bed, and I’ll get Mary to bring it up for you?’ Murdoch suggested, but Olivia shook her head.

‘I’ll come down,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t feel like going to bed right now. I’ll probably watch television for a while. After you’ve arranged about the meal, you can all take the rest of the night off.’

It was a relief to reach the sanctuary of her room. It was such a beautiful apartment, and at least one area of the house which held no associations of Henry. Oh, he had probably hired the interior decorators who had designed it for her, she reflected, sinking down on to the side of the huge square bed; but he had never entered the room during her habitation, and she had made it peculiarly her own by the addition of her personal possessions.

Her brushes, with their gilt handles, did look a little out of place on the crystal tray on her dressing table, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t ashamed of her background, and she had refused to pretend she was used to such luxury as she now possessed. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the servants had taken such a liking to her; because she had never hidden the fact that she had been brought up in surroundings similar to theirs.

Nevertheless, she had become fond of the exquisitely appointed rooms allocated to her. She would not have been human if she had not appreciated a superbly-sprung mattress and real silk sheets, that stroked her skin with sensuous enjoyment; she would not have been honest if she had denied the pleasures of waking up in the morning to the artistic beauty of linen-covered walls, in delicious shades of rose and turquoise, and a soft, shaggy carpet to tease her toes; and she would not have been feminine if she had not felt a thrill every time she slid back the doors of the air-conditioned units in her dressing room, to disclose the rows and rows of suits and dresses, pants and skirts and sweaters and jeans, enough to last a lifetime, were fashion never to change.

Now, Olivia bent and unzipped her boots, kicking them off carelessly as she stood to unfasten the tiny pearl buttons of her dress. When she pushed it off her shoulders, it fell too, in a pool of silk jersey about her feet, and picking it up she tossed it on to the bed. Her reflection, in the stark simplicity of her black slip, was thrown back at her from half a dozen mirrors set about the room, but she paid little attention to her appearance. She saw little to admire in her magnolia-pale skin and night-dark hair. Her mother’s Italian ancestry was never more pronounced than when she was tired, and she turned aside impatiently and strode into the bathroom.

She ran her own bath, liberally sprinkling the contents of a cut-glass flagon of perfumed essence into the water. The step-in tub was deep and wide, and she filled it almost to the brim before stepping into its scented softness, feeling the chill that had enveloped her dispersing in its warmth. She must not allow herself to become depressed, she thought determinedly. She was still the nominal head of the Gantry corporation. And tomorrow she would find out from Francis exactly what that meant.

She was seated on the padded stool in front of her dressing table brushing her hair when there was a knock at her door, and a young woman’s voice called: ‘It’s me, Mrs Gantry. Can I come in?’

‘Of course, Mary.’ Olivia forced herself to welcome the young woman who entered, even though she would have preferred to be alone.

‘You should have asked me to run your bath for you, Mrs Gantry,’ Mary Parrish exclaimed reprovingly, picking up Olivia’s discarded dress and slipping it on to its hanger. ‘How are you feeling now? Mrs Winters seemed to think you had overdone it. Why don’t you get into bed, and let me fetch you some supper?’

‘Thank you, Mary, but I prefer to eat downstairs,’ declared Olivia resignedly, wishing the girl didn’t take her duties so seriously. Henry had employed her, soon after their marriage, to act as lady’s maid, and Olivia had often wished he had consulted her first. However, she meant well, and Olivia tempered her remark with a small smile so that she should not hurt Mary’s feelings.

‘Then what are you going to wear, Mrs Gantry?’ the girl persisted, carrying the silk jersey into the dressing room and replacing it in the closet. ‘I suggest this trouser suit,’ she displayed an outfit consisting of narrow fitting pants and knee-length jacket, teamed with a silk shirt, ‘or this,’ which was a soft cashmere caftan, with knee-length slits at either side.

Olivia sighed. She had considered going downstairs in a dressing gown and pyjamas, but she realised there was always the possibility that someone else might call to offer their condolences. She could always plead a headache, of course, and avoid visitors, but with Mary pulling out various combinations of garments, it was easier to choose than explain her preference.

‘The caftan, I think,’ she said, indicating the exquisite handwork of the knitted cashmere. Its muted shades of blue and mauve were suitably restrained, and she cared little that it was one of the most flattering items in her wardrobe.

‘I wish I had a figure like yours, Mrs Gantry,’ Mary remarked later, when the folds of the caftan clung lovingly to Olivia’s shapely form. Indeed, its plain lines accentuated the rounded swell of her bosom, and displayed the slimness of her hips and the slender length of her legs.

Olivia shook her head, unconvinced in spite of Mary’s sincerity. ‘Clothes maketh man—or woman,’ she misquoted, half cynically. ‘Leave my hair loose, Mary. I shan’t be seeing anyone tonight.’

Leaving the maid to tidy the room, Olivia descended the stairs with slow deliberation. It was strange to think this house was hers, so long as she chose to live in it, unmarried, of course; the rooms were hers to decorate as she wished; the servants were hers to command. It was a tempting proposition, as Henry had known it would be. He had left her enough money, whatever her inclination, to live in luxury for the rest of her life; firmly believing, as he had always believed, that personal gratification was all that mattered.