Guardian to the Heiress

“He always loved you, Carol,” he felt compelled to say. He hadn’t missed that little pained swallow. “He told me he’d wanted to fight your mother for custody.”

She broke in fierily, flatly contradicting. “He did not!”

“Let me correct you—he did. As his legal advisors, we told him winning custody of you was one fight he wouldn’t win. Your mother was your mother, a powerful person in your life. She was determined to keep you. She wasn’t letting go.”

“Spite, probably,” Carol found herself saying. It shocked her because it very likely was true. She’d no idea up until that point her grandfather had wanted custody of her. She fully intended to take that up with her mother. “My mother hated the family—my uncle Maurice, his wife, Dallas, but particularly my grandfather. It took me years to find out he had practically accused her of murdering my father. She would never have done that. What would be the reason?” She spread her hands.

“Your grandparents didn’t have a case.”

“I know that.” She didn’t believe for a minute her mother had wanted to dispose of her father. But then her mother was so good at deception. In her mid-forties, Roxanne was still a beautiful, sexy woman, a born temptress. But she wasn’t all that smart. Murder would have been difficult to pull off on the harbour. The Manly ferry, in fact, had come to her mother’s rescue. Even the floating cushions had been retrieved; never her father’s body. As a child she had prayed and prayed he had swum all the way to New Guinea, perhaps; he had never drowned, anything but that. Her father had been out on the harbour a million times. He was a fine sailor.

Damon Hunter’s voice snapped her out of her unhappy thoughts. “Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, Carol. You’re the Chancellor heiress.”

She gave a bleak laugh. “So I might as well get back my father’s name. I’ve never liked Emmett but it was a shield for the time. This won’t make anyone in the family happy. I do hope they’ve all been well-provided for, or am I in for a lengthy court battle?”

“No battle. Your grandfather knew exactly what he was doing. Sound mind, sound intent. I drew up the will. It’s ironclad. I should tell you at this point I have control over your inheritance until you turn twenty-one, which I understand is August eighth, next year?”

She gave him a taunting smile. “That means you have charge of the purse strings?”

“We can always discuss what you need. You don’t have to worry about any heavy-handed treatment. I’m here to protect your interests, Carol.” And to protect you, he thought, jolted by his instantaneous attraction to her. It was like being handed a bouquet of the most beautiful red roses, perfect buds awaiting full bloom but spreading their fragrance. He couldn’t think of a single young woman of his acquaintance who’d had that extraordinary effect on him.

“Sounds like I might need it,” she said wryly. “The truth is, I don’t want the money. On the other hand, I think I can do a lot of good. Rich people have a responsibility to give back to the community.”

“Your grandfather certainly did that.”

She couldn’t deny it. “So here I am, an heiress without warning. I think I’m in shock.”

“Well, you’re not jumping up and down,” he said.

There was such an attractive quirk to his handsome mouth. It struck her that her feelings were a bit extreme. “Everyone will hate me,” she said. “Why would I feel elated? Except I am, in an odd way. It’s not the money. It’s the fact Poppy—my grandfather,” she quickly corrected, “wanted custody of me. If only I’d known that. It would have given me some comfort.”

She didn’t say her own mother had denied her that comfort. In death, her grandfather had left her rich enough to be independent of everyone—first up, her mother. They didn’t enjoy a good relationship. At least her mother had always been surprisingly generous when it came to providing for her. She had even bought her a flashy sports car when she had needed a car to get to and from university.

“You haven’t asked how much.” Damon wondered if she had any idea.

She shrugged a delicately boned shoulder. “I don’t want to know. Not yet, anyway. That’s way too mercenary. How much does anyone need? I just love big-business philanthropists, doing so much good, keeping their eye on things, not letting the money stray into the wrong hands.”

“Well, you won’t be in the their class.”

He had a heartbreaking smile. It lit up his handsome dark face with its gilt-bronze tan. She wondered if he were a yachtsman. Most likely he was; that tan was from the sun, not any sunbed. “I don’t want to be there when the will’s read,” she said with a faint shudder.

“I’ll be there, too, Carol,” he reassured her. “I expect I will have to go to the country house the day after tomorrow, maybe sooner. I’d like to take you with me. You should be there. The house is yours.”

Her finely arched brows, so much darker than her hair, shot up. “You’re serious?”

“Absolutely. Wills are serious matters.”

“I know that.” She coloured. “So I can tip them out—my uncle Maurice, Dallas and Troy, although he lives in the apartment at Point Piper. That belonged to Poppy.” Her childhood name for her grandfather was flying out regardless.

“That remains with the family,” he said. “Do you want to tip them out of Beaumont?”

She looked into his fathoms-deep dark eyes. “I have to think about that. I’m not finished my degree yet. I expect you’ve checked me out?” Of course he had. “I’m smart enough, apparently, but I’m not giving my studies my best shot.”

“A fresh start next year,” he suggested. “You’ll feel more committed by then.”

“Why were you so committed?” She really wanted to know. “We’ve all heard Professor Deakin sing your praises.”

A faint grimace spread across his dynamic features. “I didn’t have your advantages, Carol, but I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. I was ambitious, an inherited trait. Then I, too, lost my dad, a geologist, when I was twelve.”

So both of them had lost their fathers at an early age. He at twelve, she at age five. That made a bond.

“It was just my mother and me,” he was saying. “I determined after that, it was my job to look after her, when she knew perfectly well how to look after both of us. She’s a strong woman. She ran a very successful catering business until she sold out a year ago. These days she and her sister, my aunt Terri, travel the world.”

“That’s good. There would be so much to see.” She hesitated for a moment before asking. “How did your father die? He wouldn’t have been very old.”

He told her, although he didn’t talk much about the premature death of his father. “He died in a mine explosion in Chile where he had been sent by his company to explore copper deposits in the region. He was able to help get a lot of the men out. He wasn’t so lucky. He was forty-one.”

“Oh, Damon, I’m so sorry.”

There was such a compassionate look on her face, he wanted to pull her to him.

Steady on!

Physical contact of the order he was thinking was out of the question. But even the thought gave him a strange pleasure that was very unsettling at the same time. He hadn’t anticipated this feeling of urgency. Anyone would think he had been appointed her knight in shining armour.

“The long summer vacation is coming up,” she said with a slight frown. “My Uncle Maurice made no attempt to see me in all these long years.”

“No.” She had been deprived of family.

“It’s a heavy burden having a lot of money,” she commented gravely.

“It is indeed. People don’t always realize that. Money can’t buy happiness. I’ve seen that time and time again. Too much money in a family can bring about a lot of internal conflict.” A prominent family’s feud was being publicly waged in the press at that point of time.

“Did my grandfather leave any instructions for me?” She hoped it was so.

“I’m glad you asked, Carol, because he did,” he answered gently. “He wanted you to know how things were. He wanted you to know why certain decisions had to be made. I guess he wanted pardon.”

“Then he’s got it,” she answered quietly. “I could never learn to hate my grandfather no matter what my mother tried to drum into me. I was a rebellious child, not easy to handle. Not cute at all. One thing in my favour—hate was left out of me, when sadly it defined my mother.”

CHAPTER TWO

IN THE MORNING the news of Selwyn Chancellor’s death broke on every TV channel and all over the internet. It didn’t take long before the phones began to ring non-stop. Finally Carol let all the calls go to message. Even Tracey forgot her troubles, joining them for breakfast—possibly a mistake, because she had to endure exclamations of horror at the state of her face and neck from Amanda and Emma, as well as fierce comments on the low character of her ex-boyfriend, and the blood-curdling things they considered should be done to him. Finally Carol had to request them to stop.

“You got it, kiddo!” Amanda returned to lavishly buttering her toast, taking the spread meticulously to the edges. Satisfied, she spread it thickly with yeast extract. “My God, Caro, can you believe it?” She crunched a section in her mouth. “You’re an heiress. If anyone deserves it, you do. But what are you going to do now? I mean, you won’t be staying here. We won’t be staying here, for that matter. Not without you. Can’t afford it. What about Trace? She has to get out of her place. Her dumb-ass boyfriend might come back.”

Carol shook her head. “Tracey will be taking out an apprehended-violence order on him within a day or two. None of you has to go anywhere. I’ll be picking up the rent, although you can pay the phone and electricity. It will teach you how to mind your pennies.” That was a shot at Amanda, who was always broke, always borrowing.

“That’s a good one!” Amanda hooted with joy. “We have pennies. You’ll have millions!”

“I know. The luck of the draw. But I’m going to do some good with it,” Carol said with a zealot’s fervour. “Are you availing yourself of my offer or not? I know quite a few who’d jump at the chance. Tracey can have my room. Does that suit, Trace?”

Tracey’s expression was relieved beyond words. “Everyone needs a friend like you, Caro,” she said with feeling. “Do you think Damon will remember about me?”

“Count on it.” Carol placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He’s a guy who makes time. He wouldn’t miss a trick.”

“And he’s really your solicitor? I’m hugely envious.”

“He is, for my sins.”

Amanda gave a sly laugh, but Emma broke in naively. “Gosh, how thrilling! That guy has the wow factor!” She puckered her long nose. “You don’t see guys who look like that every day. He’s my idea of Mr Romance! I love those dark, brooding types. You should consider yourself a very lucky girl, Caro.”

Carol did, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. “Don’t get excited over nothing, Em. I have no romantic notions about him. And I’m darn sure he doesn’t have any about me.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Caro.” Amanda licked some spread off her fingers. “That guy would make even choosey little you jump for joy.”

“I’ll say!” Emma seconded with enthusiasm. “I’d kill for a guy like that. He could even make me his love slave.”

Amanda nearly choked. “All those romances you devour by the basketload have got to you, Em. They’re just fairy-tales. They should come with a warning: this isn’t for real.”

“Is, too!” said Emma doggedly. “Our Mary got the Crown Prince of Denmark.”

“By virtue of the fact she looks more royal than the royals,” Amanda chortled.

No one was going to argue with that.

By the time they finished breakfast, all was settled. Amanda was given the job of roping in a couple of fellow students to help Tracey move out of her flat, while Carol wrote a cheque to cover two weeks of Tracey’s rent in advance.

Tracey burst into tears.

Carol didn’t spend long on the phone talking to her mother. She had found out the hard way she couldn’t trust her.

“Why didn’t you tell me Poppy wanted custody of me?” she asked with a feeling of great sadness.

“Stop using that ridiculous name,” Roxanne fired back. She’d been wondering for years when the truth would out. “He wanted no such thing. He was just as mean as ever a man could be.”

“You’re lying, Roxanne.” Her mother had insisted on being called by her first name for years now. “Mum” was considered indecently ageing.

“Think what you like.” Roxanne made a rude yawning sound. “You’re not going to his funeral, are you? It’s a mystery to me why anyone would turn up.”

“It’s a private funeral at Beaumont,” Carol was glad to point out. “I’m going with my solicitor. It appears Poppy has included me in his will.”

A moment of silence, then Roxanne let out a screech that would have done justice to a cockatoo in the wild. “He what?”

“Ah, you’re shocked.” Carol felt pleased. “It appears he thought of me at the end. At the beginning, too, as I’ve recently found out. I bet he paid for my uni tuition and my car?” she hazarded, intuiting it could be true. It was her mother who was mean. “You’re not invited, Mother. Neither is Jeff. A decision I’m entirely in agreement with. I’ve always known you tried to poison my mind against my grandfather.”

Roxanne’s laugh was low and derisive. “Just because he’s remembered you doesn’t mean you’re going to get much. Your grandfather was quite eccentric. Maurice, pathetic failure that he is, and that moon-faced wife of his—she’s totally descended into a frump—will get the bulk of it. Troy will get the rest after all the tax breaks—the charities—get their share. If you’re lucky, he might leave you some of those God-awful Chinese pots.” She laughed again, as though enjoying a huge joke. “I never told you I deliberately broke one before I left. I had an overwhelming urge to destroy something as I walked out of the entrance hall. You were already in the car. It was very valuable, I believe.”

“Not the blue-and-white meiping vase?” Carol gasped. It had stood in the hallway on a tall rosewood stand.

“What the hell? Your grandfather neglected to take me on as a pupil, so I wouldn’t know, except I couldn’t help noticing his face went white as the vase hit the marble tiles. The man was really obsessed. He had far too many vases and pots as it was. Who the hell did he think he was, Ali Baba? When is the funeral?” she asked. “When are you leaving?”

“Is it vital to know?”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Roxanne warned.

“It’s what I always am, remember? But, to answer your question, I’m waiting on a phone call.”

“Do you feel sad?” Roxanne gave a heartless coo.

“I do, actually. It must be strange being you—completely indifferent to anyone else’s pain but hyper-sensitive about yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Roxanne reacted angrily to criticism. “I do know all you ever did even as a child was try to wind me up. Do give my love to dearest Maurice. Never had the guts to get rid of Dallas,” she added quite bitterly.

That was news indeed to Carol. “Did he want to get rid of her?” she asked, astonished.

“You bet he did!” was Roxanne’s startling reply.

“Well, well…” Carol was having a job absorbing this further piece of news. “My solicitor isn’t Marcus Bradfield, by the way. It’s another member of the firm, Damon Hunter.”

Roxanne gave a follow-up shriek. “You’re having me on. Damon Hunter?”

“You know him?” It was very possible. Her mother and Jeff attended just about everything.

“I know of him.” Roxanne shifted into honeyed tones. “We haven’t as yet met but I’ve seen him at various functions. Hard to miss, really. He’s going with Amber Coleman at the moment. The betting is she’ll get him to the altar. Gorgeous-looking man. Very sleek. Reminds me of a glossy black panther. Don’t imagine for a minute he’d be interested in you, my dear. Amber is magnificent, a real love goddess.”

“Who flunked university.”

Roxanne laughed. “Dumb of you to think a beautiful woman needs a university education.”

“Easy for an airhead to catch a man—miracle for her to hold on to him,” Carol returned. “Bye now, Mother.”

“You let me know what happens.” Roxanne returned to her hectoring tones.

“I’ll call the minute I know.”

Roxanne registered the sarcasm. “Don’t you forget, young lady, how good I was to you. You had the best of everything—your precious education, your car.”

“I won’t say thanks, because I now suspect that was Poppy.”

“Go to hell!” said Roxanne.

Carol was doing her best to control her emotions. But, now that they were well into their journey, she could feel the panic coming. The family once the will was read would hate her all the more. Not that they had ever loved her.

Her father had loved her. She realised now her mother had always been jealous of her in a way. When she’d been a child her father had doted on her—possibly to the exclusion of his wife? Roxanne was one of those women who demanded all attention be focused on her. She wasn’t sure her parents had been happy. She remembered the arguments even from when she’d been a little girl. Her mother was a very volatile person. Her memory told her it was her mother who had initiated the shouting matches. Nothing had ever suited her mother, even when she was living in such affluence. In retrospect Carol considered it a miracle the marriage had lasted as long as it did. Her parents appeared to have been hopelessly mismatched. She thought it was a word she had overheard her grandfather once use.

They had been driving for around forty minutes, so they weren’t that far off the estate. It was situated in the Southern Highlands of the state, some three-thousand feet above sea level; an area of spectacular beauty, with a cool temperate climate, less than seventy kilometres south-west of Sydney. The region was known not only for its breathtaking scenery but its beautiful parks and gardens and the many stately mansions built in much earlier times as summer retreats for the wealthy. The National Park, with its waterfalls and limestone caves, offered great walking tracks, look-outs and picnic facilities.

Probably the most attractive town in the area was the garden town of Bowral, not far from the estate. The town was also home to the Bradman Museum with a bronze statue of Sir Donald Bradman right outside. Her father had once taken a photo of her sitting on the plinth at Sir Donald’s feet. He told her Sir Donald had been the greatest batsman of all time. She remembered Tulip Time, too. It was a town festival that lasted for a couple of weeks when thousands upon thousands of tulips came into exquisite bloom. She always bought tulips in season to this day.

“You’re very quiet,” Damon commented after a while.

She turned her head to look at him. He had a very striking profile; finely chiselled straight nose, the firm, clean-cut jaw and above all the mouth. She imagined what it would be like to be kissed by that mouth. She had to turn away. Physical attraction, she was forced to consider, was a very real thing. She wondered if he might be attracted to her. She expected he would consider her far too young for his tastes. It was in those dark eyes when they fell on her: just a baby.

She looked down at her hands in her lap. “Memories. I find myself getting caught up in them. I have to admit to a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know the family is going to bitterly resent me. Amanda’s parting advice, was ‘watch your back.’ It’s still ringing in my ears.”

“Carol, the will is airtight. They can resent all they like. Your grandfather left the bulk of his personal fortune to you. I should point out your uncle and your cousin, Troy, have been very handsomely provided for. Your grandfather was, after all, a very rich man.”

“What about Dallas?” Carol remembered her uncle’s wife as a good-looking, dark-haired woman, but not kind, at least to her. Dallas’s one soft spot was for her son, Troy, older than Carol by six years.

“Dallas doesn’t get a mention,” Damon told her. “Which suggests the marriage won’t break down. Your aunt by marriage has always been extremely well looked-after.”

“So who’s going to run everything now that my grandfather is gone? Who is fit to step into his shoes? I can’t, for heaven’s sake.”

“No one is expecting you to,” he said gently. “But at some point you will want a seat on the board. Lew Hoffman, your grandfather’s right-hand man, will step into the role. He’s a very capable man, very highly regarded. The board will eventually vote on chairman and CEO. I would expect Hoffman will remain in place, at least for the foreseeable future.”

“And how will Uncle Maurice feel about that?”

“Relieved, I would think.” His tone was dry. Everyone in the city knew Maurice Chancellor didn’t have a head for business.

A sharp bend, then a tree-lined road straight ahead: it led directly to Beaumont, the Chancellor country estate.

“The estate wasn’t always in the family,” Carol said. “My great-grandfather bought it some time in the late 1940s.”

“I knew that.”

“Did you? Silly of me—you would have done your homework. He saved the once-splendid Victorian residence from the wreckers’ ball. The original family had lost sons to two world wars, after which the estate went into a serious decline.”

“As did the fortunes and the lifestyle of the Wickhams,” Damon supplied.

“How sad.” Carol felt echoes of their pain. “At least my great-grandfather saved the estate.”

“Legend has it he paid the Wickhams beyond the asking price.”

“That’s good to hear. How did you find out?”

He shot her an amused glance. “Fairly common knowledge, Carol, at least in the legal world.” God, how she delighted his eye! No getting away from it. If she were a few years older, and not Selwyn Chancellor’s granddaughter and his client, he would make it his business to get to know her much better.

She was wearing a very pretty dress, very feminine—an upmarket sundress, wide straps over her shoulders, tiny bodice, full skirt, with white sandals on her feet. I didn’t want to wear anything black. In her pink flower-sprigged white dress she was springtime. Her whole aura reflected the flower world. She had pulled her glowing mane back into a Grecian knot showing off her delicately carved features and the length of her slender neck. He hadn’t forgotten what she had told him about her cousin, Troy. He could well imagine Troy Chancellor lusting after her, cousin or not.

“Well, I didn’t know,” she was saying. “But then there’s lots I don’t know. My great-grandfather hired the finest architect of the day to restore the house. He made extensive additions in the form of the two wings to either side.”

He nodded. “It gave the original house rather regal dimensions.”

“I knew my way around it,” she said proudly, remembering the little girl she’d been. She was finding it so easy to talk to him, when she rarely if ever confided family matters to others. “It was supposed to be a happy house in my great-grandfather’s day, a happy house in the early years of my grandfather’s tenure. Then happiness seemed to have fallen away. Even as a child I was aware my gentle grandmother, Elaine, had issues. I was never able to plumb the depth of them, but as an adult I’ve interpreted some of those issues as extreme shyness. She could even have been mildly autistic. There’s an avenue I will have to look into as a charity, now that I’m in a position to do so.”

He knew she meant it and found it admirable. “Not the most helpful characteristics for the wife of a highly successful man destined to go higher,” he observed gently.

Carol gave a sigh. “My grandmother always lived at Beaumont. She shunned the city except on those special occasions when Poppy talked her into it. The coup de grâce, the final blow, came with the death of my father. My grandmother retreated from life. She retreated from everyone including me. Finally she chose to end it. Maybe my family is cursed.” She turned her head so she could register his response.