A Rather Lovely Inheritance (36 page)

The museums by and large used the “dangling carrot” approach, calculating that fear would motivate me if they feigned only mild interest at first, then casually made an offer of a comparatively more modest sum than the private collectors proposed. Still, even from them I got some pretty strange phone calls in the night, offering me,
sotto voce
, tens of thousands of pounds if I’d sell it to them right now, tonight, before it went to auction.

Big money is tempting, but oddly enough, when it gets that big it becomes unreal and a little frightening.You get the feeling that bad luck will come with it, because nobody forks over that much without expecting to extract some of your flesh and blood if it turns out that they miscalculated and the painting was later, somehow, proved to be what they would consider a fake. I had nightmares that such a buyer would tell himself that I’d somehow swindled him on purpose, and he’d come looking to get his money back or dump me in the Thames, or both. Of course, with all that money I supposed I could hire thugs of my own, and become like Rollo or worse; but even people with thugs and bodyguards, I’ve noticed, are not immune from fear and paranoia, and they still do a lot of looking over their shoulders. No, thanks. I’d seen enough of this shadowy underworld, and I didn’t want to cut any deals like Persephone.

Besides, I was concerned about how and where the painting would be kept. In the end, the offer that I liked best was from one little museum on the Italian Riviera suggesting that they would put it in a special glassed-in gallery where visitors could view it from either inside the gallery or from an adjacent tearoom, where they could rest and revive and feed their kids while gazing at art through the glass walls. If they wanted to view it up close inside the gallery, they were restricted from bringing things like phones and food and noise with them. Being Italian, the curators said
certo
, they understood my concerns about a proper and protective environment for the painting, but, they reminded me with an amused tone, one couldn’t always control the behavior of tourists. Best of all, though, it would stay in a place that I would be glad to come and visit and say hello to the Madonna and Child whenever I wanted.

Jeremy liked this gallery, too, once he heard the offer that this surprising little museum came up with.“Twenty million pounds,” he said in a tone of satisfaction, as if he’d finally gotten me what he’d wanted to all along. “Now all we have to do is convince the judge that Aunt Pen was sane and not unduly influenced by me when she wrote her will.”

A
UNT PENELOPE’S WILL WAS JUDGED IN NICE. ALL OF US WERE there—my parents, Harold, Rupert, Severine, Louis, Jeremy and me . . . and Rollo and his lawyers. Only Great-Aunt Dorothy was AWOL; she had a headache or heart palpitations or something, they said, while the fact was, she just couldn’t stand to see all that lovely money go to somebody else.

Because a deal had finally been struck. All family members agreed to it, and it was this: Rollo wouldn’t contest the will, and we wouldn’t press charges for theft and send him to a French prison, thanks to his thuggy friend who “sang,” as Jeremy told me.

“Now who’s talking like a cop?” I asked him as we took our seats in the courtroom.

“Behave,” he hissed. “The French don’t like cutups in the court.”

I saw my parents glance inquiringly in our direction, and I sobered up, feeling as if I were a kid again who didn’t want the grown-ups to know how much I liked Jeremy.

The judge, a serious-looking but dapper man in his mid-sixties, eyed us all with the bright, alert eyes of a bird of prey while hearing the case presented to him. It was all spoken in French and then repeated in English, even when he rendered his decision with great formality.

The gist of it was that Aunt Penelope’s will would stand as written. It helped to have her handwritten note, dated, signed, and witnessed, indicating that she knew who Jeremy was, regarded him as a special member of the family, and had reasons to bequeath what she did to him—and me. So Jeremy got the villa; Rollo got the furnishings, which must be removed under supervision by such-and-such date, no going back later, etc.; and I got the Dragonetta, the garage, and its contents.Which included the painting.When it was over and the judge retired, even cool old Harold let out a sigh of relief and mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

Rollo, too, could not prevent himself from uttering a gusty regretful sigh when the painting was announced as mine. As he rose to go, he shrugged his shoulders as if rearranging himself, like a dog shaking himself off after a fight. He and his lawyers walked out of the courthouse without a single backward glance, and climbed into a long black limousine.

“You know, of course, that we’ll have to look after him,” I told Jeremy as we watched Rollo’s car pull away. “He is family, after all.”

Jeremy understood and he didn’t argue, but he rolled his eyes.“Oh, Lord,” he groaned. “Just don’t let
him
know your plans.”

My parents and our triumphant lawyers behaved as if they had just passed their last final exam and would never have to return to school ever again. Not that anybody whooped; we were all too sober and dignified for that. But suddenly everyone was hugging and slapping each other on the back.

My parents had decided to stay on in Nice for a week. So as we lingered on the sidewalk outside the courthouse in the beautiful sunlight, savoring the fine weather and our good luck, my father and mother were trying to decide which restaurant they’d like to take us to. I glanced over at Jeremy, who was conversing with Rupert and Louis. They were beaming, as if Jeremy was praising them. Severine joined them, and they all looked triumphant.

Harold came over to me, shook hands formally, and said with a twinkle,“Well, Miss Nichols, what on earth will such a young lady do with such a windfall?”

I grinned. “Oh, share it with the one man in the world I can trust most,” I said happily and automatically. But when Harold harumphed and said,“Ah, well, excellent,” and excused himself, I thought perhaps I’d been a bit too honest.

He went to speak to Rupert and Louis. Severine, I noticed, gave Jeremy a single kiss on the cheek, which I thought was far more intimate than the customary one-on-each-cheek kiss. Jeremy glanced somewhat guiltily at me, I thought, and didn’t kiss her back.

Severine’s gaze followed his, and she studied me from afar, then looked back at Jeremy again, as if she suddenly comprehended something for the first time, and it didn’t sit well.A sharp, territorial expression crossed her face as she looked back at me again, and all I could think was, “Uh-oh.”

Sure enough, she came walking toward me rather purposefully. “Congratulations, Miss Nichols,” she said. Jeremy had followed her, looking slightly alarmed at the two of us together.

“We really have Severine to thank for a lot of the way this was settled,” he told me softly as if trying to make peace, not war.

“Yes, thanks-very-much,” I said, and my own voice sounded very English to me for the first time. I looked at her and she looked at me, but then she glanced away as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me anymore. We managed polite nods and a handshake. Her fingers were cold, and I was glad when she went back to talk to Louis, Rupert, and Harold.

“Okay, I thanked her,” I said when she’d left us. Jeremy laughed and rumpled my hair. Severine, alert as a cobra, sensed something and flicked a backward glance at us, then resumed talking serenely to Louis and Rupert, while Harold stepped away to answer his mobile phone.

“Penny,” Jeremy said,“you know you can change your mind about sharing the money.”

“No,” I said, “I talked it over with my parents. They understand, and agree.”

“You
will
go on making me feel like I have to protect you, even from myself,” he said.

“A deal’s a deal,” I said. “We’ll split everything from France fifty-fifty, including what I get for the painting.Which also means I get to use the villa, and you can drive my car.”

“You’re impossible,” he said, and he looked as if he might kiss me, but my parents were watching us and waving. He took my arm and we joined them.

“Jeremy!” my mother said, taking his arm in a friendly way. “Are you hungry? We’re starved!” I was going to dine out with my folks, then leave them in Nice, to have their little second honeymoon. I’d thought Jeremy, too, would come with us and celebrate, but he told us that Harold had assigned him a new client from Texas who insisted on seeing him tonight in London. And he would probably have to fly out of London with him tomorrow afternoon.

But he assured me that he and my father’s lawyers had already gone over some routine papers that I was supposed to sign, so Jeremy wanted me to know that he’d be in his office in the morning, and if I came down there early to sign them, he’d be able to answer any last-minute questions. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

My mother gave him a kiss, which pleased him, and he shook hands with my father, and kissed me, rather formally because my parents were watching; then Rupert stopped by to tell me, in his nervous, responsible way, that he’d booked me a flight to London for later tonight.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG THE MINUTE I set foot in the law offices in London. A silver-haired secretary led me back to Jeremy’s office, which had a big modern desk, a highbacked leather chair, a beautiful view of the Thames . . . but no Jeremy. She told me that Rupert was on his way to “explain all.” I knew she meant explain about Jeremy’s absence; my father’s American lawyer had already sent me an e-mail assuring me that these papers were okay to sign, for they just made me a legal heir.

Rupert came in looking especially nervous, even for him, and proceeded to tell me that Jeremy had not only left the building earlier than he’d expected but also would be out of the country longer than he’d thought.The client wanted him to stay abroad for at least two weeks, because after a stop in Canada, he’d be needed in Texas.

“I can’t understand it,” I said to Rupert as he laid out the papers for me to sign on Jeremy’s desk. “Jeremy usually calls me to tell me these things himself, and he didn’t.”

“No?” said Rupert with mild surprise. “Well, it all happened this morning, very rush-rush. Client’s private plane was leaving early for Canada. Fellow wants Jeremy to go fishing with him at his special private retreat. Out on some island that they have to be choppered in to. No phones or modern conveniences there.”

The secretary poked her head in the door and said there was a phone call that Rupert must take. Rupert left me alone to sign “whenever you feel comfortable.”

So there I was, sitting quietly in Jeremy’s office, in Jeremy’s chair, looking out of Jeremy’s window . . . but no Jeremy. I had my pen poised when I felt someone watching me. It was Severine, standing right outside the door, talking to the secretary. As I signed the papers, I could feel Severine’s eyes watching my every loop.

“I’m getting paranoid,” I thought, when she walked away. The secretary returned and collected all the papers, and she said,“Oh, by the way, your fiancé is here, come to pick you up. He was here earlier but went down to the restaurant for breakfast. He said to call him when you were done, so I did and he’s out in the reception now. Shall I send him in?”

“My
what
?” I said, astounded.

But Paul was never a man to be kept hanging around a reception area. He’d been right behind the secretary, following her in. He was coming at me right now, with that familiar arrogant tilt of his head, the ruthless, determined look in his eye, the status-symbol clothes, and that aggressive, bullying stride. The only thing I didn’t recognize about him was the warm, bighearted grin on his face. I’d never seen that before. But now it positively stretched ear-to-ear.

“Penny Nichols,
hello
!” he said in a low voice as he put his arm around my waist and pulled me in for a possessive kiss. “Pentathlon Productions just isn’t the same without you.”

“Paul!” I gulped. “What—what—are you doing here—in London?” It was a nightmare come true. Paul in London. Here in Jeremy’s office. Two separate and distinct compartments of my life, New York and London, now horribly overlapping. I felt a jolt of absolute panic, knowing what Paul’s like when he’s got quarry trained in his sights.

“I’m here on business—and pleasure,” he said meaningfully. He had a most peculiar gleam in his eye. “I’ve come to rescue the only woman I’ve ever loved, and bring you home.”

Paul never talked like that. Declarations of love were, to a warrior like him, tantamount to surrender and defeat. So, not having sincere words of love in his arsenal, he’d merely borrowed them from any one of Pentathlon Productions’ scripts. I felt embarrassed for both of us.

Rupert’s head peered round the corner. He looked stricken, even somewhat guilty. And behind him were a couple of other curious office onlookers. I stepped away from Paul.

“Uh—that’s nice, Paul—er—have a seat, I’ll be right back,” I choked out, and darted out of the room and chased Rupert down at his little desk.

“Okay, Rupert,” I said. “Out with it. What’s going on here? How did Paul know I’d be here? Who let that monster in?”

“He was here earlier,” Rupert whispered. “Apparently he tried to reach you, but all your calls are still being forwarded to us. Somebody told him you were expected here this morning, and let him in.”

“Did Paul talk to Jeremy?” I asked, horrified.

“Yes.Your fiancé told Jeremy he’d come to take you back home to America—”

“Stop calling him my fiancé,” I said.“Do you think for one minute that I would actually
marry
that guy? Good God,” I said. “I’d rather eat nails.”

Rupert looked surprised and relieved. “I say, that’s good news,” he said cheerfully.

“How come you all believed him?” I pressed, even though I know how convincing Paul can be.The trick of being a good liar is to actually start believing your own lies.