Free A Perfect Heritage by Penny Vincenzi Page B

than her mother. Grandy was still quite incredibly glamorous, took her to lunch at The Ritz every year on her birthday, and quite often they went (mostly window) shopping in Bond Street. Lucy had tried to persuade her to go to Westfield, but Grandy said she hated shopping malls.
    And then they’d go and have tea in the Berkeley Arcade with Florence – she was allowed to call her Florence once she was sixteen, before that it had been Miss Hamilton – Grandy was very strict about things like that – up in the little room at the top of The Shop.
    She’d loved Grandpa too, and she’d been terribly upset when he died; but the good part of it was that it meant she could see a bit more of Grandy because she was suddenly alone a lot at the weekends. Well, she would see lots of her now; that would be fun.
    But first she had to break the news to her father that she was leaving uni . . .
    John Ripley, who was working for Pemberton and Rushworth on a vacation placement, had been given the draft contract between the House of Farrell and Porter Bingham, Venture Capitalists to read.
    ‘Interesting one, this, John,’ Walter Pemberton said, ‘we’ve worked very hard on it. You could learn a few things from it.’
    Ripley did indeed study it very carefully, and when he had finished wondered why nobody had raised the question of voting rights. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered. He thought perhaps he ought to raise the subject with Mr Rushworth, but the question seemed to him to represent something of a criticism of Mr Rushworth’s legal skills and he didn’t want to alienate him in any way. He was hoping to get a training contract with the firm, and they were pretty thin on the ground these days.
    He decided finally that it was impossible they could have failed to discuss it, and let the matter rest.

Chapter 7
     
    Athina called them all into the boardroom before the final formal signing: the family, of course, all the key people who worked in the offices, and some extraneous ones as well, such as senior consultants and sales reps, and talked to them about what was going to happen. She explained that the deal had not been reached without considerable heart-searching, that they had struggled to find a different, independent solution, but that had, in the end, proved impossible. The arrangement with Porter Bingham had been essential for the House of Farrell, for the family . . .
    ‘And for you. I am aware that without the help we have now secured, some of you would have lost your jobs. These are hard times; many companies more stable than this one are failing every day. I am deeply grateful to the people at Porter Bingham for providing a chance for us but I cannot pretend to you that things will be the same. I fear, and I use the word advisedly, they will not. In spite of absolutely retaining for ourselves a majority share of the company, my family and I will have to make concessions and accept change, and I know we shall have to ask the same of you. But at least the House of Farrell will live on; I think and hope that is what we would all most wish for it. Certainly I know my husband would have done.
    ‘Thank you for your loyalty, for your hard work over the years, and for sharing our vision of the company; I assure you I have never, and will never, take any of it for granted.’
    She stopped then. Susie Harding, watching her intently, felt her heart lurch as the clear, precise voice suddenly trembled, and the brilliant green eyes shone with tears. The House of Farrell would be no longer hers, and that would be hard, so hard for her, for the company was part of her, as she was part of it, and now the two must be wrenched apart . . .
    Bertie Farrell thought he had never admired his mother more.
    And Florence Hamilton, standing close to Susie, thought what a great loss to the stage Athina had been.
    And there it was, next morning, on the front page of the Financial Times , lest anyone might not realise how