Free A Rather Lovely Inheritance by C. A. Belmond Page A

certain she’d want to know.”
    We went back to the hotel, and he plunked himself in front of the television set and watched the news, as if we were in any old hotel room instead of the most gorgeous pit stop on earth, while I hastily packed my duds and phoned home.
    I didn’t want to be responsible for making us miss the plane, so I was very succinct with my mother. I said, “Ma, I can’t talk long because I have to catch a plane with Jeremy.You got the London apartment. It’s beautiful.Yes, I love it! But I don’t know why you’re giving it to me. Jeremy says it’s worth over seven hundred thousand pounds. And I got the garage in France and whatever’s in it.Yeah, the garage. Jeremy got the villa, but Rollo Jr. got all the furniture. I’m gonna go look at the French stuff now.Yup. I’m getting on a plane.With Jeremy. It was his idea.Yes, we ate. At Aunt Sheila’s. Sandwiches and cookies. I’ll tell you later. Oh—and she says love to you and Dad.” I lowered my voice. “Yes, she said love.”
    I think that was the point at which my mother said, “Well, that’s what a couple hundred thousand pounds will do for you,” but I did not respond because although Jeremy appeared to be focusing on the TV screen, I thought he might actually be listening to what I said.
    “Did the other relatives get anything?” My father’s voice popped on. Mother must have gestured to him to pick up the extension. I explained again about what Rollo Jr. got, and Dad said, “Good.Then everybody is happy, no?”
    “No,” I said. “Rollo Jr. is going to contest the French will.”There was a silence, and then my mother said, “Let me speak to Jeremy, will you, darling?”
    I handed him the receiver. He didn’t look at all surprised. He said some reassuring things to her, just as if he were talking to a client and an aunt simultaneously, then I heard him say, “Yes, I’m sure she does.” Then he hung up.
    “Sure who does?” I asked suspiciously.
    “You,” he said, gesturing to the bellhop who’d appeared, to pick up my bag.
    “I do what?” I persisted.
    “Need a little looking after,” he shot back. “I wonder, can she mean to protect you from unscrupulous men who chase after young heiresses? Because she didn’t elaborate.”
    I was really, truly embarrassed and could not imagine what had possessed my mother to make her say such a thing. “Of course I deserve VIP treatment,” I said. “You should have noticed by now.”
    By this time I didn’t care what I said. Things were moving rapidly and I knew it couldn’t last. I knew I was being Cinderella for a day, staying in five-star hotels, acting like an heiress, being invited to lunch.Tomorrow things would slink right back to normal, I felt sure. Those relatives of mine would somehow succeed in taking all the money away, no doubt—not because of any lack of skill on Jeremy’s part but simply because thieves focus all their energy on a swindle and are never distracted by useless things like love and work and great conversation.
    Yes, tomorrow things would go back to normal, and I would be short of funds again, staying in crummy chain-hotels on a low-budget production if I was lucky enough to be gainfully employed, and my glamorous cousin would go back into his world of money, and we wouldn’t see each other again for another hundred years. So why not make the most of this little fairy-tale blip in time?

Chapter Eight
    A T LEAST THERE WERE NO MONKEYS ON THE CORPORATE JET. THERE were, however, some guys in suits—English lawyers and their male clients who were very jocular, particularly after they availed themselves of the scotch and other stuff in the bar.The jet was outfitted with an array of crystal glasses in every conceivable cocktail shape, anchored to the padded bar in some mysterious way so that they wouldn’t go flying about like missiles in the event of turbulence. A strip of colored light above the bar kept changing colors and bursting into star