A Rather Lovely Inheritance (19 page)

I unwrapped my own groceries, sat at the kitchen table, and ate a nice little quiche-for-one with a salad, wondering if this would be my last meal before I was murdered in my bed in London by Rollo or Jeremy or both of them. Then I wandered into the library and sat there perusing Aunt Penelope’s photo album again. I wanted a cup of coffee, and I remembered the peach tarte I’d bought for dessert, which was really too big for one person to eat alone.

Maybe I’d have it later. I supposed I could, and should, call Harold. I didn’t want to call Harold, with his frosty, condescending attitude. I felt I needed a friend, not just a lawyer.

Or a cousin—or the guy you thought was your cousin. For all intents and purposes we’d grown up as cousins. Who cared if he got thrown out on a technicality? My parents believed in him. That was enough for me. I decided I must tell him so in person. I would bring the peach tarte, and command him to make coffee and eat it with me and come to his senses.

I picked up the phone and dialed Jeremy’s number. Once again, I got his recorded message. Maybe he really was out. On the other hand, maybe he was lying unconscious in his apartment, having slit his wrists after being exposed by Rollo in front of all his colleagues at work. I didn’t get the idea that Aunt Sheila was going to look in on him, in that detached way of hers. Especially after he’d hollered at her.

“Me again,” I said.

I was staring at the framed picture of Aunt Penelope in her movie-star pose, gazing upward beatifically, as if rapt with inspiration and overcome with passion, like Garbo. Such luminous movie photos are meant to be sexy, but if you look at them closely, you can see that they are actually imitating the radiant faces of saints on holy cards and paintings. Perhaps that’s why they called Garbo “divine.” Aunt Penelope was looking particularly enigmatic to me today.

“Jeremy,” I said in a deadly tone, “I need your help. And don’t tell me to call Harold.This is a family matter, and that means you.”

I hung up the telephone.Then I made a decision. I packed up the peach tarte and an unopened can of coffee, got Jeremy’s address that Aunt Sheila had given me, called for a taxi, and headed for Jeremy’s apartment.

J
EREMY LIVED IN SOUTH KENSINGTON, IN ONE OF THOSE SUPER-MODERN high-rises outfitted with the latest technology and design, all glass and chrome and steel and zippy parking garages, and doormen who sprang forward with alacrity, and revolving doors that the tenants kept whirling.

“Jeremy’s expecting me,” I told the polite doorman with my most confident smile. “I’m his cousin from America.”

I must have sounded convincing, because he told me where the “lift” was, and said he’d just call Jeremy and let him know I was on my way up. But then a deliveryman momentarily distracted him, and I saw my chance.The elevator doors had rolled open. I went in and up.

I wondered if the doorman would send a security guard after me. So I rushed down Jeremy’s hallway and went boldly up to his door and knocked three times, loudly and firmly, and called out,“Telegram!” for no other reason than that I’ve seen too many movies. I would have hollered again through the door if I’d had to. But I didn’t have to.

Jeremy opened it instantly, and stared at me briefly.“Telegram? Are you insane? Jake told me you were in the lift, so I knew it was you. What are you doing here?” he asked, a bit roughly. “I’m indisposed. Didn’t my office tell you so?”

I stared back at him. I’d never expected to see him this way, so tousled, askew, and evidently hungover. For the neat, self-controlled Jeremy it was truly surprising. He was barefoot, unshaven, eyes murderously bloodshot, breath telltale, mouth in a combined expression of sad and mad. His hair was quite disheveled, and so were his expensive but rumpled pajamas and robe. His robe hung open, revealing that he wasn’t wearing the top part of his pajamas, just the pants. I realized I hadn’t seen his naked chest since he was a skinny kid; now it was a man’s chest, lean and taut and nicely sculpted with a sprinkling of dark hair on it. He looked a bit dangerous, and moody, as if he’d been working himself over psychologically and, judging from the booze-breath, physically as well.There was only one way to deal with this. I was part English. I could be no-nonsense.

“Don’t be absurd,” I said. “Back off and let me in.” He laughed without mirth, threw up his hands, and walked into the apartment, trying to look as if he didn’t give a damn. But habits die hard, and he was watching me, a bit embarrassed, to see if I’d react to the mess.

Of course other men were capable of making a worse mess than this. For Jeremy, however, it was shocking, because his apartment, so modern and shiny and spare, looked as if he had, until now, kept it very meticulously uncluttered. But recently he’d left every carton of Chinese food (hardly anything eaten from them), every bottle of booze (all empty), every cup of coffee he’d choked down (halfway), every newspaper he’d glanced at, every shirt he’d hurled off himself in a huff, every piece of paper he’d crumpled, every book and magazine he’d tried to distract himself with—on every surface imaginable.The floor, the glass-and-chrome coffee table, the windowsills, the sofa . . .

“Wow,” I said. “Congratulations. Usually it takes weeks to make a mess like this, but you’ve done it in record time.” This seemed to please him, as I’d calculated it might.

But then he tried to convince himself that he didn’t care, as he slumped wearily onto the sofa.“So,” he said in a dry voice that cracked with fatigue, “Penny Nichols, to what do I owe this unexpected and, I might add, unannounced social call?”

“You’ve been home all this time, haven’t you?” I said. He looked back at me defiantly.

“You might have answered my calls,” I accused.

“Ah, yes, yes, those cryptic messages,” he said, squinting as if he had a headache and the light hurt. He’d perhaps been sitting in the dark until alerted to my impending arrival. Always so cool, he now looked quite agitated, as if he were seething inside.

He said, “I hate to break this news to you, but frankly I’m no longer interested in what you Laidleys are up to. One would have thought that you’d consult with Harold—”

“Harold’s a condescending prick,” I said, hoping to shock Jeremy back into his old self. “A helpful one, perhaps, but not a man I can really talk to. I can hear his meter running the whole time.”

“Mine’s running too, from now on,” Jeremy said, unexpectedly bitterly. But I didn’t believe him. He looked curious, in spite of himself.

“Fine. I’ll pay you a consultant’s fee,” I said sarcastically. “If that’s what it takes to get you to have a simple conversation with me. It’s important, damn it.”

Jeremy gestured broadly. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“Rollo wants the villa—” I began unceremoniously. But he waved me off immediately.

“Of course he does. But I suggest you leave this fight to your lawyer and your family,” he said, “as I am no longer either . . .”

“Aw, quit feeling sorry for yourself,” I said. “I’m alone here in London. You can’t just abandon me to the wolves. I was kidnapped today by dear old Rollo himself.”

Jeremy straightened up a little, looking annoyed. “What can you mean?”

“I mean he shoved me into a car and forced me to drink sherry with Great-Aunt Dorothy, that’s what I mean,” I said.

“What did they want?” he asked, alert, and I was glad to see that he still cared. But I felt uncomfortable telling him. I tried to find a way to say it that wouldn’t hurt.

“First they tried the gentle, caring approach. They want me to think of them as family. Essentially they want me to join up with them to cheat you out of it, but that’s not the point. I overheard them when they didn’t know I was listening. Dorothy told Rollo to ‘dispense’ with me. She said they’d hired people to ‘take care of it’ for them. So if I end up floating around dead in the River Thames,” I concluded dramatically, “it’ll be all your fault for not looking after me, like you promised my mother.” When I mentioned his promise, he looked a bit guilty.

“What’s that bruise near your elbow?” Jeremy interrupted. I glanced down in surprise at a black-and-blue mark I hadn’t seen before.

“Huh!” I said, momentarily distracted.“You know—I’ll bet Rollo did that when he grabbed my arm and shoved me in the car, that bastard—”

The word actually made Jeremy flinch. I was so sorry I’d used it. Especially since he now turned all his bitterness on me, glaring like an oncoming train. “Ah. Well, darling, if you deplore the company of bastards, you’re wasting your time with one right now.”

“No, you’re not,” I said quickly, but he wasn’t listening.

“And what’s more, I’m an American,” he said incredulously, his face full of horror, as if the word itself tasted like vinegar on his tongue.

“Woo, perish the thought,” I said sarcastically. “You’ll survive like the rest of us.”

“Perhaps you all can give me lessons. I’ll have to practice night and day, to speak those tortured vowels and be an ill-mannered, fat-assed, loudmouthed American. What a bloody joke, perpetrated on me by my hippie American father and my dear Mummy—and then what does she say? ‘Sorry, darling. Meant to tell you someday.’ ”

He had some of his facts screwed up—especially about his father—but I didn’t like this new vicious tone he was using, and it didn’t seem a good time to tell him that I’d talked to his mother. I knew I shouldn’t take his anti-American remarks personally, but one couldn’t help wondering where the fat-ass stuff came from; I mean, I haven’t got the smallest ass in town, but honestly, I really don’t think that I and my kin qualify as fat-assed, per se . . .

“So you see, I’m not your dutiful cousin anymore,” he said, leaning toward me with so much fire in his eyes that I actually shrank from him. “Go and collect your money and see if you can learn how to be rich. And leave me the hell alone, okay?”

It was his furious tone, rather than his words, that finally got to me, every time he bit off another hostile sentence. Somehow it’s worse when men who aren’t normally nasty suddenly start to vent, because you’re not prepared for it. I’ve seen it happen with film crews. Everyone scurries to placate, and when that fails, they all freeze in their tracks, right down to the cat in the kitchen and the mouse in the wall. I swear I even once saw a spider stop cold at the sound of bellowing, when a director went ballistic on a set.

So when Jeremy turned the full force of his flashing blue eyes and angry voice on me to express his disgust, I reacted, to my abject horror, with tears springing to my eyes.To cover this up, I raised my chin defiantly.

“Oh, stop being a jackass.This isn’t you,” I said unwisely.This made him think that I wasn’t taking him seriously.

“Don’t you understand? I don’t fucking know who I am anymore!” he said, in a tone that I later realized was agonized. “It turns out that I probably
am
a jackass, as you so winningly and articulately phrased it.”

“You’re you, the same as you always were when you were so confident about yourself,” I insisted. “Nothing’s changed. You think my parents and I care about any of this snotty heritage stuff? The entire human race descended from the same mother in Africa. Okay? So everything’s relative. Get it?”

“Very good!” he said with exaggerated appreciation. “You were always such a clever little smart-ass, Miss Penny Nichols of Connecticut.”

Now it
was
personal. “If you ask me, it’s the well-bred, upper-crust English part of you that’s behaving like a beast right now.You and your fake good manners.The whole passel of you.You’re all very well-behaved when it looks like there’s money in it for you. But boy, the minute you think there isn’t, then
sayonara
to the good manners,” I said hotly.

But this time I couldn’t suppress a sniffle, and he heard it and finally noticed that I’d been winking away those foolish tears that sprang to my eyes. And, being Jeremy, he looked instantly sorry, and even slightly amused.

“Oh, dammit,” he said. “You talk big, but you’re such an innocent child, still.”

“Bugger off,” I said crossly, still wounded, and weary of being patronized by all and sundry. I turned and slammed the door behind me. The elevator—or
lift
, as my beastly ex-relative called it—was open and ready and I managed to slip right into it, even though Jeremy did, after a pause, follow me out, barefoot and pajama-clad.

“What is that parcel you’ve been clutching this whole time?” he asked suddenly. I looked down. I’d forgotten.

“A peach tarte,” I said, intending to sound haughty but sounding, even to my ears, tearful and pathetic, and the elevator doors closed just as his irritated expression was changing to a slightly regretful look.

When the doors reopened I swept through the lobby, and outside there was someone just getting out of a cab, so it all went like clockwork for once, and I slid right into the cab and went right back to Aunt Penelope’s apartment. It all went too fast, actually, so I didn’t get to see if Jeremy had followed me out to the street, barefoot, in what was now pouring rain.

O
NCE THE CAB PULLED DOWN MY STREET IN THE DARKNESS, THOUGH, I was acutely lonely. Until now, I’d felt protected knowing that Jeremy was out there for me if I needed him. And now he wasn’t. But even I had my pride. I hated the way he’d spoken to me.You can’t let a man get away with that, not even once, or he’ll talk to you like that for the rest of your life. I know, because my Worst Boyfriend of late had done exactly that. It was downhill ever after.

Still, I felt gloomy as the cab reached Aunt Penelope’s apartment, and I rushed to the door and fumbled to put my key in the lock and go in, relieved to get out of the rain. I put the tarte in the refrigerator, went straight to bed, and fell promptly asleep.

Hours later, I heard a rustling sound, and at first I thought I was dreaming. Then, of course, I thought of mice. But after I pried my eyes open fully, I thought I saw a darting light coming from the hallway. Like a bobbing flashlight. Then it was all pitch-dark again. Just as I’d convinced myself that it was probably the headlights of a passing car outside, I heard distinct footsteps, and a floorboard squeaked.