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With no clue as to her feelings, he shrugged and said, ‘I believe you’ll find that even in the twenty-first century it offers some benefits.’ What they were, beyond the special bond that swearing till-death-us-do-part vows to one another, he couldn’t immediately summon to mind. But then that would be enough for him.
‘The chance to dress up and have a party? I don’t think we need to go to church first, do you?’ Then, ‘Look, you know the kind of nasty divorce Dad went through with my mother. Fran’s been through much the same thing with her parents.’ Steve leaned across and took her hand, grasping it in his, emphasising their relationship. ‘We’re allergic, okay?’
Guy fastened his gaze on some point in the distance. ‘If you believe that not getting married will protect you from the fallout of a disintegrating relationship, think again. Once property and children are involved…’
‘Guy, I hear what you’re saying, but that stuff is just for rich people.’ He didn’t add …like you. He didn’t have to.
‘It’s your decision, of course,’ he said, wondering if Francesca felt quite as strongly on the subject—she’d remained silent—but he didn’t dare look at her again. He didn’t want to see the love shining out of her eyes. Not when she was looking at another man. ‘Just don’t discount it without real thought.’
‘We have thought about it.’ He lifted Francesca’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then, with a smile, he said, ‘But if you want to play the big brother you can pay for the champagne.’
The message came over loud and clear. Steve was saying, This is nothing to do with you. It’s my baby she’s carrying…
That had been the only thing he’d been able to think about all through that terrible evening. Francesca was pregnant and he’d have given everything he possessed to change places with his brother. His career, the company he’d built up with a group of friends, the fortune that had been left to him by his own mother, just to be sitting on the other side of the table with his arm draped protectively over the back of her chair, knowing that the baby she carried was his.
Total madness. He’d only just met the woman. Had exchanged barely more than a dozen words with her. The briefest touch of her cheek against his lips. The moment she’d realised who he was, the hundred watt smile had been dimmed to something more reserved. Steve had obviously given her chapter and verse on all his grievances. Real and imagined. Told her all about his older, more fortunate half-brother who had everything, including a mother who’d loved him. Especially a mother who’d loved him…
It made no difference. Even the forty-watt version lit up his soul.
‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’
‘I’ve got to get used to it, Matty. Today seems like a good day to start.’
Fran smoothed her collar, regarded her image in the hall mirror. Black suit, perfectly groomed hair. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, she looked every inch the businesswoman. Steven would have approved. He had always said that image was everything. The trick was to ignore the butterflies practising formation-flying in your stomach; if you looked confident, looked as if you knew what you were talking about, people would believe in you. Okay, so it was three years since she’d set foot in an office, but her brain hadn’t atrophied just because she’d had a baby—well, not that much anyway.
Right now a load of people were sitting around in the office waiting for someone to say, It’ll be all right. Let’s get on with it. And there was no one but her.
‘I’ll get the paperwork sorted out with the lawyers first,’ she said. ‘And then I’m going into the office.’
‘What is he doing here?’
Guy had only just arrived when a secretary announced Francesca’s arrival. She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway when she saw him, but there was no stop-the-world moment this time. No out-of-control hairstyle, no clinging dress to ride up and no yard of leg. And she didn’t pause to look up at him with a smile caught on her lips.
He hadn’t realised just how much weight she’d lost. Her hair was paler too. More grown up than the corn gold he remembered. Maybe that hadn’t been her natural colour, either, but he preferred it.
That night she had been all vibrant colour, now she was monochrome, the pallor of her skin emphasised by dark hollows beneath her eyes, at her temples. It made the quick angry flush as she saw him all the more noticeable.
‘Why is he here?’ she said, ignoring him completely and looking directly at Tom Palmer, the family lawyer, who’d come around his desk to welcome her.
‘Guy is your…is Steven’s executor, Fran. It’s his responsibility to see that the will is properly executed.’
Now she turned those lovely grey eyes on him. ‘So that’s why you raced back from the back of beyond,’ she said. ‘To secure your assets.’
‘I have no doubt that Steven left everything he possessed to you and Toby. It’s my sole responsibility to ensure that his wishes are carried out and I will do that, no matter what they are.’
Tom, who had undoubtedly witnessed family discord on such occasions many times over a long career, intervened with a quiet, ‘Please, come and sit down, Fran. Would you care for some coffee…tea, perhaps?’
‘Nothing, thank you. Let’s get this over with. I’ve a full day ahead of me.’
‘Of course. The will itself is a simple enough document.’ He opened a file. ‘First, Guy, Steven left this letter for you.’
He pocketed it without comment.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Francesca demanded.
‘Not now,’ he said. If Steve, the least organised person in the world, had chosen to write him a letter when he knew he was dying, he wanted to be alone when he read it. ‘Tom?’
Prompted, Tom Palmer began to read the will.
While he’d been in a position to make conditions, Guy had insisted that Steve make a will in favour of Francesca. It had not been altered, and her relief, though contained, was nevertheless evident for those with eyes to read the small signs. The briefly closed eyes, the slightest slump in her posture as the tension left her.
‘Is that it?’ she asked.
‘It’s little enough,’ Tom said. ‘Unfortunately, as you know, Steven surrendered his life assurance to raise some capital last year.’
‘He did?’ The shocked words slipped out before she could contain them. ‘Yes. Of course. He discussed it with me,’ she continued, swiftly covering her slip.
That had been the other condition. The life policy. So much for his best intentions.
‘When I asked if that was it, I just meant, can I go now? I want to go to the office, make a start on sorting things out.’
She was incredible, he thought. She’d just received a monumental blow but she’d absorbed it and, but for those two words, no one would believe it was anything other than what she’d expected to hear.
‘Not quite all,’ Tom said, clearly relieved that he hadn’t had to deal with hysterics. ‘I just need your signature on here so that I can set about organising a valuation of the estate. It shouldn’t take too long.’
‘Valuation?’ She looked up from the document he’d placed in front of her.
‘Of the company. For tax purposes.’ She looked blank. ‘Inheritance tax?’ he elaborated. ‘I did warn Steven of the situation when he originally signed the will. At that time there was no urgency, of course, but I did suggest he talk it over with you. Maybe consider going through the motions. Just a ten minute job at the local Register Office would do.’ Guy could see that Tom was beginning to founder in the face of Francesca’s incomprehension. Clearly she had never had that conversation with Steven, and he wondered just how many more shocks she could take. ‘Just to satisfy the legalities,’ Tom ploughed on. ‘Perhaps after the baby was born…’
‘Inheritance tax?’ she repeated, ignoring the waffle.
‘Is the company likely to exceed the inheritance tax threshold?’ Guy asked, giving Tom a moment to catch up. Work out for himself exactly how much in the dark she was.
‘I have no idea,’ the lawyer said.
They both looked at Francesca for an answer, but she dismissed their query with an impatient little gesture.
‘Tell me about inheritance tax,’ she said rather more sharply.
‘I don’t imagine it will be too much of a problem, unless the company is doing substantially better than it was at the last audit,’ Tom Palmer said, clearly unsure which would be preferable. ‘However, since you weren’t married to Steven any legacy will be subject to inheritance tax.’
She sat and digested this for a moment, then said, ‘So if we’d been married I wouldn’t have to pay inheritance tax?’
‘No, but as I said—’
‘And because we didn’t go through some totally meaningless ceremony I will? Have to pay it?’
‘Well, yes. That’s the present situation, I’m afraid.’
‘But that’s outrageous! We’ve lived together for nearly three years. We have a child…’
‘If you’d lived together for twenty-three years and had ten children it would make no difference, I’m afraid.’
After the brief stunned silence she asked, ‘What’s the liability threshold?’
‘£250,000. After that forty percent of the estate goes to the Inland Revenue.’
‘But…’ Guy had thought she looked pale. He had been wrong. Colour leached from her skin, leaving her ashen. ‘But surely the house alone is worth ten times that?’
‘You don’t have to worry about the house, Fran.’
‘You mean the house is free of inheritance tax?’ Francesca asked.
‘I mean that Steven did not own the house.’
She shook her head. ‘No. That’s not right. Steven bought it from Guy. Three years ago.’ She turned to him. Looked up at him. ‘We’ve lived there for three years. Tell him.’
‘There seems to be some confusion, Francesca. I don’t know what Steve told you, but he didn’t buy the house from me. It was sold to a property company about ten years ago, along with a lot of other property.’
‘But he said—you said…’ He saw her trying to recall the conversation in the restaurant that night. ‘He was going to come and see you. To talk about it. He asked you. That night…’
‘He asked me for help with a deposit for the house, that’s all. I didn’t know until yesterday that you thought I had owned it. And I had no idea he hadn’t gone ahead and bought it.’
‘But why would he need to borrow from you? He had money…’ She stopped. ‘How much?’
He didn’t want to go there.
‘How much did you give him?’ she demanded.
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’
‘But he didn’t buy it?’ This to Tom Palmer.
The lawyer shook his head. ‘As far as I know it wasn’t even on the market at the time. He has been renting it on a yearly lease.’
‘But it’s our home,’ she said. ‘Toby’s home. Matty spent thousands of pounds on the studio extension, converting the place into a flat she could use. If I’d known we only had a lease I’d never have encouraged her to do that.’ She caught her breath. ‘They don’t know about that, do they? The people who own the house?’
‘I would think it’s highly unlikely,’ Guy said gently.
To say that she looked stunned, confused, was an understatement. It was hardly surprising. He felt as if he’d taken a body blow, but she had been under the impression that she’d inherited a house worth upwards of two million pounds. Even taking into account the taxman, that would have meant she could sell up and have a million plus change to set up home somewhere else. Suddenly she owned nothing except a company that no one seemed wildly optimistic about and a short-term lease that might not be renewed. That she probably couldn’t afford to renew…
Fran discovered that reaction was beyond her. It was as if she was under water, sinking very slowly, and she was completely paralysed, unable to do anything to stop herself from drowning.
One moment it had seemed as if she could relax, shake off the nagging sense of impending disaster. Now—
‘There is one other thing.’
‘There’s more?’ She turned and looked at Tom Palmer. Until now he had been wearing the grave expression of the average family lawyer. Now he looked positively uneasy.
How much worse could it get?
‘The last time I saw Steven he asked me to add a codicil to his will. I had to tell him that it was a bequest I was not prepared to add to that document. We came to a compromise. He dictated his wishes to me and I promised to read them out at this point.’
‘You mean after you’ve told me that my son and I are homeless and penniless?’
‘Francesca—’
She glared at Guy, daring him to say another word.
‘I’ll read it now then, shall I?’ Tom waited briefly, but neither of them said a word and he took a letter from the file in front of him.
‘Before I start I want to say that there is nothing in this document that is binding,’ he said, clearly unhappy about something. ‘These are no more than Steven’s…’ He stopped.
‘Last wishes?’ she finished for him.
‘Just read it,’ Guy said.
‘Very well.’ Tom cleared his throat. ‘Well, Guy, here we are again. It’s in his own words, just as he said it,’ he explained.
‘Tom!’
‘Sorry. Right…
Well, Guy, here we are again. Me messing up and you doing your big brother bit and saving my hide. Except this time my hide is well beyond saving. It’s Fran and Toby who need you now.
‘Not this side of hell,’ she muttered.
‘First the confession. Well, you’ll have worked this out for yourself by now, but I used your money for the lease on the house for some diamond earrings for Fran—since she didn’t want a ring. Oh, and to pay the bill at that fancy private maternity hospital. Nothing but the best for mine. Something I learned from you. I just didn’t have the cash to pay for it. But you never let me down.’
‘He didn’t have to do that!’ Fran protested. ‘I wanted to go to the local hospital. I could have lived without diamonds or any of the other stuff…’
Tom waited patiently for her to finish, but she ground to a halt, consumed with shame that Steven had taken money from his brother to give her everything her heart desired. Consumed with guilt that she had taken it without a thought. But that was Steven. He’d said money was something to be enjoyed. Spent it as if he never had to think about where it was going to come from. Maybe he never had. Maybe Guy had always been there…
Tom and Guy were looking at her and she lifted a hand, a silent gesture that he should go on.
‘Okay, Guy, here’s what I want you to do. Just about the last thing I did, before I stopped being able to do anything for myself, was to book a surprise wedding for Fran and me. A beach job in the Caribbean. It seems I was over-optimistic about my prognosis and I’m not going to be able to make it, but Toby is going to need a father and Fran will need someone to help her take care of her waifs and strays and, as always, you are it.
Tom says I can’t make a codicil to the will leaving Fran and Toby to you as a bequest, but I know you won’t let me down. He’s got the tickets, all you have to do is turn up and say ‘I do’. It shouldn’t be a problem for either of you.
Steve’
CHAPTER THREE
THERE was a long, still moment after Tom stopped speaking when it seemed that everyone had forgotten to breathe.
Then Guy said, ‘Is that right, Tom? You have the tickets?’
‘Yes, but—’
He held out his hand and the lawyer reluctantly passed the travel folder to him. Fran watched in disbelief as he calmly opened it and checked the documents before turning to her.
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