Neal poured a dram of dusky liquor into a small glass and silently toasted the sweeter memories of the adventures that he and his friend had shared. The comforting spirits trickled slowly down his throat and spurred a part of his saddened heart. As he placed the glass back on the tray, he eyed the dry sagging skin that spread over his own arthritic hand.
“See what you’ll miss, Robbie,” he said, rubbing his stiff fingers, “ligaments and bones, tight and twisted, wrapped with dying skin that wrinkles while waiting for its time to rot off.” And though he stared at his hand, his mind drifted to the past, to a time when they both had strong hands. They used to be youthful hands, hands for holding a flask of whiskey and for squeezing a voluptuous maiden as they rolled in the warm grasses of the moor, hands for sharpening a sgian dubh as it cut through the roasted rump of a freshly killed stag, hands to fight for causes long forgotten.
“We were barely bearded and eager, weren’t we Rob,” he whispered, returning to the window. “Two whiskeyed lads, pulsating with desire and neither of us able to keep our manliness under control.” An amused chuckle escaped Neal’s lips, and the echo of it came back as rustling paper.
It was then that he remembered that his secretary was still silently waiting to attend to business.
Neal moved to close the window against the street noises and said, “Sorry Harry. Seems like I can’t shake this moroseness today. Though I guess this is not the time to indulge oneself.”
“No, sir, perhaps not.” Harry replied while handing the solicitor the papers.
* * *
The furthermost office door opened, and the secretary stepped into the waiting room. “Mr. Jameson will be with you shortly,” he announced. He had no sooner settled himself at his desk when the solicitor himself appeared. His tall graying form drew the women’s attention as he spoke.
“I’m sorry to have kept you both waiting, but if you will join me now,” his large hand motioned to the room that he had just vacated.
The woman in lavender rose. Katherine, too, rose and moved to enter the office. As she did so, she saw the woman’s eyebrows draw together in a deep frown as she cut in front of Katherine to enter first. Then Katherine watched as the woman sought out the softest looking chair in front of the paper-ladened desk. Sitting herself down in the only chair other available, a straight-backed wooden one, Katherine wondered who this woman could be and why was she there.
Neal sat and studied the youthful faces before him for any signs of patrimonial endowments. But each face, veiled with anxiety, hid its heritage. The American is the hungry one, he judged, the other is the bitter one. Yes, they look just as Robbie had often described them.
“I hope you both had an enjoyable and uneventful trip.” He paused for a reply, but received only affirmatory nods. He shuffled the papers before him. “Well, let’s begin. You have been summoned here because both of you, Mistress Belwood and Mistress St. Pierre, appear in Robbie’s will… that is Sir Robert Craig’s will. It was his wish that you be co-heirs in his estate and holdings.”
Neal paused to see their reaction to this news. When there wasn’t any, he stumbled on, saying, “It is unorthodox for two women to be the beneficiaries, however, I assure you it’s quite legal. You both will share in the ownership of Wistmere and in Robert’s shipping business.” He looked at them, still waiting for a reaction. But the uneasy silence continued to choke the room. Neal then heard an intake of breath and looked at Mistress St. Pierre.
She stared at the solicitor. Her face drained slightly of its color as she snapped forward in her chair. “You’re mistaken, sir. Surely you’re mistaken. I barely knew Sir Robert.”
The other woman’s cheeks flushed as she sank back into the soft leather chair and smiled, “But… why me? Why did Robbie leave me everything?”
A frown edged deep in Jameson’s brow. “You misunderstand, Miss Belwood. You and Miss St. Pierre are to share in the estate.” It’s odd that Robbie’s daughters questioned their own inheritance. As he scrutinized the puzzled faces before him, he suddenly realized why they seemed bewildered.
“Don’t either of you know?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Didn’t either Rob or your mothers revealed the facts of your parentage to you?”
“What facts?” The women demanded in unison.
The solicitor drew in a deep breath and chose his next words carefully, thinking that they’d be received with mixed emotions. “You are both the only living children of Sir Robert Craig.”
He waited in silence. For a moment, a long still moment, the only sound in the room was the man’s own soft, wheezing breath.
Then May-Jewel Belwood exclaimed, “Oh, my Lord! Robbie, my father?” Visions of unexplained events flooded her mind: of presents, of rooms filled with toys when she was young and, as she grew older, of precious jewels and fine clothing from around the world, of mysterious arrivals and midnight suppers, her mother’s glistening eyes when Robbie came and went. He wasn’t just her mother’s favorite client. He was her mother’s lover, and her own father! Why hadn’t her mother ever told her? All those years she had spent wondering who her father was, and it
