“If you actually did, you might take a shotgun to them.” She stood up. “My break is over. Dear little Martin has probably broken a dozen valuable artifacts and I will be blamed for them all.” She started rolling up her mat, then halted. “They’re planning to do anything they can to get you to give them money. If they’re nice to you, that’s why. Nelson even bought you a gift.” She finished rolling the mat. “Just so you know, the diamonds aren’t real.”
Willa rolled up her mat, put the straps around it and handed it to Katrina. “Thank you for this. It was good to get my mind off my own life for a while. And I’m sorry about your husband and...” She couldn’t finish.
“Me too. I better go.” Mats under her arms, she backed away. “Prepare to be wooed and courted.”
“My checkbook and I will be eagerly awaiting them.”
Laughing, Katrina ran toward the house.
Willa turned to go back to sitting under the tree, but she no longer felt like it. So her siblings were broke. And poor, pitiful, butt-of-all-their-jokes Willa was the only one who had anything left. How interesting.
She started back toward the house but instead turned away. When she was a child she’d played the solitary game of What if I Owned this Place? She used to keep sketchbooks full of garden plans and she filled binders with decorating ideas. Wonder if they’re still here? she thought.
When she had just enough time to get ready for dinner, she returned to the house. She had a black dress, but it was now too small. Instead, she wore black cotton trousers and a red sweatshirt with rhinestones across the top. Byon said it was the ugliest shirt he’d ever seen. “I love it! You should wear it to church and tell me what everyone says.”
She didn’t wear it to church or to anywhere else, but she did keep it. Byon had said he loved it and that was enough for her.
If what Katrina had said about the siblings was true, she’d know as soon as she saw them. When she walked into the dining room, saw their eyes widen in horror, but they said nothing, she knew Katrina was right. She smiled warmly at them. Their father didn’t join them. He had dinner in his room.
“He’s too distraught over Mother’s death to talk to anyone,” Niall said.
He’d better hire a food taster, Willa thought, but said, “I can understand that. They loved each other so very much.”
Beatrice nearly choked on her drink. Their parents rarely spoke to each other.
At dinner, Willa was the center of attention. They asked about her life, her friends.
Thanks to Katrina’s warning, Willa knew how to answer them. She said she was very happy and planning to buy a country estate. In Surrey maybe. Or Kent. “Maybe I should go to Devon.”
Throughout the dinner, she smiled at their offers of financial advice, at the use of their London apartments.
After dinner, Nelson slipped her a bracelet. Niall gave her tasteful little earrings in a Tiffany box. She’d put money on it that they didn’t come from that store.
She almost made it upstairs before Beatrice caught her. “I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but we’re sisters and we love each other.” She held out an old ring box. “Our dear mother gave this to me but I want you to have it.”
Willa took the box but she didn’t open it until she was in her room. The ring inside took her breath away. Memories flooded her. She and her mother were in the garden, Willa holding the basket while her mother deadheaded roses.
“Can’t you hold it still?” her mother snapped, then jerked her hand back as a thorn pricked her. “See what you made me do? Now look, my ring is dirty.” She took it off and handed it to her daughter.
Willa held it up to the light. Sapphires and diamonds. “It’s so beautiful.”
“I guess. It’s owned by your father’s family and goes to the oldest daughter. He has no sisters so I got it.”
“Oldest?” Willa said. “That’s me. Do I get it?”
“Are you hoping I will die so you can get a ring?”
“No, I meant—”
“Go away. Put it in my jewelry box, and I better never see you touch it.”
Beatrice had been given that ring. The one that was supposed to go to the oldest daughter. But her mother had given it to the younger one.
Willa stretched out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She bloody well was not going to give her siblings any money. She’d lied about buying some money-eating estate somewhere. And then what? Live there alone?
What am I going to do? she wondered. Go to Italy with Katrina? Hey! Maybe she’d buy a yoga studio and she and Katrina would run it.
Smiling at that absurdity, she opened her computer. Actually, the idea of owning a business, a shop maybe, in some village appealed to her. It would be right on the high street. She’d meet people. Go to church on Sundays. Join the WI and learn to make jam. Maybe she’d sell the jam in her shop.