‘I’d better push off then.’ I stood up and began to walk to the door.
‘Princess?’
I turned around. His shoulders were slumped. He looked crushed. I pitied him then.
‘You won’t be unkind, will you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You won’t tell anyone?’
‘Who’d believe me, Daddy? The mad stepdaughter. They would simply call it false memory. It was why she sent me to Dr. Kane in the first place. She knew I was beginning to remember things and this way all my memories could be discredited.’ I smiled. ‘You’ve underestimated Mummy’s nurse, Daddy. She’s managed us all perfectly.’
He gapped at me. I had never seen my father look so agonized or lost. He shook his head as if to reject what I was saying.
‘She picked Dr. Kane precisely because she knew he was disgraced and she found out that he had a drinking problem. If he failed she could say it was because he was a drunk, if he was successful she could claim the process was faulty.’
My father shifted, his eyes pleading. ‘You will understand that this is all very difficult for me. Your mother is gone and I…um…am very fond of Poppe—her.’
In the end my father could always be relied on to retreat into self-interest. Above all else, what was good for William Elliot Swanson.
‘I understand perfectly,’ I said and went to walk away again.
‘Wait.’
I turned once more.
‘I’m issuing a new Letters Patent stating that the eldest daughter may inherit both the title and the estate.’
I smiled sadly. ‘I don’t want it. Give it to Jacobi. Make his mother happy.’
He stood up and put his hand out in an awkward pleading gesture. ‘Don’t break this family up. That’s all I beg of you.’
I began to walk.
My father cried out urgently. ‘Please, Vivi.’
And I turned around and stared. He was out of his chair. A solitary tear was rolling down his cheek. I had never seen him cry before. I knew that single tear betraying his terrible pain had cost him his pride. Perhaps he had a great and pure love for her, after all.
‘I won’t harm you, Daddy. I love you,’ I said softly and walked out of Marlborough Hall. When I reached the car I turned and looked up at the second floor bedroom. Ivana was watching me. In the gloom of the window she looked pale and insubstantial as a ghost. We stared at each other for a few moments. She did not wave and neither did I.
We both knew the truth. She had planned and schemed and lied and stolen and murdered, but there was no need to punish her. Her real tragedy was being stuck in a loveless marriage. Being married to a man so far inferior in intellect to her that he bored her stiff each day from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning.
I had seen it in her eyes many times—the desire for men other than my father—but she controlled it with an iron will. She had chosen the splendor of a public life and the envy of her friends without the true and lasting joy of inner satisfaction, but she deeply resented having to make that choice.
The weak morning sun was shining down on Marlborough Hall. It always looked its best on a sunny day. I turned away and got into my car and drove away without looking back. I would miss my conservatory, but otherwise there was nothing I would wish I had not left behind.
Soon it would be spring. And then summer.
27
Ivana
I stood at the window and looked at my reflection in the window. I was wearing a cream silk and wool dress. Cream suited my dark hair and pale coloring. Beyond my ghostly reflection lay the beautifully manicured gardens. Soon Dr. Kane will be here. My husband wanted to join me in the meeting but I dissuaded him. It was far better that I alone handle this matter.
Anyway, it was a relief to send him away to the stables. Last night I had to do all those things that I had not done for a very long time. I had almost forgotten how dreadfully white, flabby and sweaty he could get when he had to do the deed. Like a sack of wet sand he had puffed and panted on top of me while I pretended to enjoy it. I even took his shriveled, red penis into my mouth.
I stilled the shudder of disgust that ran through me and took a deep breath. There was a price to pay for everything. This house, the envy of all the people I knew, the glow of being recognized and treated as someone important, all of it had to be paid for. He was basking in the glow of our renewed passion this morning. I reinstated my power. So it was worth it.