I can’t repress a laugh. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Bingley.’
‘Ha, ha. Yes, very good. But technically, and legally, lineage is still very much relevant. Certainly in my family. Primogeniture is part of the family trust. It’s like entailment but it doesn’t matter what gender the firstborn is – whoever they are, they get the lion’s share. You can refuse to be part of the family business but you can’t get away from genetics – or the law. Unfortunately.’
‘So, it matters more who you marry than who they marry?’
‘Yeah. It does. To my family… and to the outside world.’
‘To the outside world?’
‘Who I marry has repercussions. I’ll control it all one day and they’ll be part of that. It affects shareholder confidence, market valuation, future projections – our reliability, sustainability,’ he says with unvarnished simplicity.
‘Oh,’ I answer, and though I try to stop myself from asking, I can’t. ‘And what will marrying me indicate?’
‘To the world: that times are changing. To my family: that I love them but they will not hold me back from doing what I want with my life. I waited a long time to find you. And now I have. You can read any story in a million different ways, but I think my family and the world in general will understand the story of us. Don’t you think?’
‘Um, yeah. If I’m honest, I’m really glad I bought a new outfit for this now,’ I say, half joking, then I catch his expression. ‘You’re worried about what they’ll think of me too, aren’t you? Honestly?’
‘Honestly? Of course I am. They’re my folks. I want them to like you. I want you to like them. Mom likes what she hears about you. There’s no way she’d have handed over Great-Grandma’s ring otherwise. And what Mom thinks trickles down to the rest of them eventually. Dad’s trickier. But it’s going to be fine. Matilda didn’t say anything weird about it all, did she? When you met?’
Aside from flexing her undeniable power in a single phone call to my publisher and then tricking me into meeting every single person in her family, no, she didn’t say anything weird.
But, clearly, weird is a relative term, excuse the pun.
I wonder if he suspects that Matilda asked me to help bring Edward back into the family.
That thought sparks another. After all, Matilda is second in line to everything directly after Edward. There could be more going on here for her, in particular, than I had ever previously considered.
I realize Edward is waiting for my answer. ‘She didn’t say anything that strange, no. It was nice, meeting her. She wasn’t anything like I expected her to be. She seemed to be happy, about us, the idea of us. And I’m guessing she isn’t someone who’d shy away from brutal honesty if she had real issues.’ I give him a reassuring smile, even though now I’m not so sure at all. ‘I think it’s all going to be fine, Ed,’ I tell him.
And it will be. I just need to stay on my toes. Which is never a bad thing, especially now I’ve got a growing family to protect.
And with that warm thought in mind, I lean in and whisper softly into his ear, ‘Hey. We’re going to have a baby.’
5 Introductions
Thursday 24 November
The immense facade of 7 East 88th Street towers above us. At its red brick summit, a golden weathervane flashes and fades as it wavers in the evening light, guarded at every corner by stone gargoyles. I watch as its arrow swivels high above the city rooftops like an omen of what is to come – an instrument to divine which way the wind is blowing.
I slam the car door, and the Holbecks’ town car pulls away leaving Edward and I on the curb. Of course, they sent a driver. I stare up at the grandeur of their Manhattan townhouse, one of the many Holbeck homes dotted across the globe. A six-bedroomed, three-floored city pied-à-terre just behind the Guggenheim. They possess such incredible wealth that I find it hard to comprehend what it all really means.