“The conservatory is dusty,” I drawled.
“Is it, now?” She licked her finger before flipping a page on the document in front of her. “Well, I must tell the cleaners to pay extra attention to the room tomorrow.”
“Are you having financial issues?”
She was still frowning at the number splayed on the paper. “Oh, Devvie. Must we talk about finances? It’s so very common. You just got here. I want us to brunch and to catch up properly. Maybe catch a horse race.”
“We’ll do all of that, Mummy. But I need to know that you’re taken care of.”
“We’ll survive.” She looked up, offering me a wobbly smile.
“When’s the reading of the will exactly? Tomorrow or the next day?”
“Actually…” she finished writing a sentence on a document, setting her pen down “…the reading of the will, will be severely delayed, I’m afraid.”
“Severely?” I arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Mr. Tindall is currently abroad.”
Harry Tindall was my late father’s trusted solicitor.
“And you failed to mention that before I boarded a plane?”
She smiled thoughtfully, staring at my hair like she wanted to swipe her motherly fingers across it lovingly. “I guess you could say the opportunity to see you presented itself, and the human that I was, I yielded to temptation. I’m sorry.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Terribly so.”
That soothed my anger. “Shush, Mum. I’m here for you.”
I reached across the desk and grabbed her hand. She was frail under my touch.
“I’ll wire you money to tide you over until the reading of the will,” I heard myself say.
“No, darling, we couldn’t possibly …”
“Of course you could. You’re my mother. It’s the least I can do for you.”
For a moment, all we did was stare at each other, drinking every new line and wrinkle we’d accumulated in the last year.
“I hear Drew leaves much to be desired in the making Cecilia happy department.” I sprawled in my seat, crossing my ankles over the desk.
My mother picked up her pen again and scribbled on the edges of the file, gnawing on her lower lip, as she did whenever my father was up to no good and she knew she was about to clean up his mess. “Quite.”
“What can I do to help?”
“There’s nothing you can do, really. That is for your sister to handle.”
“Cece is not used to taking care of such things.” Understatement of the fucking century. When we were kids, I got into hot water on a daily basis to save my sister’s arse.
Mum tugged at her lower lip, mulling this over. “All the same, it is time for her to start learning how to hold her own. The only thing you can do for me now is refrain from providing us with any scandalous headlines. We certainly don’t need those.”
In that moment, my mother looked so broken, so tired, so weathered by the tragedies life had thrown at her, I couldn’t crush her completely. Not when there was so little hope left for her.
Which was why I couldn’t tell her I was planning to impregnate a ditzy burlesque club owner out of wedlock, who, by the way, was sprawled on billboards all over the East Coast positively naked.
But Belle wasn’t even pregnant. What was the point of telling my mother about this? This situation could be revisited in three, four, or five months, when the dust on my father’s grave had settled.
No need to give my mother more bad news.
“No scandalous headlines …” I grinned back at her. “Promise.”
Devon: still ovulating?
Belle: six days later? Do I look like an African driver ant?
I had to Google the reference to learn that the average African driver ant produced three to four million eggs each month and was considered to be the most fertile animal on planet Earth.
Devon: not from this angle. Get on your knees with your bum up and hold a crumb of bread just so I can be sure.
Belle: why are you asking anyway?
Devon: trying to conceive tonight couldn’t hurt our chances, correct?
Belle: technically not, but said chances would be slim.
Devon: slim, but in existence.
Belle: are you waiting for an invitation?
Devon: from your ill-mannered arse? No. I’m already on my way.
Belle: this is going to stop as soon as I’m pregnant.
Devon: absolutely.
Belle: I mean it. I already feel personally attacked by your presence in my life.
Devon: no point asking why you hate men so much, I suppose?