Being Elizabeth. Barbara Taylor Bradford

and you would get rather a lot for it, I’m certain, but don’t make any hasty decisions. You might well enjoy living there, but you don’t have to decide right now, do you?’

      ‘No, I don’t, and anyway, I’ll know what condition it’s in from Kat. She’s going to give it a thorough looking over. You see, she’s taking charge of my properties.’ Elizabeth grinned at him, and added, ‘Kat accepted my offer to be my steward. I know it’s a very old-fashioned job description, but that’s exactly what she’ll be doing – the work a steward used to do.’

      ‘And Kat will do a marvellous job! She’s one of the most efficient people I know.’ He sat back, frowned, and asked, ‘What were you telling me about Blanche Parrell earlier?’

      ‘Blanche is, at this very moment, throwing all of my clothes away, at least that’s what she was doing earlier, before I left this morning. On Kat’s advice, she’s taken control of my wardrobe, and so far the pile for Oxfam is enormous. It seems she’s about to select a lot of new clothes for me. She wants me to look the part for my new job.’

      ‘And why not?’ Robert murmured, then reaching into his pocket he took out a folded piece of paper, said quietly, ‘I have something for you, something you should see. It is a bit lethal, but I don’t want you to be upset –’

      ‘What is it?’ she cut in, her brows puckering together. His words of warning and his solemn expression had telegraphed that the paper was not only problematic but also of vital importance to her.

      ‘Read it for yourself,’ Robert said, ‘and we’ll discuss, then we’ll order lunch.’ He handed her the piece of paper.

      Elizabeth saw immediately that it was a bank transfer, and it was signed by Mary Turner Alvarez. Her sister, three years earlier, had transferred fifty million euros to her new husband in Madrid, Philip Alvarez. Shocked, she stared at the paper, reading it again. A furious anger swept over her, and her hand shook as she clutched the paper. She exclaimed in a low but angry tone, ‘I can’t believe this! She must have been insane, besotted or brainwashed by him.’

      ‘All of those things, perhaps,’ Robert replied.

      A terrible thought struck Elizabeth, and she asked in a hoarse whisper, ‘Do you think this was Deravenel money or her own?’

      ‘I’m not sure. I can’t really tell from the bank transfer.’

      ‘Cecil told me she invested seventy-five million euros in Philip’s real estate development schemes. Did you know that?’

      ‘I’d heard rumours that she had been overly generous, but I didn’t know the amount.’

      ‘Please don’t let Cecil know I’ve told you that.’

      ‘I won’t,’ Robert promised.

      Elizabeth asked, ‘How did you get this bank transfer?’

      ‘Never mind.’

      ‘Surely you can tell me, Robin.’

      ‘I’d rather you didn’t know … well, let’s just say this … I’ve worked at Deravenels for years, my father and grandfather also worked there. And guess what … people have a bad habit of not changing locks.’

      ‘What you’re saying is that you have a great many keys?’ Elizabeth stared at him knowingly.

      ‘You’ve got it.’

      ‘This transfer is obviously a copy, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes. The original is where it should be. You can keep it if you want, but don’t take it to the office. Lock it up in your safe at home. I actually came across it quite by accident, and wanted you to have it … Forewarned is forearmed. God knows what you’re going to find when you start digging, but I want you to be ahead of the game, Elizabeth.’

      ‘I have to tell Cecil. I’m absolutely certain the fifty million came from her personal bank account.’

      ‘Of course. He has to know,’ Robert answered. He eyed her closely, and murmured, ‘You’re not as upset as I thought you would be.’

      ‘I’m bloody furious, if you want the truth! However, Cecil’s news last week forced me to recognize that the seventy-five million euros she gave to Philip might well be just the tip of the iceberg.’

      Robin has done good by me yet again. Persuading me to go to Deravenels was an inspired idea on his part. I have lost my fear of the place. I had been dreading going back after a year’s absence, because it holds so many memories for me, both good and bad. The bad ones are all to do with Mary and her treatment of me. Once she took over she became a tyrant in so many ways, not the least with me. She was suspicious and treacherous, and endeavoured to nullify my existence. Finally she banished me.

      I really missed my job, but there was nothing I could do. She was managing director and I had been dismissed. I took myself off to Ravenscar, and although she hated that house and never came there, I remained fearful of her mood-swings and temper tantrums. Long-distance enemy she might be, but an enemy nonetheless, and I never knew when she might do something nasty to me.

      The good memories are to do with my father, and when I saw his office looking exactly the way it had when he occupied it, I was happy. I had never quite understood why Mary had torn it apart, put the valuable antiques in the storage unit, and filled it with hard-edged modern furniture. Unless it was a way of obliterating our father in her mind. She had always harboured a grudge against him because he had discarded her mother; deep down, I don’t think she ever forgave him for that, although she was devious enough to put up a good front.

      Seeing the room looking the way it had for centuries was a thrill for me, and happy memories washed over me. Once my father had brought me back into his life, when I was nine, he often took me to the office with him in the mornings. I would sit on the Chesterfield and read books about our vineyards in France, diamond mines in India, and gold mines in Africa. He filled my head with information about our ancient trading company before taking me to lunch at the Savoy or Rules. As I grew older, he became impressed with my intelligence and knowledge, and I think that’s when Mary grew more jealous than ever of me. She hated him when he praised me; she hated me because I looked like a miniature Harry Turner with his red hair and height and Turner looks. Father often told me I had the thin, wiry build of my grandfather Henry Turner, the Welshman who had married Bess Deravenel and taken over as the head of Deravenels. And it was true, I did, and I was proud of that.

      My father died when I was twelve, but I’d had those wonderful few years with him and my half-brother Edward, and looking back, those years were the happiest of my childhood. I was doing well in the classroom, my father was proud of me, and of Edward. He and I spent a great deal of time together and were close and loving. Then there was my new stepmother, Catherine Parker, a woman who embraced us, my father’s children, and she was loving, kind and mothering to all of us, including Mary.

      My father had hurt my feelings when I was a little girl, but he made up for his bad behaviour when I was older. I learned a lot from him, and I suppose he became my role model in the latter part of his life. He was a brilliant man, and he ran Deravenels far better than his father had, whom he sometimes called ‘the caretaker’. He once told me his father had been tight with money, and that he had never allowed his wife Bess to participate in anything to do with Deravenels. She was actually the heiress, through her father Edward, and my father thought it was wrong of his father to exclude her. He adored his mother, who brought him up with his younger sister Mary. They spent a lot of time together at Ravenscar and that’s why he loved it so much, I suppose. His mother