Chapter 3
The tour of the house was amazing. The main house where their mother had lived was wonderful, and felt like home to them, with all the familiar objects they discovered.
The two guest cottages on the grounds were big and comfortable.
The grounds were beautiful to walk, and there was one neighbor’s house they could see through the bare trees at the front of the property that they had noticed on the way in.
But other than that, there were no other houses around.
They each had their own ideas about what to do with the property, but by the time they finished the tour, they agreed that for now they wanted to share it, and remain in their mother’s aura, and they had no reason to sell it and no financial need to, thanks to her.
When they got back to the house, they asked the housekeeper who owned the house on the property next to their mother’s.
She wasn’t warm, but she answered their question.
So far, she had viewed them as intruders.
She was protective of her turf and their mother’s memory.
She had been fiercely dedicated to Felicia.
“Spencer York,” she answered, and all five women looked surprised.
“The famous writer?” Charlotte asked, and Ellen, the housekeeper, nodded, and went back to the kitchen. She was worried that they would sell the house and she’d be out of a job, or worse, that they would use it, and invade her territory.
“I wonder if Mom knew him,” Quinne said. “She must have. He’s her closest neighbor, and the only one.” Veronica looked thoughtful.
“Maybe our mother wasn’t as solitary as we thought she was,” she said pensively. “I’m beginning to think we didn’t know her at all.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Charlotte said.
“Knowing Mom, she wrote her books here and kept to herself.” She hadn’t had many friends, and had spent all the years they knew her writing, editing, and with her children.
Nothing they had learned about her was really out of character except that she had been more successful than they’d ever guessed, under a pseudonym, made a lot of money, and had bought a beautiful house where she wrote her books.
Charlotte doubted that there was more to the story, and Felicia had always been shy and retiring ever since their father died.
Charlotte had been ten when he died and still remembered him.
And Quinne had been seven and had dim memories of him too.
Olivia was five and only recalled a tall handsome man who spun her around in the air, and she had a vague recollection of how sad her mother had been when he died, and nothing else about him.
And to Veronica and Isabelle, he was just a face in a photograph.
None of them could recall men of any significance in their mother’s life after that.
She was busy with her daughters and editing books, which they now knew were her own books.
“You all talk about being her favorites,” Veronica reminded them, “but I became the black sheep in the family when I got involved with Anson. I wasn’t her favorite then. She was furious with me.”
“She didn’t want you to be unhappy because he was married, and you cut yourself off from everyone else,” Quinne corrected her. “You gave up a lot for him,” she said gently. “You gave up your law career, and your future, after graduating magna cum laude, to be Anson’s slave.”
“I thought he was worth it, and I still do,” Veronica said staunchly.
He had protected his marriage and his political career, which was easy to understand, and he had been honest with her.
He told her right from the beginning that he would never leave his wife and couldn’t marry her.
He had been truthful, and she had accepted it.
And she owed him a lot now. For the past ten years, he had set her up in an apartment and a lifestyle that she could never have afforded without him.
He paid for everything so that she was constantly available to him, when he had time.
She had given up her law career, and the idea of marriage and children.
He had four children of his own and didn’t want a child out of wedlock with her, and the risk of a scandal.
He had been running for senator when they met, and won.
He would face another campaign soon, and he had a good chance of running for vice president in the next presidential election and didn’t want anything to jeopardize that.
They were unfailingly discreet. He slipped in to see her whenever he could, and she met him in other cities when he traveled, and they took brief vacations in Europe.
The sacrifices she had made still seemed worth it to her.
They had been careful and the secret had never leaked.
Only his banker knew about the transfers he made, and all the papers pertaining to her, and the apartment he rented for her, were in a safe in his office.
He was fifty-seven years old and one day he might even have a shot at the presidency.
And every aspect of her life was dedicated to him.
She felt as though she owed him a great deal.
She had a golden life she would never have had otherwise.
At thirty-six she had given up the idea of marriage and children, and her career as a lawyer, but he was an exciting, fascinating man and they loved each other.
She had lived up to her end of the deal.
She was constantly available to him, as his mistress.
It was a life that her mother had never approved of, no matter how charming and charismatic he was.
Her mother had been certain that Veronica would be the loser in the end.
She had sacrificed her youth, her education, and her future to him, and was alone most of the time, waiting for him.
He spent holidays with his family, never with her.
She accepted that too. He made the rules, according to his needs, not hers.
Felicia had hated that for her, and saw it clearly.
“Do you want to spend the night here?” Quinne asked, after they toured the property. Their letter from their mother had suggested it. They had much to think about now, and needed time together to discuss it.
Charlotte called her housekeeper and asked her to spend the night with Julia.
Olivia had no classes to teach the next day on Saturday.
Veronica knew that Anson had a political dinner that night, and texted him on the phone he kept just for her.
And Isabelle called the nanny and explained that she would be home the next day. And she didn’t send a text to Ian.
They let their mother’s housekeeper know that they were spending the night.
She showed them where everything was, and there were enough bedrooms for all of them.
They didn’t sleep in their mother’s bedroom.
And there was a ground-floor guest bedroom perfect for Olivia.
She wondered if her mother had thought of all of it when she bought the house.
She always thought of everything, down to the last detail.
Quinne called Robert Farr at home that night and told him that they had met with Scott, and were at the house in Connecticut, and they knew all about her pseudonym now, and everything she’d left them.
“I tried to get her to tell all of you years ago, once you were old enough, and she wanted to wait to tell you. No one expected her to go this soon, and she shouldn’t have.
I need to meet with all of you next week.
You’ve got some decisions to make about the books.
She’s got a new publishing contract coming up, and there’s a serious offer for a series from a streaming platform.
We’ve got seven unpublished books for the next contract, and there are papers I need you all to sign if you want me to continue to represent her estate. ”
“Of course we do,” Quinne said firmly. He gave her a date for the coming week and she told the others.
They made pasta and a salad and ate it in the kitchen, and Ellen, the housekeeper, discreetly disappeared.
She was overwhelmed by five grown women suddenly invading the house, but at least she still had a job, and it sounded like they were planning to keep the house.
She had been worried ever since Felicia’s death that her daughters would sell it, but they seemed to like what they’d seen so far, and they’d been warm and polite to her, just as their mother had been.
They brought up two very good bottles of French wine from their mother’s wine cellar and toasted her over dinner.
Charlotte looked at her sisters after her second glass, and said in a stunned voice, “Do you realize that suddenly we’re all very wealthy women? What do you suppose that’s going to do to our lives?” she asked, and no one answered for a minute. None of them had figured that out yet.
“I can’t imagine it,” Quinne said honestly. “And I have no idea how Coop will react. He doesn’t believe in personal wealth.”
“I want to start a foundation,” Olivia said again with a determined look, and the others were sure she would.
She had been living on her income from teaching and the insurance settlement from her accident for twelve years, and she didn’t live an extravagant life, nor want to. She had everything she needed.
Charlotte looked at Veronica. “And you don’t need to be a sex slave to Senator Phillips anymore. You can support yourself now,” she said somewhat harshly.
“I’m not with him for the support. I’m with him because I love him,” Veronica said quietly.
“You’ve paid a hell of a price for it,” Charlotte said.
It was one of the few things that she and their mother had agreed on.
She hated to see her sister waste her life in the shadows, waiting for a man who would never give her more than she had now, which she insisted was enough for her, and Charlotte didn’t believe her.