Chapter Four
Otto stopped and turned around. The girl’s posture had changed; her belligerent demeanour was now one of arrogance. A tight smile played on her lips. She had uncrossed her arms and her hands now leant on the back of the chair. A stuck-up little princess, lording it over lesser mortals.
‘I have not stolen anything. Not one thing. When I think of all the years your family has stolen from me.’ She paused.
‘What?’ Clem scowled.
‘Oh, forget it. I didn’t mean to say it like that.’ Otto knew that wasn’t fair. She had moved into the castle with her eyes wide open. It hadn’t been a graceful move or a planned decision, but a desperate flight into hiding from the Spinelli crime family. Certainly the Hivertons hadn’t forced her: they had helped her. Henry had provided her with a bolt hole and she had chosen to never leave it. But somehow over the years, it just felt that she had been forgotten, which she had wanted, but not like this. Forgotten by her pursuers was good; overlooked, dismissed, accused by her benefactors was not. ‘But I have not taken any money.’
‘So where has all the money gone then? All these catering events and shooting parties. The solicitor says he knows nothing about them.’
She was lying now; despite Ari’s urgings, Clem hadn’t called the solicitor. She didn’t have time to listen to his waffle. There was a problem and Clem needed to fix it right away. Besides, she didn’t need a solicitor hundreds of miles away to tell her what she could clearly see in front of her. This stuck-up dragon was hiding something. Clem almost expected her to run out the door. Her eyes were darting everywhere and her breathing had quickened. Hell, she’d better not be having a heart attack.
Clem suddenly felt guilty. Had she come on too strong? God she would give her eye teeth to have her father here. She touched her fingers to her medallion and took a deep breath. When she was being told off for being rude or cheeky, her mother would sit her down and remind her the importance of respecting her elders. And if her mother wasn’t around, one of the many aunties on the street would remind her in forceful tones. That would be when her father would take her to one side and remind her that people earned respect. It wasn’t an automatic right, and he would hug her and tell her never to lose her fighting spirit, to always stand up for herself and her family. There wasn’t a day she didn’t miss her mother, but her father had understood her and always had her back and she wished he was here right now.
Happily, the old girl seemed to rally in the face of Clem’s accusation. She was also made of sterner stuff it seemed.
‘Shooting parties? Pah!’ exclaimed Otto. ‘They don’t make enough money to carry the salaries. My God, I can’t believe you actually believed me! That’s typical of the aristocracy. You have no understanding of how much things actually cost.’
Clem’s jaw dropped open. Not only was this only woman boasting about having just lied, she was also mocking Clem for not knowing she was being lied to.
‘Well, how in the hell are the staff being paid then?’ This was ridiculous, thought Clem. She had no idea how a castle worked; she was relying on this woman who was already changing her story in the course of one morning.
‘I have my own money,’ said Miss Farano. She paused, finally out of steam. ‘I pay them out of my own money.’ She paused again, deflated. ‘I pay them.’
Silence fell between them. Clem looked at Otto warily. Oddly, she believed the older woman was telling the truth, but if anyone else had told her, she would have dismissed it as a nonsense. This woman was a witch and yet here she was, single-handedly paying the salaries of most of the staff. It made no sense.
‘Why?’
Otto sighed and sat back down again. ‘A few years after Henry, your grandfather died, David, his son decided that the castle was too expensive to run. I got a letter from the solicitor telling me to dismiss everyone in a cost-saving exercise. Henry had loved this place; it’s been in the family for generations, as have the staff for that matter. I felt that it was wrong to just dismiss them like that.’ Otto shrugged. ‘I argued with the solicitor, but he said it was that or sell the place, so I said I would arrange it. He sent up all their redundancies, so I paid them their salaries out of that and then when that ran out, I started paying them out of my own savings. Incidentally, they don’t know any of this and I’d prefer if they didn’t?’
Clem was flabbergasted. ‘But that’s ridiculous. Why didn’t you just tell them they were unemployed?’
‘It’s easy for you, isn’t it? Not having to worry about where the next meal is coming from, but around here jobs are few and far between and it’s the role of the big estates to take care of the smaller properties and residents.’ Her cool, patrician tones dismissed Clem with every word. ‘Your grandfather understood that but apparently your father didn’t.’
‘What’s my father got to do with this?’ The sudden introduction of her father confused Clem.
‘Henry would be rolling in his grave if he saw what his son had become. He used to come up here with his shooting parties, throwing his weight around. I remember you as well, and your brother. Never happy, either of you. And now you’re back, the estate lies in your hands and it’s up to you to fix the decisions that he made.’
Clem blinked.
‘Have you been smoking something? My dad never came up here. And I certainly don’t have a brother.’ She stopped as realisation hit her. ‘Oh, hang on.’ Clem laughed. ‘You think Uncle David was my father. As if! I’m not Jacinta. I’m Clementine Byrne. Elizabeth’s daughter. David was my uncle not my father.’
Clem relaxed, the confusion was explained. This old woman was not attacking her father. Maybe the two women could find some common ground after all. But then Otto snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
‘Oh her,’ she said dismissively. ‘I heard all about her. Well. That explains a lot.’
Instantly, Otto knew she had made a mistake. If Clementine had looked angry before, now she looked dangerous. Narrowing her eyes she pointed her finger at Otto, hissing her words.
‘Talk about my mother again in that tone of voice and you will be kicked out of this house immediately, and it will be me doing the kicking. Is that clear?’
Shocked by the venom in Clem’s voice, Otto recoiled and watched as the young woman stormed out of the room and a few seconds later she watched her tear out the driveway, the wheels spitting gravel as the car roared away.