Part 17 (1/2)
Did things go as you expected?” Frances brought in Charlotte's nightgown and robe and placed them across the bed.
”More or less.” She touched the necklace at her throat as she nodded. Even now, as she saw it in the mirror, she experienced wonder at the beauty of it. The face above it had never been beautiful, and it most certainly wasn't now, but these jewels, they were her constant. She had worn them every single day since her father's death-regardless of the insurance rules. How were they to know which necklace she was wearing? No one other than a master jeweler would know the difference. Except Charlotte. She knew. She wore only the necklace her father had bought for her. Never the fake. Ever.
”I'm sorry about your niece. I know you were very fond of her.” Frances's voice was extra soft as she said this, although Charlotte knew Frances well enough to know that she had doubted the girl's intentions for a long time. As with most things, she'd kept her opinions to herself.
”Yes, I was.” Charlotte picked up the brush from the dresser and began to pull it through her hair in long, slow strokes. ”But I'm glad this happened. I'm thankful that I found out the truth about yet one more person who wanted to use me for their own gain.” She reached for another section of hair. ”That's one lesson I thought I had learned by now. You're the only person I've ever been able to count on, you know. You and your mother.”
”There is more than just me you can count on. I would have thought you learned that tonight, if you hadn't figured it out before.”
”Neil Winston is faithful, that much is true, but he is well paid to be so.”
”Mr. Winston is not who I was speaking of, although I believe his loyalty goes beyond his job. I believe he has your best interests at heart.”
”Maybe so. Of course, I've known his parents since the beginning. We were all exiles out here together. That does tend to build a certain deep bond.”
”Yes. And I suppose if that's the way you want to look at it, Lauren, too, was an exile. Maybe that's the reason she felt such an immediate affinity for you.”
”I want to believe that, I really do, but I just find it so hard to do so. She loves beautiful clothes, I have a closet full of them. Do you think she is hoping to somehow profit from that?”
”I think you've been obsessed over the profit angle for too long now. Some people are just good people. Some people truly want to be helpful to other people. Perhaps in Hollywood there was less of that than in the real world, but I think you've been pus.h.i.+ng people aside for too long now. It's time to make an effort to start believing in people again.”
”What would make Lauren decide she wanted to do nice things for me? There had to be some sort of reason for a person to do things like that.”
”I believe it probably has something to do with her own difficult upbringing and, more than that, with her personal faith.”
”How do you know she had a difficult upbringing or that she has a personal faith?”
”I've spoken with her some. She is quite an interesting girl. I believe you would find that you have more than a little in common with her.”
”Somehow I doubt that. Name one thing we have in common.”
”Well, unlike you, her parents, I believe, were married.”
”See.”
”But her mother was a wannabe actress who died of an overdose when Lauren was young.”
”I suppose that is similar to my story.”
”I also think another reason she goes out of her way to be nice to you is that she remembers when someone went out of their way for her. Her best friend's family more or less took her in during high school. She remembers how much that meant to her.”
Charlotte set down the brush. ”Well, I guess that would make us quite the trio, then, wouldn't it? You, me, and her?”
Frances came to stand beside her. ”We all have more than a little dysfunction in our past, that's for sure. Thankfully for Lauren, she had another family willing to take her under their wings. Thankfully for my mother, she had a strong advocate and ally who took her in, in spite of having absolutely no reason to show kindness to her. And thankfully for me, that same ally helped me move past the grief and financial burden of being a widow whose husband left her with memories of love and a staggering medical debt.”
Charlotte made a dismissive gesture. The two of them rarely spoke about the events that had brought them together, but Frances always expressed grat.i.tude. The truth was, Charlotte had taken in Frances's mother less in kindness and more in anger at the injustice of the situation. ”I still get furious when I think of your mother and how she was treated.”
”She used to tell me the story all the time. How humiliated she was when that man threw all her belongings into a heap on the ground. Your actions meant more to her than she was probably ever able to express to you.”
”She expressed it in many ways, and there's no need to ever doubt that. And there's no need to speak of it further.”
”Whatever you think best, but it's always seemed odd to me that you refuse to accept any credit for, or really even acknowledge, that you did something truly extraordinary that day.” Frances turned the doork.n.o.b. ”I'd best get back downstairs. Cook's going to need some help with the rest of dinner.”
Frances left the room without saying more. Charlotte was glad to have her and her reminder of things from the past gone. For now.
Mr. Winston's face was red when he returned to the dining room after walking Willow out. Lauren was thankful that she had been spared hearing the exchange of words that she suspected happened out in the driveway. Mr. Winston sat back in his chair, picked up his napkin with a flourish, and put it back into his lap. ”Now, where were we?” He cut into a piece of the tenderloin that the cook had brought not long after he'd walked out with Willow. Lauren knew it had begun to grow cold by now, but Mr. Winston took a bite and moaned. ”Truly tender meat is one of life's little joys.”
Lauren smiled. ”I've never really thought of it that way, but I won't disagree with you.” She hadn't actually tasted the meat yet. She was much too nervous about what more he had to say to her.
He reached down into his briefcase and removed a large envelope. ”Now, there is a bit of business I'd like to discuss with you.”
Since Miss Montgomery had obviously left him behind to do her dirty work, Lauren knew that she was about to get told off but just wasn't certain of the exact reason. Her stomach knotted up, and she waited for the inevitable.
”Miss Montgomery made some inquiries into what is going on in the house across the street. She found out that Willow was the so-called buyer for the cottage, and I say so-called because we believe that she never did intend to buy it, she simply wanted to get you out of there.”
”I don't understand why. I never did anything to her.”
”You were a threat to her plan to become the sole heir of this estate.”
Lauren burst out laughing. ”I hardly think that planting some leftover flowers outside someone's fence makes me a contender for an inheritance.”
Mr. Winston looked at her evenly but did not smile. ”Then you don't know much about how these things sometimes work, it would seem.”
”That's true. I don't have a single clue.”
”As soon as Miss Montgomery found out that Willow was trying to buy the cottage, she had me hire some investigators to find out what you might be up to, what Willow might be up to, and to make sure that none of it got past her.”
”And what did she find?”
”Surprisingly, to her at least, she found out that you are basically what you appear to be.”
How should Lauren respond to that? She finally kind of laughed and said, ”Yeah, I guess that's all I've got to offer for clarification here. I am basically the person that I am.”
”That being the case, it did cause her to rethink her will.”
Lauren pushed back from the table. The last thing she needed was the drama that would come from whatever it was Miss Montgomery had cooked up. ”Mr. Winston, that really is not something I either aim for or am seeking. I just want to live my life without having someone set me up for things that I did not do. I want to be able to use my skills with clothes and make a living and get on with life. Getting added to Miss Montgomery's will seems like the surest way to lawsuits and more of the garbage I am currently trying to avoid.”
”And that's exactly what Miss Montgomery believes, as well, but she does want to recognize your kindness. She had a nice long talk with Ralph Edwards and has agreed to purchase his cottage for the price that Willow had pretended to agree upon. She felt some responsibility since Willow was only in the area because of her. She had me draw up an agreement that states that you may live in it rent-free for as long as you choose to do so, with the condition that it be your main residence. Once you have moved on with your life, then it will simply be her cottage and revert to her estate.”
”There is no need-”
”Miss Montgomery believes that there is a need. She wants to do something toward making amends for problems she or her family may have caused you. As you may have seen, she does not like to feel as though she owes anyone anything.”
”So I've noticed.” Lauren cut a piece of tenderloin but didn't attempt to eat it.