Older guests retired to the house, agog at the wonderful renovations. They flowed through the main reception rooms and the library, chattering and exclaiming, coming to settle into the opulent sofas and armchairs to go over the great day in detail and catch up on all the latest news and gossip. Many who had thought of her often that day went to gaze with a moment’s sadness at the life-size portrait of Kathryn Rylance. It hadn’t been seen for quite a while. Certainly not during the reign of the second wife, Leila. Recently it had been taken out of storage, cleaned, reframed and it now hung above the splendid white marble fireplace.
“In its rightful place!” murmured one of Kathryn’s friends to another.
Kathryn Rylance had been such a beautiful gracious woman! How sad that she couldn’t have been here on this day of days, the wedding of her only son. All agreed that Zara was the image of her, both in looks and in manner. All had decided Miranda had deliberately thrown her bouquet to her sister-in-law. Didn’t that declare to the whole world that the two young women were very close? No one had seen such happiness in the Rylance household for far too long.
The King is dead. Long live the King!
By one o’clock in the morning the last of the guests departed in chauffeured limousines that stood waiting for them. This service had been planned well in advance, the thinking being that, very few would be in any condition to drive their own cars. One woman guest was so grateful and maybe so tipsy she started to cry.
“How enormously thoughtful!” she gushed as the chauffeur opened the door for her and her husband.
Her husband, an eminent barrister, agreed. “We’d never get home otherwise, my dear.”
“God bless you, Corin, old son!” another male guest yelled at the top of his voice amid more cheering. “This entire day has been perfect!”
Everyone knew a love match when they saw one. It was enough to make you bawl your eyes out with joy!
At long, long last the house was empty. The army of caterers had attended to every last detail of the clean up before packing their things and leaving. Corin’s housekeeper and the major domo, Hannah and Gil McBride, a very efficient couple in their late forties, taken on by Corin, had retired to their own secluded quarters perhaps an hour ago. Their comfortable bungalow was set in the grounds screened by a grove of luxuriant golden canes and only a short walk to the main house by way of an adjoining covered path.
Zara now felt free to roam.
Garrick had gone on with a party of revellers who obviously had no intention of allowing the night to end. She had no idea when and if he would be back but if he did he knew how to handle the state-of-the-art security system. Lord knew he’d made a huge impression on a number of young women looking for a rich handsome husband. The one in the beautiful blue dress came to mind—Lisa something. She had overheard Lisa telling a highly interested friend, “Garrick is simply gorgeous! He makes me go weak at the knees!”
She wasn’t the only one.
Include yourself!
Silently, Zara wandered in and out of the huge reception rooms, pausing to admire all over again the glorious flower arrangements. It was she who had suggested the florist to Miranda. Wayne was acknowledged as one of the country’s most creative florists and one of the most expensive by a country mile. Wayne had supplied all the flowers for the wedding, the exquisite bouquets for bride and bridesmaids, church, reception and the house. The effects were stunning. No expense had been spared. He could possibly retire if he so chose.
Someone once said the scent of a flower was its soul. She stooped to inhale the intoxicating sweetness of masses and masses of white gardenias arranged in a very tall famille verte Chinese vase with long trailing sprays of jasmine. The whole arrangement was supported by fig branches with their green fruit. She remembered her mother had often used this particular vase for her arrangements. Out of nowhere, she was assailed by the vision and, strangely, the unmistakable perfume of pink frangipani branches. Her mother had liked to mix them in with pink or red azaleas. She retained a little snapshot of her childhood—she and her mother picking armloads from the garden, the two of them so happy, so much the loving mother and daughter. No one should have to lose their mother. It was an awful business. She had mourned her father and, to a degree, Leila. Death required attention. But in no way had their deaths caused the enormous grief and feeling of utter loss she had suffered when she and Corin had lost their mother. Neither her father nor Leila had had room in their lives for her.
Tears pricked her eyes. One of the first things Corin had done after the death of their father was to go in search of their mother’s portrait. It had been painted by a famous Italian artist, commissioned by their father not long after the marriage. Their father had had it taken down within days of her death. She remembered with a feeling of pride that she had found the courage to volubly protest, Corin even more stridently. The two of them had all but yelled at their domineering, autocratic father. To no avail. Neither of them had had any idea where the painting had been stored. Not in the house. They had looked, risking severe discipline. Corin had finally located the painting in an art dealer’s storeroom.
“You’re so very beautiful, Mummy,” she whispered, looking up at the bravura portrait of her mother in her wedding gown. The irony of it—her wedding gown! “I’m sure you were here today. I felt you. So did Corin. So did Nan. We love you so much.”
For the first time she spotted a single white rose of exquisite form and fragrance tied with a silver ribbon. It lay on the white marble mantelpiece at the base of the portrait. She picked it up, curious to know who had put it there.
The tiny silver and white card said simply: From Miranda.
That a gesture could be so perfect!
Still holding the white rose, she went about quietly turning off banks of switches that controlled the lighting. She would take the rose upstairs with her. Pop it in a bud vase and keep it beside her bed. It was all so extraordinary when one thought about it. Lovely little Miranda, with her essential goodness and brightness, was Leila’s daughter. Hard to realise, given Leila’s cold, calculating, selfabsorbed nature. The connection had not come out—Corin had made sure of that. Not that it was the worst story in the world, but it was somewhat bizarre. No one had commented on the fact that Miranda had been given away by her New Zealand grandfather, a distinguished professor of medicine. Nor that a New Zealand cousin had made a beautiful bridesmaid. Maybe someone would uncover the true story as the years passed. It would make no difference to Corin and Miranda. Nor to her and her grandparents. Garrick was the only one who had raised a question about what appeared to have gone over everyone else’s head. But Garrick didn’t know.
Radiant moonlight was coming in through the many tall windows and the side lights of the front door. She could easily see her way across the entrance hall. She planned to leave a few lights on for Garrick, anyway. He had such a powerful effect on women. Always had, even if he had been genuinely unaware of it. Yet the highly eligible Garrick seemed no more successful at putting back the pieces than she was. The one had altered the life of the other.
She felt anger rising in her at her father’s multiple deceptions. The way he had worked on her to strip her of all confidence. Her father, therefore, had been her enemy. Good fathers affirmed their children’s value. She had received no such validation from him. She had to accept, too, that somewhere along the line Garrick must have become a point of bitter antagonism. When one considered it, her father had shown all the signs of pathological jealousy. Business giant or not, Dalton Rylance had been a very strange man.
She had only walked a few feet