Unexpected Blessings. Barbara Taylor Bradford

in the restaurant, and perhaps browse around in the store. She might even buy herself a hat, although she knew she wasn’t going anywhere special to wear it. But she’d always loved hats.

      Normally she would have gone to Harte’s in Knightsbridge for coffee, but she was afraid of running into Evan. They were supposed to be in Connecticut, not here, were not due in London until next week. Owen had decided to come earlier than planned. ‘To give us time to get over our jet lag,’ he had said, but she knew this was just a ploy. He had wanted to arrive sooner than expected in order to take Evan by surprise, to catch her off-guard.

      Marietta hadn’t liked that at all, but she had kept quiet. Long ago she had learned not to argue with Owen. So most of the time she kept her own counsel; however this did not prevent her from drawing her own conclusions and she knew she was right when it came to his attitude towards their daughter.

      Owen had always believed he owned Evan. Certainly he behaved as if he did. He had taken their daughter over years ago, when she was very young, and he had pushed her out. She had lost Evan because of his possessiveness, and also because of her own mistakes, perhaps. She gripped the shopping bag tighter, her knuckles whitening over the handles as she thought of the past. Sometimes you did something, just a small thing, and yet it could have the most terrible and far-reaching consequences.

      The cab came to a stop, and she alighted quickly, paid the driver and went into the bank. It was all so easy … within minutes she was placing the precious package in the safe-deposit box and putting the key in her handbag. Now no harm would come to it; nor could it be lost or stolen.

      It was only much later, when she sat sipping her coffee in Fortnum’s that a terrible thought occurred to Marietta. What if she got sick and died, or was killed in an accident, or became senile? What would happen to the package in the safe-deposit box at the bank? No one but she knew it was there. She would have to tell someone. But who could she confide in?

      Marietta’s mouth twitched slightly in a wry smile. There was nobody she could make her confidant because she did not trust anyone she knew.

      A lawyer, she thought, I need a lawyer. To make a will. Yes, that’s what I have to do. She had a few things of real value to leave. As well as the package in the safe-deposit box. For her daughter Evan. The person she loved the most in the entire world.

      Tomorrow that would be her project. She would set out to find a lawyer. It was imperative.