Tower of Shadows
Sara Craven
Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
SABINE opened the front door with her latch-key and walked into the hall. She stood for a moment, looking round her, waiting for the onrush of some emotion—nostalgia, maybe, or regret. But all she felt was a strange emptiness.
The house, she thought, was like a vacuum, waiting for the personalities of its new owners to fill it.
There’s nothing for me here, she told herself. But then, after Maman died, there never really was.
She wished she hadn’t come, but Mr Braybrooke had been most insistent.
‘You and Miss Russell must meet to discuss the division of the contents. There are still clothes, I understand, and personal items which will need to be disposed of.’
Something in Sabine recoiled from the idea.
She said, ‘I suppose—a charity shop.’
‘By all means. But surely there will be keepsakes—small pieces of furniture, perhaps, that you will wish to have?’
Sabine shrugged. ‘Just Maman’s jewellery. She stated in her own will it was to come to me when Dad died.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure he would have wanted me to have anything else. There were times during these last couple of years when I felt he hated me. That’s why, in the end, I stayed away.’
Mr Braybrooke looked pained. ‘But you were Mr Russell’s only child, my dear, and you must not doubt that he loved you, even if he didn’t always make it perfectly apparent.’
Sabine sighed. ‘Be honest, Mr Braybrooke. He left the house, his only tangible asset, jointly to my aunt and myself. I imagine you had to fight like a tiger to secure me even that half of his estate.’ She looked at him, brows lifted. ‘That’s so, isn’t it?’
His expression changed to embarrassment. ‘I really cannot reveal private discussions with a client.’
Sabine nodded. ‘I knew I was right,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s all right, Mr Braybrooke. I’ve managed to come to terms with it all. I think Dad was the kind of person who could only love one person in his life. He loved Maman, and when she died she took everything. I must have been a constant reminder of her, and he couldn’t bear it.’
Mr Braybrooke looked at her for a long moment. Then he said gently, ‘I don’t think, my dear, that your father was always very wise.’
Standing silent in the hall now, Sabine let herself feel once more the pain of Hugh Russell’s rejection of her. Her hands curled slowly into fists, the nails scoring the soft palms until she winced, and let them relax again.
Then squaring her shoulders, she crossed to the drawing-room door, and threw it open.
‘So you came.’ Aunt Ruth was occupying the wing chair beside the empty grate, her hands busy with the inevitable piece of knitting. Across the room, Sabine could sense her hostility, and wondered how much influence she’d exerted over her brother in those last years.
She said quietly, ‘Not by choice, but the house has to be cleared. I see that. When is the sale due to be completed?’
‘On Friday.’ Ruth Russell’s lips were compressed into their usual taut line. ‘I’ve prepared an inventory of the furniture, and ticked those pieces to which I’m particularly attached.’
‘That’s fine. We can send the remainder to a saleroom.’
Miss Russell stared at her. ‘There’s nothing you want?’
Sabine glanced round the once familiar room. She had her own flat now, light and bright and filled with the things she herself had carefully chosen. She had her own life. She wanted no hang-ups from the past to shadow the future. And yet…
She said, ‘Only Maman’s jewellery, thank you.’
‘That absurd name.’ Miss Russell’s face showed a sudden, unbecoming flush. ‘Take her trinkets. I don’t want them.’
‘No,’ Sabine said meditatively. ‘You never liked her, did you?’
‘Hugh could have married anyone.’ This was clearly an old and bitter theme. ‘Instead he chose a foreigner—a girl with no background—no class.’
‘The French had a revolution once,’ Sabine pointed out mildly. ‘It was supposed to wipe out that kind of thinking, and replace it with liberty, equality and brotherhood.’ She looked pointedly at the busy hands. ‘A lot of knitting went on then, too.’
‘You are—insolent.’
‘Yes,’ Sabine agreed wearily. ‘But I tried being polite for a long time, Aunt Ruth, and it got me nowhere. Your dislike for Maman was handed down to me, wasn’t it? I often wondered why. I was your brother’s child, after all.’
‘Oh, no, you were not.’
The words were uttered with such venom that Sabine’s head jerked back in shock. She felt as astonished as if the older woman had got out of her chair suddenly, and struck her across the face.
She said, faltering a little, ‘What did you say?’
‘I said you were not my brother’s child.’ The words seemed squeezed between the compressed lips. They were staccato with a violence and bitterness which Sabine, stunned, guessed had been suppressed for years. ‘Your mother—that precious Maman you speak about with such reverence—was nothing but a common slut. She was already pregnant when Hugh met her. She was living as au pair with the Drummonds—such a nice family—and he went there to dinner. Mrs Drummond was distraught when she realised Isabelle’s condition. She turned her out of the house, and rightly so—contaminating innocent children.’ Her breath rasped harshly.
‘She was over six months gone, when he