"No deal," said Mark, breaking in as he moved into the corridor.
"It's not your decision to make."
"Right. So phone your father on the landline and put the offer to him. If you give me five minutes I'll make sure he answers."
"He won't listen to me."
"Congratulations!" Mark muttered sardonically. "That's the second time you've got something right in under a minute."
"Christ! You really are a patronizing bastard. Do you want our cooperation, or not?"
Mark stared at the corridor wall. "I don't view a demand for reinstatement as cooperation, Leo, and neither will your father. Nor am I prepared to test him on it because you and Lizzie will be dead in the water from the moment I open my mouth." He stroked his jaw. "Here's why. Your niece-Lizzie's daughter-has been in this house since ten o'clock this morning. Your father would give her the entire estate tomorrow if she'd agree to accept it… but she won't. She has an Oxford degree, she's a captain in the army, and she's due to inherit her family's two-thousand-acre farm in Herefordshire. The reason she's here is because your father wrote to her in a moment of depression, and she cared enough to follow it up. She expects nothing from him… wants nothing from him. She came with no ulterior motive except to be kind… and your father's besotted with her as a result."
"And showing it, I suppose," the other man said with a trace of bitterness. "So how would she be doing if he was treating her like a criminal? Not so well, I'll bet. It's easy to be nice to the old man when he treats you like royalty… bloody hard when you get the bum's rush."
Mark might have said, "You brought it on yourself," but he didn't. "Have you ever thought he might feel the same? Someone has to call a truce."
"Have you told him that?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"A little help in the present situation would go a long way."
"Why does it always have to be me who makes the first move?" There was a muted laugh at the other end. "Do you know why he called me the other day? To rant about my thieving. I got the whole catalogue from the time I was seventeen to the present day. And from that he deduced that I killed my mother in anger, then embarked on a campaign of vilification to blackmail him into handing over the estate. There's no forgiveness in my father's nature. He took a view of my character while I was still at home, and he refuses to change it." Another laugh. "I came to the conclusion long ago that I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb."
"You could try surprising him," suggested Mark.
"You mean like the squeaky-clean granddaughter? Are you sure you've found the right girl? She doesn't sound like any Lockyer-Fox I've ever met."
"Your father thinks she's a cross between your grandmother and your mother."
"Point made then. They were only Lockyer-Foxes by marriage. Is she pretty? Does she look like Lizzie?"
"No. Tall and dark-more like you as a matter of fact, but with brown eyes. You should be grateful for that. If she had blue eyes I might have believed Becky."
Another laugh. "And if it had been anyone but Becky who'd said it, I might have let you… just for the amusement factor. She's a jealous little bitch… had it in for Lizzie from the start. I blame you, as a matter of fact. You made Becky think she was important. Bad mistake. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen. It's the only way if you don't want to ruin them for the next man that comes along."
"I'm not into revolving doors, Leo. I'd rather have a wife and kids."
There was a brief hesitation. "Then you'd better forget anything you learned at school, my friend. It's a myth that blue-eyed parents can't produce brown-eyed children. Ma was an expert on genetic throwbacks. It made her feel better about herself to blame her children's addictions and her father's alcoholism on some distant ancestor who belonged to the Hellfire Club." Another pause to see if Mark would bite, and when he didn't: "Don't worry. I can guarantee that Lizzie's baby was nothing to do with me. Apart from anything else, I never fancied her enough to sleep with her… not after she started going with riffraff, anyway."
This time Mark did bite. "What riffraff?"
"Irish tinkers that Peter Squires brought in to mend his fences. He had them camping in a field over one summer. It was pretty funny, actually. Ma made a tit of herself by taking the children's education in hand, then went ballistic when she discovered Lizzie was being shafted by one of them."
"When was this?"
"What's it worth?"
"Nothing. I'll ask your father."
"He won't know. He was away at the time… and Ma never told him. The whole thing was kept very hush-hush in case the neighbors found out. Even I didn't know till later. I was in France for four weeks, and by the time I got back Ma had put Lizzie under lock and key. It was a mistake. She should have let it run its natural course."
"Why?"
"First love," said Leo cynically. "No one was ever as good again. It was the beginning of the slippery slope for my poor sister."
Nancy put all her effort into her thigh muscles and, with an unsteady lurch, rose to her feet with Wolfie sitting on her left hip. It would take a feather to knock her down again, but she prayed the old woman wouldn't realize that. "Move away from the door, please, Mrs. Dawson. Wolfie and I are going downstairs now."
Vera shook her head. "Fox wants his boy."
"No."
Negatives disturbed her. She began smacking her fists together again. "He belongs to Fox."
"No," said Nancy even more forcefully. "If Fox ever had any rights as a parent, he forfeited them when he took Wolfie from his mother. Parenthood isn't about ownership, it's about duty of care, and Fox has failed to show this child any care at all. You, too, Mrs. Dawson. Where were you when Wolfie and his mother needed help?
Wolfie pressed his lips to her ear. "Cub, too," he whispered urgently. "Don't forget li'l Cub."
She had no idea who or what Cub was, but she didn't want to take her attention from Vera. "Cub, too," she repeated. "Where were you for little Cub, Mrs. Dawson?"
But Vera didn't seem to know who Cub was either and, like Prue Weldon, fell back on what she knew. "He's a good boy. You put your feet up, Ma, he says. What's Bob ever done for you except treat you like a skivvy? He'll get his comeuppance, don't you worry."
Nancy frowned. "Does that mean Fox isn't Bob's son?"
The old woman's confusion intensified. "He's my boy."
Nancy gave the half-smile that was so reminiscent of James's. It would have been a warning to the old woman if she'd been capable of interpreting it. "So people were right to call you a whore?"
"It's Lizzie was the whore," she hissed. "She lay with other men."
"Good," said Nancy, hoisting Wolfie higher on her hip. "Because I couldn't give a damn how many men she slept with-just so long as Fox isn't my father… and you aren't my grandmother. Now, will you move… because there is no way I am going to allow a murdering old bitch to take Wolfie from me. You aren't fit to look after anything, let alone a child."
Vera almost danced with frustration. "You're so high and mighty… just like her. She's the one took babies away. All puffed up with her good works… making out she knew more than Vera did. You're not a suitable mother, she said. I can't allow it. Is that fair? Doesn't Vera have rights, too?" Up came the finger. "Do this… do that… Who cares about Vera's feelings?"
It was like listening to a stylus jump tracks on a worn record to produce unrelated bursts of sound. The theme was recognizable but the pieces lacked cohesion and continuity. Who was she talking about now? Nancy wondered. Ailsa? Had Ailsa made a decision about Vera's fitness as a mother? It seemed unlikely-on whose authority could she do it?-but it might explain Vera's bizarre remark about "knowing her baby when she saw it."