Read Online Guardian to the Heiress by Margaret Way - Free Book Online Page B

thrown out of the family home, a home he had confidently expected to be his. Carol’s position could be seen as hazardous.
    All Selwyn Chancellor’s pet charities got a huge slice, as expected, so too medical research, the arts, the State Art Gallery, the museum, endowments to the state university, legacies to this one and that one, loyal henchmen. The old devil had even left a hefty sum to the Dairy Farmers’ Association, for God’s sake.
    “Save the cows!” Troy cried. “I bet they’ll be delighted.”
    “When are we expected to move out?” Dallas asked with barely banked molten rage. When his mother made a point, she wanted people really to feelit. It was a mystery to Troy his parents hadn’t split up. His father was still a very handsome man, whereas his mother had taken some kind of savage pleasure in letting herself go.
    Carol took a moment to answer. “There’s absolutely no hurry. I intend to keep a low profile, or as low as I can get. I intend to complete my law degree, which will be at the end of next year. The house is big enough for all of us, should I decide to spend time here—which, I must tell you, I will—long weekends, vacations, that sort of thing. And, before you ask, you have the use of the Point Piper house until I sell it.”
    Dallas reared back as though she’d been walloped. “Sell?” The sheer audacity of the girl! Had she no respect? Her solid body shook as if hit by successive earthquake tremors.
    Troy in his turn muttered a violent oath.
    “That’s the idea,” Carol continued calmly. “It will take time for me, with the help of Mr Hunter and others, to study my grandfather’s wishes. As we saw from his will, my grandfather remained a great philanthropist to the end.”
    “Ah, yes, the great man in public. Something very different in private,” Maurice Chancellor lamented.
    “I saw far too little of him to judge,” Carol replied. “I consider I have a responsibility passed on to me, public or otherwise, to do good in this world.”
    “Good?” Troy had become as pugnacious as his mother. “Why don’t you open the house to the starving homeless?” he suggested wildly. “Or turn it into a holy place and give it to the Church. What about a holiday home for the Dalai Lama? What the hell are you on about, Carol? Do you have the faintest idea what that modest little pile is worth?”
    “It so happens she does, Troy,” Damon broke in, in a voice that halted any further inquiry. “Carol is not here to answer questions.”
    Troy backed off, still glaring his defiance.
    “This is a nightmare!” Dallas exclaimed, desperately wishing for Carol to disappear to parts unknown. “What on earth am I going to tell my friends?”
    “ What friends, Mother?” Troy asked quite viciously.
    “Blessings on you, too, dear.” Dallas shot him a fierce broadside.
    “Mind how you speak to your mother, Troy,” Maurice Chancellor intervened half-heartedly. He was sick to death of the two of them, wife and son. They gave him no respect, no affection.
    Damon began to push Selwyn Chancellor’s last will and testament with its copy into his briefcase, allowing a couple of loose sheets of paper to fall onto the magnificent carpet. “Litigation is out of the question,” he said quietly as he bent to retrieve them. “My client is Selwyn Chancellor’s daughter by his elder son, his heir. It’s fitting, given the past, that reparation be made.”
    “And what circumstances would that be?” Dallas demanded, howling her shock and rage, as good as any theatrical performance.
    Damon fixed his brilliant dark eyes on her. “I would think you would know, Mrs Chancellor. As a family, you did not support her. It will take time for Carol to see her way clearly. She will get every support from me and others appointed by her grandfather. My client has told me in advance she is prepared to be reasonable in all matters. I would suggest the family present a united front to avoid a media circus. We all