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Her blue eyes dance back at me and I know she’s thinking the same.
‘It’s the truth,’ I swiftly add, which only makes her eyes dance more. ‘Hell will freeze over before my mother gets any more of Gran’s wealth—movable or otherwise.’
‘“Movable or otherwise”?’ She frowns.
‘It’s a legal definition. Things are classified as movable or immovable. In Scottish law you can’t disinherit your own children as far as the movable assets go.’
‘So, you’re saying Katherine had no choice but to give her something?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But not Glenrobin...the castle, the land...?’
‘If I’m honest, I’m not sure Gran would have left her anything by choice.’
‘Really?’
‘Really, what?’
‘Katherine never wrote her off in life—why do you think she’d do such a thing in death?’
I shrug. ‘Gran spent her entire adult life trying to make up for the way things had been when my mother was a child. Perhaps this was a last-ditch attempt at making her see the error of her ways.’
She scoffs, the chip on her shoulder coming to the fore. ‘Like she had such a tough time of it.’
‘You haven’t changed your tune.’
She gives a harsh laugh. ‘Edward. Your mother wasn’t abandoned or rejected; she was spoilt rotten. Everything she wanted she got. Katherine told me how hard she tried to make up for her lack of a father and getting pregnant so young...how hard she tried to protect her from the disappointment that rained down on them from her high society parents. She forgave her everything.’
‘But money and indulgence don’t make up for love...’
And isn’t that what Gran is trying to tell me in her letter? For all the money I’ve earned, the success I’ve achieved in business, none of it has brought contentment, true happiness.
‘Katherine loved her.’
There’s a vehemence to her tone, and I hold her gaze as I tell her the truth Gran once told me. ‘She didn’t know how to love her—not back when she was a child, during all those influential years that shaped her into who she became. Gran was fifteen when my mother was born. Scared and emotionally cut off from her parents. All she had was their money—and she showered her daughter with it.’
‘She showered her with love too. She always cared. Unlike...’
She looks away, her eyes going to the fire as she loses herself in her own thoughts. Her own past. Her own childhood. A mother who didn’t fight to keep her...didn’t want her, even.
‘She could have done a lot worse than having Katherine for a mother.’
‘On that we agree.’
My tone is gruff as I read her every thought and feel her pain like a fresh wound. A wound I want to heal even though it isn’t my place—not any more. And she wouldn’t want me to either. The only person capable of healing her is herself. That was what she always said and what she still stands by now, I’m sure.
‘But who knows? Maybe Gran was right to cut her off now. Maybe it will make her question her life choices and have something of an epiphany.’
Her laugh is hollow. ‘Do you truly believe that?’
‘I can hope. My relationship with my father has improved over the years...maybe there’s hope for my mother yet.’
A slow smile builds on her lips, and her eyes start to sparkle. ‘Have you become an optimist in your old age?’
‘Ha! Less of the old.’ But I’m smiling, the sudden lightness far more preferable to the severity that preceded it. ‘And, no, I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘Happy, then?’
