Revenge For Love - Chapter 20 Its Only Just Begun

Pausing to clear his throat, Riley looked from Philip to Charlotte to her sons, Jason and Joel, and then he began to read Cyril’s words again: “In the interest of fairness, I have divided the rest of my estate as evenly as possible between my remaining heirs. To my son, Philip Edward Bancroft, I bequeath all my stock, and my entire interest in, Bancroft & Company, a department store which constitutes approximately one fourth of my entire estate.”

Meredith heard it, but she couldn’t make sense of it. “In the interest of fairness” he’d left his only child one fourth of his estate? Surely, if he meant to divide everything evenly, his wife was entitled to no more than one half, not three fourths.

And then, as if from a distance, she heard the attorney finish, “To my wife, Charlotte, and my legally adopted sons, Jason and Joel, I leave equal shares in the remaining three fourths of my estate. further stipulate that Charlotte Bancroft is to act as trustee over Jason and Joel’s portion until such time as they have both attained the age of thirty.”

The words legally adopted tore at Meredith’s heart as she saw the look of betrayal flash across her father’s ashen face. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at Charlotte; she returned his stare unflinchingly while a smile of malicious triumph spread across her face. “You conniving bitch!” he said between his teeth. “You said you’d get him to adopt them, and you did.”

“I warned you years ago that I would. I’m warning you now that our score still isn’t settled,” she added, her smile widening as if she was thriving on his fury. “Think about that, Philip. Lie awake at night, wondering where I’ll strike you next and what I’ll take away from you. Lie awake, wondering and worrying, just like you made me lie awake eighteen years ago.”

The bones of his face stood out as he clamped his jaws to stop himself from dignifying that with a reply. Meredith tore her gaze from the two of them and looked at Charlotte’s sons. Jason’s face was a replica of his mother’striumphant and malicious. Joel was frowning at his shoes. Joel is soft, Meredith’s father had said years ago. Charlotte and Jason are like greedy barracudas, but at least you know what to expect of them. The younger boy, Joel, makes my skin crawlthere’s something strange about him.

As if he sensed that Meredith was looking at him, Joel glanced up, his expression carefully non committal. He didn’t look strange to Meredith or at all threatening. In fact, when she’d last seen him on the occasion of the wedding, Joel had gone out of his way to be nice to her. At the time, Meredith had felt sorry for him because his mother openly preferred Jason, and Jason, who was two years older, seemed to feel nothing for his brother but contempt.

Suddenly Meredith couldn’t stand the oppressive atmosphere in the room any longer. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said to the lawyer, who was spreading some papers out on the desk, “I’ll wait outside until you’re finished.”

“You’ll need to sign these papers, Miss Bancroft.”

“I’ll sign them before you leave, after my father has read them.”

Instead of going upstairs, Meredith decided to go outside. It was getting dark and she wandered down the steps, letting the evening breeze cool her face. Behind her, the front door opened, and she turned, thinking it was the lawyer calling her back inside. Joel stood there, arrested in midstep, as startled as she by their confrontation. He hesitated as if he wanted to remain but wasn’t certain he was welcome.

It had been hammered into her head that one was always gracious to anyone who was one’s guest, so Meredith tried to smile. “It’s nice out here, isn’t it?”

Joel nodded, accepting the unspoken invitation to join her if he wished, and he walked down the steps. At twenty-three, he was shorter by several inches than his older brother, and not as attractive as Jason. He stood, looking at her, as if unable to think what to say.

“You’ve changed,” he finally said.

“I imagine I have. I was eleven years old the last time I saw you.”

“After what just happened in there, you must wish to God you’d never laid eyes on any of us.” Still a little dazed by the terms of her grandfather’s will and unable to assimilate what it all meant in terms of the future, Meredith shrugged. “Tomorrow I may feel that way. Right now I just feelnumb.”

“I’d like you to know” he said haltingly, “that I didn’t plot to steal your grandfather’s affection or his money from your father.”

Unable to either hate him or forgive him for cheating her father of his rightful inheritance, Meredith sighed and looked up at the sky. “What did your mother mean in thereabout settling a score with my father?”

“All I know is that they’ve hated each other for as long as I can remember. I have no idea what started it, but I do know my mother won’t stop until she’s satisfied with her revenge.”

“God, what a mess!”

“Lady,” he replied with deadly certainty, “it’s only just begun.”

A chill raced up Meredith’s spine at that grim prophecy, and she snapped her gaze from the sky to his face, but he merely lifted his brows and refused to elaborate.