Chapter Thirty-three

Shock at the revelation that she was, after all, the rightful owner of the estate that had been in her family for generations? Of course that fact would have to be ratified by a court of law before it was officially hers but, even so, it was good news, wasn’t it?

Nobody would ever be able to take the estate away from her again and in her hands it would be safe. The plant nursery would belong to her once more. It had made a reasonable income. When she was no longer required to pass over all the profits to her father, she would be able to build up the business and look forward to more comfortable takings in the future.

Yet even those rousing prospects failed to comfort her. What she had learned about her only surviving parent had devastated her. Worse still she was looking back and seeing that, although she had chosen to avoid acknowledging it, she had always been a rank outsider in her father’s family circle. She had hovered on the sidelines, eager to please, desperate to make a place