Barbara Taylor Bradford - Power of a Woman

Chloe. I can’t let her go to London. Chloe alone there at the age of eighteen! No, never. I feel it’s unwise. She’s too young. And she must go to university. She can’t just drop out.

Soon my family will be with me. Well, some of them, and that makes me happy. And each one of us has a lot to be thankful for this November of 1996. And I, in particular, am such a lucky woman. I have so much.

Stevie closed her diary, put it in the desk, and locked the drawer. As she pushed back her chair and rose, she heard the sound of the car on the gravel driveway outside.

Moving to the window, she pulled back the lace curtain and looked out. Her heart lifted when she saw Miles alighting.

He glanced up at the window, saw his mother, and waved.

She waved back, dropped the curtain, and hurried out, almost running down the stairs to the great hall.

MILES JARDINE COULDN’T HELP THINKING THAT AS he and his twin brother grew older, their mother appeared to be getting younger.

That morning she looked like a woman in her mid-thirties, and quite wonderful, as she came down the front steps to greet him and his grandparents. She was wearing a chalk-stripe gray-wool pants suit and a white silk shirt, and she was her usual elegant self.

It struck him that Gideon was correct when he said they were rapidly catching up with her, and that when they were forty-six she herself would still be forty-six, at least in her appearance anyway.

But then, she had been a mere nineteen-year-old when they were born, and she was blessed with youthful looks, thanks to her genes. His grandmother, who would soon be sixty-seven, didn’t look her age either, nor did she seem it. Blair was as youthful as anyone he knew, had great vitality, energy, and an enormous sense of fun.

“Hello, Ma,” Miles said as his mother drew to a standstill in front of him. “You look fabulous.” He smiled at her hugely, dropped the two bags he was carrying, and hugged her to him.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Miles darling,” she responded, smiling back. “And thanks for the compliment.” She drew away and went on down the steps. His eyes followed her as she embraced her mother and then Derek, who had been helping the driver unload the trunk of the car.

Suddenly Cappi and the two local young women who worked with her on weekends were greeting him. One of them grabbed his suitcases despite his protestations that he could manage perfectly well; she paid no attention, simply departed with the luggage.

Miles shrugged to himself and went on down the last few remaining steps, close on the heels of Cappi and her other helper.

But when he heard Chloe calling his name, he paused, swung around, and a second later his sister was hurtling into his arms.

“Hi, Pumpkin,” he exclaimed, and gave her a big bear hug.

“I’ve been waiting all morning for you, Miles; you’re late.”

He grinned at her. “I think I’m early actually, kid. We weren’t due until noon, and it was just eleven thirty as we turned into the gates. Anyway, how’re things at Romany Hall?”

“Okay,” she answered laconically. There was a slight pause, then she added softly, “But I want to—” She broke off abruptly, as if she had changed her mind.

“Come on, Pumpkin, what were you going to tell me?”

“Oh, nothing…it was nothing important, honestly.”

Miles thought otherwise, but he made no comment, as always discreet. “Come on, then, let’s help Cappi and Lola with all that stuff. When the Rayners travel, it’s like old-style royalty on the move. And God only knows what they bring with them.”

“The kitchen sink,” Chloe chortled. “That’s what Mom says anyway. She told me earlier that they’d arrive with two dozen suitcases plus the kitchen sink.”

“Not quite, but almost,” Miles agreed, laughing with his sister.

They went down to the driveway holding hands. Chloe glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “So you didn’t bring Allison.”

Miles threw her an odd look. “Now, why would I bring her?”

“Bring who?” Derek asked as he braced himself for Chloe’s enthusiastic hugs and kisses.

Stevie stared at her son, waiting to hear his response to her stepfather’s question.

Glancing at Derek, Miles said, “Nobody. Nobody important, that is.”

Well, at least that’s to the point, Stevie thought. And leaves nothing to our imagination.

“Hello, darling,” Blair murmured, accepting Chloe’s kisses, which were, to her relief, more restrained than those just bestowed on Derek. “And who is Allison?” she asked, casting her glance on them all.

“Don’t look at me; I’ve no idea, my darling,” Derek intoned in his mellifluous actor’s voice and, hoisting two of the valises, went up the steps. Stevie and Blair followed, carrying some of the smaller bags.

After Miles had thanked the driver and tipped him, he too made his way to the front door with Chloe in tow. He said in a pointed voice, “Little pigs not only have big ears, but apparently loose tongues as well.”

Chloe giggled.

“Why did you mention Allison of all people, and in front of our mother? You know she’s longing for me to get married and have kids, so she can have more grandchildren. It was wrong of you, Chloe.”

“Well, you have been seeing a lot of Allison, and I thought it was…” Her voice trailed off lamely; she looked chagrined. And she felt suddenly uncomfortable under his fixed scrutiny.

“That’s my business, kid, not yours.”

“I thought it was getting serious between you two.”

“No. And even if I did have serious intentions, that has nothing to do with you or Mother or anyone else. It’s a private matter and it’s certainly not open for discussion within the family.”

“Oh.” There was a momentary pause, and she looked at him through worried eyes. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, but let’s not discuss my personal business in front of the rest of the family. Okay?”

“Yes, Miles, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Just remember what I said though. You’ve got to learn some discretion. You’re not a little kid anymore, you’re eighteen, and you must start growing up, behaving like an adult.”

Chloe nodded, her face suitably serious for once.

After coffee and hot buttered scones in front of the fire in the great hall, everybody dispersed in different directions. Stevie sent Cappi, Lola, and Chloe to help Blair and Derek unpack their voluminous luggage; Shana, the other young woman who worked with Cappi, took Miles’s bags up to his room. And his mother hurried off to the kitchen, explaining that she had to baste the turkey that was roasting in the oven.

Left alone, Miles wandered down the great hall into the dining room, and then slowly strolled through into the living room which adjoined it. He couldn’t help admiring the ambiance his mother had created in the house. It was immensely seductive, just as it was in her other homes. But he especially liked Romany Hall because it was an airy, spacious house filled with clear, crystalline light that poured in through the many windows upstairs and down, a great number of which were unencumbered by draperies.