‘Happy birthday to you…’
Everyone joined in, Ollie jumped up and down, and the people dearest to her looked at her expectantly.
“Blow out the candles and make a wish, dear,” her mother murmured, giving her a look that said so much more than words.
Did she dare?
Evie took a deep breath and wished for the one thing that seemed almost impossible. A future with the three men she was falling in love with.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
EVIE
“We have a surprise for you,” Evie’s mother murmured after everyone had gone and Ollie had been tucked up in bed.
“You shouldn’t have,” she admonished. They’d already spoiled her, and tomorrow was Christmas Day, so there would be even more gifts. But if there was one thing her parents had always strived to do, it was to demarcate her birthday and Christmas as two distinct celebrations. Evie had appreciated it as a child. It was too easy to buy a single present and call it a gift for both days. Now she was older, it didn’t bother her at all, but she guessed it was ingrained in her Mom and Dad after thirty years.
“Well, this is actually a gift from your Nana Rose,” her father clarified, and Evie frowned; her father’s mother had passed away almost five years ago, when Ollie had just been a baby.
Leaning towards the side table, he picked up an envelope and handed it to her.
Evie stared at her grandmother’s elegant, looping handwriting, uncertain how she felt about receiving what almost amounted to communication from a ghost.
“Open it,” her mother encouraged with a soft smile.
Evie’s fingers shook slightly as she peeled open the heavy vellum envelope, and Evie could swear a waft of Nana Rose’s signature rosewater perfume drifted into the air, like the woman’s presence was in the room with them.
The paper quivered as she drew it out, and Evie had to blink twice before she made sense of it. Once, because she was overcome with emotion, and again because she couldn’t quite believe what she was reading. “This can’t be right,” she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t understand.”
“Your grandmother bequeathed this house to you in her will,” her father explained what Evie’s eyes couldn’t comprehend. “But I’m afraid she was no big fan of Adrian’s. She was suspicious of him, so she insisted the property and the money be held in trust until you turned thirty.”
“M-money?” Evie repeated, her head spinning.
Her mother gently pulled another sheet of paper from the envelope that Evie had missed, and her eyes widened when she saw the number of noughts.
Words failed her. This was life changing.
“Rose was a wealthy woman, but we strove to bring you up as normally as we could, with a healthy appreciation for the simpler things in life. Exactly the way she brought me up,” her father continued.
“Though you have no idea how much we wanted to tell you about her bequest this past year, when everything was so hard for you,” her mother added.
“I never wanted for anything,” Evie whispered. “Yes, I felt like a bit of a failure having to move back home, but I always knew I was welcome. Always knew it was an option.”
She cocked her head on one side, thinking back. The thoughts were uncomfortable. “Adrian always thought Nana Rose had money. He used to wonder how she came to own such a big house, and how she could afford to keep it.”
Was that why he’d dated her? She’d told him stories of the big house she grew up in, while they were at university, and how much she missed it. Was it her imagination, or had his interest grown after she’d shown him photos of the grand country house?
Evie shook herself. No, it couldn’t be.
Edward exchanged glances with Sally and sighed. “I don’t know quite why my mother was so adamant about it, but she wrapped her will up tight. There were several clauses. If you turned thirty and you and Adrian were still married, then everything stayed in trust until you were thirty-five, without you being any the wiser. She’d have tied it up for longer but finally conceded that if Adrian stuck around that long, then perhaps she was wrong about him. But she didn’t think he’d last the distance, so if you were divorced beforehand, you would receive your trust at thirty.”
And she’d been right. What had her grandmother seen that Evie hadn’t?
Another thought occurred to her. “I always wondered why you never sold the place when you complained it was too big for you.”
Her mother laughed. “Now that’s your problem. Your father and I plan to move out in the new year.”
