I’d been here a couple of times before, and I was always struck that Cotswolds Margot wasn’t the aunt we knew: the one with the Mayfair penthouse and the driver. Cotswolds Margot was usually far more relaxed and laissez-faire. Which version were we going to see today?
When we pulled up, Katy killed the engine and sat for a moment, staring at the cottage through the windscreen. Thenshe thumped the steering wheel with the heel of her hand and blew out a long breath.
“Right. Before we go in there and potentially have our hearts ripped out again, I need you to know something.” She turned to face me properly. “Whatever you decide about the company — keep it, sell it, turn it into a bloody artisan cheese operation — I’m with you. After how she’s behaved, my half is your half. Margot doesn’t get to steamroller us anymore.”
Hearing those words, it was as if someone had lifted a crushing weight from my chest. For months, I’d felt like I was fighting this battle alone, carrying the responsibility for both our futures. But here she was, my big sister, finally standing beside me.
I was not going to cry before we even got in the door.
“Katy—”
“I mean it, Pops. I’ve been a rubbish sister, letting you carry all this alone. But you can count on me from now on. And who knows, once the girls are in nursery, I might even want a job.”
She gave me her cheesiest grin, and it lightened the mood, even though tears still pricked my eyes. However, these weren’t the frustrated, angry tears I’d been crying of late. These were tears of gratitude that somebody was finally in my corner.
“Oh, and I wanted to give you this.” She held out a blue box.
I knew what was inside: Mum’s favourite Montblanc pen. I started to protest, but Katy shook her head.
“You earned this. Mum’s pen should be involved in running the company. It should be yours. She would have wanted you to have it, too.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But honestly? The thing I want most from today isn’t about the company. I want our family back. I want to understand how Margot could keep secrets from us, lie to us, and still expect us to trust her. I want my aunt back, not this corporate stranger.”
Katy nodded, then reached over to squeeze my hand. “Then let’s go get some answers. And maybe our aunt back too, if she’s still in there somewhere.”
Margot answered the door in jeans and a jumper. Without her usual designer armour — even though I’d no doubt the jeans and jumper were a label — she looked more fragile. The vulnerability in her eyes was stark and immediate.
“I’ve been expecting you,” she said simply, stepping aside to let us in.
The interior was nothing like her gleaming London pad. Here, there were exposed beams and worn flagstones, along with mismatched furniture that actually looked lived-in. Books were stacked on a dresser and a side table, her reading glasses abandoned on the coffee table. Margot actually relaxed here.
We got water and settled in the lounge, the windows partially open to let in some July air. A cafetiere of coffee was half-drunk, the dirty coffee cup sat next to it. Margot motioned for us to sit on the sofa, while she sat on the armchair opposite. She took a deep breath, then looked at us with defiance.
“I know you’re both furious with me, and you have every right to be. To the outside, what I did looks terrible. But there’s something you need to understand about why I pushed so hard for the sale. And not just any sale: the right sale.”
Katy and I exchanged glances from the sofa, its cushions soft with age and use.
“Your mother came to me,” Margot continued, and my blood went cold.
Not more visitations.
My mum was not relaxed in death.
“Not in a dream, not in some mystical vision,” Margot clarified. “She came to me three weeks before she died. It was almost as if she had a premonition her aneurysm was going to happen.” She shook her head, remembering, her face grey.“Anyway, she was very insistent. She made me promise to sell the company if anything ever happened to her.”
That snippet of information sucked all the air from my body. Beside me, Katy went rigid. I reached out and took her hand.
She squeezed it tight.
“She said she couldn’t bear the thought of you two carrying that burden, especially you, Poppy. She’d asked you, and you’d told her you wanted nothing to do with it. She knew how the responsibility ate away at relationships and happiness. She wanted you both to be free to choose your own path without the weight of family legacy crushing you.”
“But she loved Voss,” I said. “It was everything to her.”
“She loved you more.” Margot’s voice cracked, and she balled both her fists in her lap. “She made me swear I wouldn’t tell you. She wanted it to seem like business, like my decision. That’s why I was so adamant about selling, but I had to wait for the right buyer so we could secure the Goldloch jobs. I was keeping a promise to her. I never intended to undermine or hurt you.”
The cottage seemed to spin around me. Every assumption I’d made about Mum’s wishes, about honouring her memory, about my duty to the family legacy — it was all bullshit. She’d actually wanted the complete opposite.
I thought back to all the times with Sage, what she’d said. Mum had sent me warnings, and told me she was proud. She’d never said she wanted me to run the company. I’d read that into it because of her life.
