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"The big stretch limousine pulled out of the porte cochere, and I started to cry like a little boy.

" 'You just don't understand,' I said. 'She saw Goblin. And I'm in love with her. She's the most radiant gemstone of a creature that I've ever seen. ' "

Chapter22

22

"THAT NIGHT I connected with Nash as I have connected with few people in my life, and we forged a bond which lasted for my mortal lifetime and beyond it. He sat up with me for hours, comforting me as I poured out my soul, as I agonized over my fatal glimpse of Mona Mayfair.

"I made him privy to every nuance of the panic I'd been experiencing since Lynelle died, and I even dared to tell him in profound words and circuitous sentences of how I feared the recent shifts of emotional temperature in Goblin.

"Of course I told him about the stranger, the stranger in whom no one believed, apparently, and that I expected in short order to be accused of having actually written myself the stranger's letter to me.

"I positively raved about Lynelle's loss. I could do no less when I thought of it.

"Nash's deep voice, his strong arm around my shoulders, his gentle hand on my knee, it was beyond comforting. And there was something about him that was so proper yet relaxed, so inherently gentlemanly yet natural, that I felt I could trust him with my whole soul -- even with the erotic adventures I'd had with my beloved Goblin and my terrifying Rebecca. I even told him about my sleeping with Jasmine.

"What did Nash really believe? Did he think I was insane? I didn't know. I only knew that he was being very honest with me in every word that he spoke and in every gesture. I knew that he respected me, and this respect counted for everything.

"I knew that he felt compassion for me just because I was young, yet he took me seriously, and he said time and again as the night wore on that he understood and remembered what it had been like for him at my age.

"We started our marathon conversation in the front parlor, thankfully deserted early by our few guests, and we ended at the kitchen table, drinking coffee like fuel, though I kept lacing mine with luscious amounts of cream and sugar.

"Only when Big Ramona ran us out did we walk down to the old cemetery, and I told him all about the spirits I'd seen. I told him the things I wanted to tell Mona.

"We were under the big oak when the dawn came with its soft silent and shimmering light, and it was there that I told him I would always love him.

" 'You know, whatever happens with us,' I said, 'as teacher and pupil, as friends, whatever comes to pass -- whether we go to Europe eventually, or we study here -- I'll never forget you listening to me tonight, I'll never forget your inveterate kindness. ¡¯

" 'Quinn, you're a battered soul,' he said to me. 'And probably the better for it. I can't deny how compelling you are to me, and the challenge that you present to me. Yes, I want to be your teacher. I'd be honored to be your teacher, and I do think there are things we could achieve together. But you don't know me yet, and you may come to change your mind about me when certain things become clear to you. ¡¯

" 'Nothing will ever change this love, Nash,' I responded. 'Any more than anything will change what I feel for Mona Mayfair. ¡¯

"He gave me the most reassuring smile.

" 'And now you need to go in and get dressed,' he said. 'The reading of your grandfather's will, remember?¡¯

"How could I forget?

"I bolted down a huge breakfast in the kitchen and then went up to shower and change, half afraid of what I might find in the bathroom in the way of patchwork repairs, but everything was done to perfection.

"Feeling lightheaded and like a conquistador of grand emotions, I piled into the limousine with Aunt Queen and Patsy, who looked like deliberate and absolute trash in her red leather clothes, and Jasmine, dressed to the teeth in a gorgeous black suit and stiletto heels, and off we went to the lawyer's office in Ruby River City. Big Ramona and Felix were supposed to have come too, but there was no way the house could spare them. Clem, who was driving the limo, had also been alerted to come inside when we got there. And Lolly, who was up front with Clem, was also included.

"In short order, we settled down in one of those generic legal places of which I've seen several in my time, outfitted with blackberry leather chairs and a big glass-covered mahogany desk for the man who reads the document that is bound to make somebody feel rotten.

"Our pleasant-voiced lawyer, Grady Breen (Gravier's old and dear friend, and a relic of some eighty-five years in age), made all the appropriate offers of coffee or soft drinks, which we all in our anxiety declined, and then we were off and running.

"Last time it had been Patsy who was so brutally hurt with a trust-fund inheritance that didn't amount in her mind to a pittance. And everybody was silently betting it was Patsy again who would get scalded and leave the office yowling.

"But what unfolded surprised everyone. The smaller bequests -- one hundred thousand dollars each to Clem, Felix, Ramona, Lolly and Jasmine -- were no great shock. And that Pops had left them handsome annuities for retirement as well made everyone a little less nervous. In fact, I'm understating the case. This part of the will made Clem and Jasmine and Lolly jubilant. Jasmine started to cry, and Lolly held tight to her arm, tearing up as well, and Clem just shook his head at the marvel of it.

"But then there came the real meat of the feast and no one could have been more amazed than Patsy. It seemed that Great-grandfather Gravier had left a trust fund to Pops which was bound by its original terms to go in its entirety to Pops' only child, Patsy. The principal of the trust was in the high double-digit millions, and the income so handsome that Patsy positively screamed with astonished laughter.

"As to Pops' remaining trust funds, also enormous, one went to Aunt Queen until her death and then to me, and the other was mine immediately. It was a dizzying amount of income.

"In summary, Pops had disinherited Patsy, but it made no difference because he couldn't stop Grandpa Gravier's trust from going to her. And his frugal ways over the years, his paying himself a pittance of a salary and rolling back into the big trust its earnings, had even increased Patsy's fortune. Of course Patsy couldn't touch the principal of the big trust, and when she died I would inherit it.

"Patsy was so delirious that she threw her arms around Aunt Queen, squealing and giggling and stomping the floor with her red leather boots.