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I just stood there for a moment and she raised her eyebrows. "You want to have it in the breakfast nook?" I asked,

"Fine," she said and walked down the corridor quickly, her heavy, square-heeled shoes clicking like the taps of a tiny hammer. She was so long-legged that when she walked, her feet seemed to have a slight snap each time she took a step.

I hurried to the kitchen and got out a cup and saucer.

"What was it like working for my aunt and uncle in London?" she asked, taking off her coat and placing it on a chair.

"It wasn't very pleasant," I said. "They have this slave master. Mr. Boggs, who runs the house like a military operation. He actually has a drill with white gloves, checking on the dusting and polishing."

"It doesn't surprise me,' she said. "The one time I was there. I couldn't wait to leave. Do they still have that silly little cottage in the back kept like some sort of a mausoleum filled with Heather's toys?"

I froze for a moment.

"You know all about that?" "Of course." she said. "When I was there. I was almost burned at the stake for daring to enter it."

"Yes, it's still there," I said. I poured her a cup of coffee. "Milk?"

"Thank you," she said.

Was it my imagination or was dreadful Aunt Victoria behaving like a human being toward me?

I poured myself a cup and sat across from her.

"I know." she began. "that I look like the bad one here. It was always that way. Whenever a problem arose and a hard, but important, decision had to be made, your mother would go sailing off someplace and leave it all to me. So naturally, I was the one people resented. Even my own mother resented me," she complained, her voice cracking with uncharacteristic emotion.

It occurred to me that I hadn't seen her cry at Grandmother Hudson's funeral, not even a single tear. She was the one supervising the arrangements, making sure it was all perfectly coordinated down to where cars would be parked at the cemetery. My mother sobbed and with reddened eyes greeted people, hugged people and let people hug her. Victoria seemed aloof and in charge riot only of the details of the funeral, but her own emotions as well.

"I loved her in my own way, when I was permitted to love her. As you know from the short time you were here, my mother was a very strong, domineering woman. She hated compromise and was intolerant of failure and stupidity. I thought she would love me more for being more like her than Megan was, but do you know what. Rain? I've come to the conclusion my mother didn't like herself very much. That's right," she said when I widened my eyes. "at the end of her life, she had decided she didn't and that's why she favored you so quickly and with such uncharacteristic charity.

"Maybe she saw you as a third daughter, someone not as weak as Megan, but someone not as strong as me. Maybe you were more like the daughter she wished she had. I thought about this all night last night, trying to understand why she had left you so much of our family's fortune and that's what I have concluded."

She sipped her coffee and gazed out the window for a long moment. Had I misjudged her? Was I as unfair and unsympathetic as I accused her of being?

"As you witnessed for yourself yesterday, my sister isn't going to be any great help to you or to this unpleasant situation we all find ourselves in," she continued. "Frankly. I'm tired of doing all the dirty work in this family. I have my own ambitions and interests. too.

"Therefore. I've decided to declare a trace between us, if you are amenable."

"A truce?"

"Grant's right. We don't need to fill the pockets of lawyers, who in the end, will benefit the most from any family dispute." she explained. "For good or for worse, my mother decided that you and I would become partners of sorts. I will continue to make money for the family business and you will benefit from it. How does all this sound so far?'

"All right," I said cautiously. I felt like someone waiting for the second shoe to drop. "What do I have to do?"

"Do? There's nothing for you to do. You can return to the life you want. I imagine you want to go back to England, isn't that so?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well then, what we'll do is simply put up the house and property for sale and invest the profits."

"I don't know," I said.

"You don't know?"

"This house. I keep thinking how important it was to Grandmother Hudson."

"Yes, it was, but she's gone and there's the upkeep to think about now. How can a girl like you think about staying here indefinitely?"

"A girl like me?'