SIXTEEN

P atricia had slumbered extraordinarily deeply, except for Parker getting her up at all hours. She couldn’t stop thinking about Bess-Carla, though she chalked it up to a dream, a very vivid dream, brought on by Carla’s flirting and the stories about Bess’ ghost.

Still, she was prone to vivid dreams, a result of her boundless imagination and genius intellect. She was also used to sex dreams, although in the past they had usually been about her father, or occasionally and more recently, Denis. She had never dreamed about another woman before. Technically, that wasn’t true, she corrected herself. Rather, she would dream about her father and mother making love, observing them unseen from a hidden doorway or window, or from an impossible vantage point floating above them. Then she would invariably become an active participant, entering the dream and displacing her mother as it progressed.

In the dreams, her father would explain that it was wrong and that he would get help for her. She had to get over her complex, her obsession, grow up. Her fixation on him also hurt her mother. She needed treatment.

However, it was her dream. She controlled it. Thus, he’d keep on thrusting, deep into her core. He was behind her. On top of her. Then she was on top. Always she came in shudders and gasps, waking up to drenched bedcovers.

Like she had last night.

She had been intelligent and self-aware enough to understand, clinically, that she had a problem. Her father had gotten her the best doctors, the best psychologists. She was high-functioning, and her hang-up with her father hadn’t interfered with most aspects of her life. Still, no one had been able to help her. And she had a hard time banishing her father from her thoughts when she had sex.

She had been grateful, at least, that her obsession with her father didn’t prevent her from having orgasms with her sexual partners. Although she hadn’t had a very good one when she had lost her virginity to Clive. Her experience with Helen Benson the following year had truly awakened her, sexually, and after that she had fulfilling sexual experiences with several men, though still always colored by and contrasted with her fantasies about her father, whom she always visualized while with other men. And to be honest, not just her fantasies, for it would be very hard indeed for any man to compare favorably to her father, in any way, intellectually, physically, or sexually.

After Helen, Patricia didn’t have any other encounters with women—until Pemberley—even though it was Helen who first succeeded in bringing her to orgasm while she wasn’t fantasizing about her father or comparing her partner to him.

And her dream the prior night—it could only have been a dream—in which her father played no part, had left her entirely satisfied and fulfilled.

Her father and mother were dead. But for the first time, she grieved for her father without the sensation of loss of a lover. Rather, she felt only the loss of a parent. She grieved equally for her mother. She wanted her mother back, rather than fantasizing about getting rid of her, sending her somewhere far away, so she could have her father to herself. She cried a little as she thought of her parents, and felt better for letting it out.

She was energized this morning and decided to dress to kill. She put on a black lace garter belt, and attached sheer black back-seamed stockings with Cuban heels, rolling them slowly up tanned legs which went on forever. She slipped on a low-cut white blouse and pulled it tight over her breasts. Taking a move out of Carla’s playbook, she skipped a brassiere. A black skirt and her black leather “kinky boots,” a present from one of her tutors, Mrs. Gale, completed the ensemble. She headed downstairs, refreshed and ready to handle whatever the day threw at her.

The conversation at breakfast centered on the seventh Duke’s will, which was to be read in two days. Patricia was not concerned. She knew the contents pretty well. She was another day closer to inheriting and then she’d deal with the rotten core infesting Pemberley House.

The others at the table also knew at least the general provisions of the will. Their attitudes about it didn’t make her feel particularly welcome. Richard, in particular, was unpleasant to her, but by now that was nothing new.

She decided to confront him. “Richard, it’s obvious you find me objectionable and disagreeable. Is it because I’ve failed to succumb to your charms?”

Carla, and even the old Duchess, could not hide small smirks.

“Or do you somehow see me as standing in your way as the next lord and master of this estate?”

The old lady’s expression turned sour and a collective hush settled over the table.

“Because I have to tell you,” Patricia plowed on, “I am conversant with the terms of the will, and as it has been explained to me by competent legal counsel, acting entirely in my interest, there is no possible way for you to inherit Pemberley House.”

“How dare you—”

“I dare, Mr. Deguy, because of your consistent rude and boorish behavior incompatible with that of a proper English gentleman. On top of which, you appear to be frighteningly unacquainted with the system of titles of nobility and descent known as the peerage. You seem to operate under some sort of fantasy that with me out of the way—whether by scaring me off in girlish tears with your ghost stories, or repulsing me into leaving to avoid your unwanted advances—your path to a dukedom will be clear upon your grandmother’s passing.

“Allow me to disabuse you of your ill-conceived notions. We all perfectly understand the venerable Duchess is your grandmother by adoption only. But by your actions and attitude, I can only conceive you operate under some delusion that if you succeed in disposing of me, you will become a Peer of the Realm, despite your lack of a blood relationship. You, sir, are the son of an adopted son. You might inherit this house and this land from your adoptive grandmother if I was out of the way, but in no case can you aspire to nobility. Period. Furthermore, you will not take hold of Pemberley House and Pemberley Woods, because I am not leaving. I am staying right here and taking that to which I’m entitled.

“Therefore, I entreat you, sir, in front of these people—your grandmother, your sister, the good doctor—to cease your ill-mannered and abusive treatment and accord me the civilized conduct which a cousin, even an American cousin by adoption, could reasonably expect.”

A palpable silence had engulfed the table’s inhabitants. The morning sun’s rays beat in and dust motes floated in the stillness. The clock in the corner ticked off the seconds.

Then from the Duchess: “Good show, well done, my dear.”

“Yes. Very Jane Austen,” Carla added with a wink and a knowing grin.

Moran nodded, and Richard, amazingly, appeared remorseful. “You’re right, of course, coz, I’ve been an awful beast. Stress of last few days, I’d say. Of course that’s no excuse, and I apologize.”

Patricia nodded her acceptance, but the Duchess interrupted. “Stress of the last few days? What stress?” she demanded.

Before anyone else could reply, Patricia cut in. “I imagine, Your Grace, my arrival has stirred up emotions about the seventh Duke’s recent passing which had only started to heal. Everyone must be under a terrible strain.”

Richard stared at her as if she had just landed from another planet. Even Carla looked bemused.

“Pray continue, child.”

“I only wish to reassure you, Your Grace, and everyone else, that I took your admonitions the other day quite seriously. I will of course do everything in my power, once Pemberley legally passes to me, to ensure the happiness and tranquility of yourself and your grandchildren. And Doctor Moran, of course. I cannot envision any situation or occurrence in which anyone will be able to discern, on any level, the change in legal ownership. Everyone shall continue to live their lives at Pemberley as they did before my arrival, in any manner they see fit. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Oh, my child, I knew it,” the old lady said. “I knew you would understand and fulfill your familial obligations. I am fully satisfied.”

Richard still stared at her, dumbfounded. Moran mustered up an avuncular grin. Carla smiled and shook her head in admiration.

“I am glad,” Patricia said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me everyone, I have a bit of reading I’m dying to catch up on.”

Patricia tossed her napkin on the table and walked out. That ought to stir them up.