A Rather Lovely Inheritance Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, “all over the world.”
    As I sat there in the airplane mulling this over, I had the weird feeling that somebody else was peering at my family tree. I looked up straight into the gaze of the monkey, ensconced in his slumbering lady’s lap, silently watching my every scribble.
    “Relatives of mine,” I told him. “And how’s your tree?”
     
    When we landed at Heathrow, everyone made a mad dash for the taxicabs, but there was already a long line of waiting passengers from other flights.Wearily I joined the queue.
    Then I spotted a uniformed driver anxiously walking up and down the line holding up a sign that said, “Penny Nichols.” I wondered if I had hallucinated it. I waved to him, and a smile of relief crossed his face. He tipped his hat and said, “This way, miss,” and led me away from the envious line as he handed me a note from Jeremy:
    Sorry I couldn’t meet you. All is arranged.Wish I could take you out to dinner but can’t. Please feel free to order room service or dine at the hotel on our nickel, Penny Nichols. Will meet you tomorrow morning. Fondly, Jeremy.
    I fully expected to be booked into one of the dreary chain-hotels I’d just left. I did not expect to be whisked past red carpets, liveried doormen, a concierge who acted truly delighted to see me, a bellhop who got my bags up there before me, a butler waiting to usher me into a suite with a view of the park. I would have panicked, thinking it was surely a mistake, but the butler smiled at me reassuringly as he bowed and closed the door softly behind him.

Chapter Four
    T HE COLOR OF MONEY IS NOT THE VERDANT GREEN OF DOLLARS AND pastoral real estate, nor the red and black of profit and loss, nor the silver and gold of coins of the realm, nor the purple of decadent royalty. The color of money is soft pink. It’s that rosy hue of health and well-being, of baby cheeks—no matter how old the heir apparent is—flush with fresh air from a carefree morning horseback ride, or warm and cozy when just awakening from an untroubled afternoon nap before a crackling fire. It’s the pink that’s somewhere between the pink lemonade of sunrise and the apricot-pink of the sky at sunset. The peachy-pink of the Financial Times , the salmon-pink of good champagne.
    My room was a cornucopia of every imaginable shade of warm rose. It hung in majestic draperies above the head of my bed; and the Louis XVI chairs were upholstered in a slightly paler shade. The cushion of the chair near the kidney-shaped vanity table was a deeper hue, a bold raspberry that matched the sofa placed in front of the low mahogany dining table in the sitting room.The carpet was patterned with twining flowers in various shades of rose, and even the Italian marble in the bathroom was warm with a pink glow, especially when the soft lighting was turned on and refracted in the needle-etched mirrors. Crystal and silver vases overflowed with pale pink and even a few rogue fuchsia roses, and the entire suite was redolent with their fragrance. It was so quiet after the butler left that the only sound in the room was the slightly shifting champagne bottle as the ice melted in the bucket.
    It was ten thirty when my suitcase and I entered the suite. It had been a long day. I was too tired to sweep downstairs into the hotel bar all decked out in a gold lamé evening gown and an ermine-trimmed wrap and high-heeled slippers with a feather on them—even if I owned such clothes, which I did not. But I was hungry.The hotel had a late-supper menu, so I ordered dinner in my room, and uncorked the champagne.
    I ran a bath and unpacked my pretty floor-length silk nightgown and matching robe, still wrapped in tissue paper, and my little travel slippers. I’d packed this ensemble at the last minute in New York, in a sudden, stubborn burst of dreamy romanticism, just in case life gave me an opportunity to wear it instead of the long flannel T-shirt I normally wear in frigid hotel rooms.
    It was just the