Be Careful What You Wish For: The Clifton Chronicles 4 Read Online Free PDF

office. In any case, when Jessica becomes an RA, I shall sell them all and build a new ward with the proceeds.’
    Emma didn’t need to be reminded how talented her daughter was, as she knew Miss Fielding, her art mistress at Red Maids’, had plans to enter her for a scholarship to the Slade School
of Fine Art, and seemed confident of the outcome.
    ‘It’s quite a challenge, Mrs Clifton, to have to teach someone who you know is far more talented than you are,’ Miss Fielding had once told her.
    ‘Don’t ever let her know that,’ said Emma.
    ‘Everyone knows it,’ replied Miss Fielding, ‘and we’re all looking forward to greater things in the future. No one will be surprised when she’s offered a place at
the Royal Academy Schools, a first for Red Maids’.’
    Jessica appeared blissfully unaware of her rare talent, as she was of so many other things, thought Emma. She had repeatedly warned Harry that it could only be a matter of time before their
adopted daughter stumbled upon the truth about who her father was, and suggested that it would be better if she heard it from a member of the family first, rather than a stranger. Harry seemed
strangely reluctant to burden her with the real reason they had plucked her out of the Dr Barnardo’s home all those years ago, ignoring several more obvious candidates. Giles and Grace had
both volunteered to explain to Jessica how they all came to share the same father, Sir Hugo Barrington, and why her mother had been responsible for his untimely death.
    The moment Emma parked her Austin A30 in the hospital car park Jessica would jump out, her latest picture under one arm, a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate in her other hand, and run all
the way to Sebastian’s bedside. Emma didn’t believe that anyone could love her son more than she did, but if anyone did, it was Jessica.
    When Emma entered the ward a few minutes later, she was surprised and delighted to find Sebastian out of bed for the first time, and sitting in an armchair. The moment he saw his mother, he
pushed himself up, steadied himself, and kissed her on both cheeks; another first. When does that moment come, Emma wondered, when mothers stop kissing their children, and young men start kissing
their mothers?
    Jessica was telling her brother in great detail what she’d been up to during the week, so Emma perched herself on the end of the bed and happily listened to her exploits for a second time.
Once she’d stopped talking long enough for Sebastian to get a word in, he turned to his mother and said, ‘I reread the minutes of the latest board meeting this morning. You do realize
that the chairman will call for a vote at the next meeting, and this time you won’t be able to avoid making a decision on whether to go ahead with building the
Buckingham
.’
    Emma didn’t comment as Jessica turned round and began to draw the old man who was sleeping in the next bed.
    ‘I would do the same if I were in his position,’ continued Sebastian. ‘So who do you think will win?’
    ‘No one will win,’ said Emma, ‘because whatever the outcome, the board will remain divided until it can be shown who was right.’
    ‘Let’s hope not, because I think you’ve got a far bigger problem staring you right in the face, and one that will need you and the chairman to be working in harmony.’
    ‘Fisher?’
    Sebastian nodded. ‘And God knows how he’ll vote when it comes to whether or not you should build the
Buckingham
.’
    ‘Fisher will vote whichever way Don Pedro Martinez instructs him to.’
    ‘How can you be sure that it was Martinez, and not Lady Virginia, who bought those shares?’ asked Sebastian.
    ‘According to William Hickey in the
Daily Express
, Virginia is going through another messy divorce at the moment, so you can be sure she’ll be concentrating on how much
maintenance she can extract from the Count of Milan before she decides how to spend it. In any case, I have my own reasons for