Savannah Secrets

“You have nerve,” Meredith burst out, finally losing her cool and jumping out of the chair. “If you’d bothered to read all the letters I sent, you’d know about this already—”

“I rarely read my correspondence.”

“Well, that’s just too bad.” She flung out the words, throwing down the file. “Maybe when you’ve come to your senses, you’ll read that through properly.”

“What for?” he goaded her, crossing his arms, looking her arrogantly up and down. “I have no intention of changing my mind. I plan on ignoring the whole thing.”

“Mr. Gallagher,” Meredith said through gritted teeth, “I am not to blame for the manner in which your grandmother chose to bequeath her fortune. I’m merely an emissary. I have no pleasure in being here, I assure you. But I have a fiduciary responsibility to act on behalf of the beneficiary, and a legal duty to act in managing and administering the estate.”

“Bravo. An impressive speech.” He clapped his hands and looked her over, amused. “I guess law school is good for something, after all.”

Mastering the urge to knock those well-aligned teeth down his throat, Meredith took a deep breath. “In case I used too many big words,” she said sweetly, “it means that, like it or not, I now represent your best interest. I need you to cooperate. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m very busy this morning. Goodbye, Miss Hunter.” With a sharp nod he rose, turned on his heel and marched out of the room the same way he’d entered. The door snapped shut behind him, leaving Meredith openmouthed in the middle of the room.

“An enthralling page-turner—not to be missed!”

—New York Times bestselling author

Joan Johnston on Southern Belle

Also by FIONA HOOD-STEWART

SOUTHERN BELLE

SILENT WISHES

THE LOST DREAMS

THE STOLEN YEARS

THE JOURNEY HOME

SOMEDAY SOON

Savannah Secrets

Fiona Hood-Stewart

To my goddaughter

Annabel Freya

with love

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Prologue

“So. This is finally it, Bill?” Rowena Carstairs murmured in her deep, tobacco-riddled voice, her eyes never leaving the doctor’s face.

The gray-haired, athletic-looking Bill Maguire let go of her pulse and straightened next to the large four-poster. “I’m afraid so,” he said, looking at her with a wry, sad smile. He knew it would be futile to pretend.

“That’s all right,” she said, her creased features breaking into a smile that still sparkled with mischief. “I’ve had a good inning. Better than most.”

“You’re sure you won’t consider the treatment? There’s a small chance it would buy you another year or two.”

“Ha! You have to be joking! I’m ninety-three, Bill. If I don’t die of one thing, it’ll be of another. And to tell you the truth, maybe it’s time.”

She lay back in the huge canopied bed and closed her eyes, her head propped against a sea of white lace pillows.

“All right, then. I’d best be off now,” the doctor murmured with a touch of regret, patting her wrinkled, veined hand, as it lay so motionless on the coverlet it could already be lifeless. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“You come,” Rowena said, opening her eyes and winking, “but I don’t guarantee I’ll be here. Depends on how the mood strikes me. So I’ll say goodbye just in case. You’re a good man, Bill. Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t talk rubbish,” he replied, his tone bracing. “You’ll be here harassing the hell out of everyone for a while yet.” He laughed and their hands met once more.

Rowena nodded, then suddenly looking very tired, she waved him away. “You be off now. I need a rest. Tell Miss Mabella to come in, will you? She may have some good advice for the upcoming journey.” She let out a low, husky cackle that ended in a hacking cough.

“Okay.” The doctor smiled and nodded. “Good night, Rowena. Sleep well.”

“You bet I will.”

Once she was sure she was entirely alone, Rowena sagged against the pillows and sighed. So this was the end. She accepted it philosophically as she did most things. Part of her regretted leaving. But, as she’d remarked to Bill, she’d had one hell of a good run. It was time to go. All that increasingly mattered now were the regrets, those niggling mistakes made years ago that couldn’t be changed but might, if things went according to plan, be set on track.

Shifting her position to accommodate her stiff back, Rowena heaved another sigh. She should have listened to her daughter all those years ago. Isabel had tried to tell her the truth, but she hadn’t wanted to believe her child’s claims. Allowing pride and her own agenda to get in the way, she had paid the price.

“Miss Rowena?”

Opening her eyes, she turned her head on the pillow. “Miss Mabella, you sit yourself down on that chair right here next to me.” The formidable figure of Miss Mabella was clad in her usual long white dress under a purple silk cape with rows of beads and amulets hanging loosely around her neck. She swayed as she lowered her bulk onto the proffered chair. The pupils of her eyes shone in sharp contrast to the whites, illuminating her black face. Her complexion looked surprisingly young for a woman her age. On her head she wore an extravagant turban tied in the fashion of the African tribe she descended from and whose language she still favored over the English she spoke only when necessary.

“Time’s a gettin’ close,” she murmured, placing her hand on Rowena’s withered forehead. “But I know you’re ready to go, Miss Rowena. Ain’t nothin’ left you can do on this side no more. Gotta leave it up to the boy now.”

“You’re sure I’ve made the right decision?” Rowena’s eyes closed as she drifted. Already the room and the earthly space around her seemed distant.

“Ain’t no saying for sure. The boy, he’s a son of Ogun, a strong God. Ogun, he likes justice. The gods is on his side, all right. Ain’t no doubt about that.” Miss Mabella nodded wisely.

“God bless him,” Rowena whispered. “He’s my only hope.”

“Now don’t you worry nomore, Miss Ro. You travel easy. I’m watchin’ out for you and yours. Just you let go and let Miss Mabella take care of things.” She placed both her hands inches from Rowena’s head and began a low incantation in her native Gullah dialect.

“You always have been a good friend, Miss Mabella,” Rowena managed with considerable effort. She felt tired. Exceedingly tired. She could sense the end of her earthly journey closing upon her, yet she didn’t repine.

As the sun set over the trees in her beloved garden, Rowena thought one last time of the sealed envelopes lying in wait in Meredith Hunter’s office. She’d cast her bets and had set the dice rolling in an attempt to salvage the situation. She’d set up the rules by which the game would be played as she thought best. The future lay in the hands of others.

A crumpled, enigmatic smile hovered on Rowena’s thin, cracked lips as Miss Mabella chanted softly. She’d be willing to wager that once she was gone, all hell would break loose, big time. Would things sort themselves out as she hoped? It was a wild hope and perhaps a vain one, but it was her best try.

As she sank back and allowed her mind to drift to the gentle sound of Miss Mabella’s voice, weariness overwhelmed her. Her eyes closed for the last time. She had only one final regret.

What a pity she wouldn’t be here to see who would walk with the winnings.

1

Meredith Hunter skimmed through the thick sheaf of legal documents and, for the second time that day, exclaimed, “This can’t be real. Surely Rowena must have been mad to leave such a will!”

She was bewildered. Rowena Carstairs, her favorite client, had been one of the savviest people she’d ever met—and also one of the most loyal. When more than a year ago, after some serious soul-searching, Meredith had decided to leave Rollins, Hunter & Mills, the famous Savannah law firm where she’d gotten her start, in order to launch her own firm, Rowena had insisted on transferring her business. Even when Meredith had advised against it, admitting that her firm would never be able to match the resources of the firm that had ably served Rowena’s interests for more than fifty years, the old lady hadn’t balked. “After all,” Meredith recalled her saying imperiously, “if you don’t trust those old windbags anymore, why the hell should I?”

She smiled at the memory, suspecting Rowena knew that her new firm, Hunter & Maxwell, would never have gotten off the ground without her support. Ro had always looked after those she cared about. And that, Meredith admitted with a sigh, is what made her will all the more incomprehensible.

Slipping her reading glasses down her small, straight nose, Meredith gazed at the piles of legal files strewn around the small office. The Carstairs relations would be furious—probably go straight over to Ross Rollins and hire him to contest. And there was Dallas Thornton, Rowena’s estranged granddaughter. The girl would not be a problem in that she’d already stated clearly she wanted nothing to do with her late grandmother’s estate. But telling these people that they would receive nothing of the inheritance they’d long expected and that everything—including Rowena’s dyed poodles—had been left to a complete stranger would be a daunting task indeed.

Until now Meredith had managed to avoid a confrontation with her old senior partner. But if the Carstairs hired Ross as they inevitably would, she was sure he would take pleasure in trying to bring her down to size. Oh, well. It had to happen some day, she figured. The hard part was she liked him. A lot. An old friend of her dad’s, he had written her a glowing recommendation for Yale, hired her and then had been implicated—even if it hadn’t been proved—in a political scandal that had brought down Congressman Harlan MacBride, the now former husband of her best friend, Elm Hathaway. Although Elm had never blamed her, and was now happily married to Johnny Graney, she’d felt ashamed to be a part of a firm that valued the old-boy network above its own ethics. And so, with Rowena’s help, she’d set out on her own.

Meredith laid the documents back on her desk and tweaked her thick pageboy-style chestnut hair behind her ears. She would first contact James G. Gallagher, Rowena’s presumptive heir, whom Rowena’s detectives had tracked to London. She’d never even heard of the man—and doubted any of the Carstairs had, either. Did he even know that he was adopted? “None of this makes any sense,” she murmured. “Why would Rowena settle a one-hundred-million-dollar estate on a complete stranger?”

“Because it appears he’s her grandson.”

Meredith turned abruptly and sat up. “Tracy. I didn’t hear you come in.” She twiddled her pen thoughtfully. “I’m still reeling in shock.” Her partner, Tracy Maxwell, stepped farther into the office. “As far as we know, Rowena never even met this guy. She seems to have made a conscious decision to exclude this supposed grandson from her life, but now has left him everything. I just don’t get it.”

Tracy shrugged, setting her coffee mug down on Meredith’s teak desk. “I know about as much as you do, Mer,” she replied, leaning back in the creaking leather chair. “But I guess it all boils down to this—blood’s thicker than water. By the way—” she grimaced as she glanced down doubtfully “—couldn’t we at least afford a new chair? This one’s going to collapse any day now, and probably with some valued client in it. We’ll be sued for negligence.” She crossed her well-shaped legs under her pencil-gray skirt and eyed Meredith. “So?” she queried. “What do you think made the old bird do it? Weird that she never asked you to look over her will or that she never disclosed the extent of her holdings.”

Meredith shrugged, shook her head. “I once asked her about it but she clammed up. Said she had it all sorted out years ago. I figured it was none of my business, that she’d used other counsel for her own reasons, but that doesn’t explain why she left her fortune to a stranger. Could it be out of remorse?”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe she wanted to make up for the past. She obviously felt a duty to her bloodline despite the child being given up for adoption.” Meredith knew she was desperately seeking a rational motive for her late client’s actions, since she was now left to deal with the outcome. “It just seems totally unlike Ro to react like this. I mean, she was one tough cookie and not one given to sentiment, or to mishandling her affairs.”

“All I can figure is that certain things come back to haunt you when you know the end is nigh,” Tracy answered. “And who would have thought Rowena could be worth so much? All those relatives will be positively nauseous when they realize exactly how much they’ve lost—and to whom. Which reminds me,” she added, a mischievous smile dawning on her dimpled cheeks, “I was talking to Uncle Fairfax this morning and guess what he told me?”

“What?” Meredith’s large gray eyes filled with new interest. Tracy was an expert at wheedling casual bits of information out of people.

“We had a most enlightening conversation.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tracy, spill it. I’m not in the mood to mess around. I have to take immediate action. I’m already dreading Joanna Carstairs’s face when she learns the news.”

“Rather you than me, babe,” Tracy admitted. “Anyway, Uncle Fairfax remembers Isabel, Rowena’s daughter, well. Said they hung out in the same crowd, and that she was very pretty and vivacious, always flirting and acting much older than her age. She also used to hang around with older men, some of them Rowena’s own friends.”

“That must have been almost forty years ago. And?”

“According to Uncle Fairfax, there was talk about whether she might have let things go a little too far.”

“Oh, you mean she had an affair?”

“Nobody seems to know and, as she’s dead, no one ever will.”

“I guess not. What else did he say?”

“Only that the summer after her sixteenth birthday, Isabel suddenly disappeared for a year or so—supposedly to a finishing school in Europe. She was a bright girl with career ambitions, so everyone was surprised. People naturally assumed she’d gotten pregnant, though it was never mentioned outright. Such things were never discussed in those days.”

“Had he heard that she’d given birth to a son?” Meredith asked, attentive.

“No. Like everyone else, he assumed that she’d had an abortion.”

“Ethics aside, that certainly would have been the easiest route,” Meredith said, brow furrowed, “but she didn’t take that course. Instead, she gave the baby up for adoption.”

“Right.”

“But why give the baby away? She could easily afford to keep it,” Meredith argued.

“You talk as if you don’t know Savannah, Mer.” Tracy laughed, a thin, ironic smile touching her full lips. “If things are bad now, imagine what it must have been like thirty-eight years ago! I doubt Rowena would have tolerated her daughter keeping an illegitimate baby. It just wasn’t done. Particularly if the father wasn’t suitable husband material, which I presume must have been the case.”

“How absurd,” Meredith exclaimed, disgusted by such hypocrisy and wondering what sort of woman would have let society and a strong-willed mother force her to give up a child if she’d wanted to keep it.

“Absurd maybe, but let’s face it, that’s the way it was. Young society ladies who found themselves in a fix went abroad, had an abortion somewhere discreet or gave the child up for adoption. They spent the year away and then returned home with no one the wiser.” Tracy raised an elegantly etched brow and reached for the coffee mug.

“Carrying the child for nine months, giving birth to it at this Swiss convent,” Meredith said, pointing to a file, “and then simply leaving it behind so she could head back home and party seems so cruel, so unfeeling.”

Tracy shrugged. “I doubt Rowena gave Isabel much choice. If it makes you feel any better, Uncle Fairfax did say that Isabel was different when she returned, much more subdued. Nobody talked about it. But obviously,” she added, gesturing to the paperwork lying on the desk between them, “there was a child. As for the father’s identity, well, presumably Isabel took that secret with her to the grave. And now Rowena—for whatever weird reason—has named the child her heir.”

“But doesn’t it all seem too simple? I mean, think about it, Trace.” Meredith tapped her fingers on the serviceable teak desk, then leaned back and swung in the sagging office chair, crumpling her suit jacket. “Rowena had a complex personality. We know she liked to control things. She didn’t leave anything to chance. So why fork over a fortune to a total stranger? And then there are the Carstairs relations to consider, not to mention Dallas. I can’t believe Rowena left her at nineteen without a dime when she knows all the problems the poor kid is going through with that property of hers up in Beaufort. The bank’s about to foreclose.”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad. Is there nothing we can do?” Tracy asked anxiously, horrified by the thought of Dallas Thornton, whom she’d known since she was a kid, being thrown out of Providence, the beautiful stud farm that for years had been in her family.

“I don’t know yet.” Meredith sat straighter. “I’ll take all this home tonight and dig my teeth into it once the boys are in bed.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, Lord, it’s almost five. Mick’s ball game is this afternoon.” When she dragged her fingers through her hair and took off her glasses she suddenly looked much younger and more vulnerable and very pretty. She stared at her partner. “You realize what’s going to happen, right?”

“Yep. Pretty much. It seems a given that Rowena’s relatives will contest the will.”

“And guess who they’ll hire—if they haven’t already?”

The two women’s eyes locked. “Ross.”

“Right. You know I loved Ro dearly, but I wish she hadn’t left me with such a mess.” She groaned, “Even if it does make for a dramatic parting gesture. She never liked all her greedy Carstairs relatives, said they reminded her of buzzards at the roadside, waiting ravenously for the morsels her eventual death would bring.”

“Looks like she’s had the last word. We’ll miss her, you know,” Tracy said as she got up to leave.

“Yeah, we will. See you tomorrow,” Meredith said, a soft smile touching her lips as the door closed behind Tracy.

As she gathered the files she’d sort through later that evening, Meredith recalled that stormy afternoon twelve years earlier when she’d first met Rowena Carstairs. She had been a summer intern at Rollins, Hunter & Mills and Rowena had been holding court in the firm’s walnut-paneled lobby, dressed in a flowing purple caftan and a remarkable jeweled pink turban. Her legendary toy poodles—always dyed to match Rowena’s headdress of the day—were yapping hysterically at her heels and gnawing on the knotted fringe of the floor’s antique Oriental carpet.

The poodles, Meredith recalled, were noted for their ill humor. Neither of the junior partners hovering anxiously beside one of the firm’s most prestigious clients had dared to censure the dogs, which by this time were happily chewing their way through a delicately carved chair leg.

Raised to respect the value of things, and too new to the firm to know whom she was messing with, Meredith marched right up to Rowena’s dogs and told them firmly to heel. To everyone’s astonishment the dogs stopped their destructive activity and settled obediently at Meredith’s feet, giving her patent pumps a cautiously friendly lick.

And to everyone’s equally stunned amazement, Rowena had burst out laughing and grasped Meredith’s hand. “About time someone had the guts to stand up to these little pests,” she barked. “Beastly little dogs, aren’t they? Touched in the head, I think.”

“Must be all that hair dye,” Meredith noted wryly.

After an audible gasp, one of the junior partners, clearly bent on damage control, stepped forward and, muttering apologies, grabbed Meredith by the arm, intent on propelling her back to the copy room. But Rowena stayed his hand. “You know, I bet you’re right. That dye probably makes ’em antsy,” she said, addressing Meredith, her keen bright eyes narrowing. “Damn, why didn’t I think of that? What’s your name, gal? It’s good to see that someone around this mausoleum has some spunk.”

Before she’d left the firm that summer, Ross Rollins had told her there’d be a position waiting for her as soon as she finished law school. Surprised, she’d thanked him profusely, but he told her to save her thanks for Rowena Carstairs. “Claimed you’re the only one with any sense around here, and threatened to take her business to another law firm unless we hired you. As you’ve probably gathered,” he’d added dryly, “she’s one of our biggest clients.”

Without a doubt, Rowena Carstairs had been one of Savannah’s most flamboyant and original characters. She’d also been a true friend. It was no exaggeration to say that without Rowena’s patronage, Meredith would never have been able to start her own small independent practice. So no matter how mysterious and convoluted the will—or how many of her own questions went unanswered—she must do her best to see that Rowena’s wishes were fulfilled.

Meredith shoved the documents in her briefcase and, grabbing her coat, moved toward the door. She’d think about all this later tonight, once homework was done and the boys were fast asleep.

Opening the door of her office, she smiled at Ali, her faithful secretary who’d taken a substantial pay cut to follow her on her path of independence. That was loyalty, Meredith realized. “Have to get to the game but I’ll be in early tomorrow. I’m taking the Carstairs files with me, Ali.”

“Don’t worry, Meredith, I’ll be here awhile. Tracy’s up to her eyeballs in the Martin v. Fairbairn case so we’ll be busy. I just put on a new pot of coffee.” Ali’s slim figure and good posture made her seem always ready for action.

“I don’t know how you guys survive. You know, I read somewhere that women can get depressed from too much caffeine. You and Trace should seriously consider cutting down on—”

“You have precisely ten minutes to get to the game and traffic’s bad,” Ali said, dismissing her. “So long. See you in the morning.” She waved her thin fingers and grinned before heading into the tiny kitchen.

Stepping out onto the street, Meredith glanced back fondly at the small redbrick house she’d leased for the office. It wasn’t pretentious, but it served its purpose. During the past most difficult months of her life, she and Tracy had built up a growing practice by accepting lower fees than most firms of their caliber. Some simply didn’t want to pay the horrendously costly fees of the better-known firms. Other, more humble clients had heard through the grapevine that Meredith Hunter had left a junior partnership at Rollins, Hunter & Mills to begin her own practice because she’d become disenchanted with the way her former firm did business. This, and the fact that she always had time to spare for a lost or ailing cause, was beginning to pay off.