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wedding?”
    “No, I hadn’t,” Meredith said slowly, and began to shake her head. “Funny, isn’t it, how someone’s name is rarely, if ever, mentioned, and then it comes up twice in one day.”
    “Who else mentioned David?”
    “Catherine. When we were talking on the phone earlier this evening. She asked me if I’d been crazy in love with him, or words to that effect.”
    “And what did you say?”
    “I told her the truth. I said that I hadn’t.”
    “Of course not. You were only crazily in love once, and that was with her father.”
    Meredith was silent.
    “Have you ever wondered what your life would have been like if he hadn’t—”
    “I really don’t want to discuss it,” Meredith snapped, cutting in peremptorily. Then she bit her lip, looking chagrined. “I’m sorry, Blanche, I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that, it’s just that I prefer to leave that particular subject matter alone tonight. It’s been a long day and I don’t really feel like delving into the tragedies of the past.”
    Blanche smiled gently. “It’s my fault. I brought it up and I shouldn’t have…now you’re looking sad…I’ve upset you.”
    “No, you haven’t, I promise you, Blanche.”
    Deeming it wiser to change the subject, Blanche 44 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    put down her drink and said, “By the way, we’re going to have to order new carpet for the toile de Jouy suite, and the blue room. There’s been some leaks this winter, and the carpets are damaged. I hate to tell you this, but there’s also been a leak in your bedroom in the house. I’ll show you tomorrow. I’m afraid you’ll have to replace the carpet there as well.”
    “These things happen, Blanche, we know that from years of experience. And even after we put in new roofs last year. I’ll call Gary at Stark tomorrow, before I go to London. He’s got everything on the computer, so it won’t be a problem.” Meredith frowned. “The carpets were from the standard lines, weren’t they?”
    “Yes, I’m sure,” Blanche said, and then began to walk toward the door. “It’s getting late. I’m going to the kitchen to bring you that bowl of soup.”
    Meredith put down her glass and followed her. “I’ll eat in the kitchen, Blanche, it’s much easier.”
    CHAPTER THREE
    H illtops, the inn Meredith owned near Sharon, was built on top of a hill, as its name suggested. The site was the highest point above Lake Wononpakook, and the views from the inn’s windows were spectacular: endless miles of lake and sky and wooded hills, with hardly another structure in evidence on the expansive land.
    The inn started out as a mansion, the summer retreat of one of America’s great tycoons, who built it in the late 1930s, sparing no expense. He and his family spent summers there until his death in the mid sixties, when it was sold.
    When Meredith bought it in 1981 it had been an inn for almost twenty years, and it was already well established. But it was her stylish refurbishing and the two new restaurants she created that gave it a certain cachet and put it on the map.
    46 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    Hilltops evoked images of Switzerland in her mind, and turning to Paul Ince, who was the manager of the inn, she said, “I feel as if I’m looking down on Lake Geneva this morning, Paul.”
    He laughed and answered, “I know what you mean, I always get the sensation of being in the Swiss Alps myself, especially in winter.”
    Meredith had arrived at Hilltops fifteen minutes earlier, and the two of them stood together in the inn’s lovely old pine-paneled library, waiting for the Morrisons to arrive for the meeting.
    Glancing out of the window again, Meredith murmured, “All this snow. It really came down this year, but it doesn’t seem to have affected business, does it?”
    “No, not at all, Meredith. Well, I shouldn’t say that.
    As you know, we did have a few problems last week, and had to close the restaurants for a few days. But we soon got