Read The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) for Free Online Page A

it?’
    Aggie harrumphed. ‘If I had, I wouldn’t have let that old sourpuss darken my doorstep. Anyway, Letitia means well. She does her best with me, and I don’t suppose I’m an easy patient. I do wish she’d stop fussing so.’
    ‘Auntie Letitia fussing?’ Helen snorted. That wasn’t how she remembered her step-aunt.
    ‘People change.’
    Helen leaned back in her chair and looked at Aggie. ‘Why did you send for me?’
    ‘ Send for you? My dear, I merely thought it was time for you to come back. Five years is a long time to travel.’
    ‘Not long enough.’
    ‘Running away never served any purpose. As you young people say, “it’s time to face the music”. You have responsibilities.’
    ‘Responsibilities?’ Helen choked on the word. ‘What, looking after you in your old age? Just like you looked after me when I was a child?’
    Aggie flinched. ‘Not at all. You’re twenty-five years old, and your mother’s shares in the company, which were put in trust for you, are now yours. You’re entitled to sit on the board.’
    ‘Shares?’ Helen blinked. ‘The board ?’
    ‘Surely you knew? Ransome & Daughters is a public limited company, has been for twenty years now. When William and I married, we both had grown children of our own. I had Ruth and Letitia, and William had your mother, Mimi. When we merged our respective families and auction houses, it was always the intention to build up the company to float on the Stock Exchange. Your place is there too. Sadly William never saw any of this happen …’ she paused and looked away.
    Helen couldn’t believe her own eyes. Hard-hearted Aggie had softened, in every sense of the word.
    There was a knock on the door, and at Aggie’s curt ‘enter’ the nurse came in with a tray of tea things. Aggie went uncharacteristically quiet, which puzzled Helen because her grandmother had never moderated her behaviour in the presence of servants. It was almost as if she expected Mrs Sanders to eavesdrop.
    ‘Would you pour, please?’ Aggie asked when the nurse had left.
    ‘Sure.’
    Helen filled the delicate bone china cups with fragrant Earl Grey tea and cut two slices of the cake. While Aggie continued talking about the history of the company and singing the praises of a grandfather she had never met, Helen wolfed down her cake and helped herself to another slice without asking permission, a gesture Aggie chose to ignore.
    ‘Before William passed away,’ Aggie droned on, ‘we agreed that when the company eventually floated, sixty-three per cent of the shares would remain with the family and each of our children would have a stake in it, as well as myself. Your mother died, so her shares went to you, and you now effectively control fifteen per cent of the company.’
    ‘ I do?’
    ‘Yes, dear. As of your twenty-fifth birthday you’ve become quite a wealthy young lady. The company is performing well, and the annual dividends to the shareholders are … well, let’s say very generous.’
    ‘How generous?’
    ‘Our annual turnover is about fifteen million.’ Aggie sipped her tea. ‘Out of that the company’s net profit is five to ten per cent, depending on performance, so a good year would yield, say, one and a half million. Fifteen per cent of that is … well, you work it out. You’ll need to see Sweetman about all that.’ She waved her hand dismissively as if it was unimportant.
    Helen’s brain kicked into gear. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. Stunned, she sat back in her chair. She’d never imagined she would come into money, and without lifting a finger too. For years the loss of her mother had eaten away at her so sometimes it was the only thing she could think of. She’d known Aggie was wealthy, but had seen the monthly allowance as Aggie’s way of paying for her bad conscience. Compared to what she would have at her disposal now, the allowance had literally been a pittance.
    Still, she was convinced Aggie hadn’t lured her