Heritage, chapter 2

"I would like to speak to her alone," he said, and his voice was pleasantly deep.
"I shall be on the next room if you need me," Mother Superior said.

She left the room and closed the door quietly behind her, leaving Kate alone with this man who was observing her as much as she imagined one would observe an object under a microscope. Kate began to feel a bit uncomfortable.

"Wont you sit down, Kate?" he gestured towards the wooden upright chair beside her, and whe she was seated, he pulled a chair closer for himself and lowered his lean length on it. "How much do you know about you're father's business?"

"I know that he was an importer of engineering products," she answered him, sitting rigidly erect on the edge of her chair.
"Is that all you know?" he questioned.

"My parents travelled extensively because of my father's work," she added wondering what all these questions were leading to.

"Your father has left you a very wealthy young woman, and as one of the main shareholders you could one day take charge as the director of the company,if you want to." He's eyes held hers captive while she silently disagree with the information that he told her, but he followed it up with something which disturbed her even more.

"Until you're twenty-one, however, I will be your legal adviser ang guardian."

"You--you'll be my guardian?" she said, sinking her small teeth nervously into her quivering lip to steady it.

"Yup!' he said to her. "I believe you've chosen to go to a secretarial college for a year."

"Y-Yes," she croaked nervously.

"Are you not interested in a career which involves the economics of business?"

"No," she shook her head adamantly.

"Very well then."

He rose to his feet, and Kate felt compelled to do the same, but she found her self totally dwarfed on this mans's length.

"You may rest assured that I shall attend to the business side of your inheritance to the best of my ability."

The finality in his voice seemed to bring the discussion to an end and stepping a pace away from him, she ask timidly, "May I go now?"

"Not yet." He smiled for the first time, a smile that simply curved his lips. "You'll be taking you final exams shortly. As soon as you're allowed out for the holidays you'll be collected and taken to my home in Oakland."

Alarm shot through her, and caught her at her throat like the tightening of a noose. "I would rather remain here."

"That maybe so, but once you've taken ur finals you will no longer be a student at this academy, andyou're old enough to knowthat the nuns cannot continue providing a home for you indefinitely," he argued impatiently, then his brows rose in a decidedly mocking manner above his eyes. "Unless, of course, you intend to become one of them and take vows"

"No, I-I don't, but-"
"In that case you must trust me to decide what's best for you in the future," he cut short her flatering protest.
"I suppose so," Kate agreed miserably.
"Is there perhaps anything you require before I leave? Money for instance?"

A strong hand with long, well tapered fingers slid into his side pocket as if to wip out his cheque book and pen, and her reply tumbled hastily from her lips. "I don't need anything."

"Really? well if you needed anything, you should contact me at once, ok?" His hands emerged from his pocket, but, instead of a cheque book, he held a small white card between his fingers. "You will find my home and office telephone numbers on that card."

"Thank you," she murmured, accepting the card from him with a hand that trembled slightly.

He waited, almost as if he expected her to study the card, the he swung away from her abruptly and called Mother Superior. The door opened almost at once, and Mother Superior's calm countenance eased away som of the tension in Kate's taut body.

"I would like to thank you for the few mins. alone with Kate," he said
The Mother Superior's eyes were filled with concern as she glace at Kate.
"Do you understand and accept everything my child?"

"Yes ma'am," she said, an affirmative reply despite the confusion that still reigned within her. "May I go now?"

"Yes you may go," Mother Superior nooded, and kate was surprised to discover that her legs were shaking as she walked out of the office.

Alone in her room, she tried to assimilate the news which the attorney had just imparted to her. She had known very little about her parents other than that her father had been kind, whereas her beautiful mother had made no secret of the fact that she dislike her daughter. "Put her in a convent, The nuns will look after her," Jane had said when it was time for Kate to start school, and her father had not argued away his wife's cruel rejection of her child.

Kate, as young as she had been at that time, had sensed that she was unwanted, and as the years passedshe bacame a withdrawn young woman who preffered sketching or listening to musics alone at her room. The other girls in the academy always tiesed and make fun of her.

Kate stared at the card she was twisting agitatedly between haer fingers, and read for the first time the words printed on it. M.R. Pritchard, Attorney.
His home and office numbers followed, but herfingers were shaking so much that she could barely read them. He had mentioned money, but all the money in the world would not make up for the years of knowing that she was unwanted. She had been reared by servants until it was time for her to go to school, and then she had been passed on to the nuns like an obnoxious parcel, and now she will be passed again to the man that she doesn't even know. He will be her guardian until she's 21 after that she would once again become an unwanted burden.