The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart

Author:Nicole Baart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

Adri swept through the house in her understated charcoal dress. Her dark hair was in a neat chignon; her makeup was perfect. And the memorial had been perfect, too. A tasteful mix of bitter and sweet, melancholy and hopeful, though Adri wasn’t feeling very hopeful at all.

Her father had read “If,” and her heart twisted on the lines that Victoria had chosen: “If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken / twisted . . . Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, / And stoop to build them up with worn-out tools . . .”

And she wondered if they had been picked expressly for her. Adri’s heart changed the final phrase (“You’ll be a woman, my daughter!”) and knew that in her own inexplicable way Victoria had meant it for all of them. An anthem that allowed for all the broken promises and all the ways that they had tried. Failed, but tried.

People wandered Piperhall like it was an open house, and in a way, Adri supposed, it was. Maybe one of the guests would remember the summer picnics, be gripped with nostalgia, and approach her with a purchase price. She hoped that would be the case. And yet, there was a part of her that dreaded it, too. For, as much as she longed to be rid of the burden that was the home that housed her memories and her former dreams, at the moment of letting go she found that her fingers held fast.

“It’s beautiful. All of it. You’ve done a remarkable job.”

Adri turned to see Mrs. Holt dressed in a cream tailored suit, a fluted glass of wine raised in a toast. To her? “Thank you,” she said. “It was nothing.”

“Certainly not nothing,” Katherine disagreed. “Piperhall hasn’t looked this good in years.”

“Agreed.” Clay caught Adri’s elbow from behind and brushed a light kiss against her cheek. Reaching out to Mrs. Holt, he took her hand and pressed his lips briefly to her wrist. “The only things that outshine the floor are the lovely ladies before me.”

Katherine gave Clay a censorious look and drew back her hand, but Adri could tell it was lighthearted. She hadn’t realized that her lawyer and David’s former tutor knew each other, but then, it seemed everyone in Blackhawk was acquainted.

“Victoria would have been pleased,” Katherine said, diverting attention back to the memorial. “Very pleased.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Adri sighed, and found herself blinking back unexpected tears. It was beautiful—the mansion, Victoria’s legacy, the evening itself—but it was a fractured kind of beauty, and no amount of cleaning or waxing or maintenance could repair what she longed to fix. If Clay and Mrs. Holt noticed her sudden emotion, they were kind enough not to comment, and before she could be drawn into unwanted conversations about the past or the future of the estate, Adri quietly excused herself.

When dusk settled over the estate, Will lit the gardenia candles that were scattered throughout the mansion. Though Victoria’s only real

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