Heirs Book Two: American Lady (2 page)

The silver BMW swung slowly past the security gates
and onto the driveway leading in a semi-circle towards the gracious
Victorian mansion. As she looked out the window, Nikki felt a stab
of regret and nostalgia. Waterford Park was a symbol of her early
life with Alex. This was the Cassidy patriarchal home. Here Paddy
and Fiorella Cassidy had reigned supreme and Alex, his brother
Connor and sister Clodagh, had grown up in the long shadow of their
father’s political ambitions. Paddy Cassidy had groomed Alex to
become President of the United States since his birth.

The secret service agent pulled the car up
in front of Waterford’s broad front porch. The house was wrapped on
three sides by balustrated verandahs. Bay windows protruded on
either side of the stained glass paneled entrance. In front of the
house the lawn sloped down towards the road, bordered by huge
rhododendron bushes covered in glossy evergreen leaves and the
first sprinkling of spring buds. The grass was still patchy, with
only a faint shimmer of new green growth showing through.

As Nikki, Charley and Declan got out of the
car they could hear the gulls squawking overhead, outlined against
a gray and cloudy sky. Nikki shivered. The weather was that
inbetween stage, neither warm enough to be called spring nor cold
enough to be considered winter. The ground was bare of snow, but
the stiff sea breeze off Cape Cod was chilly.

She pulled her fur-lined jacket tighter
around her, sniffing in the salty air which brought back memories
of happy summers spent here with Alex and their two toddlers, who
had loved running excitedly around the grounds with their cousins
or going sailing with their father and uncle. Then she had become a
widow at twenty-eight when Alex died of a heart attack just prior
to his second inauguration and her life had changed overnight.

The driver pulled away to park the car off
to the side between a spanking new Mercedes and a battered old
Volvo, which meant her sister-in-law Clodagh and her husband Jaegar
Schiller had arrived from Philadelphia.

To steady her nerves for the forthcoming
confrontation with the Cassidy clan, Nikki reached down and rubbed
the emerald and diamond shamrock Lorenzo had sent her that morning
for luck before they had left for the Cassidy stronghold. She was
going to need luck and all her strength today to break the news of
her engagement to Lorenzo De Angelis, notorious playboy and
award-winning producer. If only she had been able to bring him with
her for support.

“I’ll come if you want me there, cara,” he
had offered.

“Thank you. But you’d never get past Paddy’s
Rottweilers,” which was her derisive term for her in-laws Connor
and Barbara.

“What can they do to you now, querida? It’s
been twenty years since Alex died. You’re a successful, independent
businesswoman. And once you marry me you will never need to rely on
the Cassidys again,” Lorenzo boasted.

“There’s still the children’s trust funds,”
Nikki had responded. Each Cassidy grandchild was entitled to access
a substantial amount of money on their twenty-fifth birthdays, as
well as the money left to them by their deceased father. “And there
are the political connections. I don’t want to spoil anything for
Declan if that’s what he wants.”

“Alright, cara. If you don’t want me there,
I’m off to Palm Beach. I have a team playing in the International
Gold Cup and the Cartier International Open,” he had grinned.

“You were planning to go all the time!”
Nikki had accused him.

“Why don’t you come with me? Florida in
March is much nicer than Cape Cod.” But she had remained annoyed
until this morning when a delivery man from Van Cleef & Arpels
had dropped off the shamrock-shaped brooch with twenty small
emeralds in each leaf surrounding a diamond center.

Exchanging glances to fuel their solidarity,
the three Cassidys moved forward like troopers, climbing the porch
steps in unison. Nikki rang the doorbell which was answered by
twelve-year-old Scarlett Cassidy, the youngest of Connor Cassidy’s
large brood, wearing a bright green T-shirt that said “Kiss me, I’m
Irish” across the front, tucked into stone-washed Levis.

“Look everybody, the counterfeit Cassidys
have arrived!” she sneered.

The Connor Cassidys had never forgiven Nikki
for not supporting his campaign and for not aligning herself more
actively with the Cassidy clan. Nikki was seen as aloof and she was
blamed for having brought up Charley and Declan to reject much of
their Cassidy heritage.

As they stepped into the entry the noise of
the assembled Cassidy clan engulfed them. There was such a hubbub
of shouted greetings en masse that it was impossible to distinguish
any one face or voice. Nikki had always maintained that Connor and
his wife Barbara, and Clodagh and her husband Jaegar had taken the
church’s maxim to go forth and multiply literally. Their two
marriages had produced between them twelve children and the oldest
of those offspring were now marrying and producing their own
children.

Barbara Cassidy emerged to greet them. She
wore her short grey hair in a curly bob around her broad, not too
fleshy face, revealing huge emerald earrings dangling from rather
elongated earlobes. She wore a navy blue pleated skirt, secretarial
white blouse and a bottle green, heavily padded jacket. Her
low-heeled pumps were navy with green and white striped toes.

“I preferred Scarlett’s T-shirt,” Charley
muttered to Declan as Nikki reached out to shake her
sister-in-law’s hand and the two women air kissed right cheeks. St
Patrick’s Day and Christmas were the only occasions when Nikki
could bring herself to visit Waterford Park. “I do love the color
of your jacket, Barbara,” she lied.

Barbara preened.

“Well some people think green and blue
shouldn’t be mixed, but I believe I have achieved a certain style
with this combination,” she agreed. “Perhaps I could give you some
tips for your next collection,” she tittered. “My daughter-in-law
tells me that the kindest compliment you got in your reviews was
that you didn’t cut corners on the champagne. Still, you can always
start designing for Barbie dolls,” Barbara smirked. “At least you’d
be in good company. I just bought Scarlett two Oscar de la Renta
outfits for her Barbie. Now that’s a lucrative line for you.
Anyway, come and see father first, then you can join everybody
afterwards.”

Nikki gritted her teeth. Barbara relished
her role as matriarch of the family since Connor had moved his
brood back into Waterford to look after his father, and never
missed an opportunity to preen about it. Nikki knew that as long as
his meals were on time and he could circumvent Barbara’s
interference with his whiskey drinking, Paddy tolerated their
presence, but Connor would never be the success that Alex was.

Having put Alex Cassidy on a pedestal during
his term in office, the press seemed determined to knock the
Cassidys off their perch. When Connor nominated for the 1972
election, the fight was dirty with the media casting the Cassidys
as vote-buying womanizers and instead of backing her brother-in-law
as Jaegar and Clodagh had done, Nikki had fled to Paris ignoring
the whole scandal.

Disgraced, Connor had failed to secure the
nomination and had withdrawn from the presidential race. Only when
the Watergate scandal broke and the uproar over Nixon finally
buried the Cassidy furore did Nikki return to America with Charley
and Declan. The unfairness of it had changed Connor into a bitter
man. He had never forgiven the press for raking up mud over the
Cassidys when other politicians had just as much to hide.

Paddy Cassidy was ensconced in his den,
situated at the very back of the house. A deep bay window
overlooked a wooded copse filled with towering beech and scarlet
oak trees, freshly budding with green and crimson leaves, like a
first coat of paint along the branches.

Nikki smiled and bent to kiss his wrinkled
cheek. Charley followed suit while Declan shook his frail hand.

Every year his body seemed to shrink a
little more, so soon he would be engulfed by his favorite easy
chair, from where he had a clear view out the window and yet could
face anyone coming through the door. He sat close to a roaring log
fire with an emerald green rug over his knees. He was still a
dapper man and wore a gray suit jacket and Kelly-green tie for the
occasion and his wispy white hair had been given a comb over by
Barbara.

Nikki hated to see him become more and more
of an invalid each year. She preferred to remember him as he had
been when Alex had first introduced them when he was running for
the Vice Presidency and Paddy had hastily given them his blessing
for their wedding. Paddy Cassidy had been a bluff, vitally
energetic, physically huge man in his mid-fifties. He had been a
dominant force in American politics and a very controlling father.
The one heart-breaking fact he hadn’t been able to prevent was the
death of his eldest son Alex, who had had broad enough shoulders to
support all his father’s dreams. Which one of his grandchildren
would be a suitable heir for the Cassidy political empire? She
hoped he wasn’t scouting for Declan.

“Happy birthday, Paddy,” Nikki said, handing
over a bottle of Paddy’s Irish Whiskey. The old man must be
eighty-five if he was a day and at his age he reckoned he didn’t
have to respect anybody else’s age, gender or sensibilities.

“Happy birthday, grandpa,” echoed the
others.

“What’s happy about it?” he growled. Always
terse, in his old age and invalidism he had developed a contrary
sense of humor. “Another year older and closer to death. But I
imagine this is how you’ll celebrate at my wake next year, so I
might as well enjoy it with you this year. Get me a glass,” he
ordered one of his grandsons.

Grinning, young Brodie Cassidy filled the
old man’s glass from the bottle Nikki had just brought in. The
grandchildren who still lived at home were placed on a roster so
that someone was always available at Paddy’s beck and call during
the day.

Paddy screwed his eyes up and squinted at
Nikki.

“Come closer. Let me have a look at that
shamrock.” He brought out an eye glass and scrutinized the
sparkling brooch. “Well, you’ve done me proud today, for sure,
Dominique Cassidy. You wouldn’t get much change out of fifty
thousand for that bauble if I’m not mistaken.”

He put away his eye glass in favor of the
whiskey glass, and raised it with a shaking hand.

“If the present you’ve brought me is half as
nice as that bauble I’ll be well pleased,” he snorted.

“Father!” Barbara admonished. “You know he
doesn’t mean it, Dominique.” Being daughters-in-law should have
created a bond between the two women, but it didn’t. Nikki knew
Barbara had never quite forgiven her for her effortless style and
her impregnable status of grieving presidential widow.

He took a huge swallow. “Well, surprise,
surprise I haven’t had Paddy’s since this time last year.” His eyes
twinkled. Each year Nikki bought him the same present, the biggest
bottle of Paddy’s she could get. She couldn’t see any point in
racking her brain for something to buy the old man when he had a
lot more money than she did, and he wasn’t likely to want, need or
use anything she bought anyway. Whereas Irish whiskey was something
he did appreciate. Despite his sometimes foul humor, it was
impossible not to like Paddy Cassidy. His son Alex always said his
father had the real charm of the Irish. Alex had had that Irish
charm too, Nikki thought, again stabbed by guilt and
reminiscence.

It must be because she was about to remarry
that memories of Alex were flooding back today. How on earth was
she going to break the news to Paddy and the rest of the
family?

“I’ve a desire to speak to me
daughter-in-law alone,” Paddy surprised her. “The rest of you
begone. I’ll talk to you at dinner. No, no, not you, Barbar. I want
to talk to me other daughter-in-law, Dominique,” he said
ungraciously as Barbara started to hustle everyone else out of the
room. Miffed, she slammed the door after her, leaving Nikki alone
with Paddy, and following the others into the huge family room.

* * *

The gracious Victorian house had
twenty-eight rooms spread throughout three stories, a basement that
doubled as a wine cellar, a swimming pool, and an elevator that had
been installed when Paddy got shaky on his legs. As the first
American-born son of Irish immigrants, Paddy had fought and clawed
his way through to financial wealth and this house was a symbol of
his achievement. It had been large enough to house his ambitions
and bring his children into the orbit of the well-bred, not simply
well-heeled. It had served as a political base for both Alex and
Connor Cassidy in its day.

When Connor returned with his brood, the
entire left side of the house had been opened up, with walls
knocked out of two other rooms, to form a massive family enclosure
stretching from the bay window at the front of the house through to
the kitchen at the back, in order to accommodate the Cassidy clan
when they all assembled on special occasions.

“You’re not strangers, so make yourselves at
home until we’re ready for dinner,” Barbara said to Charley and
Declan. “I’ve got to check on Clodagh in the kitchen.” It was a
matter of pride to the two women that despite the growing numbers
congregating at Waterford for family gatherings they managed to
cater for everybody themselves. With a beady eye she watched Brodie
sneak over to join his brother Jimmy and cousins Blaz and Dieter
who were huddled over a magazine.

In another corner Scarlett was bopping along
to blasting music, teaching her nieces and nephew the words to “We
are the world.”

Josie Wisenwerner, who was married to
Connor’s oldest son Rory, came jogging into the room dressed in
tiny shorts showing off shapely muscular legs purpled by the cold,
an overlarge sweatshirt and a sweatband-come-earmuffs. Accompanied
by two large dogs, she trotted over to her husband, regardless that
she and the dogs were leaving a muddy trail behind them.