Daughters of Fortune: A Novel by Tara Hyland Read Free Book Online

family business.
    “Daddy had to work,” Isabelle would say when he failed to make another prize-giving, carol concert, or ballet recital. But, even though he never turned up, Elizabeth never stopped hoping he would.
    To Elizabeth, her father’s blatant lack of interest had always seemed curious as well as hurtful. From an early age, she was aware that she was his firstborn child, which meant she would one day inherit the controlling stake in Melville. Surely that meant she should be important to him? Her grandmother and Uncle Piers, her father’s younger brother, certainly doted on her—lavishing far more attention on her than on her younger sister Amber. What was she doing wrong that made her father so ambivalent toward her?
    God, how she loved her father—and how she ached for his approval. She wanted to please him, to prove that she was worthy of taking over from him one day, so she reacted by becoming a compulsive overachiever. To Elizabeth, second place meant failure. Even if she wasn’tnaturally gifted at something, she would work hard to become the best. Nothing ever got in the way of achieving what she wanted. When she was just ten years old, she fell off her horse while trying to jump a new fence. The groom rushed over to her.
    “Are you okay, Miss Melville?”
    But she was already on her feet, gathering the reins. “Just help me back up.”
    Only when she’d jumped the fence did she finally let him examine her arm. By then it was purple and swollen—broken in three places.
    This determination translated into every aspect of Elizabeth’s life—even her appearance. She used expensive makeup to emphasize her best features and found out which clothes suited her figure. She had a standing six-weekly appointment at Hari’s in Chelsea, to have her mouse brown hair precision-cut and highlighted golden blonde. Hours of tennis and horseback riding gave her slender figure definition and muscle tone, as well as a year-round tan. It was a high-maintenance look, but Elizabeth didn’t resent it. Nothing worthwhile ever came easy, that was her motto.
    It was this attitude which had made her the winner she was. She was always first in her class at Greycourt and had been unanimously elected student council president, and everyone expected her to be accepted at Cambridge that Christmas. Everything in her life had been perfect until her father, the one person she looked up to most, had let her down. Unfortunately, unlike most other aspects of her life, there was nothing she could do about his failings.
    With a sigh of resignation, she walked back into the house and headed upstairs. She was halfway along the corridor when she spotted her bedroom door ajar. She frowned. She was certain that she remembered closing it on the way out—which left only one explanation.
Amber
, she thought to herself, quickening her pace.
    Sure enough, inside she found her eleven-year-old sister standing at her dressing table, with Elizabeth’s antique jewelry box open in front of her.
    “Amber!” Hearing her sister’s voice, Amber looked up guiltily. “What did I tell you about asking permission before you start going through my stuff?”
    “I was going to ask,” Amber said, with a touch of petulance, “but I looked
really
hard for ages and couldn’t find you. And I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
    Elizabeth had heard all the excuses before. She stalked over and slammed the lid closed. The box was handcrafted ebony, dating back to the nineteenth century. Her grandmother, Rosalind, had given it to her, along with several pieces of jewelry, for her last birthday. The present had great sentimental as well as monetary value to Elizabeth, and she had forbidden her careless younger sister to play with it. But that didn’t seem to stop Amber.
    “And you can give those back, too.” Elizabeth reached out for the rope of pearls around her little sister’s neck.
    But as she started to take the necklace off, Amber made a grab for it, too. For