A gift labeled for all of us with no donor’s name on it still waited. I’d saved it in hopes of ending our gift exchange on a happy note.
Since EG was searching through the debris, looking for more loot to add to her stack, I gestured for her to open the rather flat package that looked as if it might be a book. I was hoping it wasn’t another photo album to make us cry.
While the others were showing each other photos, EG happily tore apart the elegant gold-embossed wrapping paper. No recycling here. I hid my sigh of regret. Once upon a time, I could have had lots of fun with that paper.
The slender box held a fancy file folder which looked suspiciously as if it had come from a law office. Nick was closer and took it from her. His eyebrows practically hit the sky as he studied the documents inside. Then he offered it to Patra instead of to me.
I waited in frustration, wanting to thrash them all for bypassing me as they handed it back and forth. Zander finally looked at it in puzzlement and handed it over. My siblings waited so expectantly, that I swallowed hard and braced myself.
I skimmed the legal verbiage. Not entirely believing what I was reading, I flipped through the pages until I found the signatures and a notary’s seal. I gulped, and returned to reading again from the start.
“Well?” Patra said impatiently. “Is this enough? Will you settle for partial ownership or do we still keep fighting him?”
Graham had deeded half of our grandfather’s mansion to our family trust, with his half going to the trust upon his death.
Finally, and at long last, I had it all, almost. I got to keep Graham and my house. I looked up to my expectant family and nodded. “Graham was as much Max’s family as we are, maybe more so. This makes good sense.”
Six months ago, I wouldn’t have agreed. Now, I almost cried again at Graham’s generosity.
With that settled, Zander pointed at the remaining Magda photo-album packages under the tree. “Who are these for?”
Patra, naturally, had already studied them. “One’s for Sean, the other is for Graham. We ought to open them.”
Her newspaper reporter instinct was kicking in, sniffing for more insight into the mysterious past that Magda had shared with their fathers. I waited for a lamp to interrupt, but Graham apparently wasn’t paying attention. I could fix that.
I gestured at Tudor, who had been waiting for this moment. He pulled a collapsible pile of plastic from behind the sofa, shook it about a bit, and produced a blinking battery-operated Christmas tree. Then I gestured at the stack of eccentrically wrapped packages left under the tree.
“If the Grinch won’t come to Christmas, we’ll take Christmas to the Grinch,” I announced.
Gleefully, everyone grabbed a few packages, and we trudged up two flights of stairs to Graham’s attic lair. I was praying he’d still be there and hadn’t fled to Outer Mongolia at the first hint of my intentions.
Mallard was at the top of the stairs, behind a linen-covered table adorned with a crystal punch bowl and matching crystal cups. Crystal! Honestly, the man had gone completely mad.
EG completed a polite curtsy I didn’t know she knew how to perform. She handed over her gift to Mallard, then snatched a cookie from the lovely buffet.
My siblings stacked gifts before him, and I could swear the old soldier was starting to mist up as we all grabbed plates of goodies and cups of punch. I was betting Magda had given him his photo album in private, because he was looking all smiley sentimental and had a suspiciously square bulge in his immaculately fitted jacket.
He even opened the door to Graham’s office for us so Tudor could lead the parade with his blinking tree.
Only Tudor had ever been invited to Graham’s inner sanctum. I’d stormed it. EG had sneaked around it. Nick had seen it after Graham had stripped and hidden everything last month. As far as I knew, Patra, Zander, and Julie had never been up here. So mostly, everyone gawked as we entered bearing gifts.
Graham was wearing a fake-fur-trimmed Santa hat pulled down over his hair and scar. But this hat was black, like his long-sleeved shirt and trousers. I was pretty sure that was a green Grinch embroidered on the front. He regarded us solemnly as Tudor set the tree down on his polished mahogany console. For once, his monitors weren’t showing scenes of mayhem. Instead, he’d tuned into cameras on the Ellipse displaying the Christmas tree and crowds. There were images of skating rinks and churches too. He’d prepared for us.
I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t think either of us was ready for public displays of affection. I handed him a cup of punch instead. “Merry Christmas from your extended family.”
I waited for him to wince, but he was a practiced politician when he wanted to be. “Thank you, I think,” was all he said.
But by the time he’d opened his gifts and was wearing a Cat-in-the-Hat scarf, while Tudor produced plastic stars on the 3-D printer and Mallard tuned in a choir singing the Messiah, Graham was actually smiling.
We couldn’t give him anything as generous as half a mansion, but we could give him the family he’d never had. Both gifts came with passels of problems, but I figured we were up to the challenge.
Graham intelligently didn’t open Magda’s gift while we were present. I’d get to the bottom of the mystery of my father’s relationship with him in the new year.
For now, I’d simply rejoice that I had everyone I loved under one roof.
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Tom Sietsema, the Washington Post’s food critic, for recommending 701 as a lovely restaurant open in 2011 that would suit my high-end gang! And as always, I could not have kept all the pieces strung together without the help of Mindy Klasky, Jennifer Stevenson, Phyllis Radford, and the BVC crew who monitor a book from a gleam in the author’s eye to the final production. The publishing business wouldn’t be worth the effort without the extraordinary people who populate it!
Characters in the Series
Ana’s Family and friends
Anastasia (Ana) Devlin—daughter of Brody Devlin. Magda’s eldest child. (Alias Linda Lane/teacher, Patty Pasko/realtor/accountant; Jessica James, attorney)
Brody Devlin—Ana’s father, the Mad Irishman, killed by a bomb when Ana was four
Magda Maximillian Llewellyn Bullfinch Hostetter—Ana’s mother, the self-called Hungarian princess. Ana’s names for her are less pleasant.
Nicholas Maximillian—Ana’s half-brother, illegitimate son of a British lord, five years younger than Ana
Elizabeth Georgiana Maximillian (EG)—Ana’s nine-year-old half-sister; illegitimate daughter of Senator Tex Hammond
Tudor Bullfinch—Ana’s sixteen-year old hacker half-brother; father is an Australian shipping magnate
Cleopatra (Patra) Llewellyn—Ana’s eldest half-sister; journalist; dating Sean O’Herlihy; father Patrick was an investigative reporter who died when she was very young
Alexander (Zander) Khosi Kruger—Ana’s illegitimate South African half-brother and Juliana’s twin
Juliana (Julie) Aneke Kruger—Ana’s illegitimate South African half-sister and Zander’s twin
Phillip Kruger—the twin’s father, diplomat, deceased
Rathbone Maximillian–Ana’s grandfather, deceased
Antonina Maximillian—Ana’s grandmother, deceased
Mallard–Graham’s Irish butler, former IRA general
Sean O’Herlihy—political investigative reporter; his father was assassinated at same time as Ana’s and Graham’s
Characters in Twin Genius
Reverend Joshua Arden—former football hero, preacher, runs Joshua Arden Community Association Development (JACAD or CAD for short)
Reverend William Arden—Joshua’s father, famous televangelist and preacher
Dorothy Overcamp—manager of Arden’s marketing office
William Gregory—park’s general contr
actor
Maryam Rathore—Julie’s Pakistani roommate
Rebecca Beatty—strangled and left in the Potomac; former JACAD worker
Melissa Winters—church-going Sunday school teacher and former JACAD student
Esther Hanks—George Paycock’s girlfriend and Julie’s former roommate
Owen Black—construction worker whose body was found in park in October
Edward Parker the Third—trust fund baby, on JACAD board
George Paycock—CFO of General Defense Industries, on JACAD board
Lucas Schmidt—a student at JACAD
Anthony (Tony) Jeffrey—General Defense CEO, park supporter
Laura Jeffrey—Tony Jeffrey’s daughter
Aunt Hildegard—Phillip Kruger’s sister and the twins’ paternal aunt
Detective Hobbs—investigating shooting at park
Blackwell Johnson—attorney at Brashton, Johnson, and Terwilliger
Reginald Brashton the Third—executor who ran off with the Maximillian money
Arnold Oppenheimer—shark attorney hired to sue Brashton
Senator Paul Rose—running for president
South African Slang
Ag man—pronounced “ach;” to express dismay: oh, man!
Antie—derived from “aunt;” female of authority
Bakgat—awesome, cool
Bladdy hell—just what it sounds like
Bosbefok—crazy, mad, out of your mind
dof—dumb
Domkop—idiot, dumbhead
Dwankie—noun or adjective: uncool
Eish—expression of surprise: Wow, really, what?!
Jislaaik—similar to eish: Jislaaik, he walked off the cliff!
Kak—c’mon, you can guess this one! Probably from the same origin as caca, meaning excrement; vulgar
nè?—from French n'est-ce pas: don’t you agree?
Skebanga—criminal, thug
Skelm—similar to skebanga
Skort—Watch out
Vrot—Bad, wrong
Yoh—similar to eish; expression of surprise
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Also By Patricia Rice
The World of Magic:
The Unexpected Magic Series
Magic in the Stars
Whisper of Magic
Theory of Magic
The Magical Malcolms Series
Merely magic
Must Be Magic
The Trouble With Magic
This Magic Moment
Much Ado About Magic
Magic Man
The California Malcolms Series
The Lure of Song and Magic
Trouble with Air and Magic
The Risk of Love and Magic
Historical Romance:
The Rebellious Sons
Wicked Wyckerly
Devilish Montague
Notorious Atherton
Formidable Lord Quentin
Rogues & Desperadoes
Lord Rogue
Moonlight and Memories
Shelter from the Storm
Wayward Angel
Denim and Lace
Cheyenne’s Lady
The Regency Nobles Series
The Genuine Article
The Marquess
English Heiress
Irish Duchess
Mysteries:
Family Genius Series
Evil Genius
Undercover Genius
Cyber Genius
Twin Genius
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Excerpt
In which EG
and Nick arrive bearing trouble
My name is Ana, and I’m a doormat.
I’m also one of the best virtual assistants in the world, if you’ll pardon my modesty. Being a virtual assistant and a wuss often go hand in hand. Most of us are introverts who prefer to work in cyberspace because human nature is messy and unpredictable and computers aren’t. My excuse is that my family is messier than most and so far beyond volatile as to establish whole new spectrums of the definition, so being their doormat involves a great deal of mud and muddle that I couldn’t take anymore.
So four years ago, I left my family half way around the world, and I never had reason to believe they had interest in finding me until the day my doorbell rang. At the time, I lived and worked in the basement of a Victorian tenement in Atlanta. Expecting the usual FedEx or UPS delivery, I ran up to the foyer, blinking to adjust to the sun filtering through the dirty transom before opening the door. Even though she stood right before me, I still couldn’t believe my eyes.
The last time I had seen EG, she was only five. I had fiercely missed my eccentric half-siblings, but once I developed the gumption to quit enabling my mother’s dysfunctional lifestyle, I had no choice but to walk out on them.
Since escaping, I’ve been practicing hard to overcome my doormat tendencies. Granted, it may not seem that way since I’m small and dark and work at blending in, but in my world, invisibility is a defensive position. After twenty years with my flamboyant, nomadic, mother and half-siblings, I treasured the anonymity I’d achieved since my declaration of independence. Invisibility allows me to be myself, giving me hope of establishing a normal life, with a real home someday.
I’m not angling for sympathy, but growing up as the responsible eldest of a family of drama queens, I felt responsible for their welfare, which required more assertiveness and the best therapists my mother’s government health plan could afford. It took me twenty-six years to conquer my need to act as mother-hen. And apparently, four for my family to find me again.