Spring came to the Hargrove estate the way spring comes to places that have earned it.
The geometric gardens threw off the grey of January and February and became something worth the name, and the old oak at the east edge of the property that Mrs. Aldren had pointed out on a day that felt like a different life put out leaves with the unhurried confidence of something that had been through enough winters to know they end.
The second clause contest had concluded in March. The judge had found the codicil improperly constructed under the estate instrument’s own terms, which meant the clause was invalidated with a finality that not even Robert Hargrove’s lawyers could navigate around. It was over. The estate was Damien’s without conditions.
Robert Hargrove had not called since Zurich. Damien
