Chapter 10
Nora asked to resign.
That surprised me.
I thought she wanted promotion.
Typical arrogance.
We met in the library.
“Why?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“Everyone keeps staring.”
Of course.
The maid who exposed the boss’s fiancée.
Some praised her.
Others avoided her.
Both made work impossible.
“I don’t want to be the woman who ruined the engagement.”
“You aren’t.”
“I know.”
Then:
“They don’t.”
Fair.
I offered paid time away.
She refused.
I offered another household assignment.
She thought.
Then accepted work in the mansion library and event archives.
Less public.
More suited to her languages.
That surprised me too.
“You read French?”
“Obviously.”
I almost smiled.
She did.
Also Italian.
Some Spanish.
Her grandmother had been a language teacher.
Nora never finished college after her father died.
Household work paid better immediately.
Again.
A whole life existing behind a uniform I had never looked past.
She started cataloging old family correspondence.
Not sensitive operational material.
Personal history.
Invitations.
Photos.
Menus.
Letters.
One week later she found something.
A dinner card from eleven years earlier.
Alistair Ward seated beside my father.
Gabriel across the room.
On the back, in my mother’s handwriting:
Alistair keeps encouraging Patrick to distrust Gabriel. I don’t like it.
My mother had noticed.
She died the next year.
No chance to see the betrayal unfold.
I held the card.
One sentence.
Not proof.
Warning.
Ignored by time.
Gabriel read it.
His jaw tightened.
“Mom knew.”
“She suspected.”
He nodded.
Then laughed bitterly.
“She always thought Dad’s worst weakness was needing one man to confirm his instincts.”
I looked at him.
“You mean Alistair.”
“I mean anyone.”
That included me now.
Again.
May you like
Uncomfortable.
Useful.
