Chapter 6
Edmund Calder asked to speak privately.
I allowed it because curiosity remained useful.
He came without Marcus.
Good sign.
“You think Pierce invented all of this.”
“Didn’t they?”
“No.”
I stared.
Edmund had advised my father.
Then my mother after Father died.
For a while.
He told me something I did not enjoy hearing.
Eleanor Blackwood had once used the exact same methods.
Not kidnapping.
Not lies about South Lodge.
But household control.
Screened staff.
Filtered guests.
Redirected messages.
Protected my father from relatives she distrusted.
Removed one driver without telling him.
Discouraged meetings with two cousins.
My mother went still when I confronted her.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
No defense.
Interesting.
“Why?”
She looked toward Father’s portrait.
“Because your father trusted everyone who called him brother.”
True.
“He was careless.”
Also true.
“I kept dangerous people away.”
“And safe people?”
Silence.
There.
Not always.
My mother had turned household access into protective power.
I grew up inside it.
Then inherited a mansion already built around one gatekeeper.
Me.
The boss.
Supposedly powerful.
But protected by filters I rarely examined.
Estelle did not invent the structure.
She wanted to inherit it.
Then reshape it toward Pierce.
That changed how I saw the conflict.
Not good mother versus bad fiancée.
Old private power versus new private power.
Both around me.
Neither accountable enough.
Mother understood before I said it.
“You’re going to take the house away from me.”
“No.”
I leaned back.
“I’m going to take ownership of the doors away from everyone.”
She smiled sadly.
“Your father tried that.”
“And?”
“He got tired.”
Fair warning.
I would not.
At least not immediately.
Then Edmund said something that bothered me.
“Marcus doesn’t care about the house.”
I looked at him.
“Then why help?”
“Because Estelle promised him information.”
There.
The house for her.
Information for him.
Which captains visited me.
Who arrived angry.
Which relatives stayed late.
Who met privately.
A household network could become intelligence.
Marcus Pierce did not need my chair.
He wanted to know what happened around it before everyone else.
May you like
That was worse than ambition.
It was patience.
