Chapter 5
Marielle understood before I explained.
Her face went white.
“No.”
Odessa looked away.
I asked Julian:
“Was she supposed to be blamed?”
He rubbed one hand over his mouth.
“Not permanently.”
I almost laughed.
“What does temporary guilt look like to a housemaid?”
No answer.
The plan was disgustingly elegant.
I eat dessert.
I become confused.
Marielle had served the table.
Odessa disappears during fireworks.
Security focuses outside.
By midnight, a recorded message arrives demanding eight million dollars.
The supposed kidnappers warn me not to investigate staff.
Convenient.
Once Odessa returned safely, she would insist Marielle had nothing to do with it.
Generous fiancée saves innocent servant.
Everyone relieved.
Nobody asks why the dessert knocked me unconscious.
Because the engagement story now has a larger villain.
The kidnappers.
“Who were you going to blame?”
Julian said:
“The Hawthornes.”
My jaw tightened.
Old rivals.
Not enemies currently.
Twenty years of uneasy peace.
Odessa’s father owed them money from failed private ventures and several reckless games.
If I believed they had kidnapped my fiancée inside my own estate, debt would become irrelevant.
Pride would become everything.
“You expected me to attack them.”
Odessa shook her head.
“No.”
Julian answered:
“Yes.”
She turned toward him.
He shrugged.
“Eventually.”
There.
Different versions of the plan.
Odessa imagined ransom.
Julian imagined feud.
Their father, I suspected, imagined both.
I asked:
“Who created this?”
Neither answered.
So I answered for them.
“Your father.”
Odessa closed her eyes.
Good.
Gideon.
Elegant old bastard.
He had toasted our engagement an hour earlier.
Then left early complaining of fatigue.
Perfect timing.
I looked at Rafe.
“Bring Gideon back.”
Odessa stepped toward me.
“Benedict, please.”
I moved away from her.
“No.”
She stopped.
“You were ready to make a maid look like she drugged me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I was going to clear her.”
“After she spent how many hours believing my men thought she hurt me?”
Silence.
Marielle pressed both hands against her apron.
I had seen that posture before.
Not tonight.
May you like
For weeks.
Fear did not begin with dessert.
