Chapter 3
The Ashwick family knew how to absorb children.
That was Beatrice’s phrase.
Absorb.
Not welcome.
Not love.
Absorb.
For generations, children born outside approved marriages were handled quietly.
Some remained with mothers.
Some were brought into the main branch.
Some raised by trusted relatives until the family decided where they “fit.”
The stated purpose was protection.
Sometimes it probably was.
But protection without the parent’s choice becomes something else quickly.
Beatrice feared the moment Lily became publicly known, older captains would begin discussing her future.
My future.
Inheritance.
Bloodline.
Whether Mirelle was suitable.
Whether Odessa’s eventual children would outrank Lily.
My mother wanted time to establish a position first.
“Whose position?”
“Lily’s.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Yours.”
She went still.
That was it.
Beatrice wanted to present Lily herself.
Granddaughter of Beatrice Ashwick.
Child under family protection.
Not daughter of a frightened twenty-two-year-old maid.
Mirelle’s motherhood complicated the image.
So my mother separated them for a few hours to prove she could.
I asked:
“Did you plan to send Mirelle away afterward?”
Silence.
Odessa answered from the doorway.
“Yes.”
Beatrice turned sharply.
Good.
Cracks.
Odessa continued.
“Not forever.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently nobody in this house understood that phrase no longer helped.
The plan was to move Mirelle to an Ashwick hotel in Vermont.
Good salary.
Private apartment.
Visits with Lily.
Enough comfort to make coercion look generous.
And Lily?
Raised at the mansion.
Near me.
Near Beatrice.
Near Odessa.
A daughter gradually transformed into an Ashwick child whose mother became a visitor.
Mirelle looked sick.
“You promised me she would always live with me.”
Odessa shrugged.
“I promised you she’d be cared for.”
There.
Different promise.
Deliberately.
I stared at my fiancée.
“You were going to remove a mother from her child and call it care.”
Odessa’s expression hardened.
May you like
“I was protecting your future.”
“My future was not yours to edit.”
