Chapter 2
Roselle refused to leave her son.
Good.
I would have thought less of anyone who expected her to.
His name was Owen.
Six years old.
Too quiet.
He kept both arms around his mother’s neck while one of my housekeepers brought food.
Roselle tried to apologize to me.
I stopped her.
“For what?”
“My shift.”
I stared.
Her son had been locked in a guesthouse and she was worried about missing work.
That told me everything I needed to know about how Violetta had controlled her.
“Your shift is over.”
Her face fell.
Not relief.
Fear.
“I need the job.”
“You still have it.”
She looked suspicious.
Fair.
“How long was Owen in there?”
“Since yesterday afternoon.”
My gaze moved toward Violetta.
Another night.
Exactly as she had threatened.
Roselle had been allowed to bring him food once, under supervision.
Then Violetta took the key.
Why not simply call me?
Roselle laughed bitterly.
“With what proof?”
Then:
“She said you’d believe your future wife.”
That hurt because Violetta had been right about the possibility.
Not definitely.
But enough to terrify a maid.
“What did she want you to do?”
Roselle hesitated.
“Clean your father’s room.”
Impossible.
The room had been sealed after Alistair Ashcombe died six years earlier.
Nobody cleaned inside.
The corridor staff handled the exterior only.
“Why you?”
“She said if anyone asked, I was supposed to say I went in looking for jewelry.”
There.
Scapegoat prepared.
Disposable explanation.
“Did you enter?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Roselle’s expression tightened.
“Mr. Merrick stopped me.”
Silas.
Of course.
He still carried the old interior key.
My father gave it to him decades ago.
After the funeral, I let him keep it because he had earned more trust inside that room than any of us.
Violetta learned.
She needed him.
So she took Owen.
Threatened Roselle.
Then somehow brought Silas into the mansion and locked him inside the very room only he knew how to navigate.
I looked at Violetta.
“You used one mother to reach one old man.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
I kept my voice low.
“I understand perfectly.”
She had found the two people least able to absorb risk.
A working single mother.
An elderly servant loyal to a dead man.
Then used both because neither looked dangerous enough to fight back.
May you like
That was not desperation.
That was selection.
