Chapter 3
My father’s dormant signature was not literal ink.
It was authority.
Twenty years earlier, Alistair Ashford built a safeguard into the family structure.
If the sitting head tried to dissolve certain old holdings alone, one sealed secondary authorization had to be produced.
After his death, that authorization became ceremonial.
Almost forgotten.
Except by me.
And apparently the Cross family.
I looked at Gideon.
“How do you know about it?”
He answered smoothly.
“Vivienne told me.”
I turned toward her.
She looked shocked.
Good.
Lie.
She had not known enough to explain it.
I had never told her.
“Try again.”
Gideon’s smile tightened.
“Your father and I discussed many things.”
Wrong again.
My father hated Gideon.
Then Celia stepped into the ballroom doorway.
Quiet.
Still trembling.
But she spoke.
“My father knew that watch.”
Everyone turned.
I looked at her.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“My father repaired Mr. Ashford’s watches.”
My father.
Not mine.
Alistair’s.
I knew Celia Brooks’s personnel file.
Mother alive.
Father deceased.
Occupation listed as horologist.
I never connected the name.
Of course.
“Evan Brooks?”
She nodded.
My chest tightened.
Evan repaired every important timepiece my father owned for fifteen years.
Including one he wore the night he died.
I looked at the watch in the box.
Same model.
Same black face.
Same narrow silver hands.
My father’s watch.
Impossible.
It had disappeared after his funeral.
We assumed one of the staff misplaced it during the chaos.
Celia whispered:
“That’s why I recognized it.”
She had seen it on her father’s workbench as a child.
Then:
“There’s an engraving underneath the clasp.”
I flipped it carefully.
Two tiny letters.
A.A.
Alistair Ashford.
Vivienne had not given me a new watch.
She had given me my dead father’s missing one.
Modified.
Bugged.
And somehow obtained from a family that should never have possessed it.
I looked at Gideon.
“Where did you get my father’s watch?”
He stayed silent.
Then Vivienne whispered:
“He didn’t.”
I turned.
May you like
She looked terrified now.
“My mother did.”
