Part 11
“I am aware.”
“I want to be there.”
“That depends on what we are to each other when it happens.”
“I am her father.”
“Yes.”
“Then I will be there.”
Celia stopped folding.
“You do not get to turn up in a delivery room because biology gives you a pass.”
Nathan’s anger rose before he could stop it. “You would keep me from my daughter’s birth?”
“I said it depends on what we are to each other.”
“We are engaged.”
“Are we?”
The ring was still on her hand. She looked at it as though noticing it for the first time.
Nathan felt his chest tighten.
“I have not ended the engagement.”
“Neither have I. That does not mean it still exists in the same form.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Make a decision that is not designed to preserve every option.”
“About us?”
“About the money. Your father. The estate. Your mother. All of it.”
“My solicitors are investigating.”
“That is not a decision.”
“It would be reckless to act before we know the facts.”
“Yes.”
“So what are you asking?”
Celia closed the suitcase.
“I am asking whether, when the facts are complete, you will still wait for a version that hurts no one.”
Nathan did not answer.
She nodded as though he had.
Her sister arrived forty minutes later. Nathan carried the suitcase downstairs but Celia did not let him accompany her to the car. The driver loaded the bag.
Before getting in, she turned back.
“The brass key is with my solicitor,” she said. “They logged it as evidence.”
“I know.”
“I thought you might look for it.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You looked through my wardrobe.”
“You told me where it was.”
“After you opened the door.”
Nathan stared at her.
Celia pressed her lips together. “I’m not trying to win.”
“It sounds as though you are.”
“That is because we have both started treating pain as evidence.”
She got into the car.
Nathan watched until it passed through the service gate.
Beatrice was standing behind him in the hall.
“You let her take the baby.”
“She is not luggage, Mother.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“It is exactly what you meant.”
Beatrice folded her arms. “The bank telephoned.”
“They should speak to the solicitors.”
“They have frozen the estate’s development facility.”
“I know.”
“Payroll is due in twelve days.”
“There are cash reserves.”
“For six weeks.”
Nathan looked at her. “How do you know that?”
“I have managed this house since before you learned multiplication.”
“That was not the question.”
Beatrice’s expression closed.
Nathan felt the answer before she gave it.
“You knew about the company,” he said.
“I knew Richard moved funds between businesses.”
“You signed the accounts.”
“He told me where to sign.”
“Did you know the money came from Margaret’s trust?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he was my husband.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It was for thirty-eight years.”
Nathan walked past her toward Richard’s office.
Beatrice followed.
“Do not make me the villain because Celia has left.”
“I am not making anyone anything.”
“You always do this. You turn hurt into a moral test you are certain everyone else will fail.”
Nathan stopped with his hand on the office door.
The sentence was close enough to Richard’s letter that he wondered whether they had written it together.
“Did Father tell you what he had done before he died?”
Beatrice looked at the floor.
Nathan waited.
“A week before,” she said.
The corridor seemed to narrow.
“How much did he tell you?”
“That there had been loans. That Margaret’s estate might raise questions one day.”
“Did he say the signatures were forged?”
“No.”
“Did he say Edmund helped?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“He was ill.”
“He died suddenly.”
“He had headaches. He knew something was wrong.”
Nathan stared at her. “He told you a week before he died.”
“Yes.”
“And after he died, you said nothing.”
“What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.”
“You would have destroyed everything.”
“By telling the truth?”
“By reacting exactly as you are reacting now. Lawyers, accountants, frozen accounts, photographers at the gate. Sophie terrified of losing her home. Staff wondering whether they will be paid. Celia gone.”
“Celia left because I did not tell her she had a claim?”
“She left because she does not understand what this place requires.”
Nathan opened the office door.
Beatrice caught his sleeve.
“Your father made a terrible decision,” she said. “Then another. Then too many to undo. But he did not buy cars or yachts. He kept farms operating. He kept families in their houses.”
“With Margaret’s money.”
“Yes.”
The word surprised him.
Beatrice released his sleeve.
“Yes,” she repeated. “With her money. Wrongly. I know that. But you speak as though truth arrives clean. It does not. It comes through doors carrying boxes and invoices. It sends letters to your sister. It makes a six-year-old think she broke a family.”
“Poppy did not break anything.”
“No. She only opened the door.”
Nathan entered the office.
Beatrice stayed in the corridor.
“What will you do?” she asked.
He looked at Richard’s desk.
“I don’t know.”
His mother smiled without warmth. “Then perhaps you are more like Celia than either of you would enjoy admitting.”
The forensic report took three weeks.
During that time, Nathan traveled between Oxford, London, and the estate. He met Celia twice in her solicitor’s office and once at a hospital appointment where they discussed blood pressure, the position of the baby, and nothing else.
The doctor asked whether they had chosen a name.
Celia said no.
They had chosen one months earlier.
Nathan did not correct her.
Afterward, they stood beside the hospital lift while people moved around them carrying flowers, coffee, and plastic folders.
“Why did you say no?” he asked.
“Because I do not want to use her name while we are sitting in separate rooms with separate lawyers.”
May you like
“She is still Imogen.”
Celia looked toward the lift numbers.
