Part 13
The coat belonged to Sophie and ended above his wrists.
He walked toward the greenhouse.
The brass key had been removed from the steel compartment, but the small door remained open. The emptiness inside looked more deliberate than the documents had.
Nathan sat on the potting-room floor.
Several minutes later, Sophie appeared in the doorway.
“That is my coat.”
“I know.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“I know.”
She sat on the metal chair.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Sophie said, “I might have done what Celia did.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Not the lying to Poppy part,” she said. “I would like that recorded.”
“You asked a six-year-old to apologize for the truth.”
“Yes. I’m doing badly enough without borrowed crimes.”
Nathan leaned his head against the brick wall.
“She was going to use the claim to control the estate.”
“She was going to spend millions to stop us losing it.”
“Both can be true.”
“Yes.”
He looked at his sister.
“When did everyone become comfortable saying that to me?”
“When you became uncomfortable hearing it.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Sophie rubbed mud from the toe of her shoe with the other heel. “Dad once changed the locks on my cottage because I let Tom stay after he told me to end the relationship.”
Nathan opened his eyes. “What?”
“I was twenty-six.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because I was embarrassed. Because Mum said he was protecting me. Because Tom was awful, which made Dad’s behavior easier to defend.”
“How did you get back in?”
“Edmund brought me a key.”
Nathan laughed despite himself.
Sophie smiled. “Not a brass one. Nothing is that neat.”
“What did you do?”
“I apologized to Dad.”
“For being locked out of your own house?”
“For embarrassing him.”
Nathan looked through the open door toward the wet greenhouse benches.
“We have spent years translating control into care.”
Sophie’s smile disappeared. “Yes.”
“Do you want to keep the cottage?”
“Of course.”
“Even if keeping it requires Celia to pay?”
Sophie twisted her wedding ring, though she had been separated for two years.
“I want you to find a way that makes nobody hate me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the family answer.”
Nathan lowered his head.
Sophie leaned forward. “Poppy asks about you every day.”
“I’ll visit.”
“She wants Celia too.”
“I cannot arrange that.”
“No. But you can stop behaving as if making the correct financial decision will repair what happened at dinner.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at her.
Sophie stood and held out her hand.
“Come back inside. Helen charges by the hour, and Mum is trying to convince her that a portrait collection counts as a dependent.”
Nathan returned to the meeting.
Celia’s chair was empty.
“She needed air,” Helen said.
Nathan found her in the rose garden, sitting on a stone bench beneath bare climbing branches. Her coat was buttoned incorrectly.
He stood several feet away.
“You should be inside.”
“I have been inside for three weeks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
Nathan sat at the opposite end of the bench.
“I understand why you wanted security,” he said.
Celia looked straight ahead. “That is not the same as forgiving it.”
“No.”
“I don’t forgive what your father did because he was afraid of losing the estate.”
“I know.”
“And you do not have to forgive what I did because I was afraid of joining a family that could erase me.”
“I know.”
She finally looked at him. “You keep saying that.”
“I am trying not to defend myself before I hear you.”
“How is it going?”
“Badly.”
Her mouth moved, almost a smile.
Nathan looked down at Sophie’s too-short sleeves.
“I asked whether the baby was mine because, for one moment, it was easier to imagine you betraying me in an ordinary way.”
Celia’s eyes sharpened.
“Ordinary?”
“An affair. A lie about paternity. Something ugly but contained. I knew what those things meant. Then the key opened a debt that existed before we met, and every person I trusted had touched it.”
“I hadn’t touched it before six weeks ago.”
“You touched it when you decided I could not be trusted with it.”
“Yes.”
Nathan nodded.
Celia rubbed one hand over the curve of her belly. “She has hiccups.”
He waited.
After a moment, Celia took his hand and placed it against the rhythmic movement.
He felt three small jumps.
“I want to be her father,” he said.
“You are.”
“I want to be with you.”
“That requires more than deciding the manor is not worth losing me.”
“I know.”
“What will you do?”
Nathan looked toward the house.
For most of his life, every path had led back to it. University holidays, failed jobs, relationships Beatrice disliked, years in London when Richard telephoned every Sunday to ask when Nathan intended to stop renting his life. Even his rebellion had depended on the house remaining here for him to resist.
“I am going to recommend voluntary disclosure,” he said.
Celia watched him.
“We will report the transfers, negotiate repayment, and sell what is required. If that means the manor, then we sell it.”
“Your mother will never forgive you.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Sophie may lose the cottage.”
“I will protect her housing from my personal share if I can. Not from your money. Mine.”
“The staff?”
“We give proper notice, pensions, references, and transition support. We preserve tenancies where buyers agree. It will not save everyone.”
“No.”
“No.”
Celia looked down at his hand on her belly.
“And my claim?” she asked.
“You decide whether to pursue it. I will not ask you to reduce it.”
“You will be negotiating against me.”
“The estate’s lawyers will. I will step back where I have conflicts.”
“You have learned impressive phrases.”
“I paid enough for them.”
She almost smiled again.
May you like
Nathan removed his hand.
“I am not choosing this to prove I am better than my father,” he said. “I am choosing it because every private solution requires you, me, or our daughter to carry his secret into another generation.”
