Part 3
“Documents.”
“What documents?”
“Ones your father intended to destroy.”
Nathan placed the ring down.
Richard Ashcombe had been dead for eighteen months. A cerebral hemorrhage had taken him in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon while he was dictating an email to Nathan about roof repairs. He had fallen across the desk in the estate office, bringing a lamp down with him. Nathan had arrived twenty minutes later and found Beatrice on the floor with Richard’s head in her lap and blood from a cut on his temple soaked into her skirt.
For weeks afterward, everyone had spoken of Richard’s decisiveness, Richard’s loyalty, Richard’s practical generosity. He had been a difficult father and a useful man, which in their family had often been treated as the same virtue.
“What documents?” Nathan asked again.
Edmund looked toward the portrait above him.
“Financial records.”
Nathan waited.
When Edmund said nothing more, Nathan pushed the ring across the cloth.
“Get out.”
“Nathan.”
“Before I forget you held me when I was christened.”
Edmund picked up the ring. He turned it once between his fingers before putting it back on.
At the door, he stopped. “Do not open that compartment alone.”
“Why?”
“Because you will need somebody there who cannot pretend the papers say something else.”
Nathan almost laughed.
“Who do you suggest?”
“Someone who has no reason to protect your father.”
The blue room was on the second floor, two doors from the bedroom Nathan and Celia had been sharing since she moved into Ashcombe Manor in September. Its name came from wallpaper that had once been cobalt and had faded to the color of smoke. It was used for luggage, spare lamps, winter blankets, and the framed pictures Beatrice disliked but could not bring herself to throw away.
Nathan found Celia standing beside the window.
She had changed out of the satin gown. She wore a long cream cardigan over a cotton nightdress, and her hair had been taken out of its low side bun. Dark auburn strands fell over one shoulder. On the bed lay the dusty-pink ribbon from Poppy’s dress.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Nathan said.
Celia did not turn. “Poppy came to apologize.”
“For telling the truth?”
“For upsetting everyone.”
“Who made her think she needed to apologize?”
“Sophie.”
Nathan rubbed his forehead. “Of course.”
“She left the ribbon. She said I could use it on the baby.”
“Did you tell her she imagined last night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Celia looked at him. “Because she didn’t.”
Nathan shut the door.
The blue room smelled faintly of lavender sachets and dust. Rain had begun tapping against the window, soft enough that he had not noticed it downstairs.
“Where is the key?”
Celia’s eyes moved toward the wardrobe.
Nathan followed the glance.
“Is it in there?”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That answer is getting less convincing.”
“I had planned to do it after tonight. I wanted one evening that wasn’t about money or the estate or your father.”
“You arranged an engagement dinner in his house.”
“Your mother arranged it.”
“You agreed.”
“Yes. Because disagreeing with Beatrice is a part-time occupation, and I already have a job.”
Despite himself, Nathan almost smiled. The reflex made him angrier.
He opened the wardrobe.
“Don’t.”
He turned. “Why?”
“Because it is in my coat pocket, and I would rather give it to you than watch you search my clothes.”
Nathan waited.
Celia rose slowly. He stepped aside as she approached the wardrobe. She reached into the pocket of a dark wool coat and withdrew a small antique key.
The brass had dulled nearly brown. A faded green ribbon was tied through the round bow.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
It was not dramatic-looking. It was the kind of key a caretaker might use for a cabinet containing fertilizer receipts.
Celia closed her fingers around it.
“Your father took money from a trust established by my grandmother,” she said.
Nathan stared at her.
“He borrowed against the trust,” she continued. “At first, anyway. Then the loans became transfers. Some were described as investments. Some were hidden through companies connected to the estate. Edmund prepared the paperwork.”
“No.”
“I have copies.”
“No.”
“Not the originals. That is what the key is for.”
Nathan looked at the wardrobe because its existence seemed easier to accept than her sentence.
“My father had money.”
“Your father had property. That is not the same thing.”
“He would not steal from you.”
“Not from me. From my mother.”
The correction struck harder.
Celia’s mother, Margaret Wren, had died nine years earlier after a short illness. Nathan had met her only twice. She had been a tall, absent-minded woman who owned a chain of specialist care homes and carried dog biscuits despite not having a dog. Celia had inherited most of the business and sold her controlling interest three years later.
“How much?” Nathan asked.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“How much do you think?”
“Four million. Perhaps more with interest.”
He laughed once. There was no humor in it. “Four million pounds?”
“Yes.”
“And Edmund helped him.”
“Yes.”
“And my father hid records in the greenhouse.”
“I believe so.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because your mother never goes into the old potting room. Because the gardeners stopped using it when the heating pipes failed. Because Richard kept the estate accounts there before the office was renovated.”
Nathan shook his head. “You have known my family for six years. You have been with me for three. You are carrying my child. And you thought I would believe this because Edmund gave you a rusty key?”
“I didn’t expect belief without evidence.”
“Then show me the copies.”
Celia lowered her gaze.
“Where are they?”
“In London.”
“At your flat?”
“With my accountant.”
Nathan stared at her. “You hired an accountant to investigate my father.”
May you like
“I asked an accountant to examine transfers from my mother’s trust.”
“Without telling me.”
