Part 7
The final page contained only a few lines.
If Nathan chose disclosure, Richard wrote, the estate would likely be lost. Beatrice would blame Celia. Sophie would blame Nathan. Employees would suffer. The public would turn private failure into entertainment. Nathan would discover that truth did not make a man clean; it merely spread the dirt.
At the bottom, Richard had added:
You will have a family of your own one day. Decide whether they need your honesty more than they need a home.
Nathan read the sentence twice.
Then he folded the pages and returned them to the envelope.
Celia watched him. “What did he say?”
“Exactly what he would have said if he were standing here.”
Edmund lowered his head.
Nathan placed the envelope on the desk.
“We take everything inside.”
Edmund said, “The documents should go directly to independent solicitors.”
“They will.”
“You must preserve the order.”
Nathan looked at him. “You can explain the order in a signed statement.”
Edmund’s jaw tightened.
“You will report me.”
“Yes.”
Beatrice was waiting in the morning room when they returned.
She had changed into a dressing gown but still wore her pearl earrings. Sophie sat on the sofa beside her. Poppy was no longer there.
Edmund entered last, carrying the document wallet in both hands. Nathan held the ledger. Celia carried Richard’s letter.
Beatrice saw the objects and rose.
“What have you done?”
Nathan set the ledger on a table.
“What did Father tell you about the Wren trust?”
Beatrice’s eyes moved to Celia. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Did he ever mention borrowing money from Margaret?”
“No.”
“Did you sign any estate documents connected to her trust?”
“I signed hundreds of documents.”
“Did you read them?”
The insult reached her immediately.
“I trusted my husband.”
“So did everyone.”
She looked at Edmund. “What is this?”
Edmund remained near the door. Water darkened the shoulders of his shirt.
“Richard diverted money from Margaret Wren’s trust into estate companies,” he said. “I helped conceal it.”
Beatrice blinked.
Sophie whispered, “What?”
“The outstanding amount is several million pounds,” Nathan said.
Beatrice sat down.
For a moment, she looked much older than sixty-three. Her hands rested open on her knees. The pearls in her ears seemed too bright.
“No,” she said.
Nathan recognized the word because he had used it less than an hour earlier.
Edmund moved closer. “Beatrice—”
“Don’t come near me.”
He stopped.
She looked at Celia. “How long have you known?”
“Six weeks.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was confirming it.”
“You came into my house every weekend. You ate at my table.”
Celia’s hand moved beneath her belly. “I was trying to decide how to tell Nathan.”
“You were trying to decide how much you could take.”
Nathan said, “Mother.”
Beatrice stood again. “Do not correct me in my own home.”
“That may not remain your home.”
The sentence came out before he could soften it.
Sophie made a small sound.
Beatrice looked at him as though he had struck her.
Celia stepped forward. “No decisions have been made.”
“You have documents,” Beatrice said. “You have lawyers. You have known for weeks. Do not stand there pretending you haven’t imagined taking this house apart brick by brick.”
“I have imagined every possible outcome.”
“Of course you have.”
“Stop,” Nathan said.
Beatrice turned on him. “She hid this from you while arranging to marry you.”
“And Father hid it from all of us while spending the money.”
“He saved this estate.”
“With stolen funds.”
“You don’t know what pressure he was under.”
Nathan opened the ledger to the page marked with Richard’s red ticks.
“I know exactly what he took.”
Beatrice did not look at it.
Sophie rose from the sofa. “My cottage is part of the estate company.”
Nathan closed the ledger.
“Yes.”
“What happens to it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I found out an hour ago.”
Sophie wrapped her arms around herself. “And Poppy heard all of this because none of you could wait until morning.”
“She is asleep,” Beatrice said.
“She wakes when the pipes knock. She always does.”
Sophie looked at Celia. “Did you plan to sue?”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“That seems to be your answer for everything.”
“It is the truth.”
“You let my daughter believe she had done something wrong.”
Celia’s face tightened. “I apologized to her.”
“She is six. An apology does not unmake the moment.”
“No,” Celia said. “It doesn’t.”
The agreement left Sophie with nowhere to put her anger. She looked away.
Nathan picked up the ledger.
“We need independent advice. No one contacts the bank. No one removes documents. No one discusses this outside the people in this room.”
Beatrice stared at him. “You sound exactly like him.”
Nathan felt the sentence enter and settle.
“Then perhaps you should be careful about trusting me.”
He took the papers to Richard’s former office and locked them in the fireproof cabinet. Edmund gave him the only other key.
At half past one, after Edmund had left and the house had gone quiet, Nathan found Celia sitting on the floor of the nursery.
The room was not finished. Paint samples covered one wall in pale squares. An unassembled cot leaned against the fireplace. Boxes of clothes sat open beneath the window.
Celia was folding a white cotton vest that did not need folding.
Nathan stood in the doorway.
“You shouldn’t sit on the floor.”
“I am aware.”
“Can you get up?”
“Not gracefully.”
He offered his hand.
She looked at it before taking it.
He helped her stand, and for a second they were close enough that her hair brushed his chin. The baby shifted between them. Celia placed his palm against the movement by habit.
Neither of them spoke until it stopped.
Nathan withdrew his hand.
“I am sorry I asked if she was mine.”
Celia looked down at the vest.
May you like
“You thought I had met a man in secret.”
“I thought it for perhaps thirty seconds.”
