Free Web NovelChapter 39: Chapter 39 Before they left
_Author’s POV_
Rowena found her nieces in the east sitting room after breakfast.
There were three of them, Miriam’s two daughters and Vicky’s youngest, ages seven through eleven, and they were sitting together on the sofa.
They were dressed, all three of them, in clothes that were clean and entirely wrong for the daughters of an Ashthorne family that had recently reclaimed its standing. Faded colors, worn hems, more like the children came from a middle class home.
Rowena stood in the doorway and looked at them for a moment.
Then she went to find Miriam.
She found her in the laundry room of all places, sorting through a pile of clothes.
“When did you start doing your own laundry?” Rowena asked.
Miriam looked up. Her expression moved through several things quickly before settling on something careful. “The laundry staff was reduced last year,” she said. “Alice said the household budget was under strain.”
“The household budget,” Rowena repeated in shock.
“She presented figures to your grandfather,” Miriam said. “He accepted them. I didn’t have reason to....”She stopped. “I didn’t push back the way I should have. None of us did.”
Rowena looked at the pile of clothes. At Miriam’s hands. She was really astonished by the whole thing, considering that the Ashthorne family could never go broke in the next 20 years even if they didn’t have anymore source of income coming through.
“For how long has this been happening l?” Rowena asked angrily.
“About eighteen months,” Miriam said quietly. “It started small. Staff reduced here, an account adjusted there.”
Rowena felt the anger move through her even more.
“Where is Vicky?” she asked.
“Her room.”
“Get her. Both of you come to my office in twenty minutes.”
The conversation was short and considerably less gentle than Miriam had probably expected.
Rowena sat across from both of them and said what needed saying without softening it excessively, because she had found over the past weeks that the people she loved most responded better to clarity than to comfort, and because there was no version of this that could be made painless by being delivered gently.
Alice had been skimming the household budget. The figures she had presented to their grandfather were falsified. The staff reductions were not financial necessity, they were strategic, removing people who might notice discrepancies and replacing the budget gap with unpaid labor from family members who were too polite or too scared to ask questions.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Rowena said to Vicky.
“I suspected,” Vicky nodded. “I didn’t have what you have. The account records or the patterns.” She paused. “And Alice is, she’s scary to confront. She cries a lot too. She talks about the family’s grief and how hard she’s worked and by the end of the conversation you feel like you were the one who did something wrong.”
“I know exactly how she works,” Rowena said. “Which is why we’re not confronting her directly.” She looked at both of them. “What I need from you is to stop absorbing what she’s taking. Stop doing staff work, stop accepting reduced household budgets, stop treating her adjustments as legitimate. You don’t need to say anything to her about it, just stop complying.”
“She’ll notice,” Miriam sighed.
“Let her,” Rowena said. “I want her paying attention to you. It keeps her attention off other things.”
“Rita,” she said. “You’re taking Rita on the trip today, right?” Vicky asked.
“Yes.” Rowena nodded
“Alice won’t like that.”
“No,” Rowena said again. “She won’t.”
“Hmm.”
.
.
.
.
.
Alice on the other end learned about the trip at half past eight.
What was relevant this morning was that Rowena was taking Rita.
Alice sat with that information in the blue guest room. Rita was a problem.
Not because Rita had done anything. Rita was loyal, genuinely loyal, but loyalty under pressure was a different thing from loyalty in comfort, and Rowena was clever enough to know that a day away from the estate, away from Alice’s orbit, in the company of warm family and good food was exactly the kind of environment where a loyal person’s certainty could begin to soften.
Alice reached for her phone. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
She called a number and when it answered she said, in a voice that was pleasant and unhurried: “Tell everyone to be careful for the next few days. Nothing moves, nothing changes, no contact. Got it?”
A pause on the line. “How long?”
“Until I say otherwise,” Alice gritted out.
She hung up and sat for a moment.
Rowena was moving faster than expected. The account review, the staff questions, the Lucy conversations Alice had suspected but not confirmed, all of it pointed to a woman who had come home and immediately started pulling threads.
The trip with Rita needed to be inconsequential.
Alice would make sure Rita understood that before she left.
She went to find her maid.
By nine-thirty, the front drive of the Ashthorne estate looked like a small organized departure.
Three vehicles were lined up along the path. It wasn’t ordinary cars. Rowena had arranged this through Kasper, who had arranged it through Greywood Pack’s transport contacts, and the result was three large, well-appointed travel trucks with tinted windows and luxurious interior.
The children appeared first, now transformed. Rowena had ordered, and the results were standing on the front steps in new spring clothes that fit properly and suited them perfectly.
Miriam appeared behind them and stopped when she saw what Rowena had done.
She looked at Rowena.
Rowena looked back.
“Thank you,” Miriam said with a bright smile.
Vicky came out next with her son and her daughter, both also freshly outfitted, and the expression on her face when she looked at the trucks and then at Rowena was the expression of someone who had forgotten, for a while, what it felt like to be properly taken care of and was remembering it now.
Kasper materialized from the east gate.
Alpha Pierre also arrived five minutes later.
He came through the front gate on foot, he had parked further down the road, which Rowena noticed.
He had brought something, a basket that was covered.
He stopped when he saw the assembled group. Took in the trucks too.
His eyes then found Rowena.
She gave him a nod, brief and genuine, welcoming in the uncomplicated way she had decided overnight to simply be welcoming.
He nodded back with a small smile.
Before anyone could finish assembling, Rowena slipped away through the side entrance.
Her grandfather’s study was at the back of the main house, the room he had occupied every morning for as long as she could remember.
She found him at his desk.
He looked up when she came in and something in his face settled.
“Going on the trip already?” he asked gently.
“In a few minutes.” She sat across from him. “I need to tell you something first.”
He folded his newspaper. “Tell me.”
She took a breath.
“I’m looking into some things,” she said carefully. “Account irregularities. Staff changes. Some patterns that need explaining.” She kept her voice even. “I don’t have everything yet. When I do, I’ll tell you everything. But I need you to know it’s happening and I need you to not change anything about your routine or your relationship with Alice until I come to you.”
Her grandfather looked at her for a long moment.
“How serious?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” she said honestly. “Serious enough that I’m telling you now.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll wait,” he said. “Come back to me when you have it.”
She stood and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
He smiled back and responded in the same calm tone, “I love you too, My sweet granddaughter.”
