Free Web NovelChapter 59: Chapter 59 A Forged Letter
_Author’s POV_
Rita had come to the sitting room early, before most of the household was moving, and she had sat in the chair nearest the window with her hands folded and her back straight. After everything that had happened, she realized how much of a fool she was and wanted nothing but to make amends.
Just then, Kasper arrived first. Then followed by Miriam and Vicky, drawn by the message Velvet had sent to them from Kasper.
Since Rowena was still asleep, Kasper had called her two trusted sister in-laws first. They would do it themselves before Rowena arrived.
They arranged themselves in the east sitting room imhurriedly.
Rita looked at each of them in turn.
Then she said, clearly and without the hesitation that had characterized every previous conversation about Alice: “Did Rowena ever tell you all about the night she caught a man in Alice’s room?”
Kasper and the others shook their head. Rowena told Kasper, but he wouldn’t let the others know.
Rita sighed and faced them completely. “It wasn’t Patrick. The man in her room that night was Calin. Alice’s nephew from her mother’s side of the family. Her distant relative, she introduced him to me once, years ago, as a family connection she kept private.”
The room absorbed this.
“You’re certain?” Kasper asked thoughtfully.
“I’ve seen him three times,” Rita nodded. “Always at night, always to her rooms through the east courtyard entrance. He knows the path because he’s walked it enough times that he doesn’t use a light.” She paused. “The night Rowena saw him, I was at my window. I heard him address Alice as Aunt when he thought the courtyard was empty. The word was clear. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to say it because......” She stopped. “Because I was afraid of what she would do if I said it at the wrong moment.”
Miriam looked at Vicky in shock.
Vicky’s expression was the one she wore when she had been carrying knowledge for a while and was watching it finally arrive somewhere it could be used properly.
Just then, the door opened.
Alice actually walked in.
She had dressed nicely, as if she wasn’t the devil amongst them.
And she didn’t come alone. Patrick also walked in with her.
In Alice’s hand was a document.
She set it on the table between them and took a sit.
Soon, other family members joined in.
Kasper had summoned all. He knew Rowena wasn’t active yet, but he couldn’t wait to expose Alice in front of the entire family.
The document Alice brought was on Ashthorne estate stationery, the older kind, cream with the family crest embossed in the upper corner, the stock kept in the household correspondence drawer that anyone with access to the main house could locate without difficulty.
When Kasper moved to check it, he stopped dead in his track when he saw a nine familiar handwriting.
“I don’t know what this woman had said to you all, but she’s a good liar. I’ll expose her for who she really is.” Alice said calmly, eyeing Rita who froze in place in shock.
What was Alice talking about?
“In that document is Rita’s handwriting,” Alice started as Kasper dropped the document. “She and Patrick are in cohorts. I trusted them and they tried to harm me.” Alice coughed a bit as she said that, and the look which crossed her face surprised her. Why was she feeling strange all of a sudden?
Miriam ignored her and hurriedly picked up the document without being asked and read it carefully. Vicky read it over her shoulder.
Their expressions did not shift in the way Alice had expected, not toward doubt or uncertainty, but into the particular stillness of two women cataloguing something rather than being swayed by it.
“Rita has been making these accusations to divert attention from her own conduct,” Alice continued, “I didn’t want to produce this. I want that understood. But she’s left me no alternative.”
“Patrick,” Kasper called out. His voice was even. “Did you and Rita write that document?”
Patrick looked at Alice.
Alice looked back at Patrick pointedly.
Patrick’s mouth opened, fear clawing at his heart.
But before he could say a word:
“He didn’t write it.”
The voice came from the interior doorway, the one that connected to the back corridor, not the main entrance.
Rowena stood in it, still in yesterday’s clothes, her hair not yet arranged. She was clutching to her side since it took a while for Kyra to recover enough to heal some parts of her wounds.
She had heard enough from the corridor to know where the conversation was and what it needed.
She crossed to the table and looked at the document without picking it up.
“The signature is wrong,” she said. “Rita is left-handed. She has a consistent leftward slant on every descender, look at the y’s and the g’s in anything she’s written for the household record. This document was written by a right-handed person who was copying her style rather than inhabiting it.” She looked up from the paper. “But that’s the secondary issue.”
She looked directly at Alice.
“The man in the courtyard that night,” she said, “addressed Alice as Aunt when he believed the space was empty. I was six feet from the window. Kyra’s hearing has been fully restored for two weeks. I heard the word clearly and I heard the voice that said it.” She paused. “Patrick is not Alice’s nephew. The man who came to that courtyard is. Patrick has nothing to do with this document and nothing to do with that night.”
The sitting room was completely still.
Alice’s composure remained intact. Just barely.
“No one believed me that night because Alice accused me accusing her falsely. But I was completely right.”
She looked at Alice for a long moment. “The document is forged. You had it prepared in advance because you knew this conversation was coming and you needed a redirect. It’s competent work, the stationery is correct, the date is plausible, the handwriting approximation is good enough for a first read.” She tilted her head slightly. “But you chose the wrong details to approximate.”
Alice looked at the document on the table.
“The name,” Rowena said. “His real name is not Calin. And we’ll get to that.” She looked at Patrick. “You have been kept compliant through a threat against your family, right? That threat was engineered specifically to prevent you from doing exactly what you’re about to do now.” She kept her voice even and direct. “Whatever she’s holding, your brother’s debt, your family’s situation, I will deal with it. All of it. But I need you to speak.” freёweɓnovel.com
Even Kasper was super impressed by Rowena. How did she come up with all these? How did she find out?
Patrick looked at Alice one final time.
Alice glared at him, tongue tied.
Patrick immediately looked at the floor.
And he began to talk.
He talked for forty minutes, and by the end the room understood everything, the courtyard, the visits, the messages he had carried between Alice and a contact he had known only as a Ridgeline associate, the threat Alice had used to keep him where she needed him.
His younger brother, held in a debt arrangement that Alice had constructed over two years and controlled herself.
When he finished, Rowena looked at him.
“Your brother’s debt,” she said. “Give the amount to Velvet before you leave this room. It will be cleared by tomorrow morning.”
Patrick’s throat worked. Something in his face came apart briefly. He nodded gratefully and pressed his lips together and did not speak because speaking would have cost him more composure than he had available.
Rowena turned to the room.
“Now,” she said. “Calin.”
