Chapter Three: The Secret Richard Buried
Richard told Cassandra the story that evening.
Not all of it.
Only the part he could bear.
“My mother had a daughter after me,” he said. “Her name was Amelia.”
Cassandra sat across from him in the library, her hands folded perfectly in her lap.
“A sister,” she said.
Richard nodded.
“She disappeared when she was four. There was a storm. A power outage. The east wing was in chaos. By morning, she was gone.”
“Kidnapped?”
“That’s what everyone believed.”
“Was she found?”
“No.”
Cassandra’s eyes moved toward the hallway beyond the library.
“The locked nursery was hers.”
Richard closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“Why lock it?”
“My mother could not bear to see it. My father ordered the room sealed after she stopped speaking.”
“And the locket?”
Richard opened a drawer and removed an old photograph.
The picture showed a little girl in a blue dress, standing in the garden. She had dark curls, bright eyes, and a silver swan locket around her neck.
Cassandra stared.
The child in the photograph looked like Clara Reed.
Not exactly.
But enough.
Richard’s voice lowered.
“My father created a private trust after Amelia vanished. If she was ever found alive, half the company would pass to her. If not, it remained with me.”
Cassandra slowly placed the photograph down.
Half the company.
Half the fortune.
Half the power.
“Does anyone else know?” she asked.
“Beatrice,” Richard said. “Maybe our old family lawyer. But there was never proof.”
Cassandra stood and walked to the window.
Rain tapped against the glass.
“What are you going to do?”
Richard did not answer.
“What are you going to do, Richard?”
He rubbed his face with both hands. “I don’t know.”
Cassandra turned around, her voice cold.
“You do know. You just don’t want to say it.”
He looked at her sharply. “She is a young woman, Cassandra. If Clara is Amelia—”
“If?” Cassandra cut in. “If she is your sister, she walks into this house with a locket and takes half of everything your father built. Everything you protected. Everything we protected.”
Richard’s expression hardened. “This is not about money.”
Cassandra laughed once, bitterly.
“Everything in this house is about money. The walls know it. The servants know it. Your board knows it. And if the world finds out that the great Ashford family lost a child and then ignored her when she returned as a poor waitress, they will destroy you.”
Richard stood. “Enough.”
“No,” Cassandra said. “You listen to me. We do not know who she is. We do not know what she wants. So until we do, we keep this quiet.”
Richard looked toward the east hallway.
Then, softly, he said, “Quiet.”
Cassandra heard what she wanted to hear.
Agreement.
May you like
Permission.
The beginning of a plan.
