“We will prevent any transfer until the ownership is settled.”
Emily walked home slowly.
The village children were playing beside the smithy, where the smell of coal drifted across the road.
A little girl dropped a ribbon in the mud and began to cry.
Emily picked it up, wiped it clean with her handkerchief, and tied it back around the child’s braid.
The small task steadied her.
Her life had become entangled in titles, mortgages, and railway plans, but the things she valued remained stubbornly ordinary.
She wanted a door that could be closed without fear.
She wanted honest work and the right to decide what happened to the money it earned.
She wanted never again to be offered across a dinner table like a damaged piece of furniture.
When she reached Oak Haven, Clara was waiting on the front steps.
Her face was pale beneath an elaborate arrangement of curls.
“Mother says you have been meeting the duke’s people.”
“I met a solicitor.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
Emily stopped.
“Which solicitor?”
Clara flushed.
“You know perfectly well whom I mean.”
“No,” Emily said.
“I am not going to marry a man because our father has found a use for him.”
Clara folded her arms.
“You always pretend to be above these things.”
“I have never been allowed near them.”
“That is because you make everything so difficult.”
Emily studied her sister’s face.
Clara was frightened, though she hid it behind contempt.
For years, everyone had told her that beauty would deliver her from Oak Haven.
Now the promised future depended upon a London season the family could not afford.
“Did Father tell you what happens if the estate is sold?” Emily asked.
Clara looked away.
“He says we shall have a better house.”
“Has he shown you the contract?”
“He would never discuss business with me.”
“He never discussed it with me either.”
Emily moved toward the door.
Clara caught her sleeve.
“Please do not ruin my chance with Lord Weatherby.”
Emily gently removed her hand.
“I am trying to stop Father from ruining what little we have left.”
The confrontation came that evening.
Arthur entered Emily’s room without knocking and found the blue account book on her desk.
He snatched it up before she could reach him.
“Where did you get this?”
Emily stood beside the window.
“It belonged to Grandmother.”
“It belongs to this household.”
“The trust deed says otherwise.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
For a moment he looked less like an angry father than a man calculating how much a witness knew.
