Chapter 2
I moved both children inside.
Not together with Victoria.
Noah went with Margaret and one of my guards. Sophie stayed with another female attendant she already knew.
I would not interrogate children in front of the adults who frightened them.
Victoria followed me into the library anyway.
“You are humiliating me in front of everyone.”
I closed the door.
“You took a chair from a three-year-old.”
“You keep saying chair like it means something.”
“It means enough that you needed Sophie to have his.”
Her mouth tightened.
“It was symbolic.”
Finally.
An honest word.
“Symbolic of what?”
She hesitated.
I waited.
Victoria crossed her arms.
“Blended families need structure.”
I almost laughed.
“A seating chart is structure?”
“Noah has spent three years believing the entire estate revolves around him.”
“He is three.”
“That excuse has to end eventually.”
I stared at her.
“What exactly are you planning for eventually?”
No answer.
Margaret entered carrying a folded sheet of paper.
“I think you should see this, Mr. Marconi.”
Victoria’s face changed immediately.
Good.
I took the page.
It was a household reassignment list.
After wedding:
Sophie — north bedroom suite.
Noah — lower east room.
Margaret — adjoining staff room.
I looked up.
“What is the lower east room?”
Margaret answered.
“It used to be a nursery attendant’s room.”
Small.
Downstairs.
Near the laundry corridor.
Far from my bedroom.
Victoria stepped forward.
“It was temporary.”
The page said nothing about temporary.
I looked at Margaret.
“Who gave this to you?”
“Ms. Hale.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And what did she say?”
Margaret looked toward Victoria.
“That Mr. Marconi had already approved everything.”
Silence.
May you like
Victoria had not been waiting for marriage to gain authority.
She had been borrowing mine before the ring ever reached her hand.
