Chương 2
Clara reached for a handkerchief tucked into her apron. Victor watched Ethan lean toward her before she had fully extended it. The gesture was practiced. So was the way she waited rather than wiping his face herself.
Victor stood.
“Mrs. Alvarez,” he called.
Nora Alvarez appeared almost immediately in the doorway behind Margaret. She had worked in the Vale household for fourteen years and could hear a whispered argument through two closed doors when necessary. Her dark hair was threaded with gray, and a dish towel hung over one shoulder.
“Yes, Mr. Vale?”
“Please take Ethan to the morning room.”
Ethan’s breathing quickened.
“No,” Clara said.
Everyone turned toward her.
She rose slowly from the floor, keeping one hand near Ethan. “Not alone.”
Nora’s eyebrows lifted, though she said nothing.
Victor looked at Clara’s face again. “Why not?”
Clara pressed her lips together.
Margaret gave a humorless laugh. “This performance has gone far enough.”
Ethan pushed himself upright so quickly that his shoes scraped the marble. He stepped in front of Clara, still holding the ribbon.
“She didn’t do anything.”
“Ethan,” Margaret said.
He recoiled at his own name.
Victor saw it.
The room changed.
He had negotiated with men who smiled while trying to take companies apart. He had sat through funerals, depositions, and the long sterile hours outside an intensive care unit while his wife’s life narrowed to numbers on a monitor. He knew how people concealed fear. He knew how they concealed contempt. He had built much of his adult life around noticing the moment another person lost confidence.
He had not noticed that moment in his own son.
“Mrs. Alvarez,” he said, keeping his eyes on Ethan, “is there anyone else in the morning room?”
“No, sir.”
“Take Ethan there. Stay with him. Do not allow anyone else to enter.”
Margaret’s chin lifted. “Victor.”
“Anyone.”
Nora nodded. “Of course.”
Ethan caught Clara’s apron in his fist.
She bent near him. “I’m going to stay right here.”
“Promise?”
Clara’s gaze moved to Victor.
“I won’t send her anywhere,” he said.
The lie came too easily. He did not yet know whether it was a lie, but Clara did. Her eyes rested on him for one silent beat before she turned back to Ethan.
“I’ll stay until you come back,” she said.
That was a promise she could keep.
Ethan released her apron. He went with Nora, looking over his shoulder twice before the doors closed.
Margaret waited until he was gone.
Then she said, “You have embarrassed yourself enough for one evening.”
Victor did not raise his voice. “Leave.”
“This is absurd.”
“Leave the house.”
Her face barely moved, but her right hand shifted against the walking stick. Victor had seen the gesture throughout childhood, usually before a door was closed and someone younger was told what gratitude required.
“You are upset,” she said. “We will discuss this when you have regained perspective.”
“No. You will take your things and go to the Beacon tonight. You will not speak to Ethan. You will not call him, message him, go to his school, or send anyone on your behalf.”
Margaret stared at him.
Clara stood beside the fallen globe, her posture so still it seemed painful.
“You cannot be serious,” Margaret said.
Victor’s attention remained on his mother. “Did you hit her?”
Margaret’s laugh was brief. “Of course not.”
“Did you touch Ethan?”
“I corrected him.”
The word entered the library like a draft under a door.
Victor looked at Clara.
She seemed to make a decision that cost her something.
“Yesterday afternoon,” she said, “Mrs. Vale found Ethan hiding beneath the desk in the schoolroom. He had spilled ink on a workbook. She told him to come out. He wouldn’t.”
“He was having a tantrum,” Margaret said.
“He was frightened.”
“Of being held responsible.”
Clara’s left hand tightened around her right wrist. “She pulled him by the arm.”
Margaret’s cheeks colored. “I helped him stand.”
“He asked her to stop. I stepped between them.”
“And you struck your face against the cabinet.”
Clara turned toward Victor. “She pushed me.”
Victor looked at the bruise again. Beneath it, the healed scratch along Clara’s cheek caught the chandelier light. He had noticed that scratch two weeks ago and accepted her explanation about a thorny rosebush near the terrace. He wondered what else he had accepted because accepting it required nothing from him.
Margaret spoke with careful patience. “Miss Bennett has developed an unhealthy need to be indispensable. She encourages Ethan’s weakness so that he will depend upon her. Yesterday, she grabbed me. I moved her away. If she bruised easily, that is unfortunate.”
“You slapped me afterward,” Clara said.
Margaret’s eyes sharpened.
The silence that followed was not confusion. It was recognition.
Victor saw it and wished he had not.
Clara continued. “You told me that if I reported it, the agency would say I had endangered a child and violated my contract. You said no family would hire me again.”
Margaret looked at her with something colder than anger. “You are a domestic employee who forgot her position.”
Victor took one step toward his mother.
Clara moved before he did. Not between them exactly, but close enough to interrupt the path.
“Ethan is listening,” she said.
Victor turned toward the closed doors. His son was two rooms away. The mansion carried sound through old vents and polished corridors. Victor lowered his hands. He had not realized they were clenched.
Margaret’s mouth curved without warmth. “You see? She manages you now too.”
“Go upstairs,” Victor said. “Pack what you need. Thomas will drive you.”
“You would remove your own mother from her father’s house because a hired woman accused me?”
“No. I’m removing you because my son is afraid when you say his name.”
Margaret blinked once.
May you like
It was the first sign that he had hurt her.
She recovered almost immediately. “The board meets Thursday. You might consider how this spectacle will look when Mercer’s attorneys begin their final review.”
