Chapter 4: What Rosamund Kept
Marcus arrived at a quarter past two through the same rear entrance Chadworth had used that morning.
He was a compact, precise man who carried a leather document case everywhere and had never once in two decades offered an opinion that wasn't asked for.
He sat across from Chadworth in the monitoring room, set the case on the desk, and looked at the wall of screens without expression.
"That's the fiancée?" he said.
"Yes."
"And the woman with the girls?"
"The housekeeper.
Rosamund."
Marcus watched the screen for a moment.
Rosamund was in the kitchen with both girls, helping Gemma with what appeared to be a drawing.
Lorelai sat beside them, reading aloud from a picture book, occasionally stopping to show Gemma an illustration.
"She doesn't know you're here," Marcus said.
"Nobody does."
He opened the document case.
"Walk me through what you have."
Chadworth laid it out.
The phone call.
Velloran Consulting.
Aldric Mourne.
The wire transfers.
The eighteen months of contact predating the engagement.
Marcus listened without interrupting, making small precise notes on a yellow legal pad.
When Chadworth finished, Marcus set his pen down.
"You understand what you're describing."
"A coordinated effort to place someone inside my household, isolate my children, and position that person to influence decisions about the company."
"At minimum." Marcus tapped the legal pad.
"Depending on what the full financial records show, you may be looking at something that carries criminal exposure.
Fraud.
Conspiracy.
Possibly more, depending on what Mourne's original intent was."
"I want to know the full intent before I move."
"Then we need more time.
And we need Sabina to believe nothing has changed." Marcus looked at him steadily.
"Can you do that?"
Chadworth thought about the text message he still hadn't answered.
"Yes."
"Good." Marcus closed the document case.
"There's one more thing I'd suggest."
"What?"
"Talk to Rosamund."
Chadworth was quiet for a moment.
"She'll know something is wrong the moment she sees me."
"Yes.
But she's been inside this house every day for how long?"
"Four years."
"Then she has seen things you haven't.
Things she may not have reported because she had no reason to believe you'd listen." Marcus picked up his pen again.
"You almost fired her based on Sabina's word.
She knows that.
She may have been protecting information because she didn't trust that it would be safe to give it to you."
The kitchen monitor showed Rosamund laughing at something Gemma had drawn.
It was a quiet laugh, private, not performed.
Gemma looked up at her with an expression of pure satisfaction.
"I'll talk to her tonight," Chadworth said.
"After the girls are in bed."
He found her in the laundry room at half past eight, folding a small stack of Gemma's clothes with the careful attention she gave to everything — each crease deliberate, each item set down as though it mattered.
She heard his footstep and turned.
Her face went very still.
"Mr.
Prescott," she said.
"I didn't know you'd returned."
"I came back early.
Please don't tell anyone yet." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
"I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly.
You won't be in any trouble.
Whatever you tell me, your position here is safe.
I give you my word."
Rosamund set the folded item down slowly.
"All right."
"How long has it been like this?"
She didn't ask what he meant.
That told him something.
"Since about three months after Miss Sabina began staying here regularly," she said.
"At first it was small things.
The way she spoke to the girls when the other staff were out of earshot.
The way she watched me.
Then she started moving things — small items from the rooms I cleaned — and mentioning to you that things had gone missing."
"The bracelets."
"Yes.
And other things." She paused.
"I found one of them in the pocket of my own cleaning apron, Mr.
Prescott.
I don't know how it got there.
I returned it to the jewelry case without saying anything because I knew how it would look."
Chadworth's jaw tightened.
"Why didn't you come to me?"
Rosamund looked at him with a steadiness that was harder to hold than anger would have been.
"Because three weeks before that, Miss Sabina told me — very quietly, when no one else was nearby — that you had already decided I was a problem.
That it was only a matter of time." She paused.
"I didn't know if she was telling the truth.
But I couldn't take the risk of leaving the girls with no one."
The laundry room was very quiet.
"She told you I'd already decided," Chadworth said.
"Yes."
He thought about Sabina's voice at the dinner table.
*You trust that maid far too much.* The timing.
The patience of it.
Planting doubt in both directions simultaneously — in him about Rosamund, and in Rosamund about him — so that neither would ever speak to the other directly.
"Is there anything else?" he asked.
"Anything you've seen or heard that you didn't feel safe reporting."
Rosamund was quiet for a moment.
Then she crossed to the cabinet above the washing machine, reached to the very back of the top shelf, and brought down a small white envelope.
She held it out to him.
"I found this in the study waste bin four months ago.
It had been torn in half, but I kept it." She paused.
"I don't know what it means.
But I kept it because something told me I should."
Chadworth opened the envelope.
Inside were two torn pieces of paper that, when pressed together, formed a single handwritten note.
The handwriting was not Sabina's.
The note read: *Patience.
The trust documents sign in spring.
After that, the girls are the only obstacle.
Handle the maid first.*
Chadworth read it twice.
Then he folded it carefully and put it in his inside jacket pocket.
"Thank you, Rosamund," he said.
"Lock your door tonight."
Her expression didn't change.
But her hand, resting on the cabinet door, tightened slightly.
"Is it that serious?" she asked.
May you like
He looked at her directly.
"Yes."
