Page 104 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

“You have no proof,” she whispered.

“No.” I shook my head. “But you and I know the truth. So in this room, let’s hear it.” There was silence. “Give me that, at least.”

She took an agitated step back, her hands clutched compulsively at her full skirts. She seemed to age right in front of me, her shoulders hunching.

“You have no idea what it was like,” she said finally, her voice raw. “What he was like. Manipulative, paranoid. He wouldn’t let me leave the house or see anyone. You can’t know the fear I felt. He began to talk of divorce. Divorce! It would ruin me. He claimed he was going to reveal I had a string of lovers. A total fabrication. I don’t know if he even believed it, or if he only wanted to be rid of me, to hurt me. It would have been in the papers, it would have been everywhere. I had nothing of my own. Nothing. If he had gone through with it, my daughters would be lost. Destitute.”

I could hear the fear in her voice, the panic. Despite everything she had done, I felt for her.

“And so you took matters into your own hands,” I said. “Then, when you were sure he was dead, you removed a crucial page from his will.”

Helena recoiled. “How did you— How do you—” Even if I hadn’t found the original copy, this would have told me that I had been right all along. She might as well have announced her guilt.

“The page in my favour,” I said steadily. “Tookes heard you arguing about it. It was never supposed to be an even split at all, was it? Cassie and Agatha were to be left small bequests outlined at the bottom of the missing page. They were the ones who were to have their money held in trust by you, not me. My father left me everything: the house, the money, the jewellery, the horses. All to be held in trust by a lawyer until I turned eighteen. But you couldn’t have that, could you? Not when it could be altered so easily and without my father knowing a thing. All you had to do was add an ‘s’. ‘To my daughter, I leave the entirety of the estate’, became ‘to my daughters’. By making sure that the pages ended and began where they did it was easy enough to remove the one you didn’t want anyone to see, after Father had signed it all.

“But to do that you must have had help. The will had to be laid out just right so that you could make the change when you needed to.” My mind went to Mr Fortescue’s office, to the visible softening in his features when he spoke of Helena, to his efforts to dissuade my father from a path that would lead to her ruin. “The solicitor, Mr Fortescue, seems very enamoured of you.”

“You seem to have it all worked out,” Helena said sourly, refusing me a straight answer.

“I will be able to prove it, Helena,” I said quietly. “I have my father’s original copy of the will.”

She flinched. I had her.

“How well do you think Mr Fortescue will stand up to questioning?” I pressed then. “Do you really think he would risk his reputation and livelihood for you?”

“Who will believe a word from your lips?” Helena hissed. “After that stunt you pulled tonight with the prince, after tricking society into thinking you’re some heiress called Serena Fox? They’ll eat you alive. No one will stand by you.”

“I will.”

The words came quietly, and I saw them strike Helena like a blow. She had forgotten that Nick was here; he had done such a good job of stepping back and leaving me to my confrontation that he had all but disappeared into the shadows.

There was no ignoring him now. He stepped forward, next to me. “I will stand by her,” Nick said coolly. “And believe me when I tell you that society will listen to what I have to say.”

The door swung open then, and the dowager countess strode in.

“And they’ll listen to me,” she said, her eyes snapping as she looked the three of us over and we gaped at her. “I can’t believe I’m reduced to listening at doorways like a servant,” she added, shaking her skirts out in a frustrated gesture.

“No one asked you to do so, Grandmother,” Nick said. “I have the matter in hand.”

“Oh, do you?” his grandmother said sarcastically. “Well, Lady Iris. You have both myself and my grandson in your corner. What would you like to do?”

It really did seem that Lady Wynter knew everything that went on.

I glanced at Helena. Her spine was rigid, her chin high, her posture fierce, elegance even in defeat. She knew as well as I that the Wynter family name carried enough weight to ruin her.

I thought of Cassie, of her bright, confident plans for her future, of the security that my father’s fortune gave her, allowing her to be herself, an incredible woman. My sister. I had already decided what I would do, and I knew it was the right thing.

“There’s no proof Helena killed my father,” I said. “Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps he fell because he was drunk. We’ll never know. I am going to be Iris Scott-Holland again. I want my home back. But I will not contest the will.”

Helena took a sharp intake of breath.

“On the condition that you and Agatha leave and don’t come back. Agatha is about to turn twenty-one. I will arrange for a third of the estate’s assets to be transferred to her, as well as your allowance. I don’t want to see you at Holland Hall again.”

“It seems an extremely generous offer to me,” Lady Wynter said pointedly. “One that only a fool would refuse. And you are no fool, Lady Scott-Holland.”

“No, Lady Wynter, I am not that,” Helena agreed. “Yet I do not see how I can salvage a life for my daughter and myself if we are to be banished from our home.”

“Don’t you?” The dowager countess raised her brows. “Personally, I can see the pair of you making quite the splash on the continent. You’re still young, Helena. Perhaps you will even marry again.”