“Ah, but you and she, well, with your brother being Theron’s father, I imagine you’re all very close.” That’s what I discovered after a little bit of digging. It didn’t even take that much. She used her ex-husband’s name on her initial application years ago. Somehow it slipped past my grandfather although maybe he didn’t care who my mother took for a housekeeper. She lived in the cottage by then. It’s not like he ever had to see either of them.

“It’s not like that,” she croaks out.

“You kicked her when she was down. Literally and figuratively.”

She swallows hard.

“You could have killed her.”

“Sir…”

“And I believed you. The black eyes were convincing. How did you do it?”

Nothing.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is what I did,” I say more to myself than her.

“I’ll gather my things.” She starts to rise again.

“Did you hear me dismiss you?”

She drops back into her seat.

“And no, you won’t gather your things. Because if you do, you’ll be going directly to a prison cell.”

“Sir, it wasn’t my intention. I never would have hurt her.”

“Oh, I think you would have, but let’s go ahead and discuss that, shall we? Whose plan was it?”

She hesitates. “No, I really... I mean… She was so cruel to me. So belittling. You bringing her here like that brought her down a notch.”

“And you wanted to bring her down a few more.”

“She’s spoiled. You said it yourself.”

“How do you know what I said?”

She looks around the room.

“Walls seem to be remarkably thin in this house.”

She nods like an idiot.

“Did you tell her I gave her my permission to ride with Theron that afternoon?”

She clears her throat.

“Why?” I ask.

She shakes her head, eyes wet although I’m pretty sure any tears she sheds are to save her own skin and not for any remorse she may feel.

“Answer me.”

“We thought maybe Theron…”

“You thought to put Mercedes in his path. You and my mother.”

She lowers her gaze to the floor.

“What else does my mother know?”

She stares at me with her stupid eyes. She’s not the brains behind this operation.

“How you answer me will decide what I do with you, and prison is a very real possibility.”

“I… The courtesan.”

Fuck.

I keep my face neutral and impassive as if it means nothing at all. Because it means everything. Because if my mother knows what Mercedes did, she can cause real trouble for her. And she will if it will serve her.

I need to think. To get ahead of this. I have fucked this up so royally.