She Bought a Broken Mountain Man at Auction. What He Did Next Shocked Everyone.

Chapter 10

Over the next two days, Edward spoke to everyone. He began with Mrs. Peton. He sat with her in the housekeeper’s room, a small, warm space off the main kitchen that smelled of dried lavender and beeswax. The room was neat and orderly, everything in its place, exactly as Mrs. Peton kept her life. He asked her to tell him everything she remembered from the night of the fire onward.

Mrs. Peton told him all of it in the precise, sequential way of a woman who had been paying attention to everything that happened in that house for thirty years and had kept it organized in her memory because she suspected that one day someone would need to hear it. She did not speculate. She did not embellish. She simply laid out the facts in the order they had occurred, like cards on a table.

The telegram. The timing. The way William had managed the news, the way he had controlled the flow of information. The way he had managed Charlotte afterward, inserting himself into every decision, every conversation, every moment of vulnerability. The gradual shift in his presence at the hall from estate manager to something harder to name, something that had made Mrs. Peton uneasy but that she could not quite articulate. The September evening that Mrs. Peton had not been present for but had understood from Charlotte’s changed manner the following morning — the way she had been quieter, more thoughtful, more distant.

“I did not know what to do with what I suspected, Your Grace,” she said, her hands folded in her lap. “I am sorry. I did not find a way to reach you.”

“You had no reason to believe I was alive,” Edward said. “Neither did anyone else.”

He thanked her, pressing her hand briefly. He went to find the coachman, then the stable master, then each member of the household staff who had been present throughout the past two years. Each conversation added another piece to the puzzle. Each piece made the picture clearer and worse in equal measure.

The forged identity William had used at the telegraph office in Hexham — the name of a clerk that no one at the War Office had ever heard of. The careful timing of the telegram, arriving just when Charlotte was most vulnerable. The months of positioning, the way William had gradually taken over more and more responsibility, making himself indispensable. The way he had controlled what information the household sent out and what came in, intercepting correspondence, redirecting inquiries.

Small details that individually meant nothing and together meant everything.

By the end of the second day, the full architecture of what William had built was completely visible. It was a masterpiece of deception, constructed piece by piece over two years, and it had nearly succeeded.

Thomas, meanwhile, had conducted his own independent assessment of the situation. He appeared at Edward’s elbow on the morning of the second day while Edward was standing in the stable yard, looking at the horses. The boy stood beside him for a moment without speaking, watching the animals with the same serious expression he had inherited from his mother.

“That one is called Bess,” Thomas said, pointing at the large bay mare in the nearest paddock. “She does not like strangers.”

“Noted,” Edward said.

“She likes me,” Thomas added, a hint of pride in his small voice.

“Also noted.”

Thomas considered him for another moment. Then he went back inside. An hour later, he returned carrying a small wooden horse, intricately carved and painted, which he presented to Edward without explanation, and then retreated to a safe observational distance to watch what happened next.

Edward looked at the wooden horse. It was well-made, clearly a cherished toy. He sat down on the ground right there in the stable yard, not caring that his coat would get dirty.

Thomas stared at him, clearly surprised that an adult would do such a thing.

Edward patted the ground beside him. Thomas came and sat down, shooting quick glances at his father’s face. They examined the wooden horse together for a while without speaking, turning it over in their hands, looking at the details of the carving.

Charlotte watched this from the stable yard gate and had to walk away before she did something undignified with her face.

On the morning of the third day, Edward sent a note to the estate cottage. Four words: “Library. Ten o’clock. Come.”

He told Charlotte what he was going to do.

“The truth,” he said. “And then I am going to listen to whatever he says, and then it will be finished.”

Charlotte looked at him. “Whatever he says,” she repeated carefully.

“Yes. Even if what he says makes it worse. Especially then. Because I need to know all of it, every piece, so that nothing comes back later. So that we can close this door and never open it again.”

Charlotte nodded slowly. “And after?”

Edward picked up his coat. “After,” he said, “we begin.”