Redeemed

Chapter Thirteen: Caught

They waited until the house was completely silent before returning.

Ethan led her back through the servants' corridors, quieter this time, the stolen moment they'd stolen in the pantry hidden behind the rush to get Amara to her room before dawn.

He stopped at her door. "Hide the copies somewhere they'd never think to look," he said quietly. "Not in your room. Somewhere you won't associate with."

"Do you have a place in mind?"

"The chapel. No one uses it except for the wedding rehearsal, and the only people who sit there are in the front pew. There's a loose stone behind the altar, my grandmother's doing, I'm sure, seeing as what she found tonight." He smiled a little, tiredly. "She seems to distrust this family as much as we are finding out for ourselves."

"I'll go at dawn."

"Amara," he said, grabbing her hand as she turned for her door. "Be careful today. If my father finds out anything has been tampered with in that study, he'll be watching everyone, myself included."

"I will," she said, and he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her forehead before vanishing down the hall towards his wing.

Amara slept little in the few remaining hours until dawn.

She woke to the sound of voices, high ones, raised in argument from somewhere below the bedroom window.

Still early, the sky was a pale grey outside her window, when she heard Richard's voice, raised in agitation, in a kind of fury Amara had not yet seen.

Dressed, she climbed the distance to the top of the staircase, just to hear.

"Someone was in that study," Richard said. "The Adaeze file was taken. Nothing significant, only a space fraction of an inch, but I know where I leave things, Eleanor, and it wasn't there."You're being paranoid."I am merely being an observer. There is a difference." A pause. "Who else has access to that section of the house?"

"Everyone is kept locked up."

"Then tell me how a locked room obtained a misplaced file."

Amara's heart stopped.

"Perhaps someone among the staff-"

"The staff doesn't go anywhere near my study, and you know it." Richard's voice dropped. "I want to know who was in there, Eleanor, and I'd like to know sometime before the wedding, because if that girl has discovered what her mother left-"

"That child grew up washing dishes for her stepmother, Richard. You wouldn't believe what she knows."

"She knew enough to make you almost ruin this family," Richard said icily, and Amara had the sudden image of someone being cut up, piece by piece, on a surgical table. "I'd rather not find out what she could learn before the end of tomorrow."

A pause, uneasy.

"What do you suggest?" Eleanor asked at last.

"Move up the wedding."

Amara's heart gave a painful lurch.

"Richard, the plans aren't set up for another two weeks-"

"I don't care about petals and tables," Richard snapped. "Once she's officially family, any testimonies she'll give us are a far lesser liability than they would be any witnesses should it reach that point. And, being Ethan's wife, her loss if she decides to betray us would be greater than what she might gain."

"And if she still refuses to help?"

A cold sound in Richard's voice, that made the hair on the back of Amara's arms raise before she could stop herself.

"Then we remind her what happened to the last woman in this family who tried to play games with me."

Amara's breath came in shallow, silent gasps against the cold press of her hand against the wall.

The words hit her like a physical blow

. She had thought, only minutes ago, that she was dreaming, and that perhaps she'd wake to find Richard and Eleanor gone, the sheets clean and warm around her, but instead she was listening to the things she could not forget, the things her mother had not told her, and the things her father had forgotten.

She swallowed hard, her heart hammering, faster and faster until she was surprised it didn't sound inside the walls, before backing away from the stairwell, silently.

She was barely able to stop herself from gasping aloud at the sound of a knock on her door.

It was Eleanor.

"Good morning," she said, voice as pretty and placid as ever, with no sign of the argument Amara had just finished witnessing. "I have wonderful news for you."

Amara forced a neutral expression onto her face. "Oh?"

"We've decided to move the wedding up. This Saturday, actually. It'll be a much smaller thing, I think you'll find, much more intimate."

"This Saturday," Amara echoed. That was only four days away. She had to leave by Sunday at the latest. Only three days to find the mother that her father would have her kill her own brother because of.

"Plenty of time," Eleanor said, smiling. "I do hope you'll find the change as exciting as we do. We'll have the seamstress stop by this afternoon for final measurements."

Amara, her throat dry, managed, "Of course," and "Wonderful," in turn, and as Eleanor turned away, pausing in the doorway to look at her, Amara found herself recalling the image the woman had just imparted, the same one Richard had conjured up for her not ten minutes ago.

This girl reminds me a great deal of someone I once knew, Amara. I hope, for your sake, her ending was a far better one.

The door clicked shut behind Eleanor, and Amara, heart pounding, suddenly felt as though she would have a heart attack just from breathing.

Then we remind her what happened to the last woman in this family who thought she could outmaneuver me.

Amara had four days to find her mother's file. Four days to know what it was her mother had known, and more importantly, what her mother had understood that Amara was not yet ready to understand. She would have four days, and then she would be Ethan's wife, bound to him for life and bound to this house until she decided to find some sort of happiness with the man she loved. She had four days to run, and unless she found what she was looking for, she would have nowhere to go.

A knock came at the bedroom door once more, softer this time, a double knock and then a single knock, the second on the knob.

Ethan's signal.

Amara opened the door to find him, his face a sickly white colour, no doubt having heard the same information she had from another source.

You know, he said.

"I heard everything," she whispered, watching the sick look twist his features into something frightening.

Then we don't have two weeks, Amara, he said grimly, "just until Saturday to find your mother's records, to prove what your father did to the woman in the portrait that you saw in that study, before he decides you're too dangerous to stay alive." Amara looked up at him, and for the first time since they had arrived at the manor, let her fear truly show. "And if we don't?" She left the rest of the question hanging in the air.

His silence was answer enough.

And what if we don't? Amara's lips twitched. What then?