“Where’s my room?” she asked immediately, and I knew that was going to be a problem. I had a study and a music room, but I didn’t have a guest bedroom.
“We have to make yours, Poppet. Remember, you were a surprise for me? I haven’t left you since I met you, so I didn’t have time to come home and make you a room.”
She looked like she was thinking about it, but then walked off down the hallway where the bedrooms were. She announced, “I want this one!” from the study, and I went up to her new room to see what we’d need to move. I was pretty sure I could consolidate my study into my music room. Everything would be easy to move, except for the safe. “Do you mind if we leave that in your room, Poppet? It’s really heavy.”
She walked over to it, looked it up and down, then sat on the floor next to it and leaned back on it. “Okay, it works for me. I’ll keep it.”
She made me chuckle, and I scooped her up in my arms for a tickle attack.
“Do we move the shelves?” Hannah asked.
“No! That’s why I picked the room. It feels like home.” I could see Hannah’s heart break a little.
“Alright, I’ll leave the shelves, but I’ll need my books. How about I take them with me, and you and your mum can get some new ones just for you to put in their place?” Thankfully, she happily agreed.
I called out to have some bedroom furniture delivered for Penelope and got to work moving my desk and filing cabinets. Hannah insisted she help me, but I didn’t want her lifting anything too heavy. She hadn’t said anything, but I knew for a fact she was two days late. It was very possible she hadn’t said anything, because she’d lost track of time while we’d been in Scotland. The days there were very difficult to follow.
I’d finally had it, when she reached for the filing cabinet once more, attempting to scoot it. “Hannah, stop it right now!” My raised voice echoed off the walls, shocking both my girls. I took a deep breath, trying to settle myself down. I looked at her, silently pleading for her to understand. “You’re late, beautiful, two days. Please, just let me handle this and take it easy.”
Her eyes watered, and my heart broke. I quickly pulled her into my arms, squeezing her tightly. “I love you, sweetheart. Please, take it easy for me.”
She nodded yes, wiping her tears, and I kissed her lightly before releasing her. Penelope was still upset, though, not liking that I’d made her mother cry. She glared at me and went to her mother’s side. “Don’t you yell at my mom,” she ordered me sternly. I was in fear for my shins.
Hannah calmed her. “Oh, Penny, it wasn’t daddy’s fault. He was just reminding me that I shouldn’t try and move such heavy things. He doesn’t want me to hurt myself. Let’s leave him to this, while we go find something to eat.”
Thankfully, my daughter was easily distracted and didn’t seem to hold a grudge against me for yelling at her mother. Hannah didn’t deny she was pregnant, but she didn’t confirm it, either. We’d have to talk about it more extensively once Penelope was in bed. As I shifted the furniture around, I made a mental note at how little space was actually in our flat. We’d have to get a new place to live. The problem was, I didn’t know where to buy it.
The squeal of my daughter announced the arrival of her furniture. The delivery men set it up in her room, and I tipped them well, glad that was one more thing I didn’t have to try and move around.
After a light lunch, the day of traveling got the better of us all, and we retired to our rooms to take naps. I curled up around Hannah, holding her to me. My hand moved down and covered her tummy in silent question.
“I haven’t taken a test. We were so busy packing up and…”
“It’s fine, beautiful. We can pick up a test for you to take tonight.”
She rolled in my arms and pinned me to the bed. “So…are you happy?”
I pulled her down against me, kissing her deeply. “More than happy.”
“And if I’m not? It could be stress.”
I shrugged. I really didn’t want it to be stress. “I guess we’ll just have to keep trying.” I tugged on her shirt, and she quickly got the hint. I thoroughly wore her out, and we both fell into a deep sleep.
“Mommy?” I heard Penelope say from the doorway. I tugged the sheet up higher on Hannah and made sure I was covered.
“Hey, Poppet, mummy is still sleeping. Did you need something?”
“I’m hungry, and I don’t like being out here alone.”
“Okay, sweetie, give me a minute, and I’ll be out to get you some food.”
She reluctantly closed the door, and I wondered if I had anything for her to eat. I threw on some clothes and kissed Hannah’s naked shoulder, and then I regretted it. Her skin was so soft, and so I kissed it again, moving closer to her. Next thing I knew, her arm was around me, pulling my face toward her lips and then her chest. I was about to get undressed again, when I heard the door open.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, Poppet, I’m coming. I was just getting mummy up. I’m sure she’s hungry, too.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek, before I climbed off the bed.
Hannah laughed and threw a pillow at me. I picked it up and tossed it back on the bed, smiling at the sight of her, my wife, my beautiful Hannah, in my bed that I’d felt so lonely in. I picked up my daughter and squeezed her tight. “I’m so happy I have you here.”
“I’m happy, too, but I need food,” Penelope stated plainly, causing me to laugh.
It turned out that other than a tin of fish and a bag of stale crisps, I didn’t really have any food. Hannah had ordered out for our lunch, and it looked like that’d have to be the case for dinner and most likely breakfast, since we hadn’t really had time to shop for food.
My phone rang, showing my mother’s ID. I almost hit ignore, but Hannah saw it as well and waited for me to answer.
“William, have you settled in yet?” my mother asked.
“Yes, we were about to go out to dinner.”
“Lovely, come home, and I’ll have dinner made. See you soon.”
She hung up before I could say anything in return.
“Well?” Hannah asked.
“She invited us for dinner.”
“Are you okay with going?” she asked me, ever the sweet woman.
“Yeah, I think so. My father’s not going to be there, so…”
“Where are we going to dinner?” Penelope asked.
“My mother’s home.”
“You’ll get to see where daddy grew up,” Hannah tried to get her excited, but I didn’t think it was working.
When we pulled up in front of my childhood home, I laughed at Hannah’s expression. She was sincerely disappointed. “I thought it’d be bigger and at least a little castle-y.”
“Nope, I told you I grew up in a normal house.”
“I can see why you’d want to give up your viscount title, your castle is ridiculous,” she taunted, and I pinched her behind, making her jump.
I looked behind us to make sure Penelope was following us, but she was dragging her feet. I swooped her up in my arms and decided it’d be best to carry her in. Hopefully, she’d be alright the rest of the evening.
“William!” Ms. Maggie cried excitedly. She’d been my nanny and then took up doing the housekeeping. She pulled me into a tight hug, squishing my daughter between us. She stepped back and straightened the little uniform hat on her head. “What a pretty little thing you’ve got here. Your mother told me you’d run off and got married, but she’s a bit young for ya, don’t you think?” she teased and kissed Penelope’s hand.
“This is my daughter, Penelope, and my wife, Hannah. This, ladies, is Ms. Maggie. She was my nanny and my best friend.” I hugged her again.
“Oh, go on, you,” Ms. Maggie waved me off.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Maggie. William is a wonderful father. I guess I have you to thank for that.”
Ms. Maggie hugged Hannah and kissed her cheek. “She’s a sweet one, Will, how did you trick her into marry
ing you?”
“I charmed our daughter with candy, and she followed,” I laughed.
“He had a sweet tooth that nearly rotted out his whole head. I had to check pockets, hats, socks, pillows, bookcases…any place you can think of, I’ve pull candy out of it. He was a rowdy little thing, but the girl next door was sweet on him, so she’d give him every stitch of candy she could find. Poor thing had her heart broke, when he turned eight and decided girls had horrible cooties. She was infected so badly, even her candy carried the disease,” Ms. Maggie exaggerated, and the girls erupted into a fit of giggles.
“Well, Penelope definitely takes after William in that respect. She’s always trying to con candy out of someone.”
I backed up Hannah’s statement by flashing my lollipop stash in my coat. “Just in case of emergencies,” I noted.
“You’re such a terrible influence. You’re lucky you’re good looking, or I have a feeling she’d have wised up by now,” Maggie teased, pointing to Hannah.
“What’s all this giggling? Maggie, I asked you to let me know as soon as William and his family arrived,” my mother lightly scolded.
“That was my fault, Mother. I haven’t seen Ms. Maggie for a while and wanted to catch up.”
“We have more important things to do. Pass Penelope off to Maggie and come with me,” she said dismissively, not endearing her to anyone.
Maggie looked from Penelope to my mother and then back to me. “Would you like to come with me, little one?”
“I’m hungry,” Penelope grumbled.
“Oh, I have the cure for that in the kitchen. Do you want to come give me a hand, while the grownups fuss about silly stuff?”
Penelope looked at me worriedly. “You’re not going to forget me here, are you?”
“Never, and Ms. Maggie knows where I live, too. She’s like a real mummy to me,” I whispered in her ear. “You’ll like her.”
“She’s probably way better than your other mommy, huh?”
I kissed her little head. “Not all of us can be as lucky as you, Poppet.”
“William!” my mother called from down the hall.
I set Penelope down to go with Maggie. She happily took her hand, and I knew she’d be taken care of. I knew for a fact Maggie was loyal to me, not my parents. I’d made many quick escapes and avoided several bad setups with her help.
My mother waved us into my father’s study. “All the way in, now.” She pushed me aside and locked the doors. I thought she was being a little paranoid. I didn’t realize it was required. She moved to his desk, unlocked a drawer, punched in a code, and there was another clink at the study doors going out. What was once just fancy décor on the doorframe became a barrier, making it impossible to open the door.
“Quickly now, we haven’t much time,” my mother said, rushing across the room. I thought she was headed for the bookcase, but it was a large picture she moved, opening a passage to a hidden room.
“Okay, I forgive the house not being a castle,” Hannah blurted out, stunned, causing me to laugh.
My mother wasn’t happy, but let it slide. There were cabinets of files and computers that most likely were full of horrible things. There were feeds being recorded from at least a dozen cameras set up throughout town. I was sure the whole operation was illegal.
“Check that filing cabinet over there. He may have put it in with family photos,” my mother pointed to the cabinet by Hannah.
She turned around and opened the drawer that would contain the “M” files. A few folders forward, there was one that had “Emmaline Harrison” written on it.
“Mum?” I held it up, wondering why in the hell my father would have a file on my mother.
She snatched it out of my hand. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Did dad blackmail you into marrying him?”
“No, I told you, I’d known him before, when we were children. He isn’t a bad man.”
“He has a file on you!”
“On my family, not me, per se. You need to get her file and quickly. We only have ten minutes until lockdown.”
“Lockdown?” That didn’t sound good.
“Once the door is closed, we only have fifteen minutes to find our file or type in a second code, which I don’t have. So please move quickly.”
There were three Madison files. I didn’t stop to see which one we needed. I grabbed all three, and we rushed through the door hidden behind the picture. My mother quickly shut it and poked three rosettes on the frame. There was a loud clunk behind it, and my mother once again hurried to the desk, unlocked the drawer and typed in a code. The barrier on the study didn’t open.
“We’re still locked in.” I was getting nervous.
“It’s fine, dear. The doors stay locked until the files are returned. They can’t leave the study. It’s a failsafe that keeps people from trying to steal them. Even if they got in that far, the code to get out of the room is different, and the code to leave the room with a file is altogether another matter in itself. It’s easiest to just look at them here and then return them. I thought it best to get the curiosity out of the way, so we could enjoy dinner. Now, tell me what the detectives have found,” she asked, like she was serving tea, not secret files.
“William,” Hannah said my name with a gasp. She was holding a file, her eyes focused on the name, and she shook her head no. “This can’t be right. I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised if he found something on you,” my mother dismissed and picked up the file with “Hannah Madison” on it. It was sitting next to Scott Madison’s folder, so I could only assume she held Penelope’s file.
“Surely he can’t have anything on Penelope.” She was much too young to get into any trouble.
“No, it’s my mom.” She clutched it to her chest, and I pulled her over to a chair to sit with me. “She’s supposed to be dead. I thought she was dead. She went to a hospital and never came back, and everyone always said they were so sorry for our loss. It doesn’t make sense. My dad said I wasn’t allowed at the funeral, because I was so young at the time. He said she was sent to California to be buried by my grandma.”
I pried the file from her hands and opened it carefully. There was a woman, tagged as Audrey Taylor Dubois (Madison), mother of Hannah. She’d been photographed on a beach, presumably California, if you went by Hannah’s story. I flipped through the papers and quickly found why her mother had been reported to Hannah as dead, and why her father hated foreign men.
She’d run away with a man from Greece and had developed a very bad drug problem. The man had turned abusive, and after being gone for three months, Audrey returned to Scott, asking for help. He obviously still loved her, because he’d put a second mortgage on the house to pay for her rehabilitation, where she met some French guy, Marcelle Dubois, and left Scott once again holding the bill.
“She left me,” Hannah whimpered.
I hugged her tightly. “Please, beautiful. Some people are just too messed up to love others.”
“She was my mom, William, and she just left me, like a reject, for some Marcelle jerk from France, who obviously didn’t care if she had a child, either! How could someone do that? How could they just throw a child away like that? I can’t even comprehend…” She was a crying mess.
I put the file aside, it had done enough damage. “You’re a wonderful woman, that’s why you can’t understand what happened. There’s no way you’d ever leave our daughter for any reason, so you’ll never understand or accept any lame excuses that woman would give you. I can only guess that was why Scott let you believe she was dead. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate. Now, shall we get back to the task at hand?” My mother brought over the thickest of the three files. When I opened it, I felt sick to my stomach. There were pictures of Hannah, so young and innocent, just like I remembered. She was laughing and smiling with friends, with me, and then there was a note about the hospital she’d been in after her attack
and the name “Mary Harper.”
My father had known all along. There were copies of medical reports and ultrasounds. From the notes, my father was hoping to pin the pregnancy on Brody Hawkins. There were pictures of my wife, eight months pregnant, looking so lost, as Ophelia led her around. I set Hannah aside and moved across the room, trying to gather myself. If my father had walked in the door just then, I would’ve ripped him limb from limb.
“HE KNEW THE WHOLE TIME!” I shouted at my mother. “He knew, and he didn’t say a word, completely ignoring that I had a child, a family, and he chose to keep it from me.” I snatched up the picture of a heavily pregnant Hannah and shoved it in my mother’s face.
“I didn’t know, William. I had no idea. He never lets me rummage through those files. I only know about my family’s file, because he’d shown it to me shortly before we were to be wed. I didn’t know about Penelope. I would’ve loved to keep her for my own.”
“Your own,” I scoffed.
“I know you don’t believe it, but I love my granddaughter dearly. Nothing would’ve changed that, then or now. We need to get to the section about the fire. I know what you’re thinking, William. He didn’t start it. He doesn’t show anyone these files. This investigation was his own doing. It would’ve never seen the light of day. If the guilty one was found, the appropriate evidence would’ve been sent to the proper authorities anonymously. He’d never risk exposing his work.”
“He’s looked into all of the investors who funded my store except for one, the one who’d held the largest share in it. Carter had set it up so I had several backers. Lion’s Shield nearly owns the store. If anyone would gain anything from it being burnt to the ground, it’d be them, so why didn’t he look into them?” Hannah asked upset.
I knew exactly why my father hadn’t looked into it, and once again, his actions left me angry and baffled. “He didn’t look into them, because he is them, beautiful. My father funded your shop.”
Chapter 25 - Intentions
WILLIAM
With my father’s file on Hannah in front of me, I knew now was the opportunity to see if he’d really tried to kill my wife seven years ago. I flipped to the back and found a few pictures of her at a café around the corner from our old apartment. I could even see Marvin in the background, backing up the story that he’d been there.
In Love with a Stranger Page 19
