Chapter 5 - What the Cameras Had Recorded Before
Rosamund did not answer until the girls were asleep.
Chadworth did something he had not done in months.
He personally tucked them into bed.
Gemma made him promise twice that he would still be downstairs when she woke.
“I’ll be here.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Lorelai watched him from her doorway.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Are you mad at us?”
The question almost broke him.
He crossed the room.
“No.”
“Because we didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
He crouched.
“I’m mad at myself because you thought you couldn’t.”
Lorelai studied him.
Then hugged him.
Afterward, Chadworth went downstairs.
Rosamund waited in the breakfast room.
She had changed out of her uniform into simple clothes.
A small suitcase stood beside her chair.
Chadworth stopped.
“What’s that?”
“My things.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I thought it would be easier.”
“For whom?”
Rosamund looked away.
Chadworth sat across from her.
“Sabina accused you of stealing. She tried to have you fired. You preserved evidence that protected my daughters. Now she claims you had another reason for coming here.”
Rosamund nodded.
“She wasn’t lying about that.”
Chadworth waited.
“My mother worked for your family.”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Years ago.”
“Where?”
“Connecticut.”
Chadworth’s childhood home.
He stared at her.
“What was her name?”
“Margaret Ellis.”
Recognition came slowly.
Then all at once.
“Maggie?”
Rosamund nodded.
Chadworth leaned back.
He remembered a woman with kind eyes who worked in his parents’ house when he was a teenager.
She had disappeared from his life when his father sold the property.
“I didn’t know she had a daughter.”
“She didn’t then.”
“What does this have to do with my daughters?”
Rosamund looked at him.
“My mother remembered you.”
Chadworth said nothing.
“She used to say you were the loneliest rich boy she had ever met.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“She said your father was always working. Your mother traveled constantly. The house was full of employees, but you ate dinner alone.”
The description felt painfully familiar.
Rosamund continued.
“When I saw the position advertised here, I recognized your name.”
“So you applied because of me?”
“Partly.”
“Why?”
“My mother died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She left me some letters. One was about you.”
Chadworth frowned.
“About me?”
Rosamund reached into her bag and removed an old envelope.
“She wrote it years before she died.”
Chadworth accepted it.
Inside was a short handwritten note.
He recognized Maggie’s handwriting only after seeing his name.
If you ever meet Chadworth Prescott again, remind him that a beautiful house can still be an empty one.
He read the sentence twice.
Rosamund spoke quietly.
“My mother always regretted not saying something when you were young.”
“Saying what?”
“That you needed your parents more than you needed another tutor or another driver.”
Chadworth stared at the letter.
“So when you saw my daughters…”
“I recognized it.”
The answer was simple.
“They had everything. Beautiful bedrooms. Good schools. Clothes. Toys. Staff.”
Rosamund paused.
“But they watched the front door every evening.”
Chadworth looked down.
“They waited for you.”
The silence stretched.
“I didn’t come here to take anything,” Rosamund said. “I came because my mother remembered a lonely boy. Then I met two lonely girls.”
Chadworth closed his eyes.
The pattern was undeniable.
He had spent his life resenting his father’s absence while slowly recreating it.
Not intentionally.
That almost made it worse.
He had promised himself his children would have everything he lacked.
Instead, he had given them the same loneliness in a larger house.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Sabina?”
“I tried.”
Chadworth looked up.
“When?”
“Three times.”
He felt sick.
“The first time, your assistant told me you were unavailable. The second time, Sabina was in the room. The third…”
Rosamund hesitated.
“What?”
“You told me staff concerns should go through household management.”
He remembered.
Barely.
He had been reading an email while she spoke.
He had not even looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Rosamund nodded.
“After that, I started saving the recordings.”
“Why stay?”
“Because leaving meant leaving them.”
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Both looked toward the ceiling.
Chadworth folded Maggie’s letter.
“You’re not leaving tonight.”
Rosamund looked at the suitcase.
“I think I should.”
“Why?”
“Because your daughters need you now.”
He nodded.
“They do.”
Rosamund waited.
“And I need to learn how to be here.”
Chadworth slid the suitcase away from her chair.
“But learning doesn’t require removing everyone they trust.”
For the first time that day, Rosamund smiled.
Small.
Tired.
Genuine.
Then Malcolm entered.
“Sir.”
Something in his expression erased the moment.
“What is it?”
“We reviewed Sabina’s access to the security system.”
“And?”
“She wasn’t just aware cameras existed.”
Chadworth stood.
Malcolm placed a tablet on the table.
“She accessed portions of the system repeatedly.”
Rosamund frowned.
“Then why didn’t she know you could see her?”
“Because she believed several interior cameras were disabled.”
Chadworth looked at Malcolm.
“Were they?”
“They were supposed to be.”
A chill passed through him.
“Supposed to be?”
“Someone reactivated them months ago.”
“Who?”
Malcolm turned the tablet.
The access record showed one employee identification.
Rosamund Ellis.
Chadworth looked at her.
Rosamund nodded.
“I turned them back on.”
“Why?”
“Because Sabina started checking which rooms were being recorded.”
Malcolm continued.
“There’s more.”
He opened another log.
Sabina had attempted to delete archived footage three times.
But Rosamund’s protected folder prevented automatic deletion.
Then Malcolm showed Chadworth something else.
A series of emails from Sabina to an unknown recipient.
Most were ordinary.
One was not.
It referred to Chadworth’s upcoming marriage.
His daughters.
And a plan to change the household immediately afterward.
But the final line was what made Chadworth stare at the screen.
Once the wedding is complete, he won’t have time to undo any of it.
Chadworth slowly raised his eyes.
The wedding had been six weeks away.
Sabina had not simply been planning a marriage.
She had been counting on his absence.
May you like
And Chadworth suddenly wanted to know exactly how much of his life she had already rearranged while he was too busy to notice.
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