PART 3 — THE INHERITANCE NO ONE WANTED HER TO FIND

Silas Crowe stood in the library doorway as if he owned the house.

His black coat was perfectly dry. His silver-tipped cane rested against one gloved hand. Even his expression had settled back into its usual calm, though Anna had seen the flash of fear in his eyes.

Lucien moved closer to the desk.

“You will leave,” he said.

Crowe gave a thin smile. “I came to discuss the estate’s accounts. Your sudden return has created considerable confusion.”

“My return is not your concern.”

“Everything concerning this property is my concern. Your father appointed me to protect his interests.”

“My father is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“And his affairs remain unfinished.”

Crowe’s eyes shifted to Anna.

“Perhaps the young lady would prefer to rest. These matters can be overwhelming for someone unfamiliar with the law.”

Anna lifted her chin.

“I am not unfamiliar with being told what I can understand.”

For the first time, Crowe looked directly at her.

The resemblance to Eleanor Hale was unmistakable. His gaze moved from Anna’s eyes to the silver locket in her hand.

“You have that?” he asked.

“It belonged to my mother.”

Crowe’s expression sharpened.

“May I see it?”

“No.”

The word came out before Anna had time to think.

Lucien glanced at her, and something in his face softened.

Crowe straightened.

“Very well. I suggest we all speak calmly. There are certain complications regarding the late Eleanor Hale’s estate.”

“Complications?” Lucien asked.

“Unsettled claims. Missing documents. A property transfer that was never completed.”

Anna looked down at the letter again.

“My grandmother tried to restore my mother’s inheritance.”

Crowe’s smile returned, but it was colder now.

“Your grandmother was an old woman. She was confused by the time she wrote that letter.”

“She knew my mother’s name,” Anna said. “She knew who she was.”

“Names can be written by anyone.”

Lucien’s voice dropped.

“Careful, Silas.”

Crowe tapped his cane against the floor.

“I am only trying to protect you, Lucien. Your father spent years attempting to untangle the family’s affairs. He failed. You should not repeat his mistakes.”

Anna noticed the way he said your father.

Not with respect.

With ownership.

Lucien opened the desk drawer and removed another document.

“Then perhaps you can explain this.”

Crowe’s face changed.

The document was a copy of a land transfer. It carried Eleanor Hale’s signature and listed a substantial portion of the estate—including the mansion, the forest, the mineral rights, and several neighboring farms—as property to be held in trust for her granddaughter.

Anna read the name at the bottom.

Margaret Hale Whitcomb.

Her mother.

The transfer had been made before Anna was born.

But a second signature appeared beneath it.

Silas Crowe, Witness.

Anna’s breath caught.

“You signed this.”

Crowe said nothing.

“You witnessed my grandmother’s decision to leave the property to my mother,” she continued. “Then you told everyone the transfer was never completed.”

Crowe’s eyes hardened.

“You have no idea what you are accusing me of.”

“I know you signed it.”

Lucien laid the document flat on the desk.

“And I know the original is missing.”

Crowe looked at the paper, then at Lucien.

“You have been searching my records.”

“I have been searching my father’s records. The documents disappeared shortly before his death.”

“Then perhaps your father destroyed them.”

“No,” Lucien said. “He wrote a letter.”

He pulled a folded sheet from his coat.

Crowe’s composure finally cracked.

“Where did you get that?”

“From the hidden compartment in his desk.”

Lucien unfolded it.

The handwriting was uneven, as though the writer had been ill.

Anna watched Lucien’s eyes move across the page.

Then he read aloud.

My son,

If you find this letter, then I have failed to make things right. Silas Crowe has taken control of the estate’s records. He has concealed the original transfer and falsified the accounts. I allowed it to happen because I believed he was protecting our family.

I was wrong.

The rightful heir is Margaret’s daughter.

Do not trust Crowe.

And do not let him learn where I hid the original deed.

Lucien stopped reading.

Anna’s heart pounded.

“Where is it?” she asked.

Lucien looked at her.

“I don’t know.”

Crowe let out a short laugh.

“An old man’s ramblings. Nothing more.”

But Anna had noticed something.

Crowe’s gaze had not been on Lucien.

It had been on the letter’s final line.

Do not let him learn where I hid the original deed.

The solicitor knew where it was.

Or he believed he did.

That night, Anna was given a bedroom on the mansion’s second floor.

It was larger than the entire house she had shared with her father. A fire burned in the marble hearth. Fresh linen covered the bed, and a wardrobe stood open with several dresses inside.

Anna did not touch them.

She sat by the window, staring out at the forest.

She had married Lucien to escape poverty.

Now she had discovered that she might be the rightful heir to a fortune.

But none of it felt like a blessing.

Her mother had been cast out. Her father had died with debts he could not explain. And Lucien had brought her into a house filled with secrets without telling her the truth.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Anna?”

Lucien stood in the hallway.

She did not invite him in.

“Why did you marry me?” she asked.

He looked tired.

“Because I knew who you were.”

Anna’s chest тιԍнтened.

“You knew before you came to Oak Haven?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Your father sent a letter to my father years ago. He asked whether the family would acknowledge Margaret’s daughter. My father never answered. I found the letter after he died.”

“And you came looking for me.”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucien looked down.

“I thought you would refuse to come if you knew you were being brought into a family that had hurt your mother.”

“You thought I would refuse to marry you if I knew the truth?”

“I thought you might believe I wanted your inheritance.”

Anna stared at him.

“And now?”

“Now I know I was wrong to keep it from you.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Anna asked the question she had been afraid to ask.

“Did you marry me because you wanted a wife, or because you needed an heir?”

Lucien’s face went still.

“I married you because I wanted to give you a choice your family had taken away.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No,” he admitted. “It isn’t.”

He stepped back from the doorway.

“I will tell you everything I know. But I won’t ask you to trust me tonight.”

Anna closed the door.

She heard his footsteps retreat down the hall.

For the first time since arriving at the mansion, she felt that she had made a decision of her own.

She would uncover the truth.

Not for Lucien.

Not for the Hales.

For her mother.

At midnight, Anna woke to the sound of footsteps.

She opened her bedroom door.

The hallway was empty, but a faint light moved beneath the library door.

She descended the stairs quietly.

Inside, the desk drawer stood open. Papers lay scattered across the floor. Someone had been searching.

Anna stepped closer.

A small piece of paper rested near the fireplace.

She picked it up.

It was a torn corner from a letter.

Three words had been written on it:

THE OLD GREENHOUSE.

Anna remembered the glᴀss structure she had seen from the gate.

She slipped the paper into her pocket and crossed the mansion toward the rear door.

The greenhouse stood at the edge of the forest, its panes shining faintly in the moonlight. Inside, rows of winter plants sat beneath glᴀss. A narrow stone path led to a small potting shed at the back.

Anna searched the shelves.

Nothing.

Then she noticed a loose floorboard beneath an old workbench.

She knelt and lifted it.

Beneath the board lay a tin box.

Her hands trembled as she opened it.

Inside was the original deed.

But it was not alone.

There was also a second document—a handwritten confession signed by Silas Crowe.

Anna read the first line.

I altered the accounts and concealed the transfer because Eleanor Hale’s granddaughter was never meant to inherit the estate.

The next sentence made her blood run cold.

I was instructed to do so by the person who would benefit most from her disappearance.

Anna heard a branch snap outside.

She turned.

A figure stood beyond the greenhouse glᴀss.

Silas Crowe.

He held a lantern in one hand.

And in the other, he held a key.

The key to the greenhouse.

Anna backed away, clutching the tin box.

Crowe’s voice came through the glᴀss.

“You should have stayed in Oak Haven, Miss Whitcomb.”

The door handle began to turn.

Anna looked down at the confession.

There was one name beneath Crowe’s signature.

A name she had not expected.

Lucien Hale.

To be continued in Part 4…