Chapter 5 - THE SIGNATURE EDWIN WANTED
Edwin Arden did not come alone.
A lawyer sat beside him in Blackwood’s formal study, surrounded by polished wood, dead firelight, and enough legal folders to make the room feel like a funeral arranged by accountants.
When Mara entered on Lucien’s arm, Edwin rose with perfect courtesy.
His eyes flicked once to her face, searching.
Then he smiled.
“Celeste. You look steadier.”
Mara said nothing.
Lucien remained beside her like a wall with a pulse.
The lawyer cleared his throat. “Mr. Arden asked me to witness temporary trust authorizations. Given Mrs. Graves’s accident, there are routine continuity matters—”
“No,” Lucien said.
Edwin lifted a hand. “It’s only precaution.”
Mara looked at the papers.
The top page transferred interim signatory authority over western charitable trusts to Edwin Arden while Celeste Arden Graves remained medically impaired.
Impaired.
The word made her stomach turn.
Edwin leaned forward, voice almost paternal.
“My dear, no one is taking anything from you. This is to spare you stress while you recover.”
Mara slowly met his eyes.
“What if I don’t want to sign?”
Edwin’s smile thinned by a fraction.
“Then we wait until you’re thinking clearly.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
The lawyer shifted uncomfortably.
Mara understood the game at once. If she refused while “confused,” Edwin could argue incapacity. If she signed, he won the trusts before Lucien could move publicly against him.
She let her gaze drift over the study the way a traumatized woman might.
Then she did something reckless.
She looked at Edwin and said softly, “Like Adrian waited?”
Silence slammed down.
The lawyer blinked.
Lucien didn’t move.
Edwin’s expression remained composed, but the pupils of his eyes shrank.
“I beg your pardon?”
Mara tilted her head as though chasing fog through a damaged memory.
“I keep seeing water,” she whispered. “And fear.”
Lucien understood at once what she was doing and played along, moving nearer as if concerned.
“Celeste,” he murmured, “you don’t have to do this.”
Edwin stood up.
“Perhaps we should postpone.”
“No,” Mara said quickly, letting tears rise. “I’m so tired of everyone saying postpone.”
For one second, that part was not performance.
She looked at the pages, then back up.
“You keep asking for signatures,” she said. “What were you asking Adrian for before he died?”
The lawyer rose halfway from his chair.
“Mr. Graves, I think I should leave.”
“Yes,” Lucien said. “You should.”
Edwin did not take his eyes off Mara.
By the time the lawyer had gone, the room felt stripped raw.
Lucien shut the door.
Edwin’s civilized face loosened at last.
“What exactly do you remember?”
Mara’s pulse thudded.
Lucien moved closer.
“That’s a dangerous question.”
Edwin ignored him.
“What did she tell you?” he asked Mara.
Not what do you remember, Celeste?
Not anymore.
What did she tell you.
He was slipping.
Mara felt it.
And once a careful man began to slip, truth could sometimes be pulled out of him inch by inch.
“She told me enough,” Mara said quietly.
Edwin went still.
Lucien’s voice turned cold.
“Interesting choice of words for a man claiming concern over a concussed niece.”
Edwin did not even look at him.
His attention remained fixed on Mara as if he were trying to peel her open with his eyes.
Then his tone changed.
Soft. Deadly.
“If Celeste confided certain delusions, it was because she was emotionally unstable long before the accident.”
Mara felt anger flash.
“About you?”
Edwin smiled.
“About inheritance. Power. Men.” He took a step closer. “She always had a dramatic imagination.”
Lucien stepped between them instantly.
“Enough.”
Edwin’s expression hardened.
“I am trying to save this family from scandal.”
Lucien laughed once without humor.
“You are the scandal.”
For the first time, Edwin’s control cracked visibly.
“It was my brother who built Arden standing,” he snapped. “My judgment kept it alive after he died. Celeste was sentimental. Adrian was naive. You—” he looked at Lucien with open disdain now “—were just an ambitious outsider she married because she wanted someone to admire her for pretending she was freer than the rest of us.”
The study went quiet.
Mara saw then what Celeste must have understood too late.
Edwin did not believe the wealth belonged to any living person except himself.
People were temporary.
Control was permanent.
Lucien’s voice lowered dangerously.
“You just admitted Adrian challenged you.”
Edwin’s eyes flickered.
A mistake.
Small.
Enough.
Mara stepped around Lucien and spoke before Edwin could recover.
“Was he in your way the same way Celeste was?” she asked.
Edwin smiled again, but it no longer reached even the edges of his face.
“You have no idea who you are speaking to.”
Mara’s own fear was real now, and somehow that made her stronger.
“No,” she said. “But I think Celeste did.”
That landed.
Edwin stared at her for a long second.
Then he looked at Lucien.
“She should be examined by a real specialist. Today.”
Lucien opened the study door.
“Get out.”
Edwin did not move.
Lucien’s voice deepened.
“Before I call the police.”
Edwin finally turned away.
At the threshold, he paused.
Without facing them, he said, “If she has the ledgers, you won’t live long enough to use them.”
Then he left.
The door shut.
Mara stopped breathing.
Lucien turned to her immediately.
“He knows we found them.”
“He also just threatened us.”
Lucien nodded once.
“Good.”
She stared at him.
“Good?”
His face had gone cold in a way she had not yet seen.
“Yes. Because careful men deny. Reckless men threaten. And threatening men can be trapped.”
Mara looked at him differently then.
Not as Celeste’s worried husband.
Not only.
But as a man who had been patient too long and had just watched the enemy show his teeth in open daylight.
Lucien crossed to the desk and pulled out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“A federal trustee I should have called a year ago.” He looked up. “And a prosecutor Adrian once trusted.”
Mara’s heart pounded.
“Will they believe us?”
Lucien’s mouth hardened.
“They will believe original ledgers, trust fraud, and a witness statement.”
“A witness in someone else’s body?”
His gaze held hers.
“You are Mara Ellison,” he said quietly. “And whoever else Blackwood made you, Edwin just confirmed one thing—Celeste was telling the truth before she died.”
Mara froze.
Before she died.
He had said it naturally.
Accepted it naturally.
And somehow that hurt more than she expected.
Because it meant the woman whose face she wore was truly gone.
Or almost gone.
Lucien must have seen something break in her expression.
His voice softened.
“I’m sorry.”
Mara looked away.
“If I’m alive, she isn’t.”
“That may not be the whole story.”
She frowned.
“What does that mean?”
But before Lucien could answer, the lights in the study flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then, in the dark reflection of the window, Mara saw another woman’s face layered over her own for one impossible heartbeat.
Celeste.
Pale. Sad. Urgent.
Her lips moved silently.
The chapel.
The lights steadied.
Mara stumbled back.
Lucien caught her arm.
“What happened?”
Mara looked toward the window, shaking harder than before.
“She’s not gone,” she whispered.
Lucien stared at her.
“Celeste?”
Mara nodded.
“She wants us to go to the chapel.”
May you like
And if Celeste was somehow still trapped in the broken threads of Blackwood’s old magic, then exposing Edwin might not be the only unfinished thing waiting inside that mansion.
It might only be the first.
