“For fifty dollars. You know why.”
“No.”
She took out her mother’s letter.
“Because Gideon had already come asking about me.”
Her father’s eyes locked onto the envelope.
He recognized the handwriting.
“Where did you get that?”
Rosalie understood.
He knew the letter existed.
Perhaps not where.
But he knew.
Her father sat down heavily on the bed.
For the first time in her life, Rosalie saw him not as the enormous figure who had ruled the Ashford household, but as an aging man exhausted by something he had carried too long.
“I thought marrying you to Gideon would end it.”
“End what?”
He looked at Gideon.
“The questions.”
They left before sunset.
Her father refused to explain further.
But Rosalie had the journal.
That night, she and Gideon sat at the kitchen table reading Eleanor’s notes.
