I Gave £5,000 To Four Arrogant Men And One Quiet Maid — Her Choice Destroyed Me
Part 1
I dropped the heavy bank notes onto my mahogany desk.
The four men sitting on my velvet upholstery smelled of stale wine and nervous sweat.
They were vying for the hand of my younger sister, Megan.
Craig slouched in his armchair, picking at a thread on his waistcoat.
Dan sat rigidly upright on the sofa, breathing shallowly.
Gary stared out the window with feigned boredom, rhythmically tapping a gold ring against his kneecap.
Brian simply watched me, his pale eyes calculating.
I hated the stifling air of this room.
Most of all, I hated that Megan was expected to chain herself to one of these parasites simply because their bloodlines were recorded in the right ledgers.
I reached into my breast pocket and withdrew a thick stack of paper.
I tossed four envelopes onto the low table separating us.
They hit the wood with a dull thud.
I told them each envelope contained five thousand pounds.
Dan choked on his own saliva.
Brian’s pupils dilated slightly.
It was a staggering sum, enough to buy an estate or save a ruined family.
I told them they had one month to show me what a man does with unexpected power.
Whoever returned with the most compelling result would marry Megan.
Silence fell over the room, broken only by the scrape of a stiff bristle brush against cold stone.
I shifted my gaze to the marble hearth.
Brenda, my maid, was sweeping cold ash into a copper pan.
Her coarse wool dress was faded at the elbows.
Gray soot coated her raw knuckles.
She didn’t pause her work or gasp at the mention of the money.
My jaw tightened.
I looked at the lords practically drooling over the envelopes, and then at the maid who treated a fortune with complete indifference.
I unlocked my desk drawer and wrote out a fifth draft.
I bypassed the lords entirely and stopped behind the maid.
Brenda slowly stood and wiped her blackened hands on a rough apron.
I held out the folded paper and ordered her to take it.
She warned me she would dirty it.
I told her I did not care.
She pinched the corner of the draft reluctantly.
I told her she had the same one month to show me what she valued.
She shoved the paper deep into her apron pocket alongside a dirty rag.
She picked up her ash pan and quietly slipped out the door.
Three days bled into a damp, miserable week.
My spies reported back quickly.
Craig spent his fortune on thoroughbreds and a garish carriage, parading through the village reeking of cheap gin.
Dan handed his money over to charlatans for worthless paper shares in a fake spice consortium.
Gary went straight to his creditors and then lost another two hundred pounds at the tables.
Brian simply locked his envelope in a vault at his bank, paralyzed by cowardice.
I swirled my whiskey.
People were exactly what I expected them to be.
A floorboard creaked in the corridor.
Through the open doors, I saw Brenda on her hands and knees scrubbing the oak floorboards.
Her forearms were reddened by hot, harsh water.
I stepped out into the hallway and asked her why she was scrubbing the floor with a fortune in her pocket.
She wrung out her rag, letting dirty gray water spiral back into her bucket.
She told me she hadn’t decided what to do with the money yet, so the floors still needed cleaning.
The harsh scraping of her bristles grated on my nerves.
I turned on my heel and strode away.
Two days later, I stood in the shadows of the estate’s heavy stone archway.
I watched Brenda walk down the long gravel drive in a heavy gray wool cloak.
The sky spit a fine, freezing mist.
I tapped the roof for my driver to follow her into town at a distance.
She wove through the market stalls, ignoring the butchers and bakers.
She stopped outside a narrow, soot-stained building at the edge of the square.
The tarnished brass plaque read the name of Kevin, a bottom-feeding solicitor who handled evictions and loan defaults.
I frowned, feeling the bitter taste of reality settle in my throat.
It was so ordinary.
She was just another desperate woman trying to buy a relative out of debtors’ prison.
I waited in the freezing mist for twenty minutes.
When the door finally opened, Brenda stepped out.
She clutched a thick folded sheaf of legal parchment tightly against her chest, shielding it from the rain.
She hurried back toward the estate without looking around.
I ordered my driver back to the cobblestone square.
I pushed the solicitor’s door open without knocking.
The office smelled of damp rot and old pennies.
Kevin scrambled to his feet, knocking over a bottle of black ink.
I leaned over his desk and pressed my hands flat against his scattered papers.
I demanded to know what Brenda had bought.
He stammered about client confidentiality.
I reminded him that I owned the lease to his building and the magistrate who approved his licenses.
He collapsed back into his chair and pulled a heavy ledger from the corner of his desk.
His hands shook violently as he found the entry still wet with fresh ink.
Kevin flipped the heavy ledger around, pointed at the fresh ink, and told me exactly where my money had gone.
