My Boss’s Cousin Tried To Frame Me For Embezzlement — He Didn’t Know I Kept The Receipts

Part 2

The air inside the game larder smelled of cold stone and hung pheasants.

I raised the lantern to push back the heavy shadows.

I stepped past the second hanging rail to find what I was looking for.

It was a locked dealbox of a kind used for household documents.

The box required a smaller key that I did not possess.

I was the daughter of a cabinet maker and knew a dealbox lock was not a serious obstacle.

I had known since the age of twelve that most of them yielded to a specific pressure applied with a hairpin.

I was not entirely proud of this knowledge.

I was on this particular night incredibly grateful for it.

I pressed the metal pin against the inner mechanism until I felt the satisfying click of a released spring.

The box held three years of Brian’s private correspondence.

I read the letters standing up because there was nowhere to sit in my good apron.

I felt a cold sensation settle into the place where warmth usually lived in my chest.

I did not shock easily.

The chill came from seeing a thing I had suspected confirmed past all argument.

Brian Lawson had been diverting funds since before my appointment.

He had expected to be made estate manager in full with real authority over the accounts.

Greg had instead appointed a woman from outside the county.

Every doubt Greg had been given about my work had come directly through Brian’s hand.

Every delayed payment and misdirected order traced back to the same precise ink.

There was one specific letter I read twice.

It concerned a woman in Greg’s London house.

Brian had been contributing to her discretion at regular intervals.

He referred to the payments as a maintenance of the status quo.

Brian had been funding it not from his own resources but from the estate.

He ensured the arrangement continued because it kept Greg safely away in London.

Greg remaining in London meant Brian kept control of the accounts here.

I folded this letter separately from the rest.

I returned to the house and did not sleep.

I sat at the steward’s table and organized everything I had into a shape a man could follow in the morning.

I allowed myself one minute of exhaustion for having been very carefully managed by someone I could not see.

I squared the papers corner to corner.

I walked down the quiet hallway to find Greg Mitchell waiting in the library.

I laid the box and the papers on the table before him.

He read for a solid hour while I stood near the window and watched the dawn approach.

He finally set the last letter down and looked at the ceiling for a long moment.

He asked how long I had known about the extent of the deception.

I told him I had suspected the accounts were wrong since September but only found the proof at midnight.

He noted the toll it must have taken to work in a house where someone was actively trying to undermine me.

I informed him that I was a steward of uncertain standing and required undeniable proof before speaking against his family.

He offered a much deeper apology.

I accepted it with the condition that he allow me to handle the formal audit later that morning.

I told him I had already arranged for his trustee to arrive as a neutral witness.

Greg looked at me with a sudden and quiet respect.

He asked if I was ready to dismantle his cousin’s entire life?