“How was your trip?” She asked, taking my bag from me. Prue Williams had worked at The Belshire estate for dog years. She was everything at once, nanny, housekeeper, custodian and one of my closest friends. She was the only staff still on payroll at the estate since we couldn’t afford to keep anyone else. I didn’t love leaving her with my son, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.
“It went well,” I said, as we started towards the car. I looked down at Riley, signaling to her that we would talk about it later when he was asleep. I strapped him into his car seat and got into the drivers’ seat. I handed Riley my phone to keep him occupied as we drove the ten minutes to the estate. I wanted to see my son and I wanted to see Prue too, but that was all. I didn’t want to be home. The house didn’t feel like home anymore. I wasn’t sure when it ever really did but now, when we were struggling, more and more unsure whether we were going to be able to continue living there, it was not home.
I let us in. The house was large, not palatial but bigger than necessary with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms on three floors. It sat on acres and acres of land which had fallen into disrepair lately since we had had to let the groundskeepers go. Inside, it was almost empty. Most of the non-essential furniture, we had had to sell in order to settle Russell’s gambling debts. As it was, we didn’t use most of the rooms, but it felt especially empty without the furniture. I had plans to move us out, but I didn’t know how that even looked at this point. The estate was rightfully Riley’s, so I felt unsure about selling. Hopefully, it never came to that.
“Riley, do you want to help with dinner?” I asked.
“Can we have fish fingers and mash mummy?” He asked.
“And what are we having with that? Broccoli?”
He pulled a face. “Broccoli? Ew.”
I laughed. “Snow peas?”
“No!” He said, sulking.
“Either you pick, or I pick,” I said. He sighed dramatically and went to the open fridge where Prue was waiting by the vegetable crisper. He picked a pack of mixed veggies and walked them over to me at the counter. I hoisted him up and we chatted as Prue and I prepared dinner. He was full of stories and questions. We were very close. With Russell, it had technically been a two-parent household, but he had left raising Riley almost solely up to me. Riley had been sad when Russell died but he didn’t even ask about him anymore. He recovered so fast, I wondered whether it was because he sensed Russell was never truly invested in raising him.
He was tired by bath time. I excused Prue and did his routine myself. I peeked at his face, his eyes closing as I read him his story. He looked a lot like his father. It was scary sometimes. I was worried that Russell might notice at some point, but he never did. He was never paying enough attention to see what was right in his face. I found out that I was pregnant a couple of weeks after the night with Niall and I just knew. I knew. My gut told me that he was the father. I had never taken a test, but it was obvious. The timing was lucky because he was born about nine months after the honeymoon, but he wasn’t Russell’s boy. Honestly, I was glad that he wasn’t.
“Thank you for him. An heir. I didn’t think we would be having one so soon.” Russell said that to me when Riley was born. Thank you for giving me an heir. What the hell kind of thing was that to say to your wife who had just given birth? Was that all he saw in the baby? An heir? Not a new little person who he was excited to get to know?
He more or less ignored us from then, hiring nannies to help me and almost never seeing the baby. When I confronted him about it, he had just come home from a gambling bender.
“Why don’t you want to spend time with the baby?”
He was a mess, looked like he hadn’t slept in days and stunk of old body odor and booze. “Why must I join in on your little nursery games? Need another nanny, do you? Why on earth do you need so much help?”
“I’m not asking you for help Russell, I am asking you to play a part in your child’s life.”
“I never asked you to get pregnant. I never asked for a child. I never wanted to be a father.”
“Well, it’s a little bit too late for that, isn’t it? He’s here now.”
“And it’s your responsibility to take care of him.”
“Why are you being like this? He’s your son.”
“That doesn’t mean I owe him anything or that I owe you anything
for that matter. I needed a wife. My parents blocked my inheritance up in a trust and stipulated that the only way I would be able to access it was getting married and producing an heir.
The revelation shook me to my core. Even though I knew the truth about our marriage, it was arranged, after all, I didn't know just how heartless Russell was. It disgusted me that he would take it out on our child like that. His parents knew what kind of a gambling addict he was and their measure to safeguard the money from him until he fell in line. Unfortunately for them, it didn't work. He was unscrupulous enough to marry a woman for no reason other than to unlock his inheritance, and my parents were money hungry enough to give up their daughter to that kind of a man. They wanted a title for their daughter but what good was a title with no money.
The estate was history if I could not come up with the funds. If it was up to me and me alone, I would have given up all of this in a heartbeat, selling it off and going about my life but it wasn’t.
Riley, at least on paper was the Baron of Belshire now.
This was his estate and I intended to keep it in the family and make sure that this title that I had suffered so much for benefited him if not me.
I went back downstairs to the kitchen after Riley was fast asleep. Prue was there finishing the washing up.
“How did your trip go?” she asked.
“Longer than it needed to be, I’m afraid, sorry about that.”
“No problem at all. Were you able to sell the chips?” As the other adult resident of the estate, she knew all about the money problems.