Private Property (Rochester Trilogy 1)

We’re eating when Zoey breezes into the kitchen wearing a loose silk top and skinny jeans. “We’re having a little dinner party the day after tomorrow. Beau needs some cheering up. He’s been locked away here in the middle of nowhere for months. No wonder he broke his leg.”

“He fell off the cliff,” Paige informs her soberly.

That earns her a winning smile from Zoey. “Would you like to attend a beautiful dinner party with all of Uncle Beau’s friends?”

She glances at me, unsure of her answer.

I give her an encouraging nod, but Zoey isn’t waiting for an answer.

“We’ll need to discuss the menu,” she says to Mrs. Fairfax. I wait for a comment about how Mrs. Fairfax isn’t paid to do that, but apparently no one says no to Zoey. “Flowers will be delivered. Guests will stay at the Lighthouse Inn in Portsmouth; I’ve already made arrangements for them.” Her gaze falls on me. “And you can be available to take Paige to bed when she’s tired. Our parties can go all night long.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jane Mendoza

The feeling of frustration continues through the next day, where only Zoey goes in and out of Mr. Rochester’s room. I haven’t even seen him in forty-eight hours, and it feels strange after living in the same house for months.

As I’m coming out of Paige’s room, I see Zoey stepping down from the attic. Wait. Why is that place forbidden for me but she can go there? It seems like if anyone needs access to Paige’s old childhood things, it would be the nanny. I’m tired of Beau’s secrets. I’m tired of being locked out, after he made me feel like I finally belonged.

When she goes into his bedroom, I approach the attic stairs.

Part of me still wants to pull back, to follow Mr. Rochester’s orders, to be the good girl. That’s what I’ve always tried to be. Look where it’s gotten me. Nowhere.

I open the door and climb the steps. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to find up here. What is so secretive that Mr. Rochester forbade me to go up here?

And why was Zoey here? Does Mr. Rochester know that she’s exploring his house?

Did you think you’d hook up with the playboy Beau Rochester and get your picture in the tabloids? Precious little of that here in Eben Cape.

I’m suspicious of Zoey, even though that’s ridiculous. She clearly has her own money; she doesn’t need his. And I have no right to be protective of him.

Not when he’s pushing me away.

The attic looks about the way I remember it, more sundrenched now than before, light coming in through grimy dormers. I see the same fine china and Legos. The same paintings and rowboat. Nothing that would make Mr. Rochester forbid me from coming up here.

Something in the box catches my attention.

A little book that’s blue and velvet. Not a book. A journal. There’s handwriting scrawled across the lines—large, loopy, definitely feminine handwriting. I should put this back in the box. Or show it to Beau. Let him decide what to do with it.

Instead I find myself opening to the first page. The wedding was yesterday. B didn’t come. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

Is this the private journal of Paige’s mother? Is B Beau Rochester? It seems likely after what I heard yesterday. I should definitely not be reading this, but I can’t seem to stop. I flip a few pages. A few months pass. She does not write every day.

R got an invitation to the charity dinner next month. I will have to sit next to the mayor’s wife and smile and pretend like I don’t know she fucked my husband.

My cheeks heat. I toss the diary back into the box. I shouldn’t be reading that. Whether it’s written by Paige’s mother or not, it’s clearly very private.

No wonder Mr. Rochester didn’t want me looking up here.

I wonder if he’s read the diary. I wonder if he’s the B who didn’t attend her wedding. It takes an embarrassingly high amount of discipline to close the diary and set it back down in the box. Then I go back downstairs. I have no idea what Zoey was doing up here. Nothing good. That’s what my gut tells me.

I wander downstairs, but I’m too restless to sit down, even though Paige is engrossed in an animated movie I’ve watched with her a thousand times already.

The kitchen is usually tidy to the point of being sterile. Mrs. Fairfax is very good about cleaning as she works. There’s usually only one pot on the stove at any given time. Everything ends up wrapped neatly in the fridge.

It’s like a bomb went off in the kitchen right now. A food bomb. There’s chopped vegetables in an unruly pile and meat resting on a slab and water boiling over on the stove.