Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Cottage Table
Garrick did not touch his face.
A red print rose along his cheekbone, and he stood there and let it.
"You are all dismissed," Rosalind said, to the room.
Her voice shook and she steadied it.
"Windward cannot afford a staff, and I will not have people on my payroll who go behind my back to my son."
"Mother," Garrick said quietly. "They are paid. That's the whole point."
"Leave your keys on that table. Every one of you. Tonight."
The cook looked at the gardener, and the gardener looked at his cap.
My mother took the ring from her housedress pocket, eighteen years of brass and iron, and laid it on the table with a small clink.
She did it without hurry.
One by one the others did the same.
The driver set down the car key, then the garage key, then a key to a door I didn't recognize.
The younger maid put hers down and wiped her eyes with her wrist.
"Good," Rosalind said. "Now go."
"Rosalind," said a mild voice from the rocking chair.
Amos had not stopped filming.
"You are standing in my kitchen."
Her head turned.
"This cottage is mine," he said, "by deed, by lease and by my own stubbornness. I'd be grateful if you'd wipe your feet, or else leave."
"Amos."
"They are no longer your staff, as you've just made so very clear. Which means they're my dinner guests."
He tilted his phone toward her face.
"Say good night to the memoirs, my dear."
Rosalind looked around the kitchen at nine people who were not looking at her.
She walked out, and the door shut with a precise little click.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Tell Me Not to Love You are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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