They Took His Inheritance, He Claimed Three Alpha Mates novel · Chapter 15 of 40

Chapter 15: The Codicil

The lawyer from the city was a plump man in a green waistcoat, and he opened Max's father's letter box in the great hall with a flourish.

Mary had arranged the room herself.

Forty chairs.

The servants of three packs along the walls.

Linda in the front row in cream silk, with a handkerchief ready in her gloved hand.

Max took the chair in the middle, because there was nowhere else to sit that did not look like hiding.

James took the one on his right.

James had not mentioned the post by the river since they rode home, not at supper and not at breakfast.

He sat now with his jaw set and one boot tapping, and when Max glanced at him he looked away, as if the groove were still under his fingers.

Joel took the chair behind Max, and Max could feel him there, a hard warm presence at his back.

Raven stood by the nearest pillar with his book.

"Gentlemen," said the lawyer, and cleared his throat for some time.

"It is my sad privilege to read a codicil found in the late alpha's own desk, in his own box, under his own lock."

Max looked at the box.

It was an old iron thing, and the lock had been picked clean.

The edges of the scratches were bright.

They were not old scratches.

"A codicil to my last will," the lawyer read. "Because my stepdaughter Linda has been a true daughter to me, and because my son is young and unwell, I name her co-heir of Greywater, its mills and its vault."

A murmur rolled along the walls.

"Her mother shall act for them both until my son's twenty-third year, or until he is bonded."

"Signed in my hand. Witnessed by the foreman of the river mill."

The lawyer lifted his head, beaming.

"A most touching document."

Mary pressed her hands over her heart.

"I never knew," she said, and her voice shook just enough. "I never knew he had done this for her."

Linda sobbed into her handkerchief.

It was well done.

Max could see two of the Tyros elders' wives dabbing their own eyes.

"May I see it?" he said.

"Of course, darling."

The lawyer passed it down the row.

Max took the page and looked at the hand.

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