Lulu scoffed as she set the pot down. "Ten thousand silver coins in betrothal gifts? Do they honestly think the Warren family has that kind of wealth sitting around? When you married in, your mother only asked for a few hundred coins. It still feels like such a waste, looking back."
"I agree completely. My mother settled for far too little." Cassandra said it lightly, almost playfully, though there was nothing light about what sat underneath it.
Lulu laughed along with her, and somewhere in the middle of that laugh, her eyes filled and spilled over without warning. She hadn’t meant to cry. It just happened, thinking about everything Cassandra had swallowed since coming into this house, all of it built on promises Adrian had sworn he’d never break. He had promised her he would never take another mate. Every word of it had turned out to be worthless, and Cassandra’s whole life had been rearranged around that lie.
Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Lulu went to fetch the watercress soup and the chicken soup, calling the other maids in to share the pot before it went cold.
The Alpha’s decree for an amicable separation still hadn’t come, but the people Cassandra had brought with her from home were loyal down to the last one of them, and they already understood enough of what was happening to start quietly preparing. It felt right to have them ready regardless of how long the wait stretched on.
What kept nagging at Lulu was the fear that the Alpha might simply refuse it. A separation granted with mutual agreement and one forced by a husband’s will alone were nothing alike. The difference that mattered most was simple. A woman cast off by her mate walked away with nothing, not even the dowry she’d brought with her. So why was the decree taking this long? Was the Alpha planning to hold off until after the wedding, just to drag this out longer than it needed to be? The thought alone made her want to leave this house that very hour, decree or no decree.
Later that day, Cassandra sent for Amelia to go over the household accounts, something that should have been handled days ago if the chaos of the past week hadn’t swallowed every spare hour.
Amelia clearly didn’t want the job. She felt for Cassandra, genuinely, but her mate Benjamin had made his position clear enough. Aurora marrying into the family carried real weight for all of them. It had been Aurora’s doing, more than anyone else’s, that Westhaven had surrendered without further bloodshed, and the pack’s war council hadn’t forgotten who to credit for that. Between Adrian’s and Aurora’s combined merit, the Alpha had seen no reason to arrange things any differently, especially with how eager he was these days to lift up young talent within pack ranks. Bringing Aurora into the Warren family only made that family harder to ignore.
And then there was Cassandra herself, the true daughter of the late Marquis of Northwatch, a bloodline that had given more to this territory in soldiers and sacrifice than almost any other family standing. Nothing came close to matching what the Sinclairs had given, except perhaps if Salvador’s own brother, the one the packs still called the Hell Wolf, ever managed to take back the Southern Frontier for good.
"Amelia." Cassandra held out the account books, her voice steady and matter of fact. "This covers the current standing for Valor Estate. Every bit of rent and land income for the year is recorded here."
Amelia took the books without quite looking at them yet.
"This year’s income is already spent," Cassandra went on. "What’s left is nine hundred coins, and that was money I lent to the household. I’m taking it back now. Do you have any objection to that?"
"Taking it back?" Amelia’s mouth fell open. "That would leave nothing in the accounts at all."
"If everyone in this family pitches in, we’ll manage well enough. Between Father’s salary, Benjamin’s, and Adrian’s, it’s possible to get through this, provided people are willing to tighten their belts a little." Cassandra said it without a trace of heat, as though she were reading off a weather report rather than pulling the floor out from under them.
"How did we end up this broke in the first place?" Amelia asked, more baffled than accusing.
It wasn’t that she doubted Cassandra’s word. The household had already been struggling long before Cassandra ever set foot in it. Half the staff had been let go years ago, and it was only after Cassandra’s dowry arrived that the family could afford to hire proper help and guards again. Every one of those wages, and every dose of Rebecca’s medicine besides, had come straight out of Cassandra’s own pocket since the day she married in.
"I couldn’t say," Cassandra answered, though the truth sat clear enough in her own mind.
Rebecca’s illness alone had bled the family dry over the years, one expensive treatment after another with no end in sight. On top of that, nobody in this house had the sense to manage what businesses they still owned. Rather than working to turn any of it around, they’d sold off shop after shop and burned through the proceeds within months. What income remained now came from a handful of rented properties, a few plots of land, and the salaries drawn by Jonathan, Gregory, Benjamin, and Adrian. Strip away the estate the old Alpha had granted this family generations ago, and they likely couldn’t have afforded a roof over their heads at all. It wasn’t an unusual story either. Even officials serving on the pack council struggled the same way. The vice head of the civil office had only managed to buy himself a modest home last year, and even then only after borrowing heavily to do it.
"Cassandra, I can’t do this." Amelia set the books down like they’d grown too heavy to hold. "You should keep managing the finances. Please."
Asking every family member to contribute their own coin to a shared pot was never going to be easy, and Amelia clearly had no appetite for being the one to ask it of them.
Cassandra smiled, warm and reassuring on the surface. "There’s nothing to worry about. Just hold onto it for now. Once Aurora moves in, you can claim your health is too poor to manage it any longer and pass everything straight to her."
Amelia turned the idea over for a moment, and slowly, the tension eased out of her shoulders. It really was the cleanest way out of this for her.
Cassandra had once been the gentlest woman in this house, soft spoken and easy to please. Now every word out of her mouth still sounded just as calm, just as pleasant, and yet somehow left no room at all for anyone to argue with her.