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“Yes,” I answered him. “But everything in the house has basically been granted as belonging to the Wilkes family. Everything that was removed, all the paper, and other things like some clothes and furs that needed to be destroyed, was brought to Hudson’s as coming from the demolished residence. Someone could have written a diary and placed it in the hope chest where I found it, but why? Just to hurt River and his family?”

“Seems suspect,” Linden agreed.

“Yes, and why would Wallis Sutton Wellington be the one to write the diary? What would have compelled her, instead of anyone else, to put the account of her affair to paper?”

“We know the answer to that question from Wallis’s perspective,” I said softly. “She had to tell someone. It couldn’t just be her secret. The diary was her confessor.”

“Which I get, but it doesn’t answer the question. If the diary’s a fake, why pick Wallis out of the long line of ancestors?”

“Because her husband died, and that would give someone writing a fraudulent account a great in. A point when a family changed, whenever that was, and be it because of a lost heir or a child that was born who can’t be validated, that’s the timeframe you choose.”

“So that would be the argument for it being a fake,” Wade said to Linden, then turned back to me. “But you think the diary is real.”

“I do. Looking at other letters briefly, the writing appears to be her hand. And more importantly, the events surrounding the diary support its authenticity.”

“The Wilkes family will fight you on it.”

“Without question, and I’m sure they will want an outside expert to validate that the diary does, in fact, belong to Wallis Sutton Wellington. But I’m not worried about any of that. It will pass any test of ink, paper, and most importantly, author.”

“So then the Wilkeses will have to prove that they are legitimate.”

“Yes.”

“I know this is off topic,” Wade said, leaning forward, looking at me. “But when are letters or things worth money if it’s not someone famous?”

“They’re not usually, unless there’s something important about the content or if the nobody writing is associated with someone famous.”

“I like to learn things.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Explain,” Wade directed.

Linden seemed interested as well.

“I first look at the document itself and see if it’s in good shape or not, and then I look at the content and ask myself, what is this person saying and does it add value? Unless you can make a good story about a routine letter, this will be a quick description, and probably no one will be interested in it.”

“That’s why you’re saying everything in the boxes Hudson’s received from the house might be bought by one person for research, but that’s about it.”

“Yes. We might be able to sell the letters in bulk, as in all of them at once, to a collector of Gilded Age memorabilia or someone writing something on that era and the lupine families who helped shape Chicago. The flip side of that would be if the letters were from someone famous. We’ve had letters from musicians talking about their most famous pieces, and we’ve had handwritten lyrics that have sold for upward of forty to fifty thousand. That’s not huge, but we’re not the biggest auction house either.”

“Okay, so the diary, if it went up for auction, would it be worth money?”

“It might, as it’s filled with salacious stuff. I mean, she really enjoyed sleeping with her lover, and that detail is there, as well as how much she enjoyed finding out her husband was dead when she returned from her trip to Newport, Rhode Island.”

“Great,” Wade muttered. “So what if, in the meantime, the Wilkeses get wind of this diary and try to steal it and destroy it? I mean, that’s what I’d do.”

“I have that concern taken care of.”

“Meaning what? Tell me you didn’t take it home.”

“No. I would never remove anything without written permission, but as Hudson’s has no connection with the jarl, is not owned by a member of the jarl, and I’ve found a document that calls into question the legitimacy of a family of the jarl⁠—”

“Could you have said the word jarl one more time?” Wade teased me.

“I know, but that’s how it’s written into the bylaws that pertain to the families. This is all terribly antiquated, which is why, even though laws have been passed that say that omegas are free, most families that make up the jarl, in every city, will not change how omegas are treated.”

“The hell does that mean?”