Chapter 1
“You didn’t rescue an orphan…”
I barely recognized my own voice.
The sapphire pendant rested between my fingers while Mariana stared at the old photograph I had taken from my wallet. My younger sister Camille stood in that picture twenty-seven years younger, one hand resting over her pregnant stomach and the exact same necklace visible against her dress.
I turned the pendant over again.
The Vance crest was still there.
Tiny.
Worn.
Impossible to mistake.
Beatrice’s face had gone white.
Richard remained half-buried beneath the collapsed carpet-roll cradle, but he had stopped trying to stand. Sebastian lay beside the destroyed silverware station staring at me with the expression of a man who had just watched twenty-five years of lies become visible in one piece of jewelry.
Mariana instinctively covered the pendant.
“Please.”
I looked at her.
“Why are you hiding it?”
Her eyes moved toward Beatrice before she answered.
“She doesn’t like me wearing it where guests can see.”
Beatrice found her voice immediately.
“Because servants do not wear heirlooms while working.”
Mariana flinched.
I slowly released the necklace.
“She’s your daughter.”
“Adopted.”
“You just called her a servant.”
Beatrice lifted her chin. “We gave her a home.”
Mariana looked down.
I saw that reaction before I heard the explanation.
Not gratitude.
Training.
Richard forced himself upright.
“Alexander, that necklace proves nothing. We found Mariana with it.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
Sebastian answered too quickly.
“Church steps.”
Richard looked at him.
Wrong.
Mariana noticed.
So did Renata.
My daughter walked closer and looked from Sebastian to his parents.
“You told me Mariana came from a hospital charity.”
Nobody answered.
I put the photograph beside Mariana’s necklace.
Same sapphire.
Same setting.
Same tiny crescent cut near the clasp.
Camille’s.
No doubt remained.
I looked at Mariana again.
“How old did they tell you that you were when they adopted you?”
“Almost two.”
Richard interrupted.
“She remembers nothing.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t ask what she remembers.”
Then Rafe Calder called my name from beside the broken carpet cradle.
Something blue had fallen from one of the padded transport sleeves when Richard crashed into it.
An old envelope.
Faded.
Sealed.
May you like
And written across the front in handwriting I had not seen in twenty-seven years were two words:
For Alexander.
