Chapter 7
Evelyn walked into the ballroom with a cane and no fear.
Seventy-three years old.
Gray hair pinned neatly behind her head.
She looked first at me.
Then Mariana.
Her eyes filled immediately.
“You have Camille’s face.”
Mariana broke again.
Evelyn crossed the room slowly and stopped in front of her.
“I’m sorry.”
Mariana stared.
“You knew me?”
“I held you the night you were born.”
Silence.
Beatrice laughed bitterly.
“Wonderful. Another servant with memories.”
Evelyn turned.
“I was more loyal to this family than you ever understood.”
That stopped her.
Evelyn told us Camille arrived at the Sterling estate five months pregnant. Richard had given his word to my father that he would protect her until the Vance conflict settled.
My father died before that happened.
I searched for Camille.
Richard knew.
“He received three messages from your people,” Evelyn said.
I looked at him.
“You told me no one found us.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Evelyn continued.
“Beatrice burned the first two.”
Mariana stared at her adoptive mother.
“And the third?”
Evelyn pointed toward the old blue envelope still lying on the table.
“That one.”
Empty.
The letter inside had been Camille’s.
Written to me.
“I found it in Beatrice’s dressing room twenty years ago,” Evelyn said. “I hid the envelope because I hoped someday someone would ask why it existed.”
“Where’s the letter?”
“Gone.”
Beatrice smiled.
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“But Camille wrote copies.”
The smile disappeared.
Evelyn had hidden those too.
Not in a bank.
Not in a vault.
Inside the padded sleeves used to store old wedding runners because Beatrice never touched service equipment herself.
Rafe looked toward the collapsed carpet cradle.
The sleeves Richard had crashed into.
One was already open.
Another still had stitching across one end.
Rafe cut it.
Blue letters slid onto the marble.
Dozens.
Mariana knelt.
Not because someone forced her this time.
Because her mother’s handwriting was spread around her feet.
One letter was addressed to Mariana.
Age eight.
Another:
Age twelve.
Another:
When she falls in love.
Mariana picked up one labeled:
When she asks why I left.
Her hands shook.
Evelyn touched her shoulder.
“She wrote to you every birthday.”
Mariana looked at Beatrice.
“Where were they?”
Beatrice’s expression remained cold.
“In my house.”
That was all.
Not lost.
Not forgotten.
May you like
Withheld.
For years.
