Chương 1
"""Alessandro Moretti stopped so hard in the laundry-room doorway that the heel of his polished shoe struck stone and sent a fan of dirty water across the floor.
A little girl stood barefoot on a wet wooden stool beside the galvanized wash basin. She could not have been more than three. Her dusty rose dress was soaked nearly black from the waist down, and damp curls clung to her forehead while she twisted one of Alessandro’s white shirts between hands that had gone red from cold water and soap.
The shirt was Armani. The brown coffee stain on its collar had survived two professional cleanings and, judging by the frantic way the child scrubbed it, was surviving her too.
She did not notice him.
She was humming.
The melody entered Alessandro before he could defend himself. Four soft notes, a pause for breath, then the descending phrase his mother had sung while buttoning his school coat, while checking beneath his bed for imagined wolves, while washing coffee from his father’s shirts in this same room twenty-seven years ago.
His breath stopped halfway into his chest.
The girl leaned harder over the basin. The stool creaked beneath her weight. Water ran over the rim and joined the puddle surrounding Alessandro’s shoes.
“Emma.”
She spun.
One bare foot slipped. The stool kicked sideways, and Alessandro lunged with both hands before catching himself a step away from her. The child’s eyes widened at the movement. She clutched the dripping shirt to her narrow chest as though he might strike her for damaging it.
“I sorry,” she said. “Mama sick. Mama say not miss work. I wash shirt good.”
Water fell from the cuffs onto her toes. Soap foam slid down one small wrist, exposing skin chafed nearly raw.
Her gaze darted toward the garden window.
Beyond the glass, across the rose garden, stood the stone cottage used by the senior housekeeping staff. Its shutters were closed despite the late-afternoon sun.
Alessandro lowered himself onto both knees. Cold water soaked through his tailored trousers at once. He barely felt it.
“Where is your mother?”
Emma pointed through the window. “Mama sleep. I big girl now.”
She lifted the shirt toward him with both hands. Her arms trembled from its weight.
“I do good job?”
Alessandro looked at the stain. Then at the child’s hands. The lullaby still rang in the space between his heartbeats, though Emma had stopped humming.
His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
A drop of water struck the bottom of the basin with a hollow metallic sound.
Then another.
Alessandro removed his jacket and held it out to her.
Emma shrank back.
“It’s all right,” he said, though his voice did not sound like his own. “You’re cold.”
“I not cold.”
Her teeth clicked together as she said it.
He placed the jacket on the edge of the folded towels, careful not to come closer. Emma watched him with the rigid attention of a child accustomed to measuring adult moods before deciding whether to breathe.
“Did your mother tell you to come here?”
Emma shook her head.
“Does she know you’re here?”
Another shake.
“Who gave you the shirt?”
The child glanced toward a wicker basket near the door. A strip of paper had been pinned to its handle. Alessandro recognized the handwriting of Bianca Fabbri, the housekeeper who had served the Moretti family for fourteen years.
DINNER SHIRT. STAIN REMOVED BEFORE SIX. NO EXCUSES.
Sophia Rossi’s name appeared beneath it.
Alessandro stood. Emma flinched again, so he moved slowly, taking his jacket from the towels and wrapping it around her shoulders without touching her skin. It swallowed her. The sleeves hung nearly to the floor.
“I have to see your mother.”
“Mama sleeping.”
“We’ll wake her.”
“No.” Emma’s small fingers closed around the wet shirt. “She need sleep for work.”
Alessandro looked at the closed shutters across the garden.
“How long has she been sleeping?”
Emma considered this. “Since dark.”
“Last night?”
She nodded.
“Did she eat today?”
Emma’s eyes dropped.
He stepped toward her. The stool shifted beneath her feet.
This time he did not stop. He caught her beneath the arms and lifted her against his chest before she could fall. She weighed almost nothing. Her body went stiff inside his jacket, and the wet shirt pressed cold against his open-collar white shirt.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said.
Emma stared at the silver watch on his wrist. “Mama say not bother Mr. Moretti.”
“Your mother was wrong.”
“She not wrong.”
“No,” Alessandro said after a moment. “Probably not often.”
He carried her out of the laundry room.
The old mansion had been built in a century when rich men expected servants to remain invisible. The passage from the laundry wing to the garden ran behind the kitchens, down three steps, through a narrow door hidden by ivy. Alessandro had lived in the house almost his entire life and had not used that passage since he was eleven.
Two kitchen assistants flattened themselves against the wall when they saw him. One of them held a tray of glasses. The other had flour on her cheek and stared at Emma’s bare feet.
“Find Dr. Bellini,” Alessandro said.
The assistant with the tray blinked. “Sir?”
“Call him. Tell him to come immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And bring blankets to the Rossi cottage.”
Both women remained still.
“Now.”
The glasses rattled as the first assistant hurried away.
Emma tucked her face beneath Alessandro’s jaw as he crossed the rose garden. He felt her humming again, almost soundlessly, the notes vibrating against his collarbone.
His mother’s voice returned with cruel precision.
Piano, amore mio. Your father is sleeping.
He had been six. Rain against the laundry window. His mother’s sleeves rolled to the elbows. A bruise beneath one of her bracelets.
Alessandro pressed his thumb against the child’s back, checking that she was still breathing.
The cottage door was locked.
He knocked once.
“Sophia?”
May you like
No answer.
Emma lifted her head. “Mama lock so bad man not come.”
