Part 3
“She goes with you,” Edmund said.
“Thank you for allowing it.”
He heard the rebuke but did not answer.
Sophie reached Clara before Harland did.
“What happened?” she whispered. “Why is Lady Wren looking at you as though you climbed out of a grave?”
Clara’s laugh came out too sharp. She pressed her lips together.
“I dropped my key.”
Sophie looked at the elderly statesman, the open music box, and the miniature portrait.
“That must be a very ambitious key.”
Harland ushered them toward a side corridor. Clara glanced back once. Edmund stood beside the music box, facing Beatrice. The guests between them formed an accidental circle, each person looking anywhere except at the confrontation they hoped would begin.
Beatrice lifted her fan and spoke behind it.
Edmund did not move.
Clara could not hear the words, but she saw his expression harden.
The west library had not been designed to comfort anyone. Its high shelves, dark portraits, and ladders suggested that knowledge belonged to people tall enough to reach it. A fire burned despite the mild spring evening. Two attendants brought water, tea, and a tray of small cakes no one touched.
Sophie closed the door after Harland left.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
Clara sat on the edge of a leather chair. Her hands had begun to shake. She pulled off her gloves and folded them with too much attention.
“I think that man believes I’m his granddaughter.”
Sophie waited.
Clara looked up. “You’re supposed to tell me that’s ridiculous.”
“I was going to, but I saw the picture.”
“You saw it for five seconds.”
“I’ve known your face for seven years.”
“That doesn’t make you an expert in aristocratic portraiture.”
“No, but it makes me an expert in that thing you do with your mouth when you’re trying not to cry. The woman in the painting was doing it too.”
Clara turned away.
Sophie put down the champagne glasses.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You’re curious.”
“I can be sorry and curious.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. I drink a lot of coffee.”
Clara gave a small, unwilling smile. It disappeared when she touched the purse in her lap.
Margaret Vale had carried the purse at Clara’s graduation. She had died four months later, in a hospital room overlooking the municipal car park, after making Clara promise for the third time that she would wait until her birthday.
“You’ve never opened it?” Sophie asked.
“No.”
“Not even held it up to a lamp?”
“I tried once. Mum caught me.”
“What did she say?”
“That some promises are made to the living and some to the dead, and you don’t get to know which kind until you break them.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She wouldn’t explain.”
“Maybe she was protecting you.”
“From this?”
Clara gestured toward the palace around them.
Sophie sat beside her. “From having your birthday ruined by a constitutional crisis.”
“It’s a charity ball.”
“It had a crown prince, three ambassadors, and a dessert shaped like the national cathedral. It was already suspicious.”
The door opened before Clara could answer.
Edmund entered carrying the music box. Beatrice followed him. Harland and an older man with a medical case came behind them.
Edmund set the box on a table.
“Miss Vale, this is Dr. Samuel Levin. He has advised my family for many years.”
Clara stood. “On what?”
“Genetic testing, among other matters.”
Beatrice crossed the room toward the fire.
Her movements were controlled again. The ruby earrings caught the light whenever she turned her head. Clara had noticed them earlier without attaching meaning to them. Now they looked too bright, two drops of blood against pale skin.
Dr. Levin spoke gently. “Nothing can be done without your consent.”
“I know what a DNA test is.”
“Of course.”
Beatrice looked at the sealed envelope. “Before anyone begins collecting blood, perhaps we should read what the letter says.”
Clara’s fingers closed over the purse.
Edmund remained standing. “Why are you afraid of it?”
“I am afraid of what grief does when given an object to worship.”
“You were not grieving when the key fell.”
Beatrice turned from the fire. “You have spent twenty-two years accusing the world of taking Eleanor from you. Do not begin accusing me because a young woman arrived with a key.”
“I haven’t accused you.”
“You asked why I was afraid.”
“And you answered with an accusation against me.”
Harland studied a painting above the bookcase.
Sophie leaned closer to Clara. “Are they always like this?”
Clara whispered, “How would I know?”
Beatrice heard. “No, Miss Vale. We are not always like this.”
Something in her voice had softened. For one brief moment she looked less like an aristocrat under siege and more like a tired woman faced with an old mistake.
Then Edmund said, “Tell her where the key came from.”
Beatrice’s face closed.
“It was made for Eleanor when she was twelve,” Edmund continued. “The music box had belonged to her mother. Eleanor used to misplace the key, so I ordered a duplicate.”
Clara looked at the one in his hand. “This is the duplicate?”
“No. This is the original. The duplicate remained in my desk after Eleanor disappeared.”
“Then she had this with her.”
“Yes.”
“And the portrait?”
“I have never seen it.”
Beatrice spoke without turning. “Eleanor commissioned it.”
Everyone looked at her.
Edmund’s voice grew very still. “How do you know?”
Beatrice placed her fan on the mantel.
“She told me.”
“When?”
“Not long before she left.”
“You told the police you knew nothing about her plans.”
“I knew about the portrait. I did not know she intended to vanish.”
Clara watched Edmund absorb the distinction. His face did not change, but one hand closed around the back of a chair.
“Was the baby hers?” he asked.
Beatrice looked at Clara.
“That is what she said.”
May you like
The answer landed more heavily than a confession.
Edmund turned away. For several seconds, only the crackle of the fire and the muffled orchestra beyond the walls filled the library.
