Part 5
The letter ended with a location in southern France and a date from seventeen years earlier.
Eleanor Ashcombe had signed her name beneath it.
Clara folded the pages along their old creases.
Edmund stood so still he looked carved into the room.
Beatrice’s face had lost every trace of aristocratic control. Her shoulders bent. She was staring at the floor between her shoes.
“Is it true?” Clara asked.
Beatrice did not answer.
Edmund moved toward her.
Clara stepped between them.
He stopped immediately.
She had not intended to protect Beatrice. She had acted because the sight of Edmund’s anger had made the room feel dangerous, and because she could not endure another decision being made around her body.
“Not here,” Clara said.
The words echoed Beatrice’s earlier plea.
Edmund looked at her, then slowly nodded.
Beatrice lifted her head. “The letter is not the whole truth.”
“No,” Clara said. “It’s four pages. I assumed there was more.”
Sophie looked at Clara with concern. Clara’s sarcasm sounded like Margaret’s when hospital pain had become too strong for politeness.
Beatrice pressed one hand against her ribs.
“I can explain.”
“Then start with the man who gave me to Margaret.”
“I don’t know who he was.”
“You arranged it.”
“I arranged for you to be moved. I did not choose Margaret.”
Edmund’s restraint returned with terrible precision. “Moved from where?”
“Saint Agatha’s Clinic.”
The name struck him.
He took one step back.
“That was where Eleanor was treated after her mother died.”
“She trusted the director.”
“So did I.”
“That was why she went there.”
Clara folded the letter again, though it was already folded.
“Was I born there?”
“Yes.”
“Did my mother want me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her I was dead?”
Beatrice’s lips trembled.
“Yes.”
Clara waited for the emotion she thought should follow. Rage would have made sense. Grief would have been expected. Instead she felt a blankness so wide that the room seemed to tilt inside it.
Sophie took her arm.
Clara pulled away, not harshly, but enough.
“Why?” she asked.
Beatrice looked at Edmund.
“Because Eleanor had found the foundation accounts.”
Edmund stared at her. “What accounts?”
“The relief fund transfers.”
Harland turned from the painting.
Beatrice’s laugh was quiet and exhausted. “You never knew. Of course you didn’t.”
“Tell me.”
“My husband had lost nearly everything. Investments, property, money that belonged to our son. He owed men who did not send formal notices. I borrowed from the foundation accounts to keep them away from Richard.”
Edmund’s face hardened. “You stole from children’s hospitals.”
“I moved money and intended to replace it.”
“Did you?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Enough to be unforgivable.”
The fire shifted. A log collapsed into sparks.
Beatrice continued before Edmund could speak.
“Eleanor discovered the transfers. She said she would tell you after the baby was born. I begged her to wait. She refused.”
“So you took Clara,” Sophie said.
Beatrice looked at her as if only then remembering another person was in the room.
“I told myself I was preventing a scandal that would destroy all of us.”
Clara’s voice was flat. “You stole a baby to hide theft.”
“I arranged for you to be cared for. You were never supposed to be harmed.”
“My mother thought I was dead.”
“I was frightened.”
“So was she.”
“I know.”
“No, you know now. She knew then.”
Beatrice folded forward slightly, one hand covering her mouth.
Edmund did not comfort her.
Clara looked at the date beneath Eleanor’s final address.
“Why is this letter seventeen years old?”
Beatrice lowered her hand. “I don’t know.”
“She said she couldn’t return.”
“I don’t know where she went after Saint Orlan.”
“You followed her.”
“For a time.”
“Why?”
“To recover the documents she had taken.”
Edmund’s voice was barely audible. “You hunted my daughter across Europe over stolen money.”
“I sent people to find her.”
“Men who frightened her.”
“I never ordered anyone to hurt her.”
“That distinction may comfort you in prison.”
Beatrice flinched.
Dr. Levin quietly closed his medical case. “This has become a legal matter.”
“It became a legal matter twenty-two years ago,” Harland said.
Until then, Clara had almost forgotten him. His voice held none of the secretary’s practiced neutrality.
Beatrice looked at the door.
Harland moved in front of it.
“I am not going to run,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “You are not.”
Edmund walked toward the windows. Beyond the glass, the palace gardens were silver beneath the moon. Guests moved across the terrace with drinks in their hands, unaware that the foundation’s chairman had just learned his closest family friend had stolen from his charity and helped erase his granddaughter’s identity.
Clara watched his reflection.
The authority had gone out of his posture. For a few moments he looked exactly his age.
“What happened to the investigation?” he asked.
Beatrice did not pretend not to understand.
“I changed the direction of it.”
“How?”
“The police found Eleanor’s car near the southern border. I told them she had talked about leaving with the child’s father.”
“The child’s father was dead.”
“She had not told you about him.”
“You made her grief look like guilt.”
“I gave them what they already expected from a frightened young woman.”
Edmund turned.
“You gave me what I was willing to believe.”
Beatrice did not answer.
That admission cost him more than an accusation would have.
Clara read the final address again. “Can we find out who lived here?”
Harland held out his hand. “May I?”
She did not give him the letter.
His hand remained extended for a moment, then fell.
“I’ll make a copy myself,” Clara said.
“Of course.”
She had expected resistance. His immediate acceptance made her feel foolishly grateful, which annoyed her.
Edmund came back to the table.
“Miss Vale, I owe you an apology.”
She looked at him.
“For what?”
May you like
“For taking hold of your hands without asking. For questioning you in public. For speaking as though the discovery belonged to me.”
“It does belong to you.”
