Part 7
“She came to see me?”
“She stood across the street. She did not approach.”
“Why?”
“Margaret asked her not to.”
Clara turned away.
This betrayal hurt differently because it belonged to the woman she loved.
“My mother knew she was alive.”
“Yes.”
“All those years.”
“She believed contact would destabilize Eleanor and confuse you.”
“I was twelve.”
“Eleanor had no legal documents proving who she was. The Ashcombe family had declared her missing. She feared arrest over Martin’s death and the stolen records.”
“She was the one who stole them?”
“To expose us.”
Edmund’s voice was rough. “Us?”
Beatrice looked at him. “You were not involved in the theft, but your name protected the people who were. No investigator wanted to imply that the Ashcombe Foundation’s accounts were false. Eleanor believed you would protect the institution before her.”
Edmund did not deny it.
Clara returned to the table and picked up the photograph.
“Did Margaret take this?”
“No. I did.”
Clara looked at Beatrice over the damaged image.
“You were there.”
“At Saint Orlan.”
“The letter says you promised to return me.”
“I intended to.”
“When?”
“After Eleanor gave back the account copies.”
“She signed the papers.”
“She had hidden another set.”
“So you kept me.”
Beatrice’s face folded for a moment under the simplicity of the accusation.
“Yes.”
Clara put down the photograph.
“I want you gone.”
Edmund moved toward the bell.
Beatrice stood. “There is a box in my house. Eleanor’s letters, copies of the clinic records, the transfers, everything I kept because I was too afraid to destroy it and too cowardly to reveal it.”
“Where?” Edmund asked.
“In the blue room, beneath the floorboard under the north window.”
Harland, listening beyond the door or waiting nearby, opened it before he was called.
“Send security with Lady Wren,” Edmund said. “Then contact the police commissioner. Not someone from his office. Him.”
Beatrice gave a tired smile. “Still issuing orders as though the world becomes honest when you use the correct tone.”
Edmund looked at her.
“No. I am issuing orders because I spent twenty-two years allowing other people to manage what I did not wish to see.”
Beatrice’s smile disappeared.
She turned to Clara.
“I am sorry.”
Clara felt nothing she could use.
“You don’t get to make that useful yet.”
Beatrice inclined her head as though accepting a judgment.
At the door, she stopped.
“Eleanor’s last letter mentioned a place called Morrow House.”
Edmund frowned. “What is it?”
“I never found out.”
Clara did not thank her.
Beatrice left between Harland and two palace security officers. Her burgundy gown trailed over the carpet, and for the first time that evening, she did not gather the fabric to prevent it from touching dust.
Sophie exhaled.
“Your birthday last year was better.”
Clara sat down.
“My cake collapsed.”
“Yes. But no one confessed to kidnapping you.”
Edmund looked uncertain whether the remark was permitted.
Clara laughed once, then covered her face.
The tears arrived without dignity. She bent forward, shoulders shaking, one hand clutching the old letter. Sophie crouched beside her and rubbed the center of her back.
Edmund remained where he was.
He did not approach until Clara lowered her hands.
“May I sit here?” he asked.
She nodded.
He chose the chair beside, not opposite, her.
“I don’t know what to call you,” Clara said.
“Edmund will do.”
“That feels strange.”
“It feels strange to me too.”
“Lord Ashcombe feels worse.”
“I have been called worse.”
Sophie handed Clara a handkerchief from the tea tray. “Do palaces provide these for scandals?”
Edmund looked at the embroidered crest. “Those belong to the west library.”
“Of course they do.”
Clara wiped her face.
“What was she like?” she asked.
Edmund looked toward the music box.
“My daughter?”
Clara nodded.
He took a long time to answer.
“She disliked pears. She cheated at cards, badly. She could imitate my mother’s voice so accurately that servants answered summons that had not been given. She was impatient with ceremony and patient with injured animals. When she was angry, she became very polite.”
Clara looked down at the letter.
“I do that.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t sound pleased.”
“I’m not sure what I am.”
That was the first honest thing between them that did not involve evidence.
Outside the library, the ball continued for another hour. The royal family departed through the eastern entrance. Guests left through the grand portico under the eyes of photographers who had already received the image of Clara, Edmund, and the opened music box.
By midnight, the photograph appeared online beneath a headline asking whether the Ashcombe family’s lost heiress had returned.
By twelve fifteen, strangers had found Clara’s workplace.
She taught music at a community center in South London, mostly to children whose parents could not afford private lessons. The center’s website included a photograph of her at an upright piano with six students crowding the bench. Someone placed it beside the miniature portrait and drew red circles around the women’s eyebrows.
At twelve thirty, a reporter called Sophie’s phone.
At twelve forty, three more called.
At one, Clara sat in the back of Edmund’s car with a borrowed coat over her gown while Harland arranged private security outside her apartment. Sophie scrolled through messages, swore quietly, and turned off her phone.
Edmund sat across from Clara.
The music box rested in a padded case between his shoes. He had offered it to her before they left the palace.
She had refused.
“It belongs to your family,” she had said.
He had looked at her for a moment. “That answer may become complicated.”
Now the city passed outside the dark windows. Clara watched takeout shops closing, buses moving through wet light, and couples arguing at crossings. Ordinary life continued with offensive efficiency.
“Will the police arrest Beatrice?” she asked.
“They will question her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
May you like
Edmund considered.
“If the documents support her account, there may be charges concerning abduction, fraud, conspiracy, and the foundation funds. The passage of time will complicate some matters.”
