A Mother, a Maid, and the Daughter Taken From Her

CHAPTER 2 - THE GIRL IN GRAY

The silence after Celeste's words was worse than the scream.

Beatrice's jaw tightened. "Take Miss Laurent upstairs," she told the security staff.

"Don't touch me," Celeste snapped, jerking away before anyone laid a hand on her. Her perfect face had gone pale, but her voice was still sharp. "If you think this proves anything, then tell them everything."

Beatrice did not answer.

That frightened Elena more than the envelope had.

She stood in the center of a room she had spent two years cleaning and serving, feeling every eye on the plain gray uniform she suddenly hated. A few guests looked at her with curiosity. Some with pity. One or two with something uglier: calculation.

Mr. Harrow, Beatrice's longtime attorney, moved close and spoke quietly. "Miss Ruiz, Mrs. Laurent would like you in the blue sitting room."

"I think there must be some mistake," Elena said. Her voice shook. "My mother was Rosa Ruiz. She died in San Antonio when I was nineteen."

Beatrice, still standing under the chandelier, turned at once. "Rosa Ruiz raised you. That does not mean she gave birth to you."

The words made Elena's knees weak.

In the sitting room, away from the crowd, Beatrice dismissed everyone except Harrow. A fire glowed under a marble mantel, though it was spring. The old woman sat but did not soften.

"Twenty-nine years ago," she said, "my newborn daughter disappeared from a private clinic outside Madrid."

Elena blinked. "Madrid?"

"I was told she died."

Harrow opened the envelope and set out papers with careful hands. Birth dates. lab seals. names Elena did not recognize. "A recent match was made after one of the household staff submitted a sample during a company health screening."

"I only did that because housekeeping was told it was mandatory," Elena said.

Beatrice nodded. "And because of that, I found you."

Elena stared at the papers until the words blurred.

"But why would Celeste say you weren't supposed to open it?"

Before Beatrice could answer, the door opened.

An older woman in a black staff dress stepped in, white-faced and trembling.

It was Marta, the housekeeper who had hired Elena.

"I need to speak," Marta said. "Because if I stay quiet one more minute, that girl will lose her mother twice."