She Smashed the Portrait at Her Own Engagement Ball

CHAPTER 3 - THE LOCKED NURSERY

The police sealed off the corridor and moved the remaining guests back into the ballroom. The engagement celebration was over, though nobody needed to say it aloud.

Sophie sat wrapped in a blanket in a private sitting room off the main hall, still holding my hand. She had stopped crying, but every sudden sound made her jump.

Daniel stood by the fireplace, white-faced and silent.

Arthur demanded his attorney before answering questions.

Marta, the housekeeper, looked as if she had carried a stone in her chest for years and had finally set it down.

I sat in front of her. "Tell me everything."

She glanced toward the door, then back at Sophie.

"She lived here for a few months," Marta said quietly. "The nursery on the third floor was prepared for her. Toys, clothes, books. Mr. Valliere ordered all of it himself."

Daniel stared. "For whose child?"

Marta's eyes filled. "For your sister's."

The room seemed to tilt.

Daniel's sister, Claire, had died four years earlier in what the family called a tragic car accident in Italy. I had seen her photographs all over the estate. Gentle smile. Green eyes.

Sophie's eyes.

Daniel crossed the room in two steps. "Claire didn't have a child."

"She did," Marta said. "She came back home pregnant after leaving that musician she loved. Mr. Valliere said the baby would ruin the family's name. Claire refused to give her up."

I squeezed Sophie's hand as her fingers turned cold.

"What happened?" I asked.

Marta looked at Arthur's empty chair, as if she still feared him.

"Claire tried to leave with the baby. The car went off the road before dawn." Her mouth trembled. "Mr. Valliere said Claire died instantly and the infant died too."

Daniel whispered, "He lied?"

Marta nodded. "The baby lived. Sophie lived."

I looked at the child. She looked back at me with those ancient, frightened eyes.

Then she said something so quietly that I almost missed it.

"My mama showed me your picture."

My breath caught. "My picture?"

Sophie nodded. "She said if anything bad happened, find Elena. Elena tells the truth."

Daniel frowned. "How would Claire know you? You never met her."

But I had.

Not as Claire Valliere.

I suddenly remembered a summer in Florence, six years ago, and a young woman sketching in a square, laughing as she asked me to take her photograph.

And in that photograph, around her neck, had been the same silver locket now hanging from Sophie's blanket.

Inside it, Sophie said, was a picture of me.