Chapter 2 - The Clasp Carried Two Initials
Sophie did not climb onto the stage.
She stood beneath it, small enough that Victoria had to look down at
her.
“Take it off.”
Laura reached her daughter seconds later and put both hands on Sophie’s
shoulders.
“Sophie, come back with me.”
“But Mom—”
“I know.”
Laura’s voice broke.
The gala host, Henry Caldwell, stepped closer to Victoria.
Henry was seventy-two and had spent four decades raising money for the
Caldwell Children’s Foundation. He was also one of the few people in the
ballroom old enough to have known Laura’s mother, Eleanor Bennett.
His eyes were fixed on the clasp behind Victoria’s neck.
“Victoria,” he said quietly. “Turn around.”
Victoria stiffened.
“Excuse me?”
“The clasp.”
She did not move.
Henry’s expression changed.
“I recognize it.”
The room went silent again.
Victoria finally reached behind her neck and removed the pearls.
Henry did not touch them.
He simply leaned closer.
The clasp was shaped like a tiny silver rose.
On the back were two engraved initials.
E.B.
Laura’s mother.
Eleanor Bennett.
Sophie pointed immediately.
“See?”
But Henry shook his head.
“There’s another engraving.”
Victoria’s face lost color.
Henry angled the clasp toward the light.
Beneath E.B., almost hidden inside one rose petal, were two more
initials.
M.S.
Laura frowned.
“Who is M.S.?”
Victoria looked toward the ballroom doors.
For the first time, she seemed frightened.
Henry answered.
“Margaret Sterling.”
Victoria’s mother.
Laura stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
Margaret Sterling had been dead for nineteen years.
Eleanor Bennett had died eleven years earlier.
Laura had grown up believing the two women barely knew each other.
Henry looked at both families.
“They knew each other very well.”
Victoria’s husband, Charles Sterling, rose from his table.
“Henry, this isn’t the place.”
Henry turned.
“You knew too?”
Charles did not answer.
That silence told Laura enough.
She looked at Victoria.
“Where did you get my mother’s necklace?”
Victoria held the pearls tightly.
“My mother left them to me.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“My mother wore those pearls in photographs for twenty years.”
“And my mother owned them before Eleanor ever did.”
Laura stepped back.
Sophie looked between the adults.
“Which grandma owned them?”
Nobody answered.
Then Henry said something that made Laura forget the ballroom
completely.
“Both of them.”
May you like
He looked at the silver rose clasp.
“Those pearls were never supposed to belong to only one family.”
