Chapter 4 - The Photograph Was Taken Here
Richard placed the old photograph on the desk.
Emma picked it up.
Her mother looked painfully young.
Maybe twenty-two.
Richard stood beside her in the photo, one hand resting on the back of the hospital chair.
The newborn was wrapped in white.
Emma.
Behind them was not a hospital.
It was the mansion’s old upstairs nursery.
Emma recognized the wallpaper.
She had polished that room every Tuesday for almost a year.
Her stomach turned.
“I was born here?”
Richard shook his head.
“No. You were brought here two days after you were born.”
“Why?”
Richard looked toward Victoria.
Victoria finally sat down.
“Because Anna had nowhere else to go.”
Emma’s voice hardened.
“She had you.”
Victoria flinched.
Richard continued.
“Anna came here after your birth because she thought the Hale family would protect her.”
Claire frowned.
“Hale family?”
Emma looked at Richard.
“Who are you really to my mother?”
Richard did not answer immediately.
That pause mattered.
Then he said, “I was the one who promised I’d protect both of you.”
Emma stared.
“You were her boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Richard looked down at the photograph.
“My brother was.”
Victoria crossed the room.
“Richard.”
He ignored her.
Emma’s pulse thundered.
“Your brother?”
“Daniel.”
The name meant nothing to Emma.
But Claire reacted.
“Oh my God.”
Emma looked at her.
Claire whispered, “Daniel Hale died twenty-four years ago.”
Richard nodded.
Three weeks before Emma was born, Daniel Hale died in a car crash.
The family had always called it an accident.
Anna had been seven months pregnant.
Emma stared at Richard.
“Daniel was my father?”
Richard held her gaze.
“Yes.”
Emma stopped breathing.
For twenty-four years, she had believed she was the daughter of an unknown man her mother refused to name.
Now she was standing inside the home of his family.
Working as a maid.
Serving people who had known exactly who she was.
She looked at Victoria.
“And you knew?”
Victoria whispered, “Yes.”
Emma’s voice broke.
“Then why was I scrubbing your floors?”
Victoria had no answer.
May you like
Richard did.
“Because somebody wanted you close enough to watch.”
