Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BENEATH THE DUST
The west wing had remained closed for twenty-five years.
Elena entered through a narrow servants’ staircase while the mansion’s staff prepared the ballroom below. Dust lay thick across the carpets. White sheets covered forgotten furniture. Portraits watched from the walls with the stern expressions of people who believed their names would outlive their sins.
At the end of the corridor stood a white door decorated with tiny painted roses.
The brass key opened it.
Inside, the nursery remained frozen in time.
A wooden cradle stood near the window.
Faded animals danced across the wallpaper. A child’s wardrobe contained tiny dresses, each embroidered with the letter E.
Elena touched one of them.
The fabric disintegrated slightly beneath her fingers.
On a shelf, she found a silver hairbrush engraved with a name.
Eliana Valmont.
Elena had never heard it before.
She searched beneath the cradle and along the walls, but found nothing. Then she remembered Celeste’s words.
Under the floor.
One floorboard beside the fireplace was darker than the others.
Elena knelt and pushed the brass key into a narrow gap. The board lifted.
Beneath it lay a small tin box.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside were several photographs, a birth bracelet, two letters and a miniature recording cassette.
The bracelet read Baby Elena V.
Elena stared until the letters blurred.
A floorboard creaked in the corridor.
She closed the box and hid behind the nursery door.
A man entered.
He wore a formal black suit and carried a flashlight.
Elena recognized him as Julian Ashford, Isabella’s son.
He walked directly toward the open floorboard.
When he saw the empty hiding place, he swore under his breath.
Elena stepped out.
“Looking for something?”
Julian spun around.
For several seconds, neither moved.
He was thirty-two, with dark hair and the restrained confidence of a man raised among powerful people. Yet there was an uneasiness in his expression that Elena had noticed since her arrival.
His eyes dropped to the box in her hands.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“That seems to be the family motto.”
“Give me the box.”
“No.”
“Elena, listen to me.”
“You know my name.”
“You work in my house.”
“This is your grandmother’s house.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand what you found.”
“A bracelet with my name and your family initial seems easy to understand.”
Julian lowered the flashlight.
“My mother has people watching every exit. You won’t leave the estate with that box.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m warning you.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the nursery window.
“Because the last person who tried to expose what happened in this room disappeared.”
“My mother?”
Julian said nothing.
Elena stepped closer.
“Did you know her?”
“No. I was a child.”
“But you know something.”
“I know enough to be afraid.”
He reached into his coat.
Elena backed away, but he pulled out an old key card.
“This opens the archive room beneath the library,” he said. “The mansion’s official records are stored there.”
“Why give it to me?”
“Because if your mother left evidence in this room, then my mother has spent twenty-five years making sure the rest of it never surfaces.”
“Why would you turn against her?”
Julian’s expression changed.
“I’m not doing this for you.”
“Then who?”
“My father.”
Elena had assumed Gregory Ashford was alive abroad.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared eighteen months ago after telling me he had discovered something in the foundation accounts. My mother said he left willingly.”
“You don’t believe her.”
“I found blood in his study.”
A bell rang from the lower floor, signaling the staff meeting before the gala.
Julian looked toward the corridor.
“You have five hours before the guests arrive. Once the ballroom is full, my mother will control the exits.”
Elena placed the tin box beneath her apron.
“What’s on the cassette?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
He stepped toward the door.
“But you should trust this. Isabella Valmont would burn down her own house before allowing anyone to prove what happened in that nursery.”
After he left, Elena examined the remaining contents of the box.
The first letter was written by Celeste.
Mara, if you are reading this, then I failed to protect either of you.
The second letter was in her mother’s handwriting.
Celeste, Isabella knows the child survived. She saw me leaving through the greenhouse. I cannot return. Keep the original birth record hidden. If anything happens to me, find Adrian Cross. He believed us once. He may believe us again.
Elena read the final sentence three times.
May you like
Then she heard the nursery door lock from the outside.
Smoke began to rise beneath it.
