Chapter 8 - the bride without a past
Margaret denied being near the studio.
She claimed she had spent the evening at a charity dinner attended by two hundred witnesses.
Security footage confirmed she had entered the ballroom at eight and left after midnight.
But Lily knew what she had seen.
Adrian postponed all wedding meetings and ordered a private investigation into Celeste’s history.
The results were stranger than expected.
Celeste had no confirmed school records before age seventeen.
Her birth certificate had been filed six years after her supposed birth.
Victor Marrow was listed as her father.
Her mother’s name had been left blank.
At seventeen, Celeste began working as a messenger for Cross and Bell Legal Services. Within months of Evelyn’s death, she received a scholarship funded by an anonymous Vale family account.
“Did you pay for it?” Adrian asked Margaret.
They stood in the mansion library while Lily listened from behind the adjoining door.
“I approved many scholarships,” Margaret replied.
“Celeste’s was the only payment hidden through five shell organizations.”
“I followed your father’s instructions.”
“Why?”
“He felt responsible for her.”
“For what?”
Margaret looked toward the portrait of her late husband.
“Celeste suffered because of Victor.”
“What did he do to her?”
“That is not my secret to disclose.”
Adrian placed the copied adoption document on the desk.
“Did Victor forge Claire’s signature?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew Claire lived in the west wing.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Lily was her daughter.”
“I suspected.”
“And you allowed me to believe she had been abandoned?”
“Evelyn loved that child.”
“That does not answer me.”
Margaret’s voice sharpened.
“Claire was unstable. She brought danger into this house. Your father tried to help her, and it destroyed him.”
“My father died three years after Evelyn.”
“Not all destruction is immediate.”
Adrian stared at his mother.
“Did you arrange Evelyn’s accident?”
Margaret slapped him.
The sound echoed through the library.
Lily almost stepped out.
Then Margaret spoke through clenched teeth.
“I loved Evelyn.”
“You loved control.”
“I kept this family alive.”
“By burying children’s identities?”
“By preventing a scandal that would have taken everything from you.”
Adrian shook his head.
“You still think this is about the mansion.”
“The mansion is not a house. It is the center of a trust supporting thousands of employees and families.”
“My daughter is worth more than every stone in it.”
Margaret’s expression softened for the first time.
“I know.”
“Then tell me where Claire is.”
“I cannot.”
“Cannot or will not?”
Margaret looked toward the hidden door behind which Lily stood.
“Because I do not know whether Claire Arden is Lily’s mother.”
Lily stopped breathing.
Adrian frowned.
“The hospital records confirm it.”
“Those records came through Victor Marrow.”
“The photographs?”
“Claire was pregnant. That does not prove the baby was Lily.”
“Why would Evelyn lie?”
“Evelyn did not know the entire truth.”
Lily stepped into the library.
“Who does?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“I was hoping you were asleep.”
“Who is my mother?”
Margaret looked at her for a long moment.
“Ruth Bell knew the most.”
“Then help us find her.”
“I have been trying for six years.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“You accused her of theft and drove her away.”
“I gave her a reason to disappear before Victor’s partners found her.”
“You protected her?”
“I protected the evidence she carried.”
Margaret opened a locked drawer and removed a black envelope.
Inside was a guest confirmation for the wedding.
Ruth Bell.
“She contacted me two days ago,” Margaret said. “She promised to attend.”
May you like
“Why?”
“She said Celeste would make her final move at the altar.”
