And around her neck was a silver locket.
I stared at the portrait.
Not at Eleanor.
At the frame.
“Maxwell.”
He looked at me.
“Has that painting ever been removed?”
“Not that I know of.”
I handed him the violin.
Then climbed onto the low marble ledge beneath the portrait.
Vanessa’s voice sharpened.
“What are you doing?”
I reached behind the massive frame.
My fingers moved along dusty wood.
Then touched metal.
A latch.
I pressed it.
Something clicked.
The bottom of the frame opened.
And a small ivory envelope fell onto the floor.
Nobody breathed.
Across the front, in faded black ink, were four words.
For Maxwell and Elena.
Maxwell picked it up with shaking hands.
Margaret Caldwell turned toward the ballroom doors.
Arthur Bell noticed.
“Security.”
Two guards moved forward.
Margaret stopped.
Vanessa looked at her mother.
“Mom?”
Margaret said nothing.
Maxwell opened the envelope.
Inside were several folded pages.
A photograph.
And a brass key.
He unfolded the first page.
I recognized Eleanor’s handwriting immediately.
Maxwell began reading silently.
Halfway through the first paragraph, he sat down.
“What?”
Vanessa moved closer.
“What does it say?”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes lifted toward me.
There were tears in them.
I had never seen Maxwell Anderson cry.
Not even as a child.
“Elena,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My mother knew you would come back.”
My chest tightened.
He handed me the first page.
I read.
My dear Maxwell, and my dear Elena,
If you are reading this together, then I was right to trust memory more than money.
My hands began trembling.
I continued.
There are people around this family who believe inheritance is the same thing as love. They are wrong.
Maxwell, you are my son in every way that matters.
I stopped.
Every way that matters.
A terrible feeling entered my stomach.
I looked up.
Maxwell had already seen the next paragraph.
His face told me everything.
“No,” I whispered.
He nodded once.
I read.
But the circumstances of your birth were hidden from you.
Vanessa stared at us.
“What circumstances?”
Maxwell took the page back.
His voice cracked as he read aloud.
“‘When my sister Claire died giving birth, I brought her infant son into my home. Richard agreed to raise you publicly as ours to protect you from the scandal surrounding your father.’”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
Maxwell stopped reading.
Richard Anderson had not been his biological father.
Eleanor had been his aunt.
She had raised him as her son.
I thought that was the secret.
I was wrong.
Maxwell continued.
“‘Your biological father was Thomas Marlowe.’”
My knees nearly failed.
Marlowe.
My name.
The name my mother had given me.
Maxwell looked at me.
“No.”
I could barely hear him.
He turned the page.
Then his eyes widened.
I knew before he spoke.
I knew because suddenly the entire story of my childhood rearranged itself inside my head.
Why Eleanor had found me.
Why she visited so often.
Why she had insisted I spend time with Maxwell.
Why she had cried the first time she heard me play.
