Chapter 3 - Richard Blackwood's Daughter
Claire could hear Ethan breathing.
Nothing else existed.
Not the mansion.
Not the police outside.
Not even the pain in her ribs.
Only the photograph.
“Our daughter Claire.”
Ethan read the words again.
Claire shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan turned the photograph toward the desk lamp.
“My father knew your mother.”
“That doesn’t prove he was my father.”
“No.”
“But it proves Eleanor knew more than she told us.”
Claire sat down.
Memories from childhood began rearranging themselves.
Her mother changing the subject whenever wealthy families appeared on television.
Rebecca refusing to visit Massachusetts.
The warning about Blackwood Manor.
The key.
“Ethan.”
He looked at her.
“If Richard was my father…”
She could not finish.
Ethan understood.
They were married.
The possibility hanging between them was horrifying.
He immediately pulled out his phone.
“We need facts.”
Claire nodded.
“We need DNA testing.”
They searched the compartment again.
Beneath the photograph was a sealed envelope.
The handwriting belonged to Richard.
TO CLAIRE, WHEN SHE IS READY.
Claire stared at it.
She opened the envelope.
The letter inside had been written sixteen years earlier.
Claire began reading aloud.
“My dear Claire.”
“If you are reading this, then Rebecca finally believed it was safe for you to know the truth.”
Her voice cracked.
Ethan took the page and continued.
“You are my daughter in every way that matters, but not by blood.”
Claire looked up sharply.
Ethan stopped.
He read the sentence again.
Relief came first.
Then confusion.
Claire took the letter back.
Richard explained that Rebecca had arrived at Blackwood Manor twenty-eight years earlier while running from someone powerful.
She had a newborn daughter.
Richard helped her disappear.
He gave Rebecca money.
Documents.
A new place to live.
And he publicly allowed certain people to believe Claire was his illegitimate child.
It had been protection.
Not parenthood.
Ethan sat beside her.
“So we’re not related.”
Claire let out the breath she had been holding.
But Richard’s letter continued.
“The man your mother feared was someone inside my own family.”
Claire’s hands became cold.
“The safest lie I could create was to make the world believe you were mine.”
Ethan frowned.
“What man?”
The final paragraph had been torn away.
Someone had removed the bottom of the letter.
Claire checked the envelope.
Nothing.
Then Ethan noticed a thin red stain along the edge of the paper.
Wax.
He searched the compartment.
At the very back was a small red seal bearing another set of initials.
C.V.
Claire whispered.
“Who is C.V.?”
Ethan did not answer.
His eyes had locked on the seal.
“Ethan?”
He looked at her slowly.
“My mother’s maiden name was Vale.”
Claire waited.
Ethan’s voice lowered.
“Her father was Charles Vale.”
The name meant nothing to Claire.
But Richard’s old newspaper archive contained a photograph.
Charles Vale stood beside Eleanor at a charity gala.
And beside him stood Rebecca.
Claire’s mother.
The caption beneath the photograph was dated twenty-nine years earlier.
REBECCA MORGAN, PERSONAL ASSISTANT TO INDUSTRIALIST CHARLES VALE.
Claire stared at it.
May you like
Her mother had not merely known Eleanor’s family.
She had worked for them.
