Chapter 2 - The Brother Nobody Was Allowed to Find

"Did your family ever tell you why your little brother was sent away?"

Evelyn Carter's question remained in the small sitting room long after she stopped speaking. Dominic Moretti stood with one hand on the chair. The music from his engagement dinner drifted through the hallway, cheerful and absurdly distant from the three of us.

"His name is Nico," Dominic said at last. "Nicolas Moretti. He was a baby when he left this house."

I had worked at the estate for nearly two years. I had never heard anyone mention a younger brother. There were family photographs on the staircase, photographs of Dominic as a child and as a young man, but no picture of a baby named Nico.

"My father told us there had been threats against the family," Dominic continued. "He said Nico was being cared for somewhere safe until the danger passed. I was twenty. I believed him."

"And your mother?" Evelyn asked.

"She believed he was alive. She was told trying to reach him could put him at risk. After my father died, the records we found never led anywhere." His jaw tightened. "I should have kept looking."

Evelyn pressed her folded handkerchief between her palms. "Grace doesn't believe he went where your father thought he went."

Dominic looked at her sharply. "What exactly did Grace tell you?"

"That Margaret brought a baby home from the hospital fifteen years ago. That she spoke about him as though he belonged to someone else. Grace heard her arguing about a placement file. She said the family was still paying for something that was supposed to have ended years ago."

"Did Grace tell you where the boy is?"

"No. She called me because she was frightened of what she might find. I told her to ask questions before she accused anyone. Then I came here because I couldn't let her face Margaret alone."

For the first time I noticed that Evelyn's handbag was open. She had been holding a worn photograph inside it, turning its edges with her fingers. I could see a much younger Evelyn beside a little girl. The child was smiling directly at the camera.

Dominic noticed it too. "Is that Grace?"

Evelyn nodded. "Before I was taken away."

He looked from the photograph to her face. The resemblance was there, especially around the eyes. But resemblance wasn't proof of everything she had told us. Even I understood that. We were confronting two disappearances separated by eight years and held together, so far, by the name Margaret Harrington.

"I need Grace here," Dominic said.

Evelyn flinched. "Please don't bring Margaret."

"I won't."

He turned to me. "Sophie, would you stay until Mrs. Ellis comes? Your wrist needs care."

"I can stay a little longer."

"You're still being paid for the whole evening," he reminded me. "And Margaret will not decide whether you work here tomorrow."

My eyes burned. I had spent hours believing that one word could destroy my mother's access to medicine. Hearing him say it again did not erase the fear, but it gave me enough room to breathe.

Mrs. Ellis arrived within minutes. She brought water, food, and the news that a doctor would examine my wrist that night. When Dominic asked her to prepare a private room for Evelyn, she asked no unnecessary questions. Then he left to find Grace.

I knew only what he later told us about that conversation. Grace had been standing beside her mother when Dominic quietly asked to speak with her. Margaret tried to follow. Dominic told her it concerned the wedding arrangements, and Grace accompanied him to the library. Margaret remained with the guests, watching them leave.

Grace did not deny calling Evelyn.

"I wanted to tell you," she told Dominic when they returned to the west sitting room. "I found her number three nights ago. I needed to know whether she was really my mother before I said anything."

Evelyn rose at the sound of Grace's voice. For a moment, neither moved. Grace wore the same elegant gown she'd worn at dinner, but all the careful certainty seemed to have left her face.

"You were seven," Evelyn whispered. "You had a blue ribbon in your hair the last time I held you."

Grace pressed her fingers against her mouth. "Margaret told me you'd died. She took me to a grave."

"I know."

Grace approached slowly. They embraced, tentatively at first, like two people afraid the other might disappear. I looked away, not because the moment was embarrassing, but because it felt too private for me to watch.

Dominic waited before speaking. "Grace, tell us about Nico."

Grace stepped back, wiping her cheeks. "I overheard Margaret on the telephone last week. She was furious about a file someone wanted to review. She said the boy had been transferred fifteen years ago and nobody should be reopening the matter."

"Did she name him?" Dominic asked.

"No. I found a copy of a payment request in her study. It was filed under a private placement program. I recognized the date. It was the year you told me your little brother went away."

"Why didn't you come straight to me?"

"Because I didn't know whether the payment meant what I feared. And because I had just learned that the woman I called my mother might not be my mother at all. I was trying to find something I could prove."

Dominic took a breath. "Then show me the request."

Grace unlocked her phone and opened a photograph. It showed an aged paper with an agency heading and a reference number. The document did not identify a child by full name. It described an infant transfer, a receiving representative, and a continuing arrangement for safeguarding costs. The representative's signature was unmistakable.

Margaret Harrington.

I leaned forward and saw a second notation in the margin. It was handwritten and small: M.M.—fifteen years.

"Is this why you called Evelyn?" Dominic asked.

Grace nodded. "I asked her whether Margaret had ever kept a child from its mother. I couldn't stop thinking about those initials."

Dominic stared at the photograph. "This is a lead, not proof that the boy was Nico. We need the actual records."

"I know," Grace said. "And I need to know why I grew up believing my mother was dead."

A noise came from the hallway. Mrs. Ellis opened the door, looking troubled.

"Mr. Moretti, Mrs. Harrington is asking the staff where Miss Carter has been taken. She says the woman is an impostor and should be escorted out."

Evelyn went pale. Grace moved instinctively toward her.

Dominic remained calm. "No one escorts Mrs. Carter anywhere. Not without her consent. Keep Margaret away from this room. The guests can finish their evening."

Then he looked again at the photograph of the payment request.

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"Tomorrow morning," he said, "we find out who signed away my brother."

I had believed my burned wrist was the worst secret hidden inside that house. Now I understood that the west hallway had been concealing something far older, and that Margaret was already trying to close the door on it.