Chapter 2 - The Woman Behind the Veil

Percival did not ask another question.

He crossed the ballroom so quickly that guests stepped away from him without understanding why. Celandine followed, still clutching the damp wedding dress in both hands. Behind them, Isabetta called his name once.

He did not turn.

The locked bedroom stood at the end of the upstairs gallery, exactly where it had remained untouched since Evelina Hawthorne’s death eighteen months earlier.

The door was open.

A woman stood inside with her back to them.

She wore a thin white veil over dark blond hair. Her shoulders were narrow. Her height was almost identical to Evelina’s. For one terrible second, Percival stopped breathing.

Then the woman turned.

She was not his wife.

She was younger, perhaps twenty-seven, with gray-green eyes and a frightened mouth stained the same deep rose color Celandine had seen inside the dress.

“My name is Margot Bell,” she said. “I’m an actress.”

Percival’s face hardened.

“Who brought you here?”

Margot looked toward the hallway.

Isabetta had arrived behind them.

No one spoke.

Margot swallowed. “She did.”

Isabetta laughed once, but there was no amusement in it.

“This woman is lying.”

Margot pulled a folded card from her sleeve. “You paid me five thousand dollars to enter through the service gate, change into the wedding gown, and stand on the gallery at eleven forty-five. You told me not to speak. You told me that when Mr. Hawthorne saw me, I was to turn and disappear into this room.”

Percival took the card.

The handwriting was Isabetta’s.

Celandine knew because Isabetta left instructions for the household every morning in the same sharp, slanted script.

Isabetta’s eyes moved from the card to the dress.

For the first time, she looked afraid.

“That proves nothing,” she said. “Anyone could copy my handwriting.”

Margot shook her head.

“There’s more.”

She walked to the vanity.

On the polished wood lay a small pearl flower.

Celandine immediately looked down at the neckline of the wedding gown.

One pearl flower was missing.

“When the maid helped me into the dress,” Margot said, “this came loose. There was something underneath it.”

Percival picked up the flower.

Beneath the broken stitching, hidden inside the fabric, was a narrow pocket no wider than his finger.

Margot reached into her handbag and placed a tiny brass key on the vanity.

Isabetta took one step forward.

“Give me that.”

Percival closed his hand around the key.

“No.”

Her expression changed.

Not anger.

Recognition.

Percival saw it.

“You knew this key existed.”

“I knew nothing of it.”

Celandine looked at the locked writing desk near the window.

Evelina’s desk.

Its smallest drawer had never opened after her death. Percival had tried every key in the house before finally ordering that no one touch it again.

The tiny brass key slid into the lock perfectly.

The drawer opened.

Inside was a sealed envelope with Percival’s name written across the front.

His wife’s handwriting.

His hand began to tremble.

He broke the seal.

There were only four lines.

Percival read them once.

Then again.

If anything happens to me, do not believe it was an accident.

The proof is not in this room.

It begins with the dress.

And the person helping me hide it has been living under your roof.

Percival slowly lifted his eyes.

There were more than forty servants in Hawthorne House.

But only one of them had been holding the dress when the first hidden key was found.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

Celandine went pale.

Because everyone in the room was now looking at her.