Chapter 10
Carys answered it accidentally.
She returned three days later to collect personal things from the staff wing.
I asked how she was.
“Better.”
Good.
Then she saw Gideon’s old photograph on Mother’s table.
Stopped.
“I know him.”
Everyone turned.
“From where?”
“He came here last winter.”
My pulse changed.
Carys explained.
An older man arrived through the service entrance during a snowstorm.
Said he had once worked for the family.
Did not ask for me.
Asked whether “Miss Delphina” lived here.
Carys confirmed.
Then he asked one strange question.
“Is she happy?”
Carys told him yes.
She thought so.
He smiled.
Then left.
Never gave a name.
“Anything else?”
Carys thought.
“He said, ‘Then I won’t ruin it.’”
Marina sat down.
Her father had found her.
Seen her entering the life of the family he believed she hated.
Saw her engaged to me.
Assumed she had chosen peace.
So he stayed away.
Again.
Respect turned into silence.
Again.
Everyone in this story had loved someone enough to withhold truth.
And nearly destroyed them with it.
Carys looked confused.
“Who is he?”
Marina answered quietly.
“My father.”
Carys immediately looked horrified.
“I should’ve—”
“No.”
Marina stopped her.
Good.
“You answered what he asked.”
Progress.
No blaming servants for powerful adults’ decisions.
Then Carys remembered one final detail.
The man had asked where the old dog kennels were.
That was odd.
Very odd.
“Why?”
She didn’t know.
Mother did.
Her expression changed.
“The kennels used to be Gideon’s meeting point.”
Of course.
Before the new security wing existed, my father’s most trusted men met there after midnight because dogs covered conversation.
May you like
The cage Delphina used against Mother had once been the place Gideon and my father planned how to keep the family safe.
History has a cruel sense of symmetry.
