Chapter 1
“Nora. How many nights?”
Her lips parted.
Oliver pressed his face deeper into her shoulder.
The ballroom remained silent enough that I could hear the crystal chandeliers faintly clicking above us.
Nora looked at Camille.
That was the first answer.
Not fear of me.
Fear of my fiancée.
I stepped closer.
“Nora.”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“Nine.”
Something inside me went completely still.
“Nine nights?”
She nodded.
Camille immediately said:
“She’s making it sound worse than it was.”
I turned my head.
She stopped.
Good.
I looked at Nora again.
“Locked where?”
“The old nursery wing.”
My jaw tightened.
That hallway had belonged to Oliver’s mother, Elise, before she died.
I had kept it closed except for the main nursery because I could not stand walking through the rest of it.
“Who locked you in?”
Nora did not need to answer.
Oliver did.
“Camille.”
His voice barely carried.
Every guest heard it anyway.
Camille stepped forward.
“He wakes constantly when you travel. Nora indulges him. I was trying to teach him a routine.”
I stared at her.
“You locked a two-year-old behind a door.”
“With his nanny.”
As though that improved anything.
Then Nora whispered:
“There wasn’t always a nanny.”
I looked at her sharply.
“What?”
Her voice shook.
“Two of the nights she locked Oliver in alone first.”
My son tightened his arms around her neck.
I could see the memory in his body.
Nora continued.
“I heard him crying from the servants’ hall. I found another key and went in.”
Camille’s expression hardened.
“You were told not to interfere.”
There.
No misunderstanding.
No confusion.
An order.
I looked at Nora.
“What happened during those nights?”
She hesitated.
Then:
“People came through the nursery corridor.”
Camille’s face changed.
Small.
Fast.
Enough.
“What people?”
“I don’t know all of them.”
“Who did you recognize?”
Nora looked at Camille.
“One was her brother.”
I knew Adrian Sterling.
Camille’s older brother.
He was supposed to be in Boston.
Then Nora added:
“They weren’t visiting Oliver.”
My voice lowered.
“What were they doing?”
May you like
She looked toward the closed doors leading to the west side of my mansion.
“Using the nursery passage to reach your late wife’s rooms.”
