The Photograph Facing Down
Chapter 04 - The Photograph Facing Down
Victor did not ask what Chloe had heard.
He looked first at Margaret's hand on her elbow, then at Margaret's face. The head housekeeper released Chloe as if the touch had never existed.
“Miss Bennett was returning to her duties,” Margaret said.
“She is returning to the library,” Victor replied.
No one argued.
That was one of the first things Chloe had learned in the Russo penthouse. People disagreed with Victor Russo carefully, if at all. They lowered their voices. They chose words with the caution of people handling crystal near stone.
She entered the room with her heartbeat in her throat.
Celeste Donati stood near the fireplace now, pale but steady. Her father was livid in a manner so polished it looked almost pleasant. Victor remained behind the desk, one hand resting beside his coffee cup.
“What did you find in my bedroom?” he asked Chloe.
“Nothing, sir.”
“Try again.”
“The blue bottle.”
Leo Donati's smile returned. “Perfume has become evidence now?”
Victor did not look at him. “What about it?”
“It made me dizzy yesterday. Mrs. Gable told me not to touch it.”
Margaret drew herself taller. “I told her not to rearrange the private suite. That is all.”
“Celeste,” Victor said.
The young woman lowered her eyes. “Your mother hated that scent.”
The room went still.
“My mother has been dead for twenty-six years,” Victor said.
“I know.” Celeste's voice trembled once, then steadied. “My mother used the same scent in our house after visiting yours. She said it made men easier to manage when they were tired.”
Leo's hand tightened around his cane. “My daughter is unwell.”
Victor's eyes moved to Celeste's bruised wrist. “She looks quite sane to me.”
“Enough.” Leo stood. “You have forty-eight hours. Marriage or war.”
Victor rose too.
The painting behind him seemed suddenly smaller.
“If you threaten me in my house again, Leo, you will leave it through the service elevator wrapped in one of Margaret's excellent tablecloths.”
Leo's expression hardened.
Celeste looked at Chloe only once before she followed her father out. It was not gratitude in her eyes. It was urgency.
Help me, it said.
After the doors closed, Victor turned to Margaret.
“You may go.”
“Mr. Russo, this girl—”
“Now.”
Margaret left with her back straight enough to hide rage but not enough to hide fear.
Chloe remained near the bookshelves, wishing the floor would open politely and allow her to disappear.
Victor crossed to the desk, opened a drawer, and removed the cobalt bottle. “Do you know why my mother died?”
Chloe shook her head.
“Everyone knows the public story. Fever. Weak heart. Winter illness.”
He picked up the framed photograph that had been lying facedown on the desk. For the first time, Chloe saw the picture.
A young woman sat on a kitchen counter laughing. A little boy leaned against her side, flour on his nose. Behind them, a maid in a black uniform was smiling at something out of frame.
Victor's thumb rested on the boy's face without quite touching it.
“She was thirty-one,” he said. “Not weak. Not fragile. Not ill until the last month. Then she stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. Started shaking. My father said grief made women delicate.”
Chloe looked at the blue bottle.
Victor noticed.
“Tell me what you are thinking.”
“I don't think I should.”
“Bennett.”
She took a breath. “Maybe your mother wasn't delicate.”
Something in his face changed, almost imperceptibly.
“Maybe somebody wanted her tired enough not to fight.”
Victor looked at the photograph again.
Then he turned it over.
On the back, in faded ink, someone had written a line in a woman's hand.
If my son ever starts sleeping again, ask who kept him awake.
Chloe read it twice.
Victor did not move.
Outside the library doors, something porcelain shattered in the hallway.
When Victor opened the doors, Margaret Gable was kneeling beside a broken vase, gathering the pieces with bare hands.
May you like
A strip of blue glass lay among the white porcelain.
And Margaret's fingers were bleeding.
