The Woman Who Wore My Mother's Face
Chapter 06 - The Woman Who Wore My Mother's Face
I did not faint.
People always faint in stories when the truth becomes too large for the body. In real life, sometimes the body becomes cruelly practical. It keeps you standing so you can hear every unbearable word.
My mother was dead.
I had watched the coffin lower. I had chosen lilies. I had kept the black dress in a garment bag for ten years because I could not decide whether preserving grief was devotion or punishment.
Yet there on Matteo's phone stood a woman with Elise DuPont's mouth, my eyes, and a scarf tied around hair the exact shade mine would become if I let winter have its way.
Preston watched me carefully.
He seemed almost pleased to see me wounded by something that was not his hand.
“Who is she?” I asked.
He smiled.
“You should ask DeLuca.”
Matteo's expression did not change, but Enzo's did.
That was the first crack.
I turned slowly.
“Matteo.”
He looked at me.
“I don't know who she is.”
Enzo said nothing.
Matteo turned his head.
“Enzo.”
The older man's face looked suddenly ancient.
“Not here.”
A strange calm moved through me.
“Yes,” I said. “Here.”
Preston's smile widened.
Enzo looked at Matteo, received no mercy, and closed his eyes briefly.
“Your mother had a sister.”
The cemetery seemed to inhale.
“My mother was an only child.”
“That is what your grandparents wanted people to believe.”
I laughed once.
It hurt.
“You're telling me I had an aunt.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody mentioned her for thirty-two years?”
“Her name was Vivian.”
My father staggered back as if struck.
He had followed us after all. I had not heard him approach. He stood beyond Matteo's men, coat open, face white.
“You knew,” I said.
His silence disgusted me more than confession would have.
“My mother's sister is alive?”
He swallowed.
“I don't know.”
“You knew she existed.”
“Yes.”
“Why would you hide that?”
His eyes filled.
“Because Elise asked me to.”
Preston made a soft sound of amusement.
Matteo looked at him.
“Careful.”
For once, Preston obeyed.
My father came closer, each step slow.
“Vivian was… troubled.”
“Convenient word.”
“She and Elise inherited different parts of the DuPont estate. Vivian wanted money fast. She got involved with Senator Kensington years before Preston. There was fraud. Blackmail. A child—”
He stopped.
Matteo's eyes sharpened.
“What child?”
My father looked at Preston.
Preston's confidence flickered.
“Henry,” Matteo said quietly. “Answer.”
My father whispered, “Vivian had a daughter.”
The wind moved through the trees.
I thought of the woman at the bank. The familiar face. The way grief can wear different masks.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
“Is that the woman in the image?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know very much for a man who made decisions about my life.”
He flinched.
Good.
Matteo held out his phone again.
“The bank closes in twenty minutes. If she left anything in that box, Preston wanted it before you could get there.”
Preston lifted his chin.
“You have no proof.”
I looked at him.
“You were standing in a cemetery holding my veil and asking for my mother's box.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Then worry quietly.”
Matteo's mouth almost moved again.
Enzo took the key from the grass and cleaned it with a handkerchief before placing it in my palm.
“This belongs to you now.”
“Did it ever belong to me before?”
Nobody answered.
We drove to Commonwealth Federal with Preston following in a separate car escorted by Matteo's men, not as a guest and not exactly as a prisoner. The distinction seemed legal rather than practical.
Inside the bank, marble floors echoed beneath my borrowed flat shoes. The manager recognized Matteo and became very eager to be helpful.
Funny how institutions find compassion when fear is well dressed.
The safe-deposit room was cold and narrow.
I inserted the key.
The box slid out.
Inside were three envelopes, a ledger wrapped in oilcloth, and a small velvet pouch.
The first envelope had my name on it.
The second: Chloe.
The third: If Vivian's daughter comes.
My hands shook as I opened mine.
The letter was in my mother's handwriting.
My dearest Eleanor,
If you are reading this, then the cage has returned wearing a respectable name.
Do not marry into the Kensington family. Not for debt. Not for shame. Not for me. I spent the last year of my life building proof because I could not protect you any other way.
There is someone you must find.
Her name is Isabel.
She is your cousin.
And she is Preston Kensington's first wife.
I looked up.
May you like
Preston was standing beyond the glass door of the deposit room.
For the first time all day, he looked truly afraid.
