The woman who entered froze halfway across the hall. She was the new housemaid, Marianne Hale, hired just two weeks earlier—quiet, diligent, invisible. She clutched a cleaning cloth like a shield. Behind her stood a thin blonde girl, perhaps twelve, eyes too old for her face.
“I—I’m so sorry, Mr. Cross,” Marianne whispered. “My car broke down this morning. I had no one to watch her. I told her to stay in the kitchen.”
The man’s gaze turned glacial.
“This wing is off-limits,” he said coldly. “Take her downstairs.”
“Yes, sir. Lily, come on—now.”
But the girl didn’t move.
Her eyes were locked on the portrait.
She stared as though the painting had reached out and seized something buried inside her chest. Her brow furrowed. Her lips parted.
“Lily,” Marianne pleaded, tugging her arm.
The girl stepped forward instead—one slow step, then another—until she stood beneath the mantel, looking up at Lucas’s painted face.
“That’s enough,” Nathaniel said sharply. “You will leave. Now.”
Lily turned toward him.
Her face had gone pale.
“Sir…” she whispered, voice trembling. “This boy… he lived with me. At the orphanage.”
The words echoed like a gunshot.