Chapter 9: A House That Was Not His Gift
The discharge papers lay beneath my hand while Richard waited beside the hospital window, his white hair reflected in the dark glass. Chloe slept in the chair near the radiator, one sock slipping from her heel. My body still felt borrowed after the blood loss and the tightening in my abdomen, but the doctor had cleared me to leave if I rested and returned for monitoring.
Richard had arranged a furnished apartment near the hospital. He presented the lease, the payment schedule, and the name of the solicitor who had reviewed both. Nothing was held over me. The rent was covered for three months through a documented family support agreement, not an informal promise. Even so, I felt the same pressure I had felt at the manor: a door opening, with someone else standing behind it.
I told him I would not return to Victoria's house, and I would not move into his private household either. I needed a place where Chloe and I could stay without becoming someone's guests. Richard accepted this with a slow nod. He did not argue, and that mattered more than the apartment itself.
The residence occupied the second floor of a narrow brick building behind the hospital. It had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and windows facing a courtyard where bicycles leaned against a wall. The landlord signed the arrangement in my presence. Richard signed as the financial guarantor. My name appeared on every page.
I carried Chloe's bag upstairs myself, though my legs trembled by the final step. Richard reached for it once, then stopped when I shook my head. Chloe followed close behind, holding the sleeve of my dress. She had been quiet since the manor, watching every adult as if measuring the distance to the next betrayal.
Alexandre came after sunset.
He stood in the hallway without entering until I allowed him to see Chloe. His formal shirt was wrinkled, and he looked thinner than he had at the manor. I kept the chain on the door. He could visit Chloe at the apartment or take her to the hospital garden during the hours we agreed, but he could not sleep there, keep clothes there, or treat access to our daughter as a return to our marriage.
He accepted the terms in silence. When Chloe reached for his hand, he lowered himself carefully to her height. I watched his face change when she leaned against him. Love was still there. So was the fact that he had stood on the stairs while his mother cast me outside.
Before he left, I placed one condition between us: he had to disclose everything he knew about Victoria's investigation into my identity and help preserve the evidence. He did not defend himself. He only looked toward the closed bedroom door where Chloe had gone to wash her hands, then agreed with a small movement of his head.
The next morning, Richard brought the photograph's insurance file to the kitchen table. The image itself remained sealed in the solicitor's evidence sleeve. The new records concerned the pearl necklace visible behind the woman in the clinic photograph. Its design was distinctive: a dark clasp, unevenly graduated pearls, and a small flaw near the left fastening.
A Paris jeweler had serviced that necklace twice before the clinic disappearance. The customer name on the earliest receipt was incomplete, but the later records identified Victoria. The dates placed the necklace in her possession before Lucie had vanished and again years afterward. A replacement clasp had been fitted at a London shop, and the insurer had photographed the pearls for valuation.
That did not prove who had taken me. It did prove that the necklace in the photograph was not a resemblance invented after the fact.
Then the solicitor found a recent transaction. Victoria had paid for a private storage unit outside the manor, using the same insurance account connected to the necklace. The unit had been renewed only weeks earlier. The address was not in the family property register.
May you like
Richard closed the file and slid the storage contract toward me. I rested my palm over it, feeling the baby shift beneath my ribs.
The next step would require a lawful search. Until then, the box outside the manor remained only a promise of evidence—and whatever Victoria had moved there might already be gone.
