Chapter 3 - TWO BABIES, ONE NIGHT
The wedding was officially over.
No one announced it.
No one needed to.
Guests disappeared quickly.
Reporters gathered outside the hotel within twenty minutes.
Inside a private conference room, Emily still wore half of her destroyed wedding dress.
Daniel had placed his jacket around her shoulders.
Eleanor sat across from them.
Victor stood near the window under the watch of two hotel security officers.
Daniel dropped a folder on the table.
“Start talking.”
Victor smiled faintly.
“You sound like your grandfather.”
“My grandfather is dead.”
“That has never stopped him from controlling this family.”
Eleanor slammed her hand on the table.
“Stop playing games.”
Victor looked at her.
“You want me to tell them?”
Eleanor said nothing.
Daniel’s voice hardened.
“Tell us what?”
Victor inhaled.
“Twenty-five years ago, Eleanor gave birth to a baby girl.”
Emily touched the pendant.
Victor continued.
“The child was healthy.”
Eleanor stared down at the table.
“Her name was Madeline.”
Emily’s eyes lifted.
“My name?”
“Your birth name,” Eleanor whispered.
Emily looked away.
She didn’t want to cry.
She especially didn’t want to cry for Eleanor.
Victor continued.
“Six weeks later, the baby developed a fever.”
Eleanor spoke quietly.
“I took her to St. Matthew’s.”
“Then what?”
“There was a storm. The power failed.”
Eleanor’s hands shook.
“I went downstairs to find a doctor.”
Victor interrupted.
“No.”
Eleanor looked at him sharply.
He said, “You went downstairs because your husband called.”
Emily frowned.
“My father?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Richard Whitmore.”
Daniel stiffened.
The man who had raised him.
The man who died eight years earlier.
Eleanor said, “Richard told me there was an emergency.”
Victor nodded.
“And while Eleanor was downstairs, someone removed the baby.”
Emily felt sick.
“Who?”
“That,” Victor said, “was never officially determined.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“And me?”
Victor hesitated.
Daniel slammed both palms on the table.
“And me?”
Victor finally answered.
“A boy was born at St. Matthew’s that same night.”
“To who?”
“A seventeen-year-old girl named Rachel Lawson.”
Emily noticed Eleanor’s reaction.
“You know that name.”
Eleanor whispered, “Yes.”
Victor looked at Daniel.
“Rachel Lawson was a maid in the Whitmore household.”
Daniel’s breathing slowed.
“My biological mother worked for my family?”
Victor nodded.
Daniel stood.
“Where is she?”
Victor’s eyes dropped.
“She disappeared that night.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You said my biological parents died.”
“Your records were changed.”
“By who?”
Victor looked at Eleanor.
Eleanor shot to her feet.
“Don’t.”
Daniel stared at his mother.
“By who?”
Victor answered.
“Richard Whitmore.”
Emily’s stomach turned.
Eleanor whispered, “I didn’t know.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“That sentence is becoming very convenient.”
Daniel walked toward her.
“My father took a maid’s baby and raised him as his own?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No. We adopted you legally.”
Victor said, “No, Eleanor.”
She looked at him.
He pulled an old envelope from inside his jacket.
“The adoption papers were forged.”
Daniel stared at the envelope.
Victor placed it on the table.
“And the signature authorizing them…”
May you like
He looked at Eleanor.
“…is yours.”
