Chapter 5: Gerald Ashford Pays a Visit
Adrian's attorney arrived at the estate at ten o'clock that morning.
Her name was Catherine Marsh.
She was somewhere in her fifties, compact and precise, with close-cut gray hair and reading glasses that she took off and put back on with the frequency of someone conducting a very careful orchestra.
She had a leather briefcase that looked like it had survived more courtrooms than most judges.
I was not invited to the meeting.
But I was the one who brought them coffee, and I was the one who happened to be in the corridor when Adrian said: "I want to know everything that can be verified from what's in that envelope before I speak to Gerald Ashford directly."
"You're planning to speak to him directly?" Catherine asked.
"Yes."
"I'd advise against that until we've established—"
"I'm going to speak to him directly, Catherine.
What I need from you is to make sure I know exactly what I'm holding when I do."
A pause.
"All right," she said.
"Give me forty-eight hours."
I walked back toward the kitchen.
I was halfway down the corridor when the front doorbell rang.
Thomas answered it.
Then appeared at the kitchen entrance with an expression I had never seen on him before — a careful, calibrated blankness that meant he was working very hard to look neutral.
"Miss Carter.
Mr.
Ashford is at the front door.
He's asking to speak with Mr.
Moretti."
"Gerald Ashford?"
"Yes."
"Did he say why?"
"He said it was a family matter."
I stared at Thomas for a moment.
Then I went to find Adrian.
He was still in the study with Catherine.
He listened to what I said without interrupting.
"How many people are with him?" he asked.
"Thomas said he came alone, sir."
Adrian looked at Catherine.
Something passed between them.
"Show him into the sitting room," Adrian said.
"Tell him I'll be there in five minutes."
Gerald Ashford was seventy-one years old and looked like money that had been in the family long enough to stop needing to announce itself.
Silver-haired, broad-shouldered even now, wearing a charcoal suit that fit the way only custom suits do.
He stood in the center of the sitting room with his hands clasped behind his back, examining the artwork on the far wall as though he were waiting for a train rather than a conversation he had almost certainly been dreading for thirty years.
He turned when Adrian entered.
I stayed near the doorway — I had been asked to bring water, and nobody had told me to leave.
"Adrian." Gerald's voice was warm.
Practiced.
"I heard what happened last night.
I came to make sure there are no misunderstandings."
"Sit down, Gerald."
Something shifted almost imperceptibly in Gerald's face.
He was used to being the one who offered seats.
He sat.
Adrian remained standing.
"My attorney is reviewing documents that connect your name to an adoption placement in 1992," Adrian said.
"An infant girl.
The biological mother was a woman named Elena Moretti.
My mother."
Gerald's expression didn't collapse.
It rearranged itself into something more careful.
"Adrian, this is a deeply sensitive matter—"
"The child's name was Rosa.
My mother named her Rosa."
"Your mother was a young woman in a difficult situation.
The decisions made at that time were made with everyone's best interests in mind—"
"You arranged for your own daughter to disappear."
Gerald's hands came apart.
He set them on his knees.
"She was not my daughter in any legal sense—"
"She was your child."
"The situation was complicated.
My family—"
"Your family." Adrian leaned forward slightly.
"You mean your wife.
You mean your reputation.
You mean the Ashford name." He picked up the third photograph from the table — he had brought it from the study — and placed it in front of Gerald.
"My mother kept this.
Your housekeeper kept it.
Your daughter has been missing for thirty years.
And now your other daughter was in my home, in my house, trying to buy the silence of the one person who knew the entire story."
Gerald looked at the photograph.
"Vivian didn't know everything."
"That's the first honest thing you've said since you sat down."
Gerald looked up slowly.
"You need to understand what that era was like—"
"No." Adrian's voice was still quiet.
It had been quiet this entire time.
That was more frightening than anything Gerald had clearly prepared for.
"I don't need to understand anything about your era.
I need to know where Rosa is."
Gerald was silent.
"You arranged the placement.
That means you have a name.
An agency.
A record somewhere that your attorneys made very sure existed somewhere, because men like you always make sure there is a record somewhere in case you ever need it." Adrian straightened.
"Where is she?"
Gerald Ashford sat in that chair for a long, airless moment.
Then he said: "I'll need to speak to my attorneys first."
"You have twenty-four hours."
Gerald stood.
He was still composed.
But his hands, as he buttoned his jacket, were not entirely steady.
"You're making this larger than it needs to be," he said.
"A woman lived her whole life not knowing where she came from," Adrian replied.
"I lived my whole life not knowing I had a sister.
Tell me what size that is."
Gerald left without answering.
I stepped aside to let him pass.
He didn't look at me.
The front door closed.
I turned back toward the sitting room.
Adrian was standing in the same spot, looking at the photograph still lying on the table.
His expression was unreadable.
But his jaw was tight and his shoulders carried something that had not been there yesterday — not anger exactly, but the specific weight of a person who has just learned that their life has a shape they were never shown.
"Sir."
He looked up.
"Miss Evie is asking for you," I said.
"The hospital called.
She's been moved to a regular room.
She's been asking if the photographs are safe."
For the first time since the night before, something in his face released slightly.
"Tell them I'll be there within the hour."
He picked up the photograph and held it carefully.
"Sophie."
"Yes, sir."
"Whatever Catherine needs from you — any conversation you remember, anything Vivian said to you during those three weeks — tell her everything."
"I will."
He looked at the photograph one more time.
"Rosa," he said quietly.
May you like
Like a name he was learning to carry.
Then he walked out of the room.
