The bedroom glowed with a warm, amber light, catching on every polished surface. Crystal patterns flickered across the dressing table mirror, while the chandelier above shimmered gently, scattering points of gold against the high ceiling. Every inch of the room breathed old English moneygleaming, refined, impeccable.
Except for the maid.
She loitered by the bed, rigid in her plain black dress and starched white apron. Her hands clasped tightly in front of her, she dropped her gaze, trying to blend into the gilt-edged wallpaper, the way domestics in grand houses often must.
At the dressing table, Charlotte Beaumont pressed pearl studs through her ears, her posture immaculate, her movements brisk and precise. She regarded her reflection with a resolve cold as steela woman who never let herself unravel.
Then something caught her eye.
A glintsharp, green, unmistakable.
It came from the maids collar, just above the stiff white trim: an emerald pendant, dangling unexpectedly into view.
Charlotte spun in her chair so sharply it squeaked against the parquet. Whats that youre wearing?
Before the maid could stammer out a reply, Charlotte crossed the room in a flash. She gripped the maids shoulder, pinched the chain and tugged the pendant into the light.
The maid recoiled, air hissing between her teeth as the chain cinched at her throat.
Charlotte stared at the emerald, her breath altering, as if the thing had crawled from the earth and laid icy fingers on her cheek.
There were only ever two of these, she murmured, voice shaking.
The maids lips wobbled. I I didn’t steal it, Mrs Beaumont.
Charlottes steely eyes locked on hers. Then where did you get it?
The girl swallowed, now ashen and wide-eyed. Yet there was something timeless in her feara look of someone for whom terror was an old companion, not a new visitor.
A Sister gave it to me, maam. At Saint Marys in Oxford.
The room hung in silence.
Charlotte let the chain slip from her fingers. Not out of trust, but out of something closer to dread.
The maids breath shuddered in.
She said my parents left it with me.
Charlotte lurched backwards as if struck.
No. That couldnt be. Not here, not now.
With trembling hands, she turned to her dressing table and flung open the burgundy velvet box shed guarded for two decades. Inside gleamed an identical necklacesame fine gold chain, same emerald cut, same delicate setting, the same minute inscription on the back.
Her hands shook as she drew it out, holding it beside the stone at the maids throat.
Twin jewelstwo pieces of a history the world insisted had only ever belonged to one.
The maid gawked in disbelief.
Charlotte looked up, meeting her own eyes in the silvered glass.
On one side: herselfpoised, wan, constructed out of sheer will.
On the other: the maid, trembling and unsure, a mirror and a memory.
Her composure blurred, dissolved. A memory surged
Twenty-two years ago, Charlotte had given birth to twin daughters. One had lived. The other, they had claimed, had not lasted the night.
She had begged for a glimpse. Her husband had refused. The familys doctor insisted it would only deepen her agony. The tiny body had been laid to rest in private.
She had spent years believing the story.
Now, her frame was racked with trembling.
The maids voice, no more than a breath: It was the only thing left for me at the orphanage.
Charlottes throat closed. Her eyes glossed with tears shed kept from the world for half a lifetime. Then youre, she choked.
But before she could say the words, the bedroom door swung wide.
A mans voice cut in, taut with suspicion. Charlotte, whats all this noise?
Charlotte froze, the maid turned, and in the dressing table mirror, Charlotte saw her husbandHenrystanding transfixed, his gaze frozen on the emerald about the maids neck, his face draining to the colour of milk.
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