Room Seventeen
Chapter 03 - Room Seventeen
The east wing had been closed so long that dust lay across the floor like gray snow.
At eight the next morning, Marcus Bell cut the wax seal from the corridor doors. Eleanor entered first, leaning on an ebony cane. Clara followed beside Vivienne, who had said almost nothing since the gala.
Room seventeen was hidden behind a paneled wall.
The brass key from Clara’s music box turned with difficulty. Inside stood a child’s iron crib, a rocking chair, and shelves filled with smoke-damaged boxes. Two small names had been painted above the fireplace before someone covered them with white paint.
Miriam used a solvent pad.
The first name appeared quickly.
CLARA.
The second took longer.
VIVIENNE.
The young heiress stepped backward.
“That is impossible.”
Clara stared at the wall. Both names were written in the same careful blue script, surrounded by small golden stars.
Eleanor lowered herself into the rocking chair. “Isabella was expecting twins.”
Conrad had told the family only one baby survived the pregnancy. According to the official account, the child died with a nurse during the nursery fire, and Isabella disappeared weeks later in grief.
Vivienne’s breathing became shallow. “My birth certificate says Celeste is my mother.”
Celeste Vale, Conrad’s wife, had died of cancer when Vivienne was twelve. She had been photographed leaving the hospital with a newborn the same week as the fire.
Marcus opened a metal file box. Inside were prenatal scans showing two fetuses, nursery invoices for twin cribs, and a letter from Isabella to Eleanor.
Conrad says the board will never accept daughters born outside a proper marriage. He wants one child registered as his, and he says it is the only way to protect the company. I do not believe him.
The letter ended mid-sentence.
Behind the crib, Clara found a scorched photograph. Isabella Vale stood by a garden fountain holding two infants wrapped in matching blankets. One wore the gold swan pendant. The other wore a silver moon.
Vivienne touched her bare neck.
“My mother gave me a silver moon when I was little. Father took it after she died.”
A crash sounded in the corridor.
They ran outside. One of the archive boxes had been knocked from a cart. At the far end of the hall, a man in a maintenance uniform disappeared down the servants’ stairs.
Security caught him near the greenhouse.
He carried lighter fluid, copied master keys, and a phone containing a single message from an unregistered number:
DESTROY E-17 BEFORE THE OLD WOMAN OPENS IT.
When Eleanor ordered Conrad’s phone seized, he held it out calmly.
May you like
The message had not come from him.
It had come from Vivienne’s number.
