Chapter 1 - “Then Learn Your Place”Emily’s fingers slipped against the wet stone.
“Miss Victoria… please forgive me.”
Her voice barely escaped her throat.
Victoria’s hand tightened in the back of her hair.
“Forgive you?”
Around them, music still drifted through the castle courtyard.
Champagne glasses glittered beneath strings of warm lights.
Guests in evening gowns and tailored suits stood beneath the ancient stone arches, pretending not to stare.
But every eye was on Emily.
The maid.
The servant.
The young woman kneeling beside the enormous lotus-shaped fountain at the center of the courtyard.
Victoria leaned closer.
“You embarrassed me in front of my guests.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Emily’s knees scraped the stone as Victoria dragged her forward.
“I was only trying to—”
Her sentence ended in a gasp.
Victoria shoved her face into the fountain.
Cold water swallowed everything.
Emily’s hands flew to the edge of the stone basin.
She tried to push herself up.
Victoria held her down.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Emily’s lungs burned.
Then Victoria yanked her back by the hair.
Emily collapsed against the fountain, coughing violently.
Water streamed down her face.
Her uniform clung to her body.
“Please…”
She struggled for air.
“I can’t breathe.”
Victoria looked down at her as if she were something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
“Then learn your place.”
A few guests shifted uncomfortably.
No one intervened.
That was what frightened Emily most.
Everyone knew who Victoria Whitmore was.
Daughter of Richard Whitmore.
Heiress to Whitmore Castle.
The woman everyone in that courtyard expected to control the family fortune one day.
Emily was nobody.
At least, that was what they believed.
Victoria grabbed her hair again.
Emily’s stomach dropped.
“No…”
Victoria pushed her toward the water.
“Please—”
THUD.
The sound cracked across the courtyard.
Victoria stopped.
Silence spread almost instantly.
A wooden cane stood against the stone floor beneath the western archway.
Richard Whitmore stood behind it.
He was sixty-three, tall despite the slight stiffness in his left leg, with dark hair streaked heavily with silver.
His expression was colder than the water running down Emily’s back.
“Enough.”
Victoria’s hand loosened.
“Dad?”
Richard didn’t answer.
He walked forward.
Each strike of his cane echoed through the courtyard.
Emily lowered her eyes.
She had seen Richard only a handful of times since taking the job.
He spent most of the year traveling.
London.
New York.
Geneva.
Some whispered that he hated the castle.
Others said he simply hated the memories inside it.
Victoria released Emily completely.
Emily collapsed beside the fountain.
She coughed into one trembling hand.
“I was handling a staff problem,” Victoria said.
Richard gave her no reply.
He looked at Emily.
Only briefly.
Then his eyes moved away.
Emily almost felt relief.
She wanted nothing except to disappear into the servants’ corridor.
But as she pushed herself upright, the collar of her soaked uniform shifted.
Something slipped free from beneath the fabric.
A pendant.
Old silver.
Oval.
Dark with age.
A tiny crest was carved into its center.
Richard stopped walking.
Emily noticed his expression before she understood why.
His face had gone completely still.
His fingers tightened around the cane.
“No…”
Victoria frowned.
“Dad?”
Richard took another step.
His eyes never left Emily’s chest.
“Where did you get that necklace?”
Emily instinctively covered the pendant with her palm.
She had worn it every day since her mother died.
“My mother left it to me.”
Richard looked as though someone had struck him.
“What was your mother’s name?”
Emily hesitated.
Victoria let out an irritated laugh.
“Dad, what does any of this have to do with—”
“Quiet.”
Victoria froze.
Richard’s gaze remained on Emily.
“What was her name?”
Emily swallowed.
“Anna.”
Richard’s breathing changed.
“Anna what?”
Emily frowned.
“Anna Bennett.”
The color drained from Richard’s face.
His cane trembled once against the stone.
Several older guests exchanged glances.
Victoria noticed.
“What is going on?”
Richard slowly turned toward his daughter.
“Kneel.”
Victoria stared at him.
“What?”
Richard pointed the cane toward the floor in front of Emily.
“Kneel before her.”
A shocked murmur rippled through the courtyard.
Victoria actually laughed.
“Have you lost your mind?”
She pointed at Emily.
“She’s just a servant.”
Richard slammed his cane against the stone.
THUD.
“I said kneel!”
The musicians stopped playing.
Every head turned.
Emily clutched the pendant.
“Mr. Whitmore, please…”
Richard looked at her.
And for the first time, there was something in his eyes that frightened her more than anger.
Recognition.
“You have no idea,” he said quietly, turning back to Victoria, “who you just humiliated.”
Victoria’s face went pale.
Richard pointed to the floor again.
“Kneel.”
And this time, no one laughed.
Because near the back of the courtyard, an elderly woman dropped her champagne glass.
It shattered across the stone.
She was staring at Emily’s necklace.
May you like
And she whispered one name.
“Eleanor.”
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