CHAPTER THIRTY

Arthur’s POV

His number was saved on my contact with an initial that couldn’t raise suspicions if any busy nose scroll through my contacts.

R. Harlow.

It was neither his real name nor a nickname. It was a name I gave him myself. In over for decades of navigating complex old-money family affairs, I had learned that the most useful people in your life were the ones nobody knew about.

Raymond had started working for me long before Xavier was born.

If you ask me one thing I loved about him, it’s the fact that he’s so discreet and professional, only people who understood the cost of indiscretion could be as that. He’s a wide man who understands that information handled carelessly had a way of becoming a fire that could burn everyone, including the person who started it.

I called him on Sunday evening, after Aria had collected Bryan and the estate had moved back into its usual quietness.

I sat in my study with the ledger on the desk in front of me, the one Bryan had discovered in the east wing of the estate, I had the old photograph together beside it.

I had this particular heaviness of a man who already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask but needed it confirmed outside the walls of his own conviction.

Raymond answered almost immediately, as if he was waiting to get a call from me.

“Mr. Beaumont,” he called immediately he answered.

“I need background information on a birth,” I said, “discreet as usual, no mistakes that could leave a trail.”

“Of course,” he said. He asked no questions, he never do. That was a core professionalism trail about Raymond, he understood that the questions were mine to carry and how diligently the questions were answered was his.

I gave him all the full details to successfully execute the job. Aria Ashford’s name, Bryan’s name and date of birth, as close as I could estimate from what Aria had mentioned in one of the familiarity discussions over dinner, Bryan would be six in four months, which placed his birth approximately five years and eight months ago.

His hospital of birth and his father were both unknown, which I suspected meant the birth certificate carried Aria’s name alone.

“What exactly are we looking into?” Raymond asked.

“I need to know the precise birth date,” I replied. “And anything on record about the circumstances of the pregnancy.”

“Give me forty-eight hours,” Raymond said.

“I will be expecting you,” I replied and ended the call.

***

It was my phone ringtone that woke me up very early on Tuesday morning. Margaret had not even brought the breakfast tray.

I opened my eyes sluggishly and reached out for my phone on the drawer beside the bed. I had been expectant of the response from Raymond that sleep itself had not been cooperative.

“The boy’s full name is Bryan James Ashford,” Raymond said, immediately I pressed the answer button. “He was born on the March 14th, 2021 at Westbrook General Hospital. His birth was registered by Aria Ashford, his mother. The father’s section on the birth certificate was blank.”

“Hold on.”

I put on my glasses, fetched a journal and pen from the drawer and jot the date down.

“The fourteenth of March,” I repeated.

I stared at the date for a moment. “2021. That was obviously five years ago. Are you certain?”

“I’m hundred percent certain,” Raymond answered, “I pulled the information from legit sources in the hospital. It is confirmed.”

“Thank you. I will contact you if I need more of your service. The agent will wire you your balance.”

“Always at your service, sir.”

Then he ended the call.

The doubt that has lingered in my mind since the day I met Bryan returned with a lightning speed. Each of the what ifs sitting comfortably in my mind.

I stared at the journal again.

Five years ago on the fourteenth of March.

I opened my phone and navigate to calendar. I turned back to five years ago, my wrinkled hand tracing through the date with the patience of a man who already knew the answer to what he was searching for.

Then, I saw it.

That day. That was the exact day Xavier missed a dinner schedule at the estate, one I still believed till date that he did intentionally.

That night, his line was unreachable and I had no idea where he could have been. His personal assistant at the time… a nervous young man named Frederick whom I believed should be the vein closer to his neck, even said he was not aware of his movement.

Xavier, in thirty years of growing up under my watch, had never once been unreachable without a reason

Not until I showed him who the elderly one was. I feigned a medical crisis, and guess who ran down to the estate in less than an hour.

My beloved grandson, Xavier.

The look on his face when he opened the door to the private medical wing and saw me hale and hearty… oh my God, it still cracks me up.

He didn’t say much to me about where he was the night before or what happened, and I just let it slide. Afterall, he was not a kid to monitor, and he was not a lady for me to say maybe he may have met some bad boys and got raped. The most important thing was that he came back hale and hearty.

But now, thinking about it again, it feels like there’s more than meet the eyes.

Conception, working backwards from the birth date, put the relevant night approximately nine months prior — the middle of June, five years and nine months ago. The same week Xavier disappeared.

The week he had come back looking like a man who had made a decision.

I dropped my phone back on the drawer top.

Bryan’s personality suddenly starts replaying in my head, how inquisitive, kind, playful and sweet as he was. I had seen that personality once in my lifetime.

And that was Xavier.

My mind drifted back to my family historical story from the journal, that of the Beaumont fortune built on the determination of a forgotten child who had refused to stay forgotten.

It suddenly feels like the staggering irony of history was arranging itself into the same shape again, one generation further down, in the same estate.

I was not a man given to sentiment. Across seventy-eight years of my life, most of it spent in difficult season the Beaumont name had weathered. I know practically better now.

One thing is forming formidably, and if my assumptions are certain, it only leads to one doubtful truth.

Bryan James Ashford was my great-grandson.

But I couldn’t phantom this on pure assumptions, because of some date alignment and facial look alike. I need something more concrete and proofreading.

Suddenly, my brain clicked.

DNA… I need a DNA test

I reached for my phone immediately and dialed Raymond back.

“I need a DNA test arranged privately,” I said as soon as he answered, “I’ll send you the details shortly.”