What the Old Woman Knew

Lily's POV

Nobody in the front hall said a word.

Vanessa's mouth opened and closed. The tears on her face were still wet, but she had stopped crying. Margaret's hand was frozen on her chest, and Richard was looking at the floor like he had dropped something there.

Eleanor held the necklace up again and let it swing in the light.

"Rose Sinclair was my friend for forty years," she said. "I sat in the front row at her funeral. Her son asked for this necklace to stay with her, and I watched him put it around her neck myself." She turned to Mr. Sinclair. "Isn't that right, Thomas?"

Mr. Sinclair's face had gone gray. "Yes," he said quietly. "That's right."

"So either someone dug up your mother," Eleanor said, "or this is a copy."

She dropped the necklace into Margaret's hand like it was something dirty.

"It's a copy," Eleanor said. "A cheap one. The real stones had a pink color in them. These are glass." Then she looked at Vanessa, and her voice turned as cold as ice. "You put a fake necklace in my granddaughter-in-law's purse, Vivian, and you told a lie about a dead woman to do it. I don't know what game you're playing, but I'm too old to enjoy it."

"Mrs. Blackwood, I..." Vanessa started.

"Don't," Eleanor said. "Don't say another word to me."

She handed my purse back to me. Her fingers touched mine for a second, and they were cold and dry.

"Come, Vanessa," she said to me. "Ethan needs to rest. We're going home."

The ride home was the longest twenty minutes of my life.

Eleanor sat in the front seat beside the driver and didn't speak once. Ethan sat beside me in the back. Somewhere on the highway, he reached over and took my hand in the dark, and he didn't let it go until the car stopped in front of the house.

Eleanor got out first. She walked to the door with her black cane, and then she turned around.

"Good night, Ethan," she said. She looked at me for a long moment. "Good night, my dear."

That was all. But the way she said it made the back of my neck go cold.

Upstairs in our room, I finally stopped pretending. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my face in my hands.

"She was going to make me look like a thief," I said. "In front of everyone. If your grandmother hadn't known about that necklace, they would have called the police. Noah would have lost everything."

"But she did know," Ethan said. He sat down beside me, close enough that our legs touched. "And you saved my life tonight. Again."

I looked up. "The wine?"

"Marcus already sent the napkin to a lab he trusts," Ethan said. "We'll know by tomorrow what was in it. But I saw your face when you hit that glass, Lily. You knew."

"I saw her hand move over it," I said. "It was so fast. I didn't think. I just moved."

"I know," he said softly.

He reached up and pushed a piece of hair away from my face. His fingers stayed against my cheek. I could feel how warm they were, and I could hear my own heart beating in my ears.

"You keep doing that," I whispered.

"Doing what?"

"Touching me when nobody's watching."

He didn't pull his hand away. "Maybe I'm practicing," he said.

"Is that what this is?"

"No," Ethan said. "It isn't."

Then he kissed me.

It wasn't soft, and it wasn't careful. It was the kind of kiss that had been waiting a long time. His hand slid into my hair and tilted my head back, and he kissed me slow and deep, like he had all night. I grabbed the front of his shirt. He made a low sound against my mouth that I felt all the way down my body, and his other hand pulled me against him by the waist. For a few seconds I forgot everything else in the whole world. Then he whispered my real name against my lips, and I kissed him back harder.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against mine.

"That wasn't part of the deal," I said.

"I know," he said. "I don't care."

I wanted to kiss him again. I think he wanted it too. But somewhere down the hall, a clock struck midnight, and we both remembered where we were. He let me go slowly, and I went to my little sofa with my lips still burning.

I didn't sleep at all.

At seven the next morning, someone knocked on our door.

It was Rosa. She looked nervous, and she wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Mrs. Eleanor would like to see you in her study, ma'am," she said. "Alone."

Ethan sat up in bed. "Alone?"

"Yes, sir," Rosa said. "She was very clear about that."

Ethan looked at me, and I looked back at him. Neither of us said what we were both thinking.

"Go," he said quietly. "If anything happens, come straight back to me."

Eleanor's study was at the end of the east hall. I had never been inside it before. The walls were covered in books, and there was a fire burning even though it was morning. Eleanor sat behind a big wooden desk with her cane leaning beside her.

There was a photo lying on the desk in front of her. It was turned face down.

"Close the door, please," Eleanor said. "And sit."

I closed the door and sat in the chair across from her. My hands were cold in my lap.

"Do you know why I knew about that necklace?" she asked.

"Because you were at the funeral," I said.

"Yes," she said. "But do you know why I was watching so closely last night?"

I shook my head.

Eleanor turned the photo over and pushed it across the desk to me.

It was a picture of a young woman in a white dress, standing in a garden. She was maybe twenty years old. She had my eyes, my mouth, and the same small mark below her left ear that I had touched in the mirror every morning of my life.

"That's Rose Sinclair," Eleanor said. "Fifty years ago."

I couldn't speak. I couldn't even breathe.

Eleanor folded her hands on the desk and looked at me with her sharp gray eyes.

"Vanessa Sinclair has never looked like her grandmother a single day in her life," she said. "You do. So I'm going to ask you once, my dear, and I want the truth." She leaned forward. "Who are you?"