Chapter 2: She’s Gone

I heard my mother’s voice before I saw her face.

That short, serious tone she used when something was wrong but she didn't want the staff to know yet. I had grown up listening to that voice. I knew exactly what it meant.

I left the seating cards and walked back toward the main staircase.

My mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her phone pressed to her ear, one hand flat against her chest like she was trying to hold something in. Her face was the kind of still that meant the opposite of calm.

“Try again,” she said into the phone. “Just keep trying.”

“Mom.” I touched her arm gently. “What happened?”

She held up one finger without looking at me. The finger that meant not now Charlotte.

I waited.

She ended the call and stood for a moment, just staring at the floor. Then she looked up and her eyes met mine and for just a second she looked genuinely frightened. Not worried. Frightened.

“Where is your father?” she said.

“I don’t know. He was near the entrance hall a while ago.”

“Find him.” She was already dialing again. “Find him and bring him to me right now. Don’t stop to talk to anyone. Don’t let anyone see that something is wrong.”

“Mom, what is go—"

“Charlotte.” Her voice dropped low and tight. “Please. Just go and find your father.

I went out to look him and I found him near the garden entrance talking to one of the event coordinators about parking arrangements for the Blackwood vehicles. He looked completely relaxed. He looked like a man who believed his day was going just as planned.

“Dad.” I stepped between him and the coordinator. “Mom needs you. Right now.”

He frowned. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“She said right now.” I kept my voice even. “She looked scared.”

That got his attention. Nathan Whitmore did not frighten easily but the idea of Margaret being scared was enough to make him excuse himself without another word. I followed him back inside.

My mother was in my father’s study with the door half closed when I returned with him. She grabbed his arm the moment he walked in and pulled him fully inside. I slipped in behind them before she could shut the door on me.

“Victoria is not answering her phone,” my mother said.

My father’s frown deepened. “She’s getting ready. She’s probably very busy.”

“I sent Sarah up to check on her twenty minutes ago.” My mother’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “The makeup artist is up there. The hair stylist is up there. The dress is up there.” She stopped. “Victoria is not.”

The room went quiet.

Outside the window I could hear the florists still moving around, still completely unaware of what is going on.

“What do you mean she’s not up there?” my father said.

“I mean she is not in her room Nathan. She is not in the bathroom, she is not in the hallway, and nobody saw her leave.” My mother pressed her lips together hard. “Her phone is going to voicemail.”

“She probably stepped outside for some air,” my father said. “It’s a big day. She needed a moment.”

“Her bouquet is on the chair.” My mother’s voice cracked slightly on the last part and she pressed her hand to her mouth for a moment before pulling it away. “She left her shoes, Nathan.”

Nobody said anything.

I stood near the door and felt something cold move through me. Not surprise exactly. More like a quiet recognition of something I couldn’t fully name yet.

“I’ll go look for her,” I said.

“You will not say a word to anyone,” my father said immediately, turning to me with an expression I knew very well. The one that meant the family’s image was now the first and only priority. “Not to the staff, not to the coordinators, not to anyone. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

“Go upstairs and check every room on that floor. Be discreet.”

I went.

Victoria’s room felt strange when I walked into it.

The wedding dress was still hanging on the wall, white and perfect and completely untouched. The makeup brushes were laid out in a neat row on the vanity. The bouquet of white roses sat on the armchair near the window, wrapped carefully in ribbon, already assembled and already beautiful and already waiting for someone who wasn’t there.

The room smelled like her perfume.

I checked the bathroom. Empty. I checked the small sitting area off to the side of her room. Empty. I stood in the middle of the space and turned slowly, like the room was going to tell me something if I just looked carefully enough.

The vanity table was mostly clear. But sitting near the edge, like it had been left in a hurry or maybe left on purpose, was a photograph. Small and wrinkled at the edges like it had been folded and unfolded more times than it should have been. A man I didn't recognise. Not anything formal. Just a man smiling at whoever was holding the camera like they were the only person in the room

I stared at it for a moment.

Then I put everything back exactly as I found it and walked out.

My parents were still in the study when I came back. My father was on his phone, speaking quietly and quickly. My mother was sitting in the chair by the desk which was unusual because my mother almost never sat when she was anxious. She preferred to pace.

“She's not up there," I said. "I checked every room”

My father still had his phone in his hand and he was staring at the screen with an expression I hadn't seen on him before. "She sent a message," he said. He didn't read it out loud immediately. He just stood there for a second like he was still processing it himself. Then he turned the screen toward my mother. She read it. Her face didn't change much but her hand came up to her mouth briefly.

"What does it say?" I asked.

My father looked at me. "She's sorry," he said quietly. "She can't do it. She's asking us not to look for her."

The study went very still. I had never seen either of them look quite like that before. Not scared exactly. Something past scared. Something that understood what was already coming before any of them said it out loud.

 “The Blackwoods will be here in two hours,” my father said. His voice was flat in a way that frightened me more than shouting would have. “The guests start arriving in ninety minutes.”

“I know,” my mother said.

“The ceremony is scheduled for noon.”

“I know Nathan.”

“We cannot cancel this.” He walked to the window. “The contract is signed. The announcement has been public for months. The Blackwood family does not get embarrassed like this. We don’t get embarrassed like this.”

“Then what do we do?” My mother’s voice came out smaller than I had ever heard it.

My father turned from the window. He looked at my mother first. Then he looked at me.

And something about the way he looked at me made that cold feeling come back, sharper this time.

“We find a solution,” he said.

He was still looking directly at me when he said it.

“Dad.” My voice came out careful. “What kind of solution?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He looked at my mother instead, one of those long looks between them that had its own private language, the kind I had spent my whole life standing on the outside of.

My mother looked at me. Her expression shifted into something I couldn’t quite read. It wasn’t guilt exactly. It was something more complicated than guilt.

“You’re about the same height as your sister,” she said quietly.

The room felt like it was moving.

“No,” I said.

“Charlotte—”

“No.” My voice came out harder than I intended but I didn’t pull it back. “No, absolutely not. You cannot be suggesting what—”

“Keep your voice down,” my father said sharply.

“You want me to take her place?” I looked between them. “You want me to walk in there and marry a man I have never spoken to in my life?”

“We want you to save this family,” my father said. Simply. Like it was the only reasonable thing left to say.

“By marrying a stranger?”

“By honoring a commitment your sister made and abandoned.” His voice was steady and controlled, the voice he used in boardrooms when he had already decided how something was going to end. “Damien Blackwood agreed to this alliance in good faith. His family is arriving in two hours. If there is no bride there is no wedding and if there is no wedding the consequences for this family go far beyond embarrassment.”

“Then deal with those consequences,” I said. “They are not mine to fix.”

“You are a part of this family,” my mother said softly. “That means they are.”

I looked at her. She looked back at me with those careful eyes and I felt the full weight of what she was asking settle over me like something heavy and quiet that I couldn’t push away no matter how much I wanted to.

“Mom,” I said. Quieter now. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”

She reached out and put her hand over mine.

“You are the only one who can,” she said.