The next day Irene did indeed have a dress ready for me. It was long and black. She helped my button the sixteen buttons and then stood back. She looked at me, had me turn this way and that, and then nodded.

"Very well, Miss Blanche. You look wonderful."

"You don't have to lie, I don't mind," I replied.

We went downstairs and there was breakfast. I sat in a seat across from Dylan, Vaughn as the head of the table. We ate breakfast quietly without exchanging greetings. Neither seemed like morning people but I managed to smile and seem as polite as I could.

The moment we finished dinner, Vaughn gestured for me to come.

"It's time we informed you of the de Winter relatives. You'd have to memorize their names, positions, and how to react. I think you don't know any of them so it should be fine, but if they do realize anything, deny, deny, and deny," Vaughn said.

"Yes," I said, drawling out the word.

"Knowing the family hierarchy is extremely important in old fashioned families such as these. They would see you as a bastard child, an illegitimate child. You'd be stepped on, but of course we can't help you in front of everyone."

He brought me over to a study this time, and Dylan was already there, waiting with multiple paper spread out, in only a shirt and waistcoat, no outerwear. I suppose he got 'Blanche' already, he didn't have to be pretentious.

"I've had photographs of the relatives developed," he said. "They're not very good photographs as some were from a few years ago, but they should work fine. Now let's get to work."

Vaughn pull a chair up next to Dylan and then gestured for me to sit. I sat by uncomfortably close to Dylan, who turned and looked at me.

"You do have red lips!"

"I always can," I said. "It's called lipstick. Rouge. Make up. Even blood."

"Really?" He looked at my lips then held my chin and twisted my face left and right.

"Stop that." I slapped his hand like he was a bad dog. "Don't do that to women. Especially Blanche, who would be your half-sister."

"I'm sorry," he said without much feeling, and took out a pen.

"Here I will explain the family branch. It works as this, I am the first recognized son, the second son is Calvin, the first recognized daughter is his sister, Ruby. The bastard children are Blanche, who is four years younger than me—"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six." He was not as young as he seemed.

"So Blanche would be twenty-two."

"Yes. As I was saying, his bastard children include Rose, at twenty-two, and two sons he didn't acknowledge. He only cared for girls." A dark look passed his face before he pulled up some papers.

He had a photograph of a man. It was a small one for passports. He stuck it to a piece of white paper with tape and then wrote under it, Uncle Austen de Winter. 

"Uncle Austen is the second son. He has two daughters, my cousins. Here is a photo." It was a family photo, of the same man with an ordinary face, then I gasped.

His wife was a beauty! It was almost like he was a beast in comparison, with her big bosom showing in her tight dress and shining in the black and white photo. She had a smile that could make her a starlet.

Their children were younger than me, and yet the two were different. One took after the mother, with well-shaped face and high cheekbones and sweet smile. The second had her hair braided like her sister, but didn't smile. Her face seemed a bit angular and her nose was different, too.

Dylan wrote under the family picture as he spoke. "His wife is Olivia de Winter, their daughters Angelina and Constance."

"Which is which?" I asked. He shrugged.

"They're the same to me. They should be sixteen. Remember, you are twenty two and I am twenty-six," Dylan said.

"What age is Calvin and Ruby, then?"

"Twenty and seventeen, respectively."

"Did Mr.de Winter like Ruby?" I asked without thinking.

Dylan suppressed a groan. "Let's talk about that at the very end. She's a very special case."

"So who is next?"

"Scarlett Carroll, who is his younger sister. She is fifty-two, and an actress. She needs money now, as it is harder to find roles when you grow older."

He had a photo of her when she was young, a true starlet in her black and white photograph, hair in long curls. Then there was a more recent photo. Her face was still enchanting, but undoubtedly aged, and the furs that covered her made her seem more like a witch than a sweet fairy godmother.

On and on he made me remember his whole family tree, from in laws to cousins twice removed. They would not be there, but in case they spoke of them.

"As Blanche you will feign ignorance, of course, but tell us anything you hear," Dylan said.

"So I'm not only your puppet but your eyes and ears, too?" I asked in sarcasm.

"Yes," Dylan and Vaughn said in sync. They looked at me, dead serious.

"I understand."

I was playing with my hands when the two spoke again.

"We were hoping you could do something, too," Vaughn said. "You see, Blanche has been missing for a while. She seemed to have know her father, though, and he even saw her and described her as his letter did, so say something good about Auguste de Winter."

"I'll say he was important and look at the ground and cry." I did what I said, holding my nose and mouth as I laughed a little, trembling, even.

"What an actress," Dylan whispered in half-awe and half-disgust.

"Thank you," I smirked. "I'll fly by it. Nothing will stop or reveal me. Not even my cousin."

"Well, yes, but there's other things you have to know about Auguste and Dylan," Vaughn replied.

"Like what?" I looked at Dylan, who turned away, tossing the pen lightly on the desk.

"Before Auguste wrote his will, Dylan and Calvin both fought with him about it. Angered, Auguste said he'd give his money and house to a daughter they didn't know he had—which is how we came here." Vaughn smirked.

"Heavens! Can I accept it, then?"

"No!" Dylan frowned at me.

"I'm only half-joking!" I laughed and he tilted his chin down and glared at me. He was more protective of his inheritance than I thought. But anyone would, I suppose.

"No one knew Auguste had a daughter, so they began to search after his death, when he mentioned a Blanche. We dug through letters and journals and finally pieced it together; Blanche is a daughter he met with. Wrote to. Maybe even made an heiress." Vaughn stared at me in the eye and came closer, eyes so wide opened it made him look deranged.

"But worst of all, Auguste is said to have a soft spot for young women with black hair, white skin, and red lips."

"No, you don't mean—"

I felt squeamish.

"Yes, the beautiful Blanche must have captivated him in the same way." Vaughn smiled in an inhumane way.

"Stop it!" I knew what he was going to say. I looked at Dylan, but he didn't seem to care, and didn't deny it.

"Why are you letting him say this? He's accusing your father of incest!" I said, standing up. "Say something!"

"What do you want me to say? No? Why do you think he divorced my mother for a second wife? And then even had mistresses despite his second wife?" Dylan looked distant. "Both of our mothers died on the inside. That's why there's something inseparable between Calvin and I. Our beloved family was destroyed by the same man."

"But incest!"

"Maybe it happened." Dylan leaned on one hand and looked at me, sullen. "The dead can't talk."

"But he's your father!" He stood up.

"He likes young woman. If you were here, as Blanche or Rosemarie, he wouldn't care. He would give you anything you desire in exchange for that face." Dylan leaned closer until he smiled coldly in my face. "What fortune it is to be born beautiful."

"It's not fortune at all," I whispered.

What did he take me for? Dylan and Vaughn, two cold-hearted man who seem to think every man would fall for a pretty girl.

I had lived my life under my prettier sister. Yet so, I accepted this life I had, stomach full from food, a warm bed, and even a family that cared for me. But this didn't come without work. It didn't come to me when I was born.

Dylan held my face.

"You look so angry, Rosemarie. Are you upset by what I said?"

"Don't hold my face. It feels patronizing."

"Oh, yes." He removed his hand.

"I never had a suitor," I said. "But I want one. That's the one and only reason I'm taking on this Blanche persona."

I wondered what expression I was making as I stared at this man, who needed me, and in the same way I needed his permission for me to take place as his half-sister Blanche.

Dylan had black hair, only it was long, maybe to his thin nose, but it was combed back to look professional. I wonder how he usually wore it. It seemed sad that he had such a father, and his mother was used, and his skin wasn't the white his father desired.

In fact, out of everything, his biggest sadness was that he refused to love because he never received love.

Looking on his relatives like strangers—and they looking like strangers, too; how did he live all these years?

"Did you mother love you?" I asked softly. He turned away quickly. He had been looking at my face like he saw Blanche—not Rosemarie.

"No. She left me to the nanny. She tried very hard to maintain my father's love until—" he gave a shrug, "she ultimately lost in the end."

"Can I see a picture of her?" I wanted to see how beautiful, how stunning the first wife was. Dylan's hand ran to the album by his side. He finally showed something on his face; suspicion. "I only want to see."

"And compare yourself?"

"No!" I hated this stifling place. "Dylan, I'm not the type of woman to do that. Please don't think that and hate woman."

He relaxed a little, but only looked at the door.

"I think we should have some lunch. Maybe next time, Rosemarie."

"Call me Rose," I said. "Not Rosemarie."

I turned on my heels and the warmth we seemed to have previously vanished. He watched as I left and Vaughn blocked us, and I only wondered what Dylan was doing. Most likely hiding away his album.

What trust I thought developed had been broken by a past I can't imagine.

But in a way, our pasts were similar.