The next day when I planned to talk to Dylan I heard him talk with someone else. Their voices were hushed so I went to the room next door and pressed my ears. It wasn't very helpful but I understood it was Hughes.

So they two had resumed talking as usual, and maybe Hughes had even inquired where I was from. After a while the voices grew and I heard it through the office.

"What should we do with her?" Hughes asked.

Did he mean me?

Dylan answered calmly. "I need her public, and hopefully married as the will wanted."

What?

No, Dylan is acting. He didn't mean that, did he? Or was he talking about Ruby? No, the real Blanche if they found her?

It wasn't me getting fooled, would it?

"I will do it for you. I will do anything for you, sir."

"Stop it."

"I saw you as a son, Dylan."

There was prolonged silence before Dylan answered. "I saw you as a father, too."

There was no more exchange of words before the door opened and Hughes left. Just as Dylan was about to close the door I appeared.

"May I take some of your time?" I asked.

"Yes, of course." He closed the door behind me. "I was talking with Hughes."

The day had been beautiful, but ever since yesterday my past weighed heavy on my heart. I was going to find Blanche, and if it helped, I had to spill my remaining secrets.

It was going to ruin everything, but I had to do it.

"Good evening, Rose," Dylan said with a smile.

"Good evening to you, tooo. You seem well, are you no longer worried about Hughes?"

"Well, I am, but at least I know who to trust now. Vaughn's told us of his past so I really see him on our side. Yet mysteries still remain." Dylan sighed. "I can't help thinking the de Winters are cursed after all. Maybe this generation will end once Blanche marries into another household."

"No, they will be marrying into the other families, not the de Winter family. The will also said that," I pointed out to his pout.

"Either way, once we find Blanche we can finally leave. It makes me motivated again." He looked my way. "Right?"

"Yes, of course."

"You look kind of pale today." He held a hand to my cheek. "It's not a fever. It's not flu season either."

"I—I found some things out yesterday," I said softly, holding his hand for a minute before letting it go. "You see, I asked the maids how they were hired by Hughes, and it seemed like they were personally scouted. Strangely, it happened when two of them were in financial issues."

"Financial? Were they bribed?"

"No, they were simply...given a job at the right time," I murmured.

"That's a common way of getting people for jobs, I suppose, but it's strange he stumbled upon three so perfectly. I don't want to talk about Hughes." Dylan smiled. "He's going on another trip next month, anyways. He usually sends telegrams, too, we can see where he went?"

"Do you have those telegrams?"

Dylan shuffled around a bit too nervously before shrugging. "It's not important, we know Blanche's writings are now his. Let's have him show us where Blanche is."

"Do you really think it's this simple? Don't you worry about who is employing Hughes this whole time even after Auguste's death?" I asked.

"But I can't rule out he might know about Blanche—or this notion of Blanche even existing."

"True." I ran my hands over the fabric of the blue skirt I wore. "Next time Hughes leaves I think I should go. It'll be too noticeable if you and Vaughn go, as he knows you two too well. If I may I'd like to disguise myself and find out myself."

"I won't allow that, it's too dangerous." Dylan just stared at me for the longest time before he reached over to touch my shoulder, beat rising in my face. "You've been so quiet today, have I done something wrong? Or did what I say pressure you?"

Here it comes.

I could no longer avoid it.

"Hughes and your father were doing the same thing," I began as he frowned innocently.

Funny he said he saw Hughes as his father. And if Hughes did see him as a son, he saw every women as disposable easy game.

"Doing what? And no, don't call him my father." He retracted his hand.

"Auguste, then," I said. I made sure the door was locked and Vaughn wouldn't trample in. I didn't want to say it, but if I kept them longer, the corpses would become skeletons in my closet and haunt me forever. "I was picked up by Auguste de Winter."

Dylan's face was worse than I imagined. He seemed ready to run away, like a deer caught in some sort of trap.

"Do you understand? I was poor until he showed me to men, men like Sal Mazzanti. Yes, Sal wanted to marry me, but I didn't want to be part of the Italian mafia. That was my fault; I asked Auguste to do something, and he told me to go to Andrew and Sarah Blackwood. Said they wouldn't mind taking me in as their fake daughter—"

"Shut up!"

Papers flew as Dylan flipped them from the table. Precious papers of Auguste's past that I wanted to hold down but couldn't. I saw myself in those papers, letters about girls and women other than his wives. I saw them land on the floor and the shine of the oxfords Dylan gifted me made my heart ache more.

If it were possible, I'd like to say I was hungry, explain how he had connections to every business, even angrily rebuke his sheltered life.

You had siblings to love, a place to live in, and I'm sure you were happy when you met the real Rosemarie Blackwood. I never had any drive to keep me going.

You were always at that lake—she was your sun in the darkness.

I was my own darkness.

I averted my eyes but glanced up enough to see his hair messed up, falling over his face as he clenched his face in rage.

"You're one of the girls that man touched! He saw you in a sinful way—he was so old but so—"

"I never slept with him!" I said, standing up.

"You're dirty!"

The word ended it. The world and the sky, the clouds, even birds out the window and everything seemed like a motion picture, a different world. Our memories walking outside the house and those March and April days were all fake.

It must've been dreams. Because this was reality.

I'm dirty.

Dylan's shoulders shook at he sobbed.

Why are you crying? I felt a lot worse than you!

"I only wanted to tell you, because that's how Hughes found Julie and Gwendoline to work for them, they were also in need of money like I was. Only Auguste found me instead. I—that's all."

I stood up and took one last glance behind me, where Dylan sat sobbing, and I ran out.

***

Two weeks passed, and I met up with Leroy three times again.

"You've been coming out more easily, without them following," Leroy said as we sat in outside a gelato store, me biting an ice cream.

Recently I had no appetite and missed meals to avoid Dylan. Only Ruby would eat with me either in the tea room or we would both snack together. If I walked by Dylan he would look at the floor and avoid acknowledging me.

"I've grown independent," I said softly. "I'm going to find someone, and Leroy, I might need your help."

Leroy was quiet. "I knew you had a secret to you and your life. I pretended if I acted as though I didn't know, it would be fine, but you've been crying."

"Have I?"

"Your eyes are red, heavens Blanche!" He sighed deeply. "I won't ask who you're seeking, or what has happened, but somehow I don't feel as though you're a selfish person."

"What do you know about me?" I whispered.

Only Dylan knew, and only he accepted me until recently. Why? Was it the fact I was an escort or was it the fact I'd been in contact with his detested father?

"I know you—or maybe a girl similar to you. Her name was Rosemarie Blackwood."

"What?" I dropped my ice cream onto the fall, only a soggy cone in my hand. "What?"

Hatred filled my core and filled my crevices as I thought of that girl, that girl everyone love. Dylan, Rosalind, Andrew, Sarah, and so many others. That name made me sick.

"Or so was her name," Leroy continued calmly.

People walked in the street we were in, like a perfect painting. Girls in red and blue dresses, men in coats or even blazers, and a woman walking a dog, two little girls holding hands. I could stand up from the seats and enter that street, no longer an outsider.

"Her name wasn't Rosemarie, she was a girl the family knew nothing of and kept in their house to replace their dead daughter, my cousin. Isn't that a funny story? I thought Rosalind was out of her mind when she told me."

"Rosalind told you that?" I turned to look at him and he laughed before nodding.

"It was a secret. I couldn't see her, Uncle Andrew and Aunt Sarah wouldn't let me. So one day Rosalind pulled me up to see her in the early morning. That's when I knew, you were that girl."

I sobbed, remembering Rosalind's words. If only Leroy and I had met, we could've fallen in love, she said. If only you could talk to him. He's a wonderful person.

"Rosalind loved you," I said, laughing through my tears. "But she wouldn't marry you because she's your cousin. She always wanted me to do the honor."

I buried my face in my hands. "Yet I don't know why, it's so hard for me to decide. No, to change my decision. Even though the man I love hates me, I just can't change my heart..."