Chapter 19: The Heiress

"Not one step," Celia said.

Her hair was whipped across her face by the wind, and her gun hand was steady.

Marguerite stood very straight with the barrel at her temple.

She was in the same silk gown she had worn to the gala, torn at the hem.

"Let her go," Astrid said.

"Drop your rifle."

Astrid put the rifle on the concrete and raised her hands.

Beside her, Vaughn did the same.

"All of it," Celia said. "The pistol in your belt, Garrow."

He dropped it.

"Good," Celia said. She was almost crying. "You think you can walk in and take everything. My home, my mother."

"She isn't your mother," Astrid said.

"She's the only mother I've ever had!"

"I know," Marguerite said softly, without moving her head. "I know, darling."

"Don't call me that."

"You are my daughter in every way that counts."

"Then why did you bring her back?" Celia screamed. "You didn't want me, you wanted her! Everyone wanted her!"

"Celia, listen to me," Astrid said.

She had not planned to say it.

It had been in her pocket for three days, in a folder Duncan had pulled out of Everard's safe, and she had not known what it would do.

"You were adopted from an orphanage at one year old. That's what they told you."

"It's true. I was a nobody. They chose me."

"No," Astrid said. "You were never in an orphanage."

Celia's gun hand wavered.

"Your mother was a waitress, and she was Everard's mistress. He took you from her when you were a year old and she was twenty."

"He paid her to disappear."

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