Page 82 of The Heiress

“The littlest lady is apparently doing some kind of spin class in there, andthislady is thinking you should make her an omelet.”

“Well, I have my marching orders,” he says, dropping a kiss on my forehead and then heading toward the sink to wash up.

I smile and drift into the den as he hums to himself.

He’s lighter now, Cam. Finally free, from all of it.

The money, it turns out, was not such a terrible burden once it was no longer connected to that place, those people.

Cam is already using it to do good things. He made a major donation to this community center in Tennessee, and there’s a trust his lawyer is putting together in Tavistock that will make sure the town has a sizable endowment for decades to come.

And of course, even with all that generosity, we’ll still have more than we could ever spend. The three of us—or four, five, who knows what shape our family will take?—will never have to worry about money.

Somehow, impossibly, we’ve gotten our happy ending.

I stand in the living room, the soft sound of the waves in the distance a soothing soundtrack as I gaze up at Ruby’s portrait.

Only I know that behind her dark eyes, slid between the canvas and its backing, are all the letters Ruby had sent me. The ones I had saved and hidden for years, the ones I’d taken with us to Ashby House because I’d known that once we were there, it would be time for Cam to learn the truth, too.

The ones I’d run through a burning house to save.

Even that last letter, the one hidden in her office and never sent, was now tucked away with the others, the full accounting of Ruby’s sins—and mine—hiding in plain sight.

Would she be pleased with how things had turned out? This life that Cam and I have built? She said she wanted good things for him, but did she truly? Or had she always been using him—and me—for her own ends?

Glancing over my shoulder, I see him pull out eggs, butter, and I think—probably for the thousandth time—that I should tell him the truth about us.

I found Ruby’s card in my grandmother’s things a week after the accident that killed my mother. Grammy had died two years before, and her entire existence had been contained in two cardboard boxes in the back of my mom’s closet.

I’d taken those boxes out of the closet along with the few other things I could carry because Dan, my mom’s boyfriend, already had another woman moving in and “didn’t have room for Linda’s shit anymore.”

I remember going through those boxes in my dorm room, knowing that next semester I’d have to find somewhere else to live because there was no way I could afford even student housing, not after burying Mom.

I’d been terrified, and more than that,angry.

How unfair it all seemed, to be alone in the world at nineteen.

I almost threw that card away, but for whatever reason, I shoved it in my purse, forgetting about it until I was searching for a ten-dollar bill I thought I’d stashed away. Still, it had been another week or two before I was curious enough to google Ruby McTavish.

There was much more to find than I expected. I spent nightafter night at my computer, reading about her husbands, about Ashby House. Wondering what in the world my grandmother had had to do with a person like that.

And then, finally, I stumbled on the story about her kidnapping, about her miraculous recovery. About the poor family in Alabama who had stolen this golden girl.

Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place, and the rush I felt as I realized who this woman might be to me––it still sends chills up my spine, just thinking about it.

I somewhat regret that stupid, heedless phone call––but miraculously, it led to me standing here in this house with this man, this child just months away from being born.

Iwilltell him, I promise.

But you’ll keep my secret for now, won’t you?

I think you will. I trust you.

Here––I’ll even tell you one more secret, for good measure.

When I cut that slit in the back of Ruby’s portrait to hide her letters, I discovered I wasn’t the first person to use it as a hiding spot.

As I’d shoved the papers inside, my fingers had brushed a crinkled piece of newsprint. When I’d pulled it out, it was yellowed with age, the date at the top readingAugust 18, 1987.

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