Her eyes were fixed entirely on Ethan.

Ethan stood up slowly, the softness disappearing from his face.

He was the master of this house again, distant and guarded.

“Is something wrong, Maria?” he asked, though his eyes remained on Evelyn.

“I am sorry, Mr. Cole,” I said, stepping between them.

“She shouldn’t be in this part of the house. I will take her back to our quarters.”

Evelyn took a step forward, her wet shoes leaving faint, dark tracks on the polished wood.

“I had to come, Ethan,” she said.

Her voice was thin, but it carried across the quiet room.

Ethan stiffened at the use of his first name.

He had never met her, yet she spoke with an old familiarity.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

Evelyn reached into her leather handbag.

Her wrinkled fingers fumbled with a small, square object wrapped in a white handkerchief.

She pulled out an old, silver-plated photo frame.

The silver was tarnished black at the edges, worn down by years of touch.

“You know my family,” Evelyn said.

She walked toward him, ignoring my hand on her arm.

She held out the photograph.

Ethan did not reach for it at first.

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the glass.

Then, his hand began to move, slow and tentative.

He took the frame from her fingers.

I stepped closer, looking over his shoulder.

The photograph was taken in a garden I did not recognize, under a trellis of white roses.

The sun was bright, casting long shadows on a brick wall.

A man was sitting on a stone bench.

It was Arthur Cole, Ethan’s late father, who had died two years ago.

He was smiling, a look of genuine warmth on his face that I had never seen in his official portraits.

In his arms, he held a baby.