The baby had dark, curly hair and a tiny birthmark shaped like a crescent near her collarbone.

It was Lily.

Ethan stared at the image, his face turning the color of the gray river outside.

“Where did you get this?” he whispered.

His hand gripped the silver frame so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“That is my father.”

“Yes,” Evelyn said, her voice steady now.

Lily dropped her wooden blocks, the sound clattering loudly in the silence of the library.

Ethan looked from the photo to Lily, then back to the photo.

The silence in the room grew heavy, suffocating.

Evelyn took a deep breath, her eyes filling with tears as she prepared to speak.

“Arthur was not the cold man the newspapers wrote about,” Evelyn said, her voice barely louder than the wind rattling the heavy glass panes.

She reached out, her wrinkled hand resting on the edge of the mahogany desk for support.

“He came to the cottage in the late evenings, when the main house was dark and the staff had gone to sleep.”

Ethan did not move. He kept his eyes locked on the baby in the photograph.