The Forgotten Room(87)

Was that how he saw her? Purely as a mirror for his own better self? In that case, he was due to be disappointed when he stopped to look more closely and realized that his mirror was cracked, that she had lied to him, just as John Ravenel had lied to her.

It was time to have it all out, every last bit of it. What more, after all, did she stand to lose?

Taking a deep breath, Lucy said, “I’m afraid you’ve been deceived in me. I’m—not what I’ve said I am. I’ve been lying to you.”

“Are you the lost princess of Austrovia? I’ve always rather fancied myself as prince consort.”

He would make a lovely prince consort, all shiny braid and polished buttons. Lucy shook her head. “My ancestral home is a bakery in Brooklyn. My real name isn’t Young—it’s Jungmann.”

She looked defiantly at Philip Schuyler, waiting for the condemnation to follow.

“Is that all?” Philip leaned back in his chair, relief written in his posture. “My maternal grandfather was named Hochstatter. From Hamburg, or thereabouts. He changed it to Howland when he brought the family shipping business over to America. You Anglicized your name. It’s been done before.”

“There’s more.” Her name was the least of it. “I wasn’t entirely frank about my reasons for wanting employment at Cromwell, Polk and Moore. I wanted access. To the Pratt papers.” In a rush, Lucy said, “No one could ever understand why my mother married my father. She was a lady—a Van Alan. And my father was just a greengrocer. But my grandmother said—I think Harry Pratt might be my father.”

“Oh.” To his credit, after the first stunned moment, Philip took the announcement in stride. His lean face was thoughtful. “Harry . . . He was the younger twin. He disappeared, right before Prunella married my father. There was something of a stink about it. That would have been in ’ninety-three.”

“The year I was born,” said Lucy quietly. “I was born in November of 1893.”

“I see.” Philip cocked his head. “That would make you my—what? Stepcousin? I think we can get a dispensation.”

He was joking again, always joking. “You don’t understand. I lied to you. I came to work for you under false pretenses.” She blurted out the worst of it. “When you weren’t in the office, I went through your files.”

“You’re my secretary. It’s your job to go through my files.” When Lucy didn’t crack a smile, Philip leaned forward, taking her hands in his. “I think it’s very gallant of you to come clean. But none of this makes a difference. Not to me. It wasn’t as though you were trying to embezzle money from the firm. You just wanted to know about your heritage. And who wouldn’t?”

Lucy bit her lip, torn by his kindness. “I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t. Nothing I hear about the Pratts makes them sound terribly likable.”

Philip was still holding her hands, his grip loose, undemanding. “If it helps,” he said, “Harry was the best of the lot of them. I was a snotty boy of eight. I can’t have been much of a joy to have around. But Harry—he saw me sitting there by myself at the back of the room. I’d been told to sit still and mind my manners. No speaking until spoken to and all that. But he came over to me. He drew a picture for me.”

“A picture?” A little shiver ran down Lucy’s spine. A goose walked over my grave, her mother would say.

A faint, reminiscent smile curved Philip’s lips. “I’d nearly forgotten that day. I can’t remember quite what he said—something about guessing that I wished I were outside, doing anything but sitting in that room. Because he wished he was anywhere but in that room. And right there, just like that, he whipped out a sketch pad and drew me flying a kite in Central Park. It was a very good likeness, too.”

Lucy thought of her mother, of the mural on Lucy’s bedroom wall. Mine is only a secondhand talent. “He was an artist?”

Philip shrugged. “Artistic, at any rate. His family wasn’t the type to encourage that sort of talent. They were . . . grubby. Moneygrubbing,” he clarified, with the easy arrogance of generations of inherited wealth. “Old Henry August Pratt didn’t approve of anything that didn’t translate into dollars and cents. But Harry—he was different.” Glancing up at Lucy, he added, “I might still have that sketch somewhere, if you’d like it.”

Lucy’s throat was tight. She’d lied to Philip Schuyler, she’d deceived him, and here he was, offering her a piece of his past. Of her past. “Thank you. You don’t—you don’t know anything about what happened to Harry Pratt?”

“No one does.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent on hers. “If this matters to you, we can get someone on it. Even after this many years, a good private detective should be able to follow his trail. That is—if you want to know.”

He spoke with such easy authority. And Lucy knew, without questioning, that if she were to say yes, within hours the wheels would be put in motion, all of Philip Schuyler’s considerable resources placed at her disposal. It was a heady taste of what it would be to be Mrs. Philip Schuyler.

And also terrifying.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said honestly. “I thought all I wanted in the world was to find my real father. But now . . . I don’t know.”