The DisasterWell, me, if I were twenty years older, eyes narrowed and triangular, skin pale as Tony’s, hair heavy-straight and orange-red. I turned to Mr. Hart, amazed. “Who is this woman?”
He smiled. “My mother. Your grandmother. Jacqueline Madiao Hart.” His eyes grew moist. “I named you for her.”
I’d thought only a few people must know who birthed me. But there, looking at what but for a few minor details seemed a mirror, I realized much of the city must suspect.
Anyone old enough to have a portrait of this woman in their home, any of the older aristocracy, certainly all of the Family uppers ... had they been whispering behind my back this entire time? “Your poor wife,” I murmured.
He seemed taken aback at that.
No wonder he’d given me his mother’s necklace!
“She never liked Judith
