Without waiting for his answer, I push past him inside to his little room.

 “Shut the door, quickly. Lock it, if you can.”

“What’s this all about?” he asks, turning to me after bolting his door shut.

“This,” I say, and I pull the revolver from my pocket to lay it on his table. Sam’s eyes widen as he views it, and he blinks a little of the sleep out of his eyes.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I found it on the floor just outside my room.”

“Your room?”

“Just this morning,” I nod. “It’s not yours, is it?”

He gestures to his gun hanging in a holster from the wall.

“But you can tell me what kind of gun it is, right?”

He picks the weapon up, turns it over in his hands. “It’s not new,” he says after a few moments consideration. “Smith and Weston, .38 caliber, six shooter.” He fingers the trigger. “Double action revolver. You really have no idea whose this is?”

I shake my head. “Ben and Father are the only ones who keep guns. But I think Ben’s is a pistol.”

“And Mr. Porter?”

“I don’t know. I only know he keeps a revolver in his safe. It used to belong to my grandfather.”

“There are initials engraved in the handle. SP.”

“Stanley Porter, my grandfather. Then it is Father’s gun. But why would it be out of his safe?”

“Do you know the combination?”

I shake my head. “No. No one does, except Father. Oh,” I say, straightening.

“Remember something?”

“There may be one other person… I should get back to the house.”

“Miss Porter!” he reaches his hand out to clasp mine before I can pocket the gun.

I look up, startled. “What?”

“You should be careful with that thing. Look, see this lever here? That’s the safety. So long as it’s switched in this position, it won’t go off. But if you take it off and pull back the hammer,” he gives me a demonstration, pointing the gun at the wall, “it will shoot. Keep two hands on the handle if you find yourself in that situation, and keep your eyes open.”

I nod solemnly, trying to picture myself firing a gun and failing.

“Thank you,” I say when he puts the safety on the gun and hands it back to me, handle first. Sam looks back at me seriously, a worried look on his face.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course,” I say, straightening a little beneath his scrutinizing gaze. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Sam doesn’t say anything, but I get the feeling he’s referring to yesterday’s emotional display.

“Look, don’t… don’t worry about me, alright?” I say a little awkwardly. “I get upset sometimes, I fall down, but I always get back up again. I’ve made it till now, haven’t I?”

He smiles faintly. “You have. You’re very strong.”

“Not really.”

“You are. Incredibly strong and and level-headed.”

I laugh a little. “That’s the first time anyone’s ever said I was level-headed. Usually they accuse me of the opposite.”

“Well, they’re idiots,” he says simply.

“Oh,” I say softly. “Oh…”

Sam’s eyes soften meaningfully, summoning warmth to my cheeks. I turn quickly before my imagination has a chance to run away with me, and imagine things it shouldn’t.

“I should go.”

“Take care, Miss Porter. And if you find yourself even thinking of doing anything dangerous—call me first so I can be there to back you up.”

“I will, Sam. Thank you.”

I spend a long, contemplative day inside. Grandfather’s gun sits on my desk, and I go back to it from time to time, practicing holding it as Sam taught me. I still can’t imagine a scenario where I’d ever have to use it, but I suppose with all that’s been going on around here lately, it’s not unwise to be prepared.

It’s late, sunset when I finally get the news she’s awake.

Mother. She slept the entire day away.

I go to her room to find her dressed in a long white satin nightgown. She sits in the window seat, staring blankly out at the deepening shadows, her wavy blonde hair falling around her shoulders. As always, she is as beautiful as an angel, though I can’t help but notice the glass of amber colored liquid on the seat beside her, nearly empty.

She’s already drunk.

“Frances,” she turns her glazed look on me and I halt my approach, still several feet from her. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to speak to you, Mother. About this.”

I pull the revolver from my pocket.

Mother stares at it a moment. Then she smirks. “Thought I remembered getting that out last night. Damn gun. Where’d I drop it?”

“I found it in the hall.”

“Just as well,” she sighs, glancing down at her faintly trembling hands. “I probably wouldn’t be able to pull off the shot anyway.”

Her words, delivered so carelessly, send ice water shooting through my veins.

“Who were you trying to kill?”

“I can’t remember now… Myself, maybe.”

“Mother!”

“Or that tramp, Edith Appletree.”

“You’re wrong about them, Mother. Father’s not sleeping with Edith.”

“Then why does he spend all his time with her?!” she turns her rage on me. My eyes begin to sting as tears spring to them, but I hold my ground beneath her furious glare.

“Because he’s frantic. He’s about to lose the company—he’s doing everything he can to stop it from all falling apart.”

Mother stares at me.

“What?”

“For the past few years he’s been sinking his money into more and more reckless, ill-advised ventures. Last year he even tried opening a factory in Switzerland to compete with Swiss chocolatiers. But there was no market for Porter chocolates in Europe. He knew this, and yet in his arrogance, and at the poor advice of his directors, he went ahead with it. Now that factory is about to fold, and all of Porter Chocolates with it.”

“You don’t really expect me to believe that.”

“It’s true. That’s why he and Edith have been burning the candle at both ends, trying to salvage what they can. He’s got a few weeks to try and fix it. If he can’t, he’ll lose everything.”

I had my suspicions after visiting the factory. The laid off workers, the resumes for new marketing directors, it all hinted at Father’s troubles, but the real clincher was finding Lady Charlotte’s letter on his desk the other night. He was counting on her money to save the company, but in the end, she chose not to invest.

Mother turns from me at this news, her whole frame shuddering.

“I don’t care.”

“Mother?”

“I don’t care if Edith’s innocent. I want her dead. Any woman that gets close to Duane. I’ll kill them all.”

She shoots me a baleful look, and I can’t help but feel she’s angry with me. Blaming me for something. 

“Mother… this obsession of yours over Father’s infidelity… It’s true, isn’t it? The rumor… all those people who say… I’m not your real child…”

She stares at me haughtily, her upper lip quivering as I ask the question that’s burned in me since childhood.

“Who is she?” I swallow painfully. “My birth mother.”