The Mysterious Mr. L

“Everyone knows what a gentleman my brother is. What chance did he have against someone like her? He fell in love. Gave her everything. He even made her CEO.”

Pearl kept going.

“But Stella’s ambitious. To climb higher, she’s been seeing other men behind his back.”

One accusation after another.

I was so disgusted I almost laughed.

She and Julian really were brother and sister.

He could act.

She could act and write the script.

The hospital room was her stage.

The duchess had seen every kind of schemer.

When Pearl finished, she only gave her a cool look.

“You’ve said a great deal. Where’s your evidence?”

Her gaze hardened. Her voice became stern.

“Stella can’t defend herself in this condition. Unless you can substantiate these accusations, you’re slandering my goddaughter. I won’t overlook that.”

I stared at her.

She stood beside the bed, so strong, so protective.

I had never known what it felt like to be believed and defended like that while I was alive.

Regret overwhelmed me.

If I hadn’t died.

If I had been a little clearer-headed. Seen the Whitmores for what they were sooner.

Perhaps I really could have had a happy future.

I could have found my mother.

And I could have had a godmother who genuinely cared for me.

The attendant strode forward and hauled Pearl up with one hand as if she were lifting a chick.

She had endured enough.

“Speaking such lies before Her Grace? Under the laws of our country, you could lose your tongue.”

A woman entrusted with the duchess’s personal safety was never going to be an ordinary attendant.

She looked slim, but there was muscle beneath it. She was clearly trained.

In pain and frightened, Pearl raised her voice.

“I’m not lying. Stella and her lover founded the Starlight Project together. An old man who calls himself Mr. L. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

How did Pearl know about the Starlight Project?

I was startled.

I had founded the charity five years ago to support orphaned children.

It was the work I worried about most after my death.

Nobody understood better than I did the fear children lived with in an orphanage.

Their only hope was that someone would choose them.

Take them home.

I created the Starlight Project to change that.

Food. Clothing. A safe place to live.

But most of all, education.

Skills that would let them survive outside those walls. A chance to control their own futures.

They wouldn’t have to depend on someone else.

Wouldn’t have to live in fear of being abandoned.

My reputation in Fairhaven wasn’t good.

Overbearing. Shrewd. Calculating. Interested only in money.

Those were the labels people gave me.

I didn’t care what they thought of me.

But I worried the charity would suffer because of my name, so I kept my involvement private.

It was an enormous undertaking.

I put all my personal savings into it and found some additional funding.

It still wasn’t enough.

Four years ago, just when I was about to run out of options, Mr. L appeared like an answer to a prayer.

His generous contributions kept the Starlight Project alive.

I met him twice in a private club.

He was in his sixties, with white hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Terrible burn scars covered half his face.

He told me he had been disfigured in a fire when he was young.

Like me, he had been an orphan.

The Starlight Project meant something personal to him. That was why he supported it so fully.

We understood each other at once.

The difference in our ages never mattered. He became a close friend.

He wasn’t comfortable with social media, so we wrote letters instead.

To me, he was both a friend and a mentor.

And Pearl was filthy enough to drag him into her lies too.