He Tasted One Dish and Stopped the Guards

CHAPTER 3 - THE LETTER NEVER SENT

Sofia placed the recipe card in Edgar's hand.

It was yellowed, soft at the creases, and stained near the corner by what might have been wine or broth. On the front, in neat handwriting, were the ingredients and times. On the back, in a younger, firmer script, were three words:

For E.W. Sunday.

Edgar sat down slowly.

He had written that.

A private joke from a long-ago summer when Elena had teased him for pretending not to like her cooking while asking for it every Sunday afternoon.

"I thought I lost that life."

Sofia remained standing. She did not move closer.

"You knew her," she said. It was not a question now.

"Yes."

The single word held more shame than he wanted her to hear.

He dismissed the guards and even Mrs. Dalrymple. For the first time that night, the dining room became almost intimate, despite the long table between them.

Edgar asked if Sofia would sit. She refused at first, then finally chose the farthest chair.

He told her the beginning, though not yet the worst part. Elena had come to work at the Whitmore estate at twenty-one, helping in the kitchen while saving money for nursing school. He had been engaged to another woman his family preferred, though the engagement was already failing. He and Elena had fallen in love anyway.

"When she left," he said, "I believed she chose to go without telling me."

Sofia watched him steadily. "And you never looked for her?"

The truth burned.

"I did. Too late."

Mrs. Dalrymple returned with a flat storage box from the archives and a sealed envelope tucked inside old payroll papers.

"It was misfiled," she said. "Addressed to you, sir. Never delivered."

Edgar recognized Elena's handwriting before he touched it.

His hands shook as he opened it.

Inside was a letter dated thirty years earlier.

Edgar, I came to tell you I was pregnant, but your father met me first. He said if I loved you, I would leave. He promised you would be told the truth.

Edgar stopped breathing.

He looked up at Sofia.

She had gone completely still.

Then she whispered, "I wasn't looking for work when I came here. I came because my mother said, right before she died, 'Find out why he never came.'"