Curse of Rose de Winter

Chapter 3

The next day Irene did indeed have a dress ready for me. It was long and black. She helped my button the sixteen buttons and then stood back. She looked at me, had me turn this way and that, and then nodded.

"Very well, Miss Blanche. You look wonderful."

"You don't have to lie, I don't mind," I replied.

We went downstairs and there was breakfast. I sat in a seat across from Dylan, Vaughn as the head of the table. We ate breakfast quietly without exchanging greetings. Neither seemed like morning people but I managed to smile and seem as polite as I could.

The moment we finished dinner, Vaughn gestured for me to come.

"It's time we informed you of the de Winter relatives. You'd have to memorize their names, positions, and how to react. I think you don't know any of them so it should be fine, but if they do realize anything, deny, deny, and deny," Vaughn said.

"Yes," I said, drawling out the word.

"Knowing the family hierarchy is extremely important in old fashioned families such as these. They would see you as a bastard child, an illegitimate child. You'd be stepped on, but of course we can't help you in front of everyone."

He brought me over to a study this time, and Dylan was already there, waiting with multiple paper spread out, in only a shirt and waistcoat, no outerwear. I suppose he got 'Blanche' already, he didn't have to be pretentious.

"I've had photographs of the relatives developed," he said. "They're not very good photographs as some were from a few years ago, but they should work fine. Now let's get to work."

Vaughn pull a chair up next to Dylan and then gestured for me to sit. I sat by uncomfortably close to Dylan, who turned and looked at me.

"You do have red lips!"

"I always can," I said. "It's called lipstick. Rouge. Make up. Even blood."

"Really?" He looked at my lips then held my chin and twisted my face left and right.

"Stop that." I slapped his hand like he was a bad dog. "Don't do that to women. Especially Blanche, who would be your half-sister."

"I'm sorry," he said without much feeling, and took out a pen.

"Here I will explain the family branch. It works as this, I am the first recognized son, the second son is Calvin, the first recognized daughter is his sister, Ruby. The bastard children are Blanche, who is four years younger than me—"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six." He was not as young as he seemed.

"So Blanche would be twenty-two."

"Yes. As I was saying, his bastard children include Rose, at twenty-two, and two sons he didn't acknowledge. He only cared for girls." A dark look passed his face before he pulled up some papers.

He had a photograph of a man. It was a small one for passports. He stuck it to a piece of white paper with tape and then wrote under it, Uncle Austen de Winter. 

"Uncle Austen is the second son. He has two daughters, my cousins. Here is a photo." It was a family photo, of the same man with an ordinary face, then I gasped.

His wife was a beauty! It was almost like he was a beast in comparison, with her big bosom showing in her tight dress and shining in the black and white photo. She had a smile that could make her a starlet.

Their children were younger than me, and yet the two were different. One took after the mother, with well-shaped face and high cheekbones and sweet smile. The second had her hair braided like her sister, but didn't smile. Her face seemed a bit angular and her nose was different, too.