“What about the restriction of contacting my mother or speaking to her? Is that still in place?” And if it was lifted, what would he do about it? Resentment still burned at the way she had cut him out of her life. For all he knew, the clause about having no contact with her had been initiated at her request.

“It will be at her discretion whether she speaks with you.”

“She must know who my so-called benefactor is, mustn’t she?”

“I am not permitted to speak of who knows and who does not.”

“Are you aware of his identity, Your Grace?”

Haverly leaned forward. “Daniel, I will ask you to have patience. In time, the truth will come out, I am certain. Your patron has chosen not to reveal himself, and he has forbidden anyone to search for him. At any rate, what difference does it make now? You have all kept your parts of the bargain. He has completed your education and set you up in the vocation of your choice. Your mother turned over all responsibility for your upbringing into the hands of your benefactor, you have matriculated, and you have been a model ward.”

Daniel sat back in the leather chair, gripping the arms. How could he resign himself to not knowing? The detective in him wanted to solve the mystery, the agent in him wanted to break into Coles, Franks & Moody in the dead of night and go through their files, and the man in him wanted to know who had plucked him from his home, and moreover, who had fathered him.

Could he force his mother to tell him? No, because to do so would be to assume the entire debt for his education and provision for the past thirteen years. He could not begin to ascertain how much his education and outfitting had cost.

Haverly said the truth would come out eventually, but what if it never did? Could he be content with never knowing?

This meeting had been unsatisfactory, to his way of thinking. He had no answers, and he was still both fatherless and for all practical intents, motherless.

Wasn’t there a Bible verse about God being a father to the fatherless? That hadn’t been Daniel’s experience. He’d been different since the moment he was born, somebody’s natural son, unclaimed and unknown by his father. He’d been abandoned by his mother, forced out of her life by someone he didn’t even know. That didn’t seem to add up to a loving heavenly Father who had stepped into the gaps left in his life.