The next morning, I went into the library. He sat at his desk, his head down. When he looked up, I saw immediately that something was wrong. After last night, I expected a smile and a greeting. But his face was pale and his lips tight. He pointed to a chair.

“Sit down.” It was a command.

He waved an envelope at me. “Please explain this.”

My stomach pitched. The envelope bore a row of colorful stamps, and deep down I knew it was from Ireland. I swallowed hard and said nothing.

“It’s a letter from Mrs. Sweeney from Donegal. In it she begs me to let her know if her daughter, Nora, ever arrived. She wants to believe that Nora did not drown, although she was listed as missing. She enclosed a photograph of her daughter. I must say, she bears little resemblance to you, Miss Sweeney.”

He held the photograph up for me to see, but I had no need to look at it. Stowed away in the back of my mind had been the fear that one day Ma might write to him, but as time went on and I heard nothing, I’d dismissed the thought.

“When . . .” I began.

“It appears to have been sent several months ago, not long after the Titanic sank, but Kathleen only gave it to me this morning. She said she must have misplaced it and only just now found it.”

I knew immediately what Kathleen had done. She’d had the letter all along. She’d probably steamed it open and read it, then bided her time until just the right moment to expose me. When she heard I was going with Aidan to Texas, that was her moment to get revenge. And all this because of her jealousy over Dom? How could she?

“You owe me an explanation, Nora, or whatever your name is.”

I stood up and approached the desk. Close up, I saw another emotion on Aidan’s face: pain. I took a deep breath.

“I have lied to you, Aidan, and I need to make it right. I am not Nora Sweeney,” I hurried on. “My name is Delia. Nora is—er, was—my sister.”

Aidan’s brow furrowed as he waited for me to say more. I took another deep breath and I let it all come out in one fell swoop.

“You see, it was my sister who was supposed to come and be Lily’s governess, and I was to be a domestic servant in a house here in New York. But Nora drowned when the Titanic went down. When I arrived at the docks and saw Mrs. Donahue with Nora’s name on a sign, I went to tell her what had happened to Nora, but she jumped to conclusions and thought I was Nora. And she was so nice and welcoming that I let her think I was.”