Countless questions crowded Eleanor's mind, none of which she could answer. Her entire life seemed to unravel before her, its foundations turning to smoke. After her mother's death, William Whitmore had falsely claimed to be her father to seize her mother's wealth, and she had become Eleanor Whitmore.
As a Whitmore, her early years had not been entirely bleak. Isabella Thomas, Aunt Bella… whom her mother had appointed to care for her before she died, had done everything she could to raise a motherless child with love. Jennifer Whitmore had been a sweet, attentive older sister when they were small. Even later, when Jennifer schemed behind her back to make her life miserable at school, she still maintained the façade of a doting sibling. Her stepmother, Jeanne Baker, had always acted like a devoted mother, at times seeming to prioritise Eleanor even above her own daughter. William himself, though distant and often irritable, had never laid a hand on her.
