The banquet hall buzzed with a frantic, forced gaiety that
did little to mask the undercurrent of shock. Around a dozen tables groaned
under the weight of lavish dishes, but the true feast was the gossip. All eyes
kept flicking to the head table, where Silas Thorne, a fortress of calm, sat
while his bodyguard, Ethan, deflected a relentless barrage of toasts.
In a shadowy corner, two maids huddled, their whispers
barely audible over the clatter of porcelain.
"Can it truly be?" the first hissed, her eyes wide with
scandalous delight. "The Master's not… barren after all?"
"Where have you been hiding? The news tore through the
ancestral hall like a summer storm," the other replied, clutching her tray like
a shield. "The Master isn't even forty. He's in his prime! And with that young
wife of his… God help us, Julian will have a dozen little siblings clamouring
for their inheritance before the year is out."
A knowing, grim look passed between them. The first maid
leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "That morning
we heard Mrs. Thorne retching by the lavatory… that wasn't a stomach bug, was
it?"
"I saw it with my own eyes today! Twice, she went pale as a
ghost and rushed off. And the Master's face… I've never seen him look so…
unsettled. It's certain. The new mistress is with child."
They didn't see the stern-faced old servant standing like a
statue behind them, his presence absorbed by the draperies, his ears catching
every poisonous word. His expression, already severe, hardened into grim
resolve.
The Matriarch, Old Lady Thorne, had pleaded exhaustion
early. The day's revelations had drained her far more than the ceremony's pomp.
Back in her opulent sitting room, the heavy scent of ambergris failing to calm
her racing thoughts, she listened as the elderly servant relayed the maids'
gossip without embellishment.
Her face, usually a placid mask of cultivated benevolence,
sharpened into something ancient and ruthless. Her lips pressed into a
bloodless line. "Once the last of those sycophants has staggered home," she
commanded, her voice like cracking ice, "summon my grandson. Tell him his
grandmother requires an audience. Immediately."
It was nearly an hour later when Silas finally arrived at
her door. He had excused himself only after Ethan, flushed and swaying, had
succumbed to one toast too many. Silas's first thought had been for Elara,
alone and likely feeling unwell in their chambers. But his grandmother's
summons, delivered in that tone, was not a request one ignored.
He entered the dim room. The late afternoon light sliced
through the gaps in the heavy curtains, illuminating dust motes dancing like
agitated spirits. The Old Lady sat ensconced in a high-backed armchair that
served as a makeshift throne, a cup of untouched tea cooling in her hands.
"Sit," she commanded, not deigning to look at him.
Silas obliged, sinking into the velvet chair opposite her.
He crossed his long legs, projecting an air of casual arrogance that he knew
would irritate her. His left hand rose, and he absently twisted the black onyx
tail ring on his finger, the stone glinting dully in the faint light.
"You wished to see me, Grandmother?" His voice was a low
rumble, devoid of deference.
She finally lifted her gaze, her eyes taking in his relaxed
posture. It reminded her of the reckless, untameable young man he'd been before
duty and tragedy had hardened him into a leader, and the memory irritated her
profoundly.
"When," she began, each word precise and cold as a surgeon's
scalpel, "did you undergo this… miraculous procedure? And why was I, the
matriarch of this family, kept in the dark like some distant relative? Does Ingrid
know of this… resurrection?"
Silas's brow furrowed in a show of mild contemplation.
"Months ago. Before we returned to Ashbourne for the New Year. The specialists
in Zurich were quite pleased with their work." He offered a thin, humourless
smile. "A success, as it turns out."
"Months?" The word was a whip-crack. She slammed her teacup
onto the lacquered table, the fine china rattling in protest. "Silas Thorne!
Does the continuation of our bloodline mean so little to you that you wouldn't
confide in me? Were you planning to wait until the child was squalling in its
crib to make the announcement?"
A faint, mocking smile touched his lips. "I simply found the
ancestral hall a more… efficient venue. It saved me from repeating the same
tedious story a hundred times over." He tilted his head. "Should you not be
delighted? This is what you've prayed for, is it not? A true heir from me."
"Delighted?" She leaned forward, her piercing eyes trying to
bore into his soul, to find the lie she was certain was there. "I would be
delirious with joy, if I could believe it! They said you were sterile, boy!
Incurable! A life sentence. And now, a simple procedure abroad fixes
everything? It seems… fantastically convenient. Especially now, with a young,
new wife who suddenly turns green and flees at the smell of temple incense."
Her meaning hung in the air between them, thick and ugly.
She was not merely doubting his restored health; she was explicitly doubting
the legitimacy of the child growing in Elara's womb.
"Your grandmother understands," she continued, her tone
shifting to one of cloying, false sympathy. "You are a man, with a man's pride.
You want to secure your beautiful wife's position, to give her a child to dote
on. It is… gallant. But using a child—any child—as a pawn is a dangerous game.
Claiming a bastard as your heir… it would sow seeds of discord that could tear
this family apart for generations."
Silas's face remained an unreadable mask, but the very air
in the room grew colder, as if the temperature had dropped several degrees.
The Old Lady took his stony silence as confirmation of her
darkest suspicion: the child was not his. It was Julian's. And Silas, in a move
of breathtaking audacity, was planning to pass off his own son's bastard as his
own, thereby securing Elara's place and permanently disinheriting Julian in one
masterstroke.
She took a sharp, deliberate breath, deciding to pivot.
"Never mind that… complication for now. What of Julian? What are your
intentions regarding him and that… creature he has impregnated?"
Silas's voice was dangerously neutral, a calm before a
storm. "You've always been the most ardent voice for expanding the family line.
The child, regardless of the mother, carries Thorne blood. Therefore, we keep
it."
"Keep it?" she sneered, her composure cracking to reveal the
disdain beneath. "You would have the future head of the Thorne family—your son
and heir—bound for life to some scheming tramp who likely laid this trap for
him? She would be a laughingstock! A permanent stain on our name! Julian's
reputation would never recover."
"And what, precisely, do you suggest?" Silas asked, his
eyebrow arching slightly, as if he were a spectator mildly amused by her
theatrical outrage.
The Old Lady's eyes glinted with a ruthless, pragmatic light
she had honed over decades of maintaining power. "The solution is simple,
Silas. It is the same solution our kind has employed for centuries when faced
with such… inconvenient attachments." She leaned forward, her voice dropping to
a venomous whisper. "We spare the child, not the mother."
The words were uttered with chilling finality, a death
sentence passed with the casualness of ordering a meal.
"Once the brat is born and weaned, the girl disappears.
Permanently. She must never be seen or heard from again." After all, she
thought, a cold calculus taking hold in her mind, if we are to raise one
bastard, we may as well raise two. The one in Elara's womb can be Silas's
public heir, and Julian's child can be the spare, raised properly within the
family fold, its origins conveniently obscured.
She looked at her grandson, believing they had reached a
twisted, unspoken understanding. She had no inkling that the child she was so
casually planning to legitimise was, in fact, Silas's own true-born heir—and
that her cold-blooded scheme for the other mother had just declared war on the
woman he loved. A storm gathered in Silas's eyes, a silent promise of
retribution that she, in her arrogance, failed entirely to see.