"Hmm, where shall I begin?" Layla murmured, leaning forward slightly to anchor her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped loosely. The gesture was casual, yet concealed a deep, internal preparation. "I shall begin with the reason I never grew up with my brother and our father here, within the comforting walls of this very Duchy."
She paused, gathering the long threads of memory.
"The Duke—our father—was a man renowned across the kingdom for his 'nobility,' his 'honour,' his 'high virtues.' He was the paragon, the flawless man everyone perceived him to be. My mother, Thalia, was no exception to this perception. She was a beautiful woman of impeccable noble lineage, and crucially, the sole heiress to this very Locron Duchy at the time."
Olivia inclined her head slowly, a knowing glint in her eyes. "So, the common rumour is true then: the previous Duke was not the true heir to the Duchy."
"Precisely, Your Grace," Layla confirmed, a faint, dry bitterness entering her voice. "He was, at the time, merely a knight—a gentleman of noble birth, nothing more, nothing less. My mother met him at a court ball, and like countless romantic fools, they fell in love. It took very little time for them to marry."
Layla's expression turned utterly bleak. "And because my mother, Thalia, was so desperately, blindly enamoured with this magnificent man, she committed the ultimate act of devotion. She willingly renounced her title and ceded all her lands to him, allowing him to ascend as the new Duke. She was happy, she truly was, seeing him satisfied, basking in the glory that she had gifted him. She believed—as so many innocently do when consumed by passion—that she would spend her life with him. Why not share her fortune? Except, my mother was an utter fool. She didn't merely share it; she surrendered everything to him."
Olivia let out a sharp, cynical laugh. "Well, you certainly have a point there. That is, truly, idiocy."
"Yes, yes. Her actions were unquestionably foolish," Layla agreed, shrugging off the sting of the judgment. "But where were we? Ah, yes."
A distant, melancholic haze clouded Layla's eyes as she continued, drawing the Duchess deeper into the past.
"After a brief, glorious interlude, my mother gave birth to twins—Matthias and myself. My striking resemblance to my brother is no accident, you see. Her joy was complete, or so she often told me later. Yet, shortly after our birth, her health began a rapid, cruel decline. For two years, she battled the persistent illness, spending most of her time confined to her bed. Following a long, exhausting struggle, the doctors advised a radical move: extended treatment in a neighbouring kingdom. The prognosis demanded a prolonged absence. So she went, reluctantly, leaving us—her two children and her wealth—entirely in my father's care. A few relatives would occasionally visit to 'check on us.' I use that term loosely; they checked on Matthias. I was never tolerated, a fact my mother confided in me long after. And so, she left for her cure."
Olivia listened intently, the softening of her features indicating that the fragmented pieces of this history were finally fitting into a devastating whole.
"The treatment lasted nearly a year," Layla continued, the tempo of her narrative slowing as the tragedy approached its peak. "And then, my mother returned. She came back across the threshold of this very hall, not alone, but cradling an infant in her arms. The household staff were petrified, electrified by shock. Everyone knew the simple truth: my parents had been apart for ten long months. Where had this child come from? How? They stared with morbid curiosity, and the meaning of the infant's presence was glaringly, universally clear."
"Everyone understood except my mother. She could not comprehend the reason for the servants' horrified, astonished stares."
Layla's voice dropped, thick with remembered pain. "It was then that her own cousin, Eloise, stepped forward, screaming with feigned repulsion,
'Thalia, where did that child originate? What is this grotesque, shameful act you have committed?'
My mother, utterly bewildered, did not grasp the meaning. 'What are you talking about, Eloise? She is merely a baby.'
'Merely a baby? Are you justifying yourself now?'"
"It was my mother's wretched fate that she did not see the entire, intricate conspiracy laid to trap her. And it was her even worse luck that the infant bore a disturbingly strange resemblance to her own features."
"My mother turned to my father, searching his face for answers, for refuge, for a shared truth. Instead, he slapped her—a brutal, unexpected blow—and then, sickeningly, he began to weep. 'I never anticipated this level of betrayal from you, Thalia. After all we've shared? And now, you present me with a strange child as if everything is normal? Is this the reward for my pure, devoted love for you?'"
"My mother was engulfed in true, paralyzing shock. Whatever defense she might have attempted, it would have only condemned her further. She fell silent, her mind racing, murdered by the expression of calculated treachery she saw in my father's weeping face."
"You see, we learned later that just days before her return, my father had sent her a seemingly innocuous letter. He claimed a friend of his had tragically lost his wife while she was being treated at the same sanitarium. The friend was left with a helpless newborn, and my father—the noble, compassionate man—had asked my mother to bring the child home with her. She had executed his request without a second thought. The entire vile plot, from start to finish, had been meticulously planned."
A steely defiance returned to Layla's posture. "She finally glared at them all and rose to her feet. 'You know I am no traitor! What madness has seized you? Stand aside. I demand to see my children.'"
"'Your children?' my father sneered, wiping the crocodile tears away. 'You may take Layla, but Matthias remains with me.' His hatred for the female sex was, even then, infamous."
"'What do you mean, take? Do you suggest I abandon this house? This is my home, sir! Have you forgotten?'"
"He leaned in, his voice cold, heavy with the full weight of the Ducal title she had given him. 'Your home? There is no place for a traitor in my residence. Have you forgotten that I am the Duke here now?'"
"That was the final blow that shattered my mother. Everything she was, everything she owned, had been stripped away. She was left with nothing."
"That very day, my father threw her out. The venomous tale of my mother's supposed infidelity spread like plague through the kingdom. Within days, he divorced her. Fortunately, because she was of noble blood, they could only exile her to the farthest borders and strip her of her title, not her life. Following the court proceedings—the farce of justice—my father, with utterly sickening audacity, confessed to my mother. He and her cousin, Eloise, had been involved. They had orchestrated the entire despicable drama. The infant was theirs, the consequence of their secret affair. But my father had abandoned the child because, first, she was a girl, and second, she was illegitimate. This, of course, explained why the baby bore a fleeting resemblance to my mother. It was the perfect tool for the frame-up. Immediately after, my father married Eloise—the mother of his son, Leon. He cast out my mother, me, and even that innocent, bastard child. That man truly, deeply despised women."
Layla finished the summary of her early life with a clipped, exhausted finality.
Olivia listened, her expression frozen in quiet shock. She had known the late Duke was a ruthless opportunist, but the sheer depth of this deceit and casual cruelty was astonishing. She spoke quietly, almost to herself. "And what became of you, then—you, your mother, and that child?"
"Well, we were effectively banished to the borderlands for ten arduous years. My mother, utterly broken by the events here, could never bring herself to return to the capital, so we remained there, the three of us."
"The three of you? You mean..."
"Yes. My mother—my noble, heartbroken mother—took responsibility for the Duke's bastard child and named her Amelia. To be perfectly honest, there are times I suspect she loved Amelia more than she loved me," Layla said, a weary, mirthless laugh escaping her lips.
"And Matthias? Did she ever manage to see him?" Olivia pressed.
"Ah. After the divorce, my father explicitly forbade my mother from ever seeing my brother again. He went so far as to legally disown me, severing any official blood ties between us. That is why I bear my mother's name, not his."
Layla spoke of her devastating past as if recounting a dull history lesson, the pain long since calcified into bone-deep weariness. It was the exhaustion of a life marked by injustice.
"So, Your Grace, this is the truth of my identity. Now, having laid bare the sins of my family, I must finally tell you about that wretch, David."