Chapter 197

Chapter 197

Keith sat at the head of the table, his cane propped against his leg, both hands folded over the top of it. His knuckles were thin and knotted, like the roots of an old tree.

He said nothing, and no one else dared to speak.

His eyes, cloudy but still sharp, swept slowly across every face in the room.

After a long moment, Keith finally let his gaze settle on Bianca, who was sitting on the floor.

"This is the woman who tricked you?"

The question was directed at Henry, but his eyes never left Bianca.

Henry's jaw was clenched tight. He gave a single nod.

Keith looked Bianca up and down. There was no anger in his eyes, not even contempt—just the kind of cold, detached assessment that only comes from having seen too much of the world.

Bianca found that look harder to bear than being yelled at or struck.

Because in those eyes, she wasn't someone who had done wrong. She was simply something beneath notice—not even worthy of his anger.

"Her?"

The word was almost offhand, but it landed harder than any insult.

Henry's face went red. His lips moved, but nothing came out.

Maurice was sitting by the window. He'd reached his limit. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and turned it between his fingers a couple of times.

"And we threw her a welcome party."

The cigarette was bent out of shape from his grip, the paper crumpled, a few strands of tobacco spilling from one end onto his pants. He didn't bother brushing them off.

He had a short temper on a good day. Holding it together this long had taken everything he had.

"The whole Tudor family, top to bottom, inside and out—how many people were watching? How many eyes were on us? Half the big names in Sovereign City showed up that day. Even the mayor sent a gift."

He slapped the cigarette down on the coffee table. It bounced off the glass surface and rolled to a stop next to the ashtray.

"And what do we have to show for it? We raised another man's child. When this gets out, where does that leave the Tudor family? Where does it leave us?"

That was all it took. Like water hitting hot oil, the other senior relatives all started speaking at once, the frustration they'd been holding back finally breaking loose.

"Exactly. I was there at that welcome party. All those guests. I was sitting at the table right next to the main table. I watched Henry carry that baby out, grinning from ear to ear. Looking back now—what a joke. What an absolute joke."

"You're telling me. That child has lived in the Tudor house since birth. Best of everything—clothes, food, you name it. And it turns out we were raising someone else's kid the whole time. If that's not being taken for a fool, I don't know what is."

"If this gets out, it won't just be Henry. The whole Tudor family will be a laughingstock. The people we deal with in business—they smile to our faces, but who knows what they're saying behind our backs. From now on, whenever the younger generation goes out, people will be pointing and whispering..."

The voices kept building, louder and louder, impossible to hold back.

The elders talked over each other, one after another, like a pressure valve finally blown open. Nobody was backing down. Nobody was holding back.

Keith didn't stop them. He let them talk.

There were things he couldn't bring himself to say. These relatives could say them for him.

He pulled his gaze away from Bianca and let it drift slowly across the room, until it landed on Gloria, who was standing in the corner.

Gloria felt his eyes on her. She lowered hers slightly, her expression calm and composed—neither eager nor evasive.

Keith studied her for a few seconds, then spoke. "Gloria, I heard you became the child's godmother?"

Gloria looked up and met his gaze. Her face held just the right amount of deference—no panic, not even a flicker of hesitation. She gave a small, unhurried nod, barely perceptible but perfectly clear.

"Yes."

Keith's expression shifted slightly. "You didn't know?"

"Of course not."

She didn't miss a beat. "If I had known, why would I have agreed?"

Something in Keith's eyes softened.

He gave a small nod and turned his cane half a rotation in his hand. When he spoke again, there was a faint note of approval in his voice.

"You're the most innocent person in this house. Kept in the dark all this time, giving that child gifts, taking on the role of godmother—that takes real character."

He paused, his gaze moving briefly to Bianca on the floor, then to Henry standing nearby, before settling back on Gloria.

"Henry is lucky to have you. It's a shame he doesn't know it."

The words were measured, almost quiet—but they cut like a blade, straight into two hearts at once.

Henry's body went slightly rigid. The hand hanging at his side clenched, then opened, then clenched again.

Bianca was kneeling on the floor. When she heard that, her head snapped up and her lips parted—she wanted to say something—but the moment she met Keith's eyes, she swallowed every word.

The elders nodded along, chiming in one after another.

"That's right. I've watched Gloria since she married into this family. Not one misstep. Everything she does, she does well."

"Henry wouldn't be where he is today without Gloria. She's helped run plenty of those outside businesses. Everyone here knows it. Nobody can say otherwise."

"And after all this, she's the one who gets hurt most. Anyone else would've lost it by now. The fact that she's held herself together and kept the family's interests in mind—that kind of patience isn't something most people have."

"A woman like Gloria is hard to find. And he just couldn't see what was right in front of him."

That last line was pointed, though no name was spoken. Everyone in the room knew who it was meant for.

Gloria listened to all of it. Her expression didn't change.

She didn't use the moment to air her grievances or make herself the center of attention.

She just lowered her head slightly at the right moment, as if absorbing the elders' concern, as if quietly carrying a weight she'd been carrying for a long time.

To the elders, that looked like grace—knowing her place, thinking of others, keeping the bigger picture in mind.

To Henry, it felt like something else entirely.

He watched her lower her eyes and felt something twist hard inside him.

He knew she had taken far more than she'd let on. And she hadn't said a single word of it.

Then Gloria raised her head, and her gaze moved past everyone else in the room to Bianca, still kneeling on the floor.

"Everyone, Bianca did wrong—there's no question about that. But the child has lived in the Tudor house since birth. The welcome party brought in so many guests. Everyone saw."

She paused here, as if choosing her words carefully, as if debating whether to continue.

"The child is innocent. The welcome party was a grand affair—half of Sovereign City knows the Tudors welcomed a granddaughter. If the child is turned out now, people won't ask questions. They'll just say the Tudor family mistreated an innocent child. That gives people something to talk about."

"It might be better to send the child somewhere out of town, with a reliable family to care for her. Publicly, we say the child has health issues and was sent away to recover. That way, the family's reputation stays intact."

The way Gloria framed it was careful.

On the surface, she was pleading for Bianca—fighting for the child to have some kind of life, talking about how the child was blameless, urging the elders to show some mercy.

But underneath every word, she was reminding the room of something else: that the Tudor family had thrown a formal welcome party for this child. Had treated her as one of their own. And not one person in the entire household had noticed anything wrong.

If this came out, the embarrassment wouldn't fall on Bianca. It would fall on the Tudors.

And just as she expected, the elders' expressions didn't soften after hearing her—they hardened.

Maurice was first. He let out a loud, sharp snort, undisguised irritation coming right off him.

"Innocent? She's been deceiving the Tudor family for years. Deceiving everyone in this house. Making fools of us all. And now you're telling me the child is innocent? Fine. Then who's going to answer for what she did to this family's name?"

Another elder followed, slightly more measured in tone but no less firm.

"Exactly. Gloria, you're too soft-hearted. You can't show that kind of mercy to someone like this. You give her a house and money today, and tomorrow she'll turn around and tell people the Tudor family paid her off to stay quiet. She could twist the whole story around. You believe me, don't you?"

Gloria said nothing more. She simply lowered her head again, as if accepting the elders' judgment, as if feeling faintly ashamed of her own misplaced kindness.

Quiet and yielding—nothing to fault her on.

No one noticed that as she lowered her head, the corner of her mouth curved into the faintest smile.

Gone in an instant.

Keith raised a hand and the room fell silent.

His gaze shifted away from Bianca and moved slowly toward Marlowe.

Marlowe was sitting on the sofa, leaning slightly forward, one hand resting over her lower abdomen. She'd been holding that position ever since Keith and the others walked in.

Keith's eyes settled on the slight curve there.

He had lived seventy-six years and seen more than most people could imagine. After that much life, one look was often enough to know the whole story.

"Marlowe," he said. "Tell me the truth. When you went to Vesperia—was it to recover, or to have a baby?"

Marlowe's lips trembled violently.

Her mind raced, scrambling for something—any excuse, any story that might hold.

But she couldn't form a single word.

Because she knew better than anyone that no one in this room was naive. And Keith least of all.

"I went to Vesperia because I wasn't feeling well. The medical facilities there are better—"

She hadn't finished before a quiet, even voice cut in.

"I was the one who arranged for Mom to go to Vesperia."

Everyone looked at Gloria.

She still had that same calm, understated presence. Under all those eyes, she seemed slightly flustered—she lowered her head a little, her voice careful and gentle, like she was trying to help Marlowe out of an awkward moment.

"Mom said she wasn't feeling well and wanted to go abroad for a while to rest. I booked her flights and arranged the hospital. The climate there is mild, good for recovery. I didn't think much of it."

Her voice trailed off, as if she were recalling something, or maybe weighing whether to say more.

"The doctors there are really quite good. The obstetrics department especially—I noticed that when I was looking up hospitals for her."

The words were out before she seemed to register what she'd said. She paused almost imperceptibly, then lowered her head and went quiet.

But in a corner where no one was watching, her lips curved into a faint, cool smile—and just as quickly, it was gone.

Keith had heard enough.

He looked at Marlowe. The coldness in his eyes faded, layer by layer, replaced by something exhausted.

It was the exhaustion of an old man who had weathered too many storms—and was now watching the family he had spent his life building rot slowly from the inside.

He closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

A long moment passed before he opened them again.

He didn't look at Marlowe. He turned to Henry.

"Henry. Tell me. How do you think this should be handled?"

Henry stood in the middle of the room, every eye in the place on him.

Those eyes held different things—expectation, doubt, sympathy, poorly concealed satisfaction, and the watchful look of people waiting to see how he would clean up the mess.

His face was hard to read.

He was quiet for a long time.

Long enough that the hope in Marlowe's eyes began, slowly, to go out.

"I'll arrange for Mom to go back to Vesperia. This time, I'll make sure someone looks after her properly. The medical care there is good. It suits her. But she won't be coming back."

Marlowe couldn't hold it together. She shot to her feet, her face flushed dark red, the veins at her temples standing out. Tears filled her eyes.

"Henry, what did you just say? You're sending me away? I'm your mother!"

Then, from the doorway, came a sharp voice cutting through the room.

"Who said you could leave?"