CHAPTER 110: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND TEN

Delia took the pamphlet from Eric and, with a calm, deliberate motion, handed it across the table to Augusta. The Baroness took it, her eyes quickly scanning the bold, inky headline:

MYSTERY DYER OF THE WELL-KNOWN DYES IN THE SOUTHERN ISLES IS REVEALED TO BE FROM ALBION.

"Baroness," Delia began, her voice as smooth and cool as polished stone. "I recently found out that you have been selling my original dyes abroad. It was very clever of you. Since you didn’t give out my name as the producer, I am sure that people did their own digging, which has only increased my exposure and the value of my work."

Anne looked at her mother in utter disbelief. Henry, however, took the pamphlet from his wife and read it, a wide, proud smile spreading across his face. "Well, it’s true then!" he said, his voice full of a hearty laugh. He looked at Augusta, completely oblivious to her scheming. "For once, my dear, it seems your actions have brought some good news to this family!"

Delia smiled sweetly. "So, since these are my formulas for the dyes you shipped, I will be splitting the profits fifty-fifty with the company from now on, isn’t that right?"

She didn’t wait for an answer. "I will send my husband’s aide, Mr. Aiden Caldwell, to speak with your Mr. Prescott about my fifty percent share of all past and future profits. Please have him put it directly into my husband’s account."

Augusta fumed with a silent, helpless anger. Her face was a pale mask of fury. " How did she know?" she thought to herself, her mind racing. "How did she know I was exporting her original dyes to the southern isles? It must have been that old fool, Edgar. He must have told her everything." She had thought she could turn the tables, pocket all the investments Edgar had secretly made, and all the profits she made from secretly selling the dyes Edgar had put in storage for Delia. But Delia, in one clean, simple move, had switched the lanes and taken control.

Delia then turned her gaze to her stepsister, her smile turning condescending. "Oh, and Anne, don’t you worry too much," she said. "I will still let you keep your little job at the establishment. Your... exquisite fashion sense... will surely come in handy for something."

"How dare you?" Anne hissed, her hands clenched into tight fists on the table.

"We are family, are we not?" Delia replied, her voice full of a false warmth. "No matter our different approaches, we must all work together to arrive at the same goal." Anne was already boiling, her entire body trembling with the desire to lunge across the table and rip Delia’s throat out.

Delia, seeing her sister’s impotent rage, gave both the mother and the daughter one last, beautiful, triumphant smile.

CRASH!

The sound of shattering porcelain echoed from Anne’s bedroom.

CRASH!

CRASH!

Anne had entered her room and begun to trash the place. She had broken a delicate vase of flowers, sending water and petals scattering across the floor. She had swept everything from the top of her vanity—silver-backed brushes, crystal perfume bottles, pearl hairpins—to the ground with one furious swipe of her arm. She had torn down the silk curtains from her windows. She was trashing everywhere, screaming at the top of her lungs, a raw, guttural sound of pure, helpless rage.

Augusta had just finished escorting Delia and Eric to their carriage and had seen Henry back to his room. She came into Anne’s room and saw the wreckage. She rushed to her daughter’s side.

"My sunshine," she said, her voice frantic. "Calm down. Please, calm down." She tried to cup Anne’s face in her hands, to soothe her as she had done so many times before.

But this time, Anne forcefully knocked her mother’s hands away. "Calm down?" she shrieked, her face a mess of tears and fury. "That nobody is taking everything that belongs to me, and you want me to calm down?" She looked at Augusta, her eyes wild with a lifetime of betrayal. "You told me she would always be beneath me! You told me she was never my equal, that she was a nobody, a mistake! Then why, Mama? Why does Papa love her more than he loves me? Why is she taking everything that is mine by right?"

Her voice, which had been a scream, dropped to a low, panicked hiss. "The money, Mama. The money you have been laundering from those textile sales. We need to get it out before Delia get her hands on it. Can’t you see that things are getting out of your control?"

Augusta replied by hugging her tightly. "I know, I know. I have a plan. I want to team up with Duke Philip. I want to make a deal with him..." Her voice was a soothing murmur, but her next words revealed her own deep-seated maternal fear. "But you cannot marry him, Anne. I cannot give you to a man like that."

Anne broke away from the hug, her expression turning to one of cruel, cold contempt. "Why?" she sneered. "Because he uses a cane?"

"No!" Augusta said, trying to talk sense to her daughter. "Because he is not like his brother. He is a cruel, manipulative man. I want someone who will make you happy, Anne. I have raised you with all my heart, I have done everything to make you happy and..."

"Stop pretending like you sacrificed anything for me!" Anne barked, her voice full of a shocking, disrespectful tone.

Augusta was heartbroken by her daughter’s sudden, cruel behavior. "What?" she asked, her own voice trembling.

"Be honest, Mama," Anne replied, a crazy, humorless laugh escaping her lips. "You have to thank me, too. You secretly got pregnant with me just so you could manipulate Papa into staying with you in that sham called a marriage since he never wanted to touch you after his first love died."

Augusta’s eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror. This was her deepest, most shameful secret, a truth no one in the world was supposed to know.

"Yes," Anne continued, her laughter sounding more and more unhinged. "I know. I know how you always tried to throw yourself at him, how you trapped him..."

But she couldn’t complete those words. Before she could, Augusta’s hand shot out and she gave her daughter a hard, stinging slap across the face. The sound echoed in the trashed, silent room.