CHAPTER 199: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE

"Delia?" Isla called out her name, her voice trembling, her own composure finally shattering.

But Delia didn’t answer her directly. She was lost in the momentum of her own discovery, the pieces of the puzzle all clicking into place with a terrible, damning clarity. "When I think about it now," she continued, her own voice a low, intense murmur, "it was strange from the very start. Why would someone like you, a powerful and respected lady, want to help a disgraced girl like me?"

She thought back to the scar on Isla’s arm, the one she had seen in the kitchen. "A scar from a carriage accident," she said, her eyes now fixed on Isla’s long, elegant gloves. "It’s the same accident that they said killed my mother. But why were you so connected to that scar? Why did it seem to hold so much pain for you?"

Isla was silent, her face a pale mask of shock.

"You accepted my membership into this exclusive club," Delia went on, her logic building, "knowing full well that I was an illegitimate child, a girl with a dozen scandals and rumors surrounding her. Why would you risk the reputation of your own establishment for someone like me?"

Her voice rose slightly. "Why did you build The Gilded Cage in the first place? Was it to look for me? Was it a way to gather the noblewomen of Albion under one roof so you could listen to their gossip, secretly searching for any news of me?"

Delia let out a short, sharp laugh, but the sound carried only hurt and a deep, profound pain. "If you are not Catherine Dalton," she said, her voice now thick with unshed tears, "then I do not know what else all of this could possibly mean."

She brought out the faded, miniature painting of Catherine that her grandfather had given her. She held it out to Isla, her own hand shaking. "Lady Isla," she asked, her final, heartbreaking question carrying the weight of a lifetime of loneliness, "are you Catherine Dalton? Are you my mother?"

Isla’s hand, which had been resting on the table, mistakenly hit her delicate porcelain teacup. It tipped over, falling to the floor and shattering into a hundred tiny pieces with a loud, sharp crash that echoed in the silent room. Her breathing increased, becoming short, sharp gasps, and Delia could see a raw, terrified fear in her eyes.

"It’s true," Delia whispered, her own heart breaking at the silent, undeniable confirmation. Her mother was alive.

But Isla still wasn’t saying anything. She just sat there, staring at the shattered pieces on the floor, her chest heaving. The silence was agonizing, a final, damning confirmation of Delia’s deepest fear: abandonment. The pain was too much. Delia stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. She had her answer. She turned to leave.

"Wait!" Isla’s voice cried out, desperate and broken. "Wait. Wait, Delia."

Delia stopped in her tracks, her back ramrod straight. She couldn’t bring herself to turn around.

From behind her, Isla’s words came tumbling out in a frantic, breathless rush. "I... I didn’t abandon you."

"You didn’t abandon me?" Delia asked, her own voice a hollow, wounded whisper.

"After the accident," Isla began, the words tumbling out in a rush of pain and memory, "I was in a coma. For six long months. When I finally woke up, I found myself not in Albion, but back in my own kingdom. My home is located far to the North of Albion. My father, you see, he was a well known merchant, not a nobleman of this country. He would often come to Albion for business, and I would accompany him. That was how I met your father, Henry."

"After the accident," she continued, her voice trembling, "my father immediately took me back home. I didn’t know how he found out but he took me out of Albion. He made it seem as if I had died in the crash, because he suspected that the accident was not an accident at all. He suspected it was a deliberate, violent attempt on my life. When I finally woke up from the coma, my father, in his grief and his desire to protect me, he told me that you... that you were dead. That my baby had died in the crash."

Her voice broke on a sob. "I couldn’t come back. What was there to come back for? My child was gone. And then I heard that your father, Henry, had married another woman. So I accepted it. I accepted that my life in Albion was over, and I decided to move on."

"Years later, my own father died, and I had to take over his vast merchant business until my younger brother came of age. I came back to Albion for an urgent trade meeting, and it was on that day that I saw you. You were just a young, vibrant woman then, walking down the main market square. I tried to follow you, but I lost your trail in the crowd. I asked around about you, and they told me that you were Baron Henry’s illegitimate daughter. I was so confused. I asked myself, did Henry have an affair, after he got married? I could not believe it, so I brushed the thought off and went for the meeting before leaving Albion again."

"But I could not forget you. After my brother finally came of age, and I had accumulated enough of my own money, I came back to Albion for good. I changed my name and built The Gilded Cage, not just as a business, but as a way to investigate you, to find out the truth. Because you kept on appearing in my thoughts, in my dreams, in some places i attend. I used my social club to get all the gossip about you. I was just so curious about the young woman who looked so much like the daughter I thought I had lost forever. But it was only very, very recently, after all the scandals began, that I was finally able to confirm the truth. That you were not some other woman’s child. That you were mine."