Reborn: The Duke’s Obsession

The next day, their carriage pulled into the grand estate, a familiar and now welcoming sight for Delia. She and Eric had spent the whole morning shopping for thoughtful gifts for his family, a simple, happy activity that felt wonderfully normal. As the servants hurried out to take Eric's coat and Delia's hat, he asked one of the maids a simple question.

"Where is my mother?"

The maid curtsied respectfully. "She is in the main drawing room, Your Grace," she replied. "She is with the Dowager Duchess. And… there is a visitor there with them as well."

Eric frowned his brow slightly. "A visitor? Who could it be?"

"What about Amber?" He asked.

The maid replied respectfully " She's out socializing, Your Grace."

Eric nodded his head.

The maids took the beautifully wrapped gifts that they had brought, and the couple went to the drawing room. Eric held Delia's hand, her hands wrapped around his arm. But as they stepped into the grand, sunlit room, they both froze in their tracks.

Sitting there, looking perfectly comfortable and at home, were Duke Philip and Anne. They were having tea with Duchess Lyra and the Dowager Duchess Elena. The atmosphere in the room was not warm or welcoming. It was as cold and as still as a winter graveyard.

"What is going on here?" Eric asked, his voice a low, dangerous growl as he instinctively stepped slightly in front of Delia.

"We just came to visit, brother," Philip replied, a smug, satisfied smile on his face.

Anne gave Delia a triumphant, mocking smile of her own.

Lyra, who had been sitting stiffly in her chair, her face a mask of cold anger, stood up. She was holding a single piece of parchment in her hand. "What is the meaning of this?" she said, her voice shaking with an anger Delia had never heard from her before. She held the piece of paper out to Delia.

Delia detached her hand from Eric's arm. Her own hands were trembling as she took the paper and read it. Her eyes widened in pure shock. It was her copy of their marriage contract. The one she had left safely hidden in her vanity drawer.

She looked up at Eric, her face pale, a look of pure, panicked worry in her eyes. Eric, sensing that something was terribly wrong, walked to Delia's side and gently took the paper from her and read it himself. He swallowed hard, a muscle in his jaw clenching, but his expression remained a cool, unreadable mask.

"How did you…" he began, his voice dangerously quiet, but Lyra interrupted him.

"'The Duke may have a mistress, and the Duchess may have someone else'?" Lyra read the words from memory, her voice dripping with a bitter, wounded sarcasm. "'No interfering in each other's private lives?' 'A duration of one year?' Why, Eric? Why is this giving me the very distinct impression of a cold, heartless contract?"

Anne, unable to resist her moment of triumph, butted in. "It is a contract, Mother," she said, her voice full of a false, helpful sweetness. "That is why there are dates and signatures and official seal."

Lyra's head snapped towards Anne, her eyes blazing with a fury that made Anne flinch. "Do not," she said, her voice a low, threatening hiss, "ever call me Mother. Your mother is at home, in the house you came from."

Anne immediately kept quiet, her smug smile vanishing.

Philip then added his own poison to the room. "This was a plan from the start, Mother," he said, his voice full of a feigned, sorrowful disappointment. "The two of them schemed together. They played with our emotions, our family's feelings, all while pretending to love each other, just to get what they wanted."

Lyra looked at Eric and Delia, her own eyes now shining with the unshed tears of a betrayed mother. "Is it true?" she asked, her voice breaking slightly. "Was all of it a lie? The looks, the words, the happiness? Why would you do such a thing to us?"

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Anne replied, seeing her chance to deliver the final, killing blow, "but I think I know the reason. You could say it was a very clever business deal." She looked at Eric. "He gains his mother's powerful connections for his little dye company and secures his grandmother's trust and favor." She then turned her venomous gaze on Delia. "And my dear sister escapes the home she so despises." She sneered. "The home that housed her, a bastard, and raised her from nothing until now."

Delia looked at Anne, her own knuckles turning white as she gripped the silk of her dress.

"You two," Lyra said, her voice now cold and hard again as she pointed a trembling finger at Eric and Delia. "You will tell us yourselves. Why did you do this?"

"We're sorry," Eric replied, his voice a quiet, simple admission of their deception.

"Nobody asked for your apologies!" Lyra retorted, her voice rising with a fresh wave of anger. "We need an explanation! We deserve that much!"

Just then, as the tension in the room reached its absolute peak, the Dowager Duchess Elena, who had been sitting in a state of pale, silent shock, let out a small, pained gasp. Her hand went to her chest, clutching at the fine lace of her dress. Her eyes, wide with a sudden, terrifying pain, rolled back in her head.

"Mother!" Lyra exclaimed, her own anger instantly forgotten as she rushed to Elena's side.

"Grandma!" Eric shouted, following right behind her. "Grandma!"

Philip, his own face laced with genuine panic, rushed to Elena's other side. He looked at the servants who were now crowding the doorway in a state of horrified shock. "Get the doctor!" he shouted, his voice a raw command. "Immediately!"

Everyone was by Elena's side now, their own petty squabbles and betrayals completely forgotten in the face of this sudden, life-or-death crisis, trying desperately to wake the silent, unmoving matriarch of their family.