Reborn: The Duke’s Obsession

The dinning room was thick with silence. Eric, who had been sitting in a state of controlled fury, finally spoke, his voice cutting through the tension.

"You just can't help yourself, can you, Philip?" he asked, his gaze fixed on his brother. "You can't stop your mouth from bringing up that accident again and again, can you?"

Philip just looked at him, a cool, unbothered expression on his face. Eric reached into his inner coat pocket and brought out a single, folded piece of paper in an envelope. He brought out the folded piece of paper. It was old, the creases worn, the ink slightly faded. He placed it in the middle of the table.

"This," Eric said, his voice now a low, dangerous rumble, "is the written confession of the gardener who witnessed everything that happened that day. He was trimming the hedges by the west wall of the stables. He was the one who even went to alert the stable hands after he saw you fall."

Philip looked at the piece of paper, and for the first time, a flicker of genuine shock crossed his face.

"How did you…" the Dowager Duchess Elena began, her own voice full of a stunned surprise. "We all thought the stable hands were the only other witnesses to the event."

Lyra, who had been sitting in a state of pained silence, finally spoke, her voice full of a deep, old sorrow. "He came to see me a year after the accident," she explained, not looking at anyone, her gaze fixed on the tragic piece of paper on the table. "He had immediately requested for a leave of absence right after it happened, saying his daughter was terribly sick. I paid him generously for his service, but he and his family just disappeared. He never came back. Then, a year later, he came to see me at the main estate. He was asking for my forgiveness. He said his conscience couldn't take the burden of the secret anymore."

She looked at Philip now, her eyes full of a mother's deep, complicated pain. "He told me that after you had given your own testimony of the events, he felt that nobody in the world would ever listen to what a simple gardener had to say against the word of a Duke's son. And he didn't want to be involved in the business of our powerful family."

She continued, the words a painful confession of her own. "I wanted to share his testimony then. I wanted to clear your name, Eric. But I hesitated. I was so scared. I was scared that people would think I had an ulterior motive, that I was only bringing up a matter that had already died down, a matter that had already been judged, just to favor my own son. I was afraid of them calling me the 'wicked stepmother.'"

She looked at Philip again, her expression pleading. "I was trying to be fair. How could I start trying to decide whose fault it was when the damage was already done, when a young boy couldn't use his leg properly anymore. So I buried it." She looked at her own son, at Eric, her eyes now welling with tears. "You think that Eric and I are always sticking together against you. But it is the complete opposite. All of this, all of his pain, is because I ignored my own son's tears and his trauma, all because I didn't want to look biased."

Philip, seeing the tide of the room turning against him, tried to dismiss the new evidence. "And so what?" he asked with a scoff. "Are you suggesting we all read this old confession now? That we listen to what some long-dead gardener had to say? After all this time? For what purpose?"

"So you just want to bury the truth again?" Eric asked, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He looked at Philip, his eyes blazing with twenty years of suppressed anger. "Why? Is it for you, Philip? So you can keep playing the victim?"

Everyone was silent, their gazes now fixed on the two brothers.

"Let's talk about that day," Eric continued, his voice now a sharp, prosecuting tone. "Did the stable door really get jammed, Philip? Or did you lock me in?"

Elena looked at Philip, who couldn't answer, his own face now pale with a dawning fear.

"Did you really not know that Kian, the most agitated horse in the entire stable, was in the stall right next to next to the one you pushed me in?" Eric pressed on, his questions like hammer blows. "Did you really come back to save me? Or did you just come back to check if your little plan had finally worked?"

Eric remembered what Philip had said to him that day, the cruel, childish words that had haunted his nightmares for years. "I remember what you said to me," Eric continued, his voice a low, chilling whisper.

"You came back to the stall, and you thought I couldn't hear you. You said, 'Why don't you just suffocate in that stall and have Kian get wild on you? I can't stand having you around anymore.'"

He looked at Philip, whose face was now completely devoid of color. "You said that to me right before Kian unbolted the stable I was in. You came to check if Kian had already rammed into me. But instead, the horse ran out and ran into you, and it was your own leg that was broken."

The sheer, ugly truth of the information was too much for Elena to bear.

"It was twenty years ago," Philip finally said, his voice a weak, pathetic stammer. "I was just a young boy. I panicked after what happened. I… I can't remember what I said."

"You can't remember?" Lyra asked, her own voice now full of a cold, hard anger. She reached out to take the confession letter from the table. "Then let me just read this out loud for all of us to hear. Perhaps it will help to kickstart your memory."

"Mother, no!" Philip exclaimed, his voice a desperate, panicked cry.

"That is enough!"

Elena stood up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. She turned to Lyra. "Give that letter to me," she commanded, her voice rising. "Now."

She stretched out her hand, and Lyra, always obedient to her mother-in-law, placed the letter in her hand.

Then, to everyone's complete and utter surprise, Elena tore the letter into pieces.

Lyra stood up abruptly, her own face a mask of shocked disbelief. "Mother, why would you do that?" she cried out. "Do you have any idea how hard it was for Eric to know about the truth and for us to finally bring that here today?"

"And do you expect us to read that terrible thing," Elena replied, her own voice now shaking with emotion, "and to go through that terrible trauma all over a…" She stopped, a pained, gasping sound coming from her throat. She was struggling to breathe.

Amber, seeing her grandmother's distress, stood up. "Grandma!"

"Grandma!" Philip followed, his own face now full of a genuine panic.

"Mother!" Lyra shouted, rushing towards her.

"Grandma!" Eric rushed to her side just as she was about to collapse, and he swept her up into his arms, carrying her out of the room, his own face a mask of terrified concern.