Chapter Seventy-Seven
Fiona’s Point of View:
Veronica’s statement took me by surprise.
“I thought we were keeping this among the crew for now,” I asked, mirroring the stunned expression on everybody’s face at her statement.
Tristan looks confused and a tad furious at her. When she doesn’t say anything else, he walks up to her and sits right opposite her on the carpeted floor.
“Veronica?”
At this, she bursts into full-blown tears, throwing us all into confusion. The guys scratch their ears simultaneously while I walk quickly and sit by her, holding her by the shoulder and patting her slowly.
It felt weird, to be honest, comforting Mum. Mum barely cried and when she did, she never cried in my presence.
Veronica started to say, haltingly, “I just can’t help it. My heart is not at ease knowing my son could be somewhere, lying in a ditch or worse. I know the consequences of alerting the inner council, believe me, no one knows it more than I do,” she says, looking at me quickly with an awkward, embarrassed glance that immediately gets me puzzled.
It suddenly strikes me that Veronica could be hiding something. I’ve had this feeling before, a few weeks back while I was at the snack bar, hanging out with Thomas.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an extreme fear of naked fire, an oddly specific fear that doesn’t extend to microwaves or grills.
The therapist Dad had taken me to had claimed it was most possibly a result of the extreme trauma I had had as a child. I hadn’t been too keen on his offer to help me down memory lane and, thankfully, mum hadn’t pushed it either.
So, we decided to take precautions; Dad made food that needed the gas cooker, leaving large helpings in the freezer for me to warm and eat when I needed to.
Whenever that failed, I could always get takeout or snacks and fruit, which is what happened most afternoons when Dad was not back from work.
Now, she was wearing that same look of apprehension and regret, and I couldn’t help but call her out on it.
I leaned back from her, withdrawing the arm I had around her shoulders. Is there something you’d like to tell us? Something we don’t already know.
I push. My suspicions are confirmed when she only bends her head further, sobbing gently and shaking her head.
The others are super confused now, torn between their sympathy for Mrs. Johnson and their curiosity about the other “information”.
When the suspense hangs on too long, Tristan reaches for her hands and shakes her gently. If there’s something you think is important to this mission, it would be better if you could tell us.
I’m glad he still can be patient at this point because I’m a few steps away from losing it. All the drama and surprises have finally caught up with me and I honestly cannot deal.
Veronica finally calms down and, to our further surprise, goes on her knees in front of me. “Okay, I’m going to tell you what it is. You have to promise to forgive me first though”.
Now I’m not so sure if I want to hear the truth. Tristan nudges me and I look at him and the audience. We have to have our little drama. Okay, I agree. Just tell us what it is.
She takes a deep breath and begins. “I’ve told you about your history, I’ve told you about your parentage, I’ve even told you about the war.
However, what I haven’t told you is how you got into the human world. After the little war ended, and I was celebrated by Victor, I started to get ambitious. From my social standing and good rapport with women, which included the domestic staff of Harrington, I knew many secrets, the inane and the potentially dangerous; secrets that could rock the whole nation, if revealed.
One of the secrets was the randy nature of your father,” she said, looking at my face and catching the minor wince I gave at that.
It was hard to hear that about my father, of course, even though I still blamed him partly for that. I was starting to fear where this was going.
Spurred on by our silence, she continues full force, “Further investigation on my part revealed that, as would be expected, your father’s many rendezvous had produced a child. It was the child of a highly placed worker for Harrington.
Annabelle was a quiet and unassuming girl, and it was easy to see how she could be taken in by the charisma of the heir, her father.
Your mother probably knew of this illegitimate child but, as a future wife, she would have taken proper steps to make sure you were fully established as a legal child without any threat to your authority. To keep the secret in the family, Annabelle continued to work as a maid, raising her child in the Harrington’s mansion.”
I kept this information for future reference, not seeing how it could be of use to me at the moment. I had no interest in blackmailing any member of the Lawson family, that would. That would be a self-destructive move.
Besides, having a child out of their marriage was nothing new to us; others only began to stick to their wives in heart and act as a voluntary action.
Your father would just be a chip off the old block. The little twinge of jealousy I had felt soon dissolved. I had repeatedly tried to get his attention or win his affection earlier, to no avail.
When the inner invasion began, the one that displaced you, she said, looking at me to see if I remembered. After I nod to confirm that I do, indeed, she plunges back into the stream of her narrative.
The rebels had set the adjoining mansion that held you and your mother on fire and were in the process of doing the same to the major mansion when they were nabbed and arrested.