Chapter 5
I got it now.
Mother wasn't weak. She was thinking about the bigger picture. She had been waiting all this time for the right moment.
She was waiting for a moment when my father and his whole family would finally have to pay for what they'd done.
And now, with our house ransacked and us exiled, that moment had finally arrived. Even if it came in such a devastating way.
"Mother, is it true our family was ruined because they said Grandpa committed treason?" I whispered, finally voicing the question that had haunted me for so long.
Mother paused, her silence heavy. "Yes... and no.
"Your grandfather was loyal to the throne. He would never commit treason. The king just used it as an excuse to throw him away once he was no longer needed.
"The real reason was that his achievements threatened the king. But your father..."
Mother's voice turned cold. "He did play a not very honorable part in all this."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She answered, "Your father, desperate to climb the ranks, hitched his wagon to the third prince, Xander Hayes.
"The whole scheme to frame your grandfather for treason was masterminded by Xander. And your father, eager to prove his loyalty, fed him plenty of so-called dirt about your grandfather.
"Even though all that so-called dirt was petty, baseless gossip, the king's paranoia blew it way out of proportion until it became the final straw that broke the camel's back."
It was like a bolt from the blue.
My father betrayed Grandpa, the very man who gave him everything, who took him from a nobody to the Marquess of Everstead, his own wife's father?
How could he? What right did he have?
"Even a tiger won't turn on its own cub, but your father, for his own future, personally shoved his own father-in-law and our whole Sinclair family straight into the flames," Mother said coldly, her words sending a chill down my spine.
"So, he got exactly what he deserved," she said flatly. "Losing everything and being exiled is already the lightest punishment he could get."
It finally clicked for me why Mother kept her cool the whole time and why she didn't show my father a single ounce of sympathy.
Turned out, in this drama called "marriage," she'd long seen through his selfish, heartless, and stupid ways.
It was not that she didn't resent him, or didn't hate him. She locked away all her resentment and hatred deep in her heart. She was waiting for the moment to settle all the scores.
And now, that chance had finally come.
Once the prison cart left the city gates, it started moving faster.
Outside, I could hear the guards shouting and the sharp crack of their whips.
The journey into exile had officially begun.
I didn't know what was waiting for us up ahead.
But as long as I stayed close to Mother, nothing could scare me.
Because she was the toughest person on earth.
Suddenly, the sharp clatter of hooves echoed outside the prison cart.
Father pulled alongside us on horseback, catching up to our cart.
He looked at Mother and me through the wooden bars, his eyes full of conflicting emotions.
"Charlotte," He spoke, his voice raspy and strained. "Thanks for what you did back there."
He was talking about how Mother had stepped in to save him.
Mother leaned against the side of the cart, eyes closed like she was asleep, completely ignoring him.
Father looked really awkward and uncomfortable for a second.
He fell quiet for a moment before speaking again. "Vivian... she isn't like that. This must be a misunderstanding."
He was still trying to defend Vivian.
Mother's eyes snapped open.