Chapter 3 - The Deceitful Tears
Clara lay curled on her side, gasping for air as sharp pain radiated from her lower spine down to her legs. Blood dripped faintly from her elbow where it had scraped against the marble, but her focus remained entirely undivided: she loosened her grip just enough to check the baby’s face. The infant was uninjured, though thoroughly terrified by the sudden jolt and the deafening noise, his tiny face flushing red as he sobbed into her blue shirt.
"Shh... I've got you, I've got you," Clara groaned through gritted teeth, her body trembling uncontrollably as she tried to pull herself into a seated position.
Above her, Victoria didn't look down at the child with a single shred of concern. Instead, her ears caught the rapid, heavy footsteps of someone running down the main staircase from the east wing. The grand double doors swung open, and Richard Harrington ran into the hallway, his face pale with sudden alarm.
Dressed in a immaculate charcoal-grey suit, Richard was the heir to the Harrington fortune—a man caught for months in the crossfire of his wife's ruthless demands and his own growing suspicion regarding the true origins of their newly adopted child.
"What happened?! What was that noise?" Richard demanded, stopping at the threshold as his eyes took in the scene: Clara on the floor clutching the weeping baby, and Victoria standing over her.
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In a fraction of a second, Victoria’s cold, predatory posture disintegrated. Her face contorted into an expression of desperate, frantic horror. Tears welled up in her eyes with practiced precision, overflowing onto her cheeks as she let out a choked, dramatic sob. She staggered backward toward Richard, wringing her manicured hands together in complete theatrical panic.
"Darling, help!" Victoria wailed, her voice echoing frantically through the high-ceilinged corridor as she pointed a trembling finger at the bruised woman on the floor. "She kidnapped our child! I caught her trying to sneak out the back, and when I tried to stop her, she attacked me! Please, Richard, get the baby away from her before she hurts him!"
