CHAPTER 200: CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED

Delia slowly turned to face her, the woman who was her mother. The face that was etched with a sadness she was only now beginning to understand. But understanding was not forgiveness. Not yet.

"You should have told me," Delia said, her voice quiet but shaking with the force of pain and abandonment. "The moment you confirmed that I was your daughter, you should have come to me."

Isla – Catherine – looked at her, her own face a mask of grief and regret. "I wanted to," she replied, her own voice a trembling whisper. "But I wasn’t sure if it was okay for me to just show up in your life now, after all this time. I wasn’t sure if it was alright." She wanted to hold her. "So, I just wanted to be by your side, even if it was just as a friend. I just wanted to help you, to protect you from afar."

"Be honest with me," Delia replied, her voice now rising with a raw, justified anger. "You were afraid that I would resent you. You were afraid that I would hate you. You did not even have the courage of a real mother to face her own child’s rightful anger." She took a step towards her, her own eyes now blazing with a fire that matched her mother’s.

"You should have told me," she said again, her voice now a heartbroken cry. "You should have come to me and said that you were sorry. And even if I had rejected you, even if I had screamed at you and told you to leave, you should have come back again, and again, and again. Because there is no way that I would not have forgiven you! There is no way that I would not have seen that my mother had her own reasons, that she was also a victim in all of this! That she must have been just as sad to lose me as I was to lose her!"

Catherine was crying openly now, her carefully constructed composure completely shattered.

Delia, her own tears now streaming down her face, asked the one question that had haunted her entire lonely existence. "Did you even love me?"

Catherine stood up, her movements unsteady, and touched Delia’s face, her own cheeks wet with tears. "Delia," she said, her voice choked with emotion. "When you gave me that little bottle of your strawberry food dye, I was so happy I thought my heart would break." She gently caressed Delia’s cheek. "It reminded me of the beautiful color of the roses that I would leave, every single year, at your small, makeshift grave back in my home kingdom."

The words, the image of her own mother grieving at a false grave, were too much for Delia to bear.

"You are my everything, Delia," Catherine continued, her own sobs now breaking free. "You are the only piece of your father I have left. I am so sorry. It is all my fault. I am so sorry that I could not protect you."

"I only used to make dark and gloomy colored dyes," Delia spoke, her own voice a painful confession. "The Baroness... she made me that way. I never saw the need to make bright, happy colors, because there was nothing bright or happy in my own life."

Catherine cupped Delia’s face in her hands and used her thumbs to gently wipe away her tears.

At that very moment, Baroness Augusta’s carriage pulled up to the front of The Gilded Cage. She had come to force a meeting with the elusive Lady Isla Austen. She swept past the polite hostess at the door, insisting her business was urgent. As she neared the private parlor, she heard the sound of crying.

Curiosity piqued, she slowed her steps. She peeked through the small gap where the door was slightly ajar. Her eyes widened. She saw Isla Austen, her back to the door, holding another woman in a tight, emotional embrace. The other woman’s face was buried in Isla’s shoulder, but as she shifted, Augusta saw her profile.

It was Delia.

Augusta froze, hiding herself behind a large potted palm. What was Delia doing here? And why was she being held so tenderly by the one woman in Albion who had refused to meet with her? She watched as they spoke, their words too muffled to hear clearly, but the emotion was plain. Then, she saw her whisper something into Delia’s hair.

Catherine continued to soothe her daughter. "If only I had known that you were my daughter earlier, Delia. If only I had been braver..."

But Delia stepped back from her mother’s touch, a new, cold resolve in her eyes. "If you truly feel apologetic for what happened to me," she said, her voice now steady and clear, "then help me. Help me, so that I can take my final revenge on that woman."

Catherine attempted to hold her again, and this time, Delia did not reject her touch. Catherine pulled her daughter into a fierce, protective hug, and Delia finally, finally, let herself cry in her mother’s arms.

"I promise you, my child," Catherine said, her own voice a fierce vow as she patted her daughter’s back, her own tears falling freely. "I promise you, we will make her pay for everything."

Seeing this, seeing the two of them, mother and daughter, united in a tearful, embrace, Augusta felt a wave of panic wash over her. Her body began to tremble. She ran back through the club, ignoring the curious stares of the ladies she passed, and burst out into the sunlight.

Her breathing was ragged, her vision blurred with the feeling of terror. The footman, startled by her sudden reappearance, rushed to open the carriage door. She practically fell inside.

"Where to, Baroness?" he asked, concerned by her state.

Augusta could barely get the words out, her own voice a stammering, terrified sound. "H...Home."

As the carriage began to move, she spoke to herself, her thoughts a chaotic mess. "This doesn’t make any sense. This cannot be happening. They told me she was dead. They told me Catherine Dalton had died in the crash." She looked out the window, her eyes wide with a new, dawning horror. "But now... now they are both alive? How are both the mother and the daughter alive?"

Her mind immediately went to the one person who could have failed her. "Fredrick," she hissed to the empty carriage. "How did that useless bastard screw it up so very badly?"

She started to fall apart inside the carriage, throwing her hat and reticule and punching the velvet seat.

"What do I do?" she whispered as she calmed down a bit, her voice shaking with a fear she had not felt in twenty three years. "What do I do now? What if those two, what if they team up and try to take me down together?" The thought was too terrible to even comprehend.