Just looking at you makes feel so safe."
It is a well-known truth that when people get older, they tend to turn back into children, craving warmth, attention, and a little bit of spoiling. And honestly, which woman in this world—no matter her age or high status—does not absolutely love to hear heartfelt praise? Especially when that praise is coming from her long-lost, favorite granddaughter.
The old madam, who had spent months enduring a house full of stiff, rehearsed grief from her son and daughter-in-law, could not handle this sudden onslaught of pure affection. Her fierce, matriarchal exterior completely crumbled.
Heena, of course, was a absolute master manipulator when it ca to reading people. Seeing the old woman’s eyes soften, she ruthlessly pressed her advantage, praising her grandmother straight to the sky.
"Grandma, how have you managed to stay so incredibly young-looking?" Heena coaxed, tilting her head with a bright, twinkling smile. "Your skin is still so beautiful, and you are honestly just so cute. Are you sure you didn’t find so secret elixer while I was away?"
The old madam let out another soft chuckle, her sharp eyes twinkling with a mixture of deep affection and lingering shrewdness. She raised a frail hand and gently, lovingly tapped Heena’s cheek.
"You little liar," the grandmother chided softly, a knowing smile gracing her wrinkled face. "You can keep claiming you lost your mory, but your sweet, silver tongue hasn’t changed a bit, huh?"
Heena didn’t bat an eye at the gentle accusation. Instead, she just shook her head with a bright, entirely shaless smile, leaning into the touch like a perfectly innocent, devoted granddaughter.
Standing silently in his dark armor in the corner of the veranda, Samuel watched the entire exchange unfold. Behind the heavy iron visor of his helt, his lips twitched into an amused, highly impressed grin. He shifted his weight slightly, completely fascinated by the performance.
He truly had to hand it to her—his wife was an absolutely brilliant actress.
But how could she be expected to rember a na like Kavien—or whatever the hell it was? Heena genuinely couldn’t bring herself to care, mostly because the man was, in her eyes, utterly hideous.
To be fair, if any ordinary high-society lady looked at him, they would probably say he was handso, or at least perfectly fine. But when you are used to drinking the finest, rarest wine all day long, you cannot suddenly be impressed by a cheap, flat soda. And that was the exact, undeniable difference between a man of Samuel’s breathtaking caliber and this pathetic excuse for a groom.
Kavien chose that exact mont to speak up, interrupting the warm atmosphere between Heena and the matriarch.
"I never knew that my lady was still alive," Kavien said, stepping closer with a heavy, deliberate sigh. "We searched so far and wide for you, Seera."
Believe it or not, there wasn’t a single shred of genuine love, relief, or affection in his eyes. Heena’s sharp instincts locked onto his gaze instantly; she knew this bastard was rely testing her, trying to probe the depth of her amnesia to see if she knew the truth about the night she "died."
Heena slowly turned her head to look at him. The sweet, dimpled smile she had given her grandmother vanished instantly, her expression turning frostier than a winter morning.
"I apologize, my lord," Heena said, her voice dropping into a tone of aloof, chilling aristocratic politeness. "But I seem to have completely forgotten which noble house you belong to."
’Oof.’
The words hit him like a physical blow, and a sharp, deeply buried flash of humiliation flickered in the man’s eyes. Heena had intentionally aid her arrow straight at the deepest, most agonizing insecurity shared by all four of the adopted grooms. None of them belonged to wealthy, prestigious high-ranking families, and they were definitely not on par with the ancient, illustrious bloodline of the Marquisate.
But this eldest one, Kavien, was by far the worst off. His biological family was completely unknown—utterly useless, naless noble-born commoners who had basically handed him over to the Marquis house to climb the social ladder.
And that was precisely why Heena was so incredibly suspicious of him. A man with everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose was always the first one to slip a knife between a daughter’s ribs.
Kavien fought to control his expression, desperately trying to mask the ugly surge of resentnt tightening his jaw. He had always prided himself on his composure, but he was inherently bad at hiding his humiliation when his glaring lack of background was thrown directly in his face.
Before he could offer a strained defense, the Marchioness quickly glided over to his side. She placed a reassuring, maternal tap on Kavien’s hand, drawing herself up as she leveled a sharp, reprimanding glare at Heena.
"Daughter," the Marchioness chided, her voice dripping with high-society disapproval. "What type of mannerless way is that to speak to your own grooms? Kavien has been working tirelessly for this family in your absence. You should show so gratitude instead of insulting his station."
Heena turned her head slightly, her gaze locking onto her biological mother with an expression of pure, unbothered curiosity.
"How strange, Maa," Heena murmured, her voice laced with a dangerous, quiet sweetness. "I have only been back for such a short ti. You have not even asked how I was doing, where I slept, or what I suffered all these years. And yet, the very first thing you do is comnt on how I choose to speak to a groom."
She let a small, razor-sharp smile graze her lips. "If an outsider were standing here right now, they would honestly think that you are my mother-in-law, and that ’he’ is your biological son."
The Marchioness’s face instantly turned an ash-pale white. The subtle implication—that she cared more about a naless, adopted boy than her own resurrected flesh and blood—was a devastating blow to her public standing, even within the walls of the estate.
Breaking the suffocating tension she had just created, Heena suddenly let out a bright, lodic laugh. She turned back to the matriarch, tilting her head playfully. "How was my joke, Grandma? Didn’t it sound realistic?"
The old lady looked at her granddaughter’s mischievous face, her stern features softening instantly. She reached up and gave Heena’s ear a gentle, affectionate pull. "Still being incredibly playful, huh? You haven’t lost your sharp tongue, you little troublemaker."
But despite her warm words, a terrifying, icy glint flashed within the old woman’s eyes the mont she looked past Heena toward the Marchioness. The silent ssage radiating from the matriarch was loud and clear: ’I will deal with you later.’
Throughout this entire exchange, the Marquis remained entirely silent, standing like a shadow near the edge of the veranda. Beside him, the remaining three grooms maintained the exact sa quiet, watchful posture.
Heena wasn’t the least bit surprised by their silence. These three idiots had been hand-picked and ticulously educated under the Marquis’s direct supervision, aning they actually possessed functioning brains—unlike the reactionary Kavien.
She knew precisely why they were staying so dead silent, refusing to step into the crossfire. They weren’t just being polite; they were observing her. They were asuring the depth of her movents, testing her sharp reflexes, and trying to calculate exactly how deft and dangerous this returned heiress truly was.
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