Chapter 18 - Grace on the StandThe custody hearing was closed to the public, but the damage outside was loud enough.
Headlines screamed.
Photographers followed Grace’s aunt.
Victoria gave a tearful interview about “concern for the children.”
Eleanor arrived at court dressed in black, looking like a wounded queen.
Grace arrived in a navy dress borrowed from Dr. Cole, with her hair pinned back and her hands folded so tightly her knuckles showed.
Alexander wanted to tell her she did not have to testify.
But that would have insulted her courage.
So he only said, “Thank you.”
Grace looked at him. “Do not thank me yet.”
The opposing solicitor tried to make her small.
“You were employed as housekeeping staff, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Not a licensed physiotherapist?”
“No.”
“Yet you took it upon yourself to interfere with a disabled child’s care?”
Grace lifted her chin. “I took it upon myself to sit on the floor with a little girl everyone else had placed in a chair.”
The judge looked up.
The solicitor pressed harder. “You developed an inappropriate attachment to the children.”
Grace’s voice trembled, but did not break.
“I developed an appropriate concern.”
“Is it true Iris Whitmore walked for you before she walked for her father?”
The room went silent.
Alexander closed his eyes.
Grace looked at him once.
Then she answered.
“No. Iris walked for herself. Adults keep trying to own it. We should stop.”
Even the judge paused.
Then Dr. Cole testified.
Then the lab report.
Then the bracelet footage.
By the time Nathan played Eleanor’s voice saying, “No servant becomes necessary in my son’s house,” the case had shifted.
Eleanor stared straight ahead.
Charles did not.
He leaned toward his solicitor and whispered urgently.
Grace saw it.
So did Alexander.
The judge suspended Charles’s petition pending investigation.
But as they left court, Charles stepped close enough for Alexander to hear.
“You should have let the dead stay buried.”
Alexander turned.
May you like
Charles smiled.
“Ask your nanny what her mother really did that night.”
