She Cut the Seamstress’s Dress to Humiliate Her—Then a Hidden Gold Pouch Revealed the Heiress They Had Buried for 24 Years

Chapter 09 - Fire at Blackwood Lodge

The emergency lights failed within seconds.

Clara remembered Lillian’s description of the old servant passage and felt along the stone wall until she found a narrow iron latch. The panel opened into a tunnel barely wide enough to crawl through.

She pushed Vivienne ahead of her. Adrian followed after helping Detective Park restrain Marcus with plastic cuffs. The investigator dragged him through the smoke while fire crews broke through the cellar entrance from outside.

They emerged near the lake as part of the remaining roof collapsed.

Marcus survived with minor burns and was taken into custody. Adrian suffered a deep cut along his arm, but he refused treatment until Clara and Vivienne were examined.

Vivienne sat beneath an emergency blanket, staring at the flames.

“I almost became him,” she said.

“You made choices,” Clara replied. “So did he.”

“Do you hate me?”

Clara looked at the woman who had cut open her dress and exposed the pouch that changed everything.

“I don’t know you well enough to hate all of you,” she said. “But I won’t pretend you didn’t hurt me.”

Vivienne nodded. “I’ll testify.”

Firefighters recovered three sealed film canisters from the steel room. The water damage was limited, and specialists believed the images could be restored. Marcus’s confession at the scene had also been recorded by Detective Park’s body camera.

At the hospital, Adrian received twelve stitches. Clara sat beside him while rain struck the window.

“You agreed to enter a burned lodge with a suspected criminal,” he said.

“You followed me.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It is not criticism either.”

He smiled despite the pain. Then his expression softened. “When this is over, everyone will tell you what being a Bellmont requires. Remember that you existed before they found you.”

Clara took his uninjured hand.

“What if I don’t want the company?”

“Then don’t take it.”

“What if I want to change it?”

“Then make them afraid of your ideas, not your last name.”

The board vote was less than eight hours away. Edmund urged Clara to rest. Instead, she spent the night reviewing pension records, employee contracts, and the succession charter.

At dawn, she recorded a statement.

She did not call herself the rightful heiress. She introduced herself as Clara Hart, daughter of Lillian Bellmont and James Avery, raised by Margaret Hart.

“I was not found because a wealthy family suddenly recognized me,” she said. “I was found because the woman who saved me left evidence, a frightened daughter remembered a song, and people finally listened.”