Darius was moving exactly where she wanted him. Good boy. She smiled sadly at him. "This might be a shock to you... well, perhaps not. She's always been so different and her ways so much coarser than yours and your siblings'..." She swallowed and seemed to struggle for words. "Do you remember when you were boy and I had to spend some months at the Riviera until Pearl was born because it was a difficult pregnancy. Well... I was not pregnant then and the last thing I wanted..." her lip trembled again. She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. "The last thing I wanted was to be separated from you children and be exiled like that. But your father... he forced me. I was afraid of him."

She brought the handkerchief up again and wiped her cheek. Then she opened her eyes. "Your father couldn't keep his hands off one of the maids. Well, perhaps more than one. But to add insult to injury, he forced me to mother the bastard child he fathered. He threatened to harm me if I wouldn't or if I would ever tell anyone. Darius, Pearl is not your true sister. She's your father's bastard child, and he's now trying to hand the inheritance to her as a final slight to his real family.