Chapter 6 - The Queen Mother’s Doctor
Dr. Lucian Graves denied intending harm.
“That sentence is being twisted.”
Adrian slammed the note onto the table.
“You discussed whether my wife could survive a dress.”
Graves looked toward Helena.
Helena said nothing.
The doctor claimed Helena asked only whether brief compression was dangerous.
He answered that serious damage was unlikely.
“Unlikely?” Dr. Vale snapped. “Her repair was incomplete.”
Graves shrugged.
“I worked from the records I was given.”
“Records you helped alter.”
Silence.
Then Mara brought payment ledgers.
Helena had paid Graves private bonuses after Julian’s birth, after Miriam’s dismissal, and again two days before the ball.
Isabella watched the men argue over evidence.
Then pain cut through her abdomen.
She sat.
Dr. Vale noticed immediately.
“Where?”
She pointed.
His face changed.
“The gown may have strained the repair.”
Adrian stepped forward.
Isabella raised a hand.
“No.”
He stopped.
Dr. Vale ordered scans.
The result came before midnight.
The damage was real.
Not fatal.
But Isabella needed another operation.
Adrian stood outside her rooms.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him.
“That sentence is getting very crowded.”
He flinched.
Before surgery, Isabella made her conditions clear.
Helena would have no access to Julian.
Her medical care would no longer pass through political offices.
And Adrian would not control who entered her room.
He nodded.
“You don’t trust me.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
The surgery lasted three hours.
When Isabella woke, Mara sat beside her.
Adrian waited outside.
He did not force his way in.
Hours later, she allowed him five minutes.
He told her Helena had been removed from the regency council pending inquiry.
Then Dr. Vale entered carrying the original surgical record from Julian’s birth.
“There is something neither of you was told.”
Isabella’s stomach tightened.
The damage from childbirth meant another pregnancy could be extremely dangerous.
Helena had known that from the beginning.
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And the fitness file contained one final recommendation:
IF QUEEN ISABELLA CANNOT PRODUCE ANOTHER HEIR, THE KING SHOULD CONSIDER A DYNASTIC ALTERNATIVE.
