Chapter 15
As if he had read William’s mind, the man’s voice dropped with exquisite timing. When Calyx’s eyes met his, William visibly froze.
Calyx watched him quietly for a moment before letting out a low chuckle.
“I know my role better than anyone.”
“…….”
“So. Are the axes being sharpened?”
‘Sharpening the axes’ was their private code, a query regarding the current status of the soldiers hidden throughout Matila.
As was usually the case when they discussed matters that should not be overheard, high-pitched nasal moans began to drift in from the adjoining room once again.
Using the cries of a couple enjoying a secret tryst as a veil, the two men delved back into their dangerous discussion.
Even as they exchanged information, the smirk playing on Calyx’s lips did not fade for a long time.
“I’ll tell you something, Mr. Katz. In this world, the thing I fear most is a book.”
The suitor sitting across from Lottie blinked. It wasn’t a question about how her day was, or a discussion about a trendy play or sport—it was about books?
“Hardcover books are truly violent! Just imagine having to hold something so thick and heavy all morning with frail arms like mine. Besides, I’m certain that if I stare at all those cramped letters on the paper for too long, I’ll go blind!”
“I… see.”
“I don’t want to be blind. Then I wouldn’t be able to see my own pretty face anymore.”
Her bizarre logic continued after that.
When he brought up the opera, she claimed that sopranos could only hit such high notes because they swallowed nightingales alive.
When he mentioned restaurants, she simply blinked and said she couldn’t understand a single word of the Trie language.
Mr. Katz looked at Miss Evanshire and came to a realization.
This woman wasn’t innocent. She was just stupid.
What use was beauty or an inheritance if you couldn’t hold a conversation with her?
“I love children. That’s why when I get married, I’m going to plant so many flowers in the garden. Because all babies are born inside flower buds!”
That was the final blow that sealed his judgment.
Mr. Katz was so stunned that he looked toward Isabel, who was sitting by the drawing-room window. She, too, looked as though her heart were crumbling at the sight of her bird-brained great-niece.
Ultimately, Mr. Katz fled the room barely five minutes after arriving to court her.
The next visitor, and the one after that, all escaped in a similar manner and in a similar timeframe.
When the maid announced that there were no more visitors for the morning, Isabel’s hand, which was holding a needle, trembled slightly.
Lottie saw it clearly but pretended not to notice as she popped a cookie into her mouth.
‘Another successful day of driving away suitors.’
As news of Lottie and Andrew’s broken engagement spread far and wide, Blue Brick began to be swarmed once again by unmarried men seeking her hand.
Considering she had been embroiled in two massive scandals, the sheer volume of proposals was staggering; her great-aunt might have even been pleased.
If Lottie were a typical girl who harbored fantasies about marriage, that joy might have actually borne fruit.
‘I will never, ever marry anyone for the rest of my life.’
Ever since she realized her true feelings at the hunting grounds, the thought made Lottie feel as though she were soaring on the wind. Her resolve to remain single had become that firm.
Now, it was time to consider what came after not marrying anyone.
‘Without economic independence, a declaration of non-marriage is nothing but an illusion.’
If she were the daughter of a middle-class family, it might not have been such a difficult problem.
But she was an Evanshire.
Her father was the Earl of Wix, a title passed down from his late elder brother and his late father before him, and he had a duty to preserve it.
As his daughter, Lottie could not be free from that duty and responsibility.
The best way she could fulfill that duty, having no brothers, was marriage. Bringing in a son-in-law to carry on the family name and producing an heir.
Therefore, Lottie’s decision to remain single was no different from saying she would abandon the duty she was born with as a member of the family. It meant that even if she became economically independent to avoid marriage, that wouldn’t be the end of it.
‘If Father passes away while I’m still unmarried… the Earldom and the lands attached to it will either fall into limbo or vanish forever.’
If her father adopted a son to inherit the family, Evanshire would remain Evanshire forever.
The family would continue its long history as it always had, and she would be free to live her life as she pleased.
She knew that. She knew it well.
‘Then why do I feel so uncomfortable and stifled in a corner of my heart?’
Was that really the only way? Could her single life and the survival of the family not coexist without relying on someone else?
‘I am an Evanshire too.’
Lottie, thinking that even the Queen existed, swallowed a hollow laugh.
She had once been the Queen’s daughter-in-law.
Having watched what kind of person her mother-in-law was from the closest possible distance, Lottie knew well that just because she had become Queen didn’t mean she would recognize the inheritance rights of an unmarried woman.
Changing the ancient laws of succession would require exhausting friction with conservative aristocratic parliamentarians, and women without the right to vote were of no help to her rule.
Was there no way to protect the family without getting married and without relying on someone else?
Because of that worry, Lottie had spent some time indulging in the peerage records of Matila.
Almost all of Matila’s nobles were those who had performed deeds worthy of praise and were granted titles.
Naturally, if she wanted to inherit the family, she had to perform a great deed. A deed so great that it could ignore the law excluding women from the line of succession.
But there was no war, so where could she perform such a feat? And how?
Was there anything she was exceptionally good at that could be considered a great deed?
‘Matchmaking?’
Lottie let out a smirk as she recalled the lists of remarriages that had once filled several bundles.
She was someone who had investigated most men thoroughly, grasping not only their life stories but also their personalities and tastes, yet now she was barely using that knowledge to build a wall against men like Mr. Katz.
‘The business with Andrew was just a stroke of luck.’
The truth—that the engagement fell through because Andrew had fallen for another woman—was something only Lottie and the Thompson family knew, kept secret even from Isabel and her father.
Outsiders, unaware of the internal details, pitied the two innocent families for the sudden disaster that had struck them. And, as if by agreement, they poured all their arrows of criticism into one place.
— I have a very economical way to break the engagement. Would you like to hear it?
The thought of Andrew eventually dragged up a memory she had been suppressing.
The man was right. Lottie had never seen a more convenient or efficient breakup.
The dissolution of Lottie and Andrew’s engagement was officially packaged as the Thompson family giving up a woman marked by the deposed crown prince—a reason that was suitably unavoidable and aristocratic.
The Thompson family did not hold the Evanshire family responsible for any of the deposed prince’s outrages. Likewise, the Evanshires did not criticize the Thompsons for notifying them of the breakup.
In the end, no one lost anything.
And in that process, she had done nothing again.
She hated the fact that she was clearly indebted to Calyx Valdea. She hated the fact that, even though it was a debt she never wanted, she had no grounds to be angry because she hadn’t suffered any loss.
Furthermore, she hated that the means by which he had placed that debt upon her was non-consensual, and that the means itself was…
“Damn it.”
“……?!”
The maid clearing the table flinched at Lottie’s sharp curse.
Lottie rubbed her lips vigorously with the back of her hand and sank into thought.
Why did he commit such an atrocity then?
Was he a philanthropist who couldn’t stand not helping a lady in distress?
Or was it just a momentary amusement that could only be understood by a madman’s mind?
If so, did that mean she had been played with as his toy for the day?
No matter how much she rubbed her lips, the sensation of that moment clinging to her skin was still vivid even after fifteen days.
‘Why did it have to be a kiss?’
Even if she dismissed it as a madman’s crazy act, why? There are plenty of things like hugging or holding hands, so why that?
She remembered the first time she met him after getting engaged to Padrick in the past.
That day was the first day the deposed crown prince, who had been strictly forbidden from entering the Royal Palace, was officially allowed back.
Lottie, who had heard rumors that her brother-in-law had suffered from madness for a long time, had met Calyx Valdea while feeling incredibly tense.
— I see my brother’s bride is beautiful enough to be wasted on him.
Her brother-in-law, whom she was meeting for the first time, had been so poised that it was hard to believe he was a madman. Perhaps that was why she had momentarily relaxed when he kissed the back of her hand.
Unfortunately, the deposed prince’s madness had not been cured, and eventually, that incident occurred.
Even as he was dragged out by the guards, Calyx had laughed like a madman. Lottie had burst into tears because of the man who had completely ransacked her mouth in that short time.
It was horrific, and she felt sinful just looking at her husband’s face. She felt as though she had suddenly become a depraved woman.
She never dreamed she would feel the same way now, in her second life.
After the Royal Palace ball, she had firmly believed she had succeeded in changing her future. Thus, she had no doubt that she would live a completely different life from the past.
But the variable named Calyx Valdea kept trying to regress to the past with the same actions.
— What is meant to happen will happen.
No, Great-Aunt. That must never happen. If it does, I will die at that man’s hands.
“…….”
When Lottie’s eyes met hers, Isabel, who had been momentarily at a loss, pulled the corners of her mouth into an awkward smile.
It was a smile that seemed to feel both pity and anxiety for her great-niece, who looked as if she had a screw loose from the shock of the broken engagement.
