Chapter 41

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Time to Act
-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Goodness, Duchess Vandermir, why does your face look so haggard...?”

“It’s shocking she even came out looking like that. Is she out of her mind?”

People gasped and whispered, seeing Aracilla, who appeared with a ghostly pallor.

But Aracilla paid them no mind, slowly crossing the hall, her gaze fixed solely on the Grand Duchess’s table.

When she finally reached the table, even the Grand Duchess seemed slightly taken aback.

“Do you have no sense? To appear in such a state, without a shred of shame...”

Ignoring whatever the Grand Duchess was saying, Aracilla opened her handbag. Though her movements weren’t extravagant, everyone watched her intently.

In the strange silence, Aracilla slowly retrieved something from her handbag. Held in her pale, slender fingers was a purple violet.

Why is that here...?

The noblewomen seated at the Grand Duchess’s table were slightly bewildered, and then an even more perplexing situation unfolded.

Thud. The purple violet Aracilla threw landed precisely in front of the Grand Duchess.

As everyone watched in shock, Aracilla’s lips parted.

“Grand Duchess, I must speak because I fear I will die at this rate. For the past week, I have done everything you commanded. Even if it was labor unbefitting a noblewoman, I did not refuse.”

Her voice, unusually clear and articulate, rippled through the hall.

Aracilla raised her chapped hands to her chest, making them clearly visible, and spoke.

“But no matter how hard I try, you refuse to accept me, and I no longer know what to do. Should I endure a public lashing here? Or perhaps, should I scrub the floors with a towel again? Will it end if I kneel at your feet and beg?”

The one who strikes first always wins.

Before coming here, Aracilla had acquired a single purple violet through Audrey.

Her intention was to preempt the Grand Duchess, who planned to have her stand there while she threw a flower and humiliated her, thereby sending her image spiraling down.

Though she hadn’t sought out anyone to sympathize with her, it didn’t matter.

Because they would surely appear.

She wanted tears to well up in her transparent, glass-like blue eyes... but tears didn’t come as easily as she’d hoped.

As a quick improvisation, Aracilla buried her face in her hands, as if weeping. People began to whisper, seeing her shoulders lightly tremble.

These were the neutral noblewomen invited to today’s tea party, excluding those aligned with the Grand Duchess.

“Did you hear what Duchess Vandermir just said? ‘Again’ means the Grand Duchess actually made her do those things, doesn’t it?”

“I naturally assumed the rumors were exaggerated, but it seems they weren’t.”

“Oh, dear. No matter how much she is the Grand Duchess Vandermir, this is a bit much...”

Most of them had recently heard rumors concerning Aracilla and the Grand Duchess.

While such conflicts and power struggles are common in the early stages of marriage, if they go too far, people are bound to become wary.

Confining someone, denying them meals, working them like a slave, even wielding a whip...!

Frankly, these were uncouth methods unbefitting the Grand Duchess Vandermir’s prestige, and not a few were secretly disappointed.

“Oh, dear, how distressed Duchess Vandermir must have been to act like this.”

“Seeing her weep like that is truly heartbreaking. She’s around the same age as my daughter, you see.”

“For our family, with only daughters, the future is already a cause for concern, making us sigh.”

Had things gone according to the Grand Duchess’s plan, they would have contributed to ruining Aracilla’s reputation. But Aracilla’s preemptive strike was having the exact opposite effect.

By sympathizing with Aracilla, they were indirectly empowering her.

Noticing the stirring atmosphere, the Grand Duchess let out a hollow laugh. She had known Aracilla was impudent, but she hadn’t realized she possessed such cunning, aiming to turn the tables on her.

‘Hah! So she cleverly found the flower from the invitation, did she? What a sly little minx.’

Skillfully calming her boiling rage, the Grand Duchess rose with an arrogant posture.

Her audacity to challenge her in front of others was commendable, but when it came to objective social verbal sparring, the Grand Duchess was a cut above.

If they truly clashed, there was no way she couldn’t defeat such a mere young girl.

“You, without a shred of shame, are now bringing household matters—”

Since there was no one else to throw a flower after Aracilla anyway, it was the moment she intended to speak as the highest elder of the Vandermir Ducal Family.

Aracilla, aware that a direct verbal confrontation with the Grand Duchess would be to her detriment, proceeded with her next plan.

“Oh, my head.”

She clutched her temples, stumbled, and then collapsed.

“Gasp! Duchess Vandermir has collapsed!”

“Someone, go call for help!”

Aracilla’s sudden collapse threw the Hounds Countship hall into chaos. Since it was rare for someone to faint, everyone was flustered and at a loss.

Aracilla lay pitifully on the floor, like a flower broken by a vulgar hand, her complexion so exceedingly pale that no one suspected she was putting on a masterful fainting act.

“Madam—!”

Three maids, summoned through the open hall doors, rushed in breathlessly. They were the maids from the Vandermir mansion, led by Audrey.

They urgently checked their mistress’s complexion and massaged her hands and feet. Aracilla secretly wiggled a finger and poked Audrey.

She had given Audrey special instructions while preparing for this occasion.

Fortunately, Audrey understood the signal and, displaying far superior acting skills than her mistress, cried out to the Grand Duchess.

“Grand Duchess, this is truly too much! Even if you dislike Madam, how can you torment someone so cruelly? Since you arrived, Madam hasn’t slept more than three or four hours a day, and hasn’t had a single proper meal. Is it right to drain a person’s lifeblood like this? Please, just kill me instead!”

The loyal maid’s tearful plea spread deeply and rapidly among the people. Aracilla, completely limp and relaxed, admired her internally.

Wow, our Audrey could be a stage actress, couldn’t she?

Meanwhile, the Grand Duchess, who had listened to her opponent’s entire speech and hadn’t even begun her own due to Aracilla’s collapse, was simply dumbfounded.

It was infuriating enough to have been cut off mid-sentence, but now Aracilla’s personal maid was openly cornering her, making her furious.

“How dare a lowly maid like you raise her voice here! Are you implying that your mistress’s collapse is my fault?!”

“Grand Duchess, do you not recall making Madam do housework like a maid? Just yesterday, Madam was all alone cleaning the corridor windows of the guest room where you are staying! She must have overworked herself daily, placing a tremendous strain on her body!”

Another maid, spurred by Audrey’s outcry, refuted with tears streaming down her face. The remaining maid did not directly blame the Grand Duchess.

However—.

“Sob, sob, our poor Madam! Even so ill, she never shows it, always thinking of us first! How can we ever repay such kindness!”

She clutched Aracilla and wailed, adding even more dramatic effect.

Seeing the two maids, whom she hadn’t even briefed beforehand, perform better than expected, Aracilla desperately suppressed the urge for the corners of her lips to curl upwards.

Phew, it was a good idea to bring two more.

And among the onlookers who had witnessed this entire spectacle, a commotion arose, like a turbulent sea. It was because the Grand Duchess’s misdeeds felt increasingly egregious.

“Good heavens, preventing someone from sleeping and eating, isn’t that torture? And to make them work on top of that, it’s no different from treating them like a prisoner.”

“It’s unbelievable that something like this happened in a prestigious family like the Vandermir Ducal Family. Duchess Vandermir is someone’s precious daughter, yet she’s being abused like this.”

“Now that you mention it, didn’t the Grand Duchess have a similar conflict with the late first Duchess years ago?”

“That’s right. She died of illness, but it is rather unsettling to see similar events repeating.”

As public opinion increasingly turned against the Grand Duchess, the noblewomen aligned with her hesitated, unable to grasp the situation.

To anyone watching, the Grand Duchess was clearly the perpetrator, and Aracilla the victim. Taking the Grand Duchess’s side here was not easy.

“Th-the Grand Duchess must have had her reasons! How could she have known Duchess Vandermir was so frail?”

Even so, Countess Hounds bravely defended the Grand Duchess, but other nobles, well aware of the friendship between the two, turned away.

Listening to remarks that lacked objectivity would only be a disadvantage.

As the situation unfolded, making her the unjustly portrayed villain, the Grand Duchess’s blood pressure soared.

Her intention was to expose Aracilla’s negligent conduct through the Purple Violet Turning ritual, to discipline her and make her kneel at her feet. She had no intention of becoming known as someone who tormented her granddaughter-in-law to the point of collapse in a public setting.

‘My dignity! My reputation!’

As she clutched the back of her neck, having tried to bury Aracilla but only damaging her own image, the Hounds Countship’s personal physician arrived.

Soon, Aracilla was moved to the Countship’s drawing-room for examination, and the tea party thus fizzled out.

“Ensure today’s attendees keep quiet.”

As the Grand Duchess left the Countship, she gave Countess Hounds an order that was almost impossible to fulfill. It was a desperate, tearful struggle to prevent today’s events from spreading as rumors in high society.

However, even if the Countess had somehow silenced the attendees, the disaster that befell her the next day would have remained unchanged.

* * *

An anonymous tip arrived at , the most notorious newspaper in the Cetron Empire.

The tip claimed that Lady K and an opera singer were planning a secret rendezvous during the tea party at the Hounds Countship.

As it happened, many noblewomen attending the tea party had initials starting with K, such as Kate, Camilla, and Carrie.

With a ‘nothing to lose’ mindset, dispatched a reporter to cover the tea party.

The reporter, disguised as a grocery deliveryman, searched for Lady K with keen eyes but stumbled upon an unexpected situation.

‘A fight between the Grand Duchess Vandermir and the newlywed Duchess Vandermir!’

He watched with keen interest. It felt like seeing the true faces of nobles who always pretended to be refined.

Then, when Aracilla collapsed, he nearly jumped up and shouted ‘Scoop!’ without thinking.

A noble grandmother-in-law and her granddaughter-in-law fighting, and then one suddenly collapses – how could that not be a mouth-watering story?

Sensational headlines popped up like mushrooms in the mind of the reporter, who suffered from a terminal case of scoop-fever and attention-seeking.

「Secret Abuse Within a Prestigious Family? Why Does the New Bride Cry Every Night?」

「How Long Must We Witness the Conflict Between a Husband’s Family and His Wife! Exposing the Archaic Family Customs of a Certain Ducal Estate.」

「Duchess A, Rushed into Marriage, and Now... A Tragic End Too Sad to Witness.」

His hands itched, and he could no longer bear it.

Although he hadn’t witnessed the secret rendezvous between the noblewoman and the opera singer as reported, it didn’t matter, as he now had another story.

That evening, having acquired information that Aracilla had collapsed due to excessive stress and malnutrition, he excitedly wrote the article all night long.

And that article, the next morning, turned the Cetron Empire upside down.