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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Proposal
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Eric let out a ragged breath and spoke calmly.
“If you want to get out of here alive, you'd better untie me, Miss Imeline. As you said, I came here to meet the princess, and she…”
“She almost returned to the palace without knowing the Orleans family's secret. If it weren't for me.”
I waved the paper, on which translucent letters shimmered.
I realized it after seeing Eric's expression last night.
Eric had only managed to steal the documents; he didn't know how to reveal the secret ink within. That meant the princess, his presumed accomplice, was also likely unaware of the secrets these papers held.
But what if I went to the princess and spilled the secret…? And what if I mentioned that it seemed Eric had ‘deliberately’ hidden this secret from Her Highness…?
“You'd be in quite a bind if you don't cooperate with me now, wouldn't you? Right?”
I asked, my eyes wide, and Eric fell silent for a moment. Soon, with a look of humiliation but in a voice feigning composure, he spoke.
“So you're saying you need my cooperation too. Whatever you want, be it money or something else, let's talk after you untie me. I'll listen seriously.”
*I've caught a big one.*
I had a feeling I'd hooked a man far greater than any I'd intended to catch here tonight.
Nodding, I walked toward the restraints binding Eric's hands. His two red eyes followed me.
Eric was glaring at me as if he wanted to devour me on the spot, but I didn't avoid his gaze. Instead, I met it as I climbed onto the bed, placing one leg over him.
Eric's face twisted.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, you're so big…”
“Are you trying to climb over me? Just give me the key. Then I'll…”
Despite Eric's grumbling, I successfully straddled him.
Eric coughed dryly and avoided my gaze. I placed my hand over his. He looked at me as if to protest.
“Smile.”
“What?”
“I mean… we need the picture to come out nicely.”
*Click.*
I pressed the button on the small object I had been secretly clutching in my hand.
*Flash!*
At the same time, a white light flashed before our eyes.
Eric shouted.
“What is this now!”
I kindly pointed to the camera leaning against the wall for Eric. I didn't forget to show him the switch I'd been holding.
“I told you. They sell all sorts of things in the capital. A camera you can operate from a distance with a switch like this was ridiculously cheap, you know?”
With that, I took the film from the camera against the wall and put it in the hotel room's safe.
Eric, past anger and now just dumbfounded, shook his still-bound arms.
*Sorry. I never actually planned on untying you.*
“What in the world is going on in that head of yours, Imeline Wedgwood!”
“Whatever it is, it's more than what's in yours.”
I said, tapping my head with my finger.
Chapter 3. In Bluebeard's Dark Basement
Eric remained trapped on the bed, his hands still tied in the restraints.
He stared down at the restraints and clenched his jaw.
“Where on earth did you buy restraints like these?”
“I bought them nearby in a hurry. While you were unconscious, Young Lord, I sold a few of the gold buttons from your jacket…”
“My jacket? You sold the buttons from my jacket?”
Eric finally looked at his uniform, neatly placed on the sofa. I nodded and waved my hands dismissively.
“Think of it as a donation. I hear you regularly donate to an orphanage for underprivileged commoner children. I'm in a much tougher spot than you'd think. Very underprivileged.”
And the gold buttons stamped with the Orleans crest were very expensive. Expensive enough to buy these mana restraints.
…I'm so jealous.
I suppressed the feelings of inferiority seeping out from my chest and spoke.
“Now, let's talk.”
“Talk? Like this?”
Eric touched his forehead.
But he had no other choice.
A moment later, Eric demanded something to wear, and I handed him his jacket.
As Eric put on the jacket, I licked my lips and said.
“You looked better without it. Such a shame.”
“Keep thoughts like that to yourself.”
Eric said in a voice thick with suppressed anger. I scoffed in response.
“Oh, I'm thinking much more than that in my head.”
Eric sighed, as if he was too exhausted to even reply anymore.
In truth, Eric was probably the one with a mountain of questions for me, but I was the one in a hurry.
In 48 hours, my mother's wedding would mark the beginning of my family's tragic fate.
I placed the documents on the table between Eric and me.
“To be honest, I'm not really interested in seeing virtue rewarded and vice punished.”
“I, on the other hand, am very interested, Imeline. And if I had to choose between good and evil for you, you'd be on the side of evil.”
*Who doesn't know that?* I wasn't the least bit fazed by Eric's insult. He was only speaking the truth, after all.
So, I cleanly ignored Eric's comment and said what I had prepared.
“That's why I'm willing to pretend I know nothing about the Orleans family's secrets. For the eternal glory of the Duke and the Young Lord.”
Eric tried to persuade me in a voice that, like a tutor for unruly children, feigned calmness but was clearly suppressing anger.
“Miss Imeline. Even if you take that ledger, if you can't reveal its source…”
“Oh, and I also won't be leaking the film in that safe to the tabloids.”
I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at the safe behind me.
Eric's eyebrow twitched.
He was trying hard to maintain his composure, but the Eric before me was clearly agitated.
After a few coincidental encounters with Eric recently, I was starting to understand him.
Eric was a rather transparent person. Honest, naive, arrogant… In any case, the kind of person who was fundamentally incompatible with me, my mother, or Philip.
I looked into Eric's red eyes.
*But they're just so similar…*
Looking into Eric's eyes, I felt as if the Duke of Orleans's red eyes were flickering before me.
“My price is simple. You're going to stop the marriage between my mother and the Duke of Orleans. You don't like us anyway, right?”
Eric looked as if I'd hit a nerve.
“And stopping the marriage isn't even that difficult for you. You must have stakes in the family's many businesses and properties, and the branch families are probably already unhappy about the Duke's marriage. So, if we add a little scandal to the mix, for instance…”
I narrowed my eyes, looked at Eric's broad chest, and muttered.
“‘I saw Imeline Wedgwood at the Rose that Blooms at Night yesterday, mingling with some men. A truly terrible person. I could never be family with a woman like that.’ You spread rumors like that. If I'm confronted, I'll burst into tears on the spot and indirectly admit to it. Then the Duke will have no choice but to listen to the branch families and his own son, don't you think…?”
After that, I'll subtly let the Duke know that the coastal land wasn't actually ours, and then I'll take my family and go back to the south.
Isn't that the best-case scenario for everyone?
On top of that, if Eric gives us the promised 100,000 gold, we can open a stew shop or something and live honest lives from now on.
Eric gets the benefit of not having a train wreck of a stepsister like me, and the Duke of Orleans gets to keep doing his evil deeds until the day he dies. A win-win.
In a way, this is just following the natural order of things.
“Wait. So, your condition is… for me to break off the marriage between your mother and my father?”
Eric asked, as if he couldn't understand. I nodded. But his expression only grew more confused.
“Wasn't your and your mother's plan to make her the Duchess and suck the family fortune dry?”
My eyes widened at Eric's words.
“You knew?”
Eric looked disgusted by my shamelessness.
“How could I not? It's what your mother has done throughout her last four marriages.”
*What she's done during four marriages.*
It wasn't wrong. But it wasn't right, either.
I muttered bitterly.
“Those men must have done things to Helena during those four marriages, too…”
“What did they do?”
Eric looked at me.
