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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: A Partnership Proposal
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“Do what?”
“A partnership.”
Of course, the partnership was just bait.
Bait to learn more about Young Lord Eric Orleans.
“You and I? Eric Orleans and Imeline Wedgwood?”
Eric began to simmer like a kettle slowly coming to a boil.
How absurd this proposal must sound to a high-and-mighty noble like him. Especially since he’d seen my brother and me shamelessly fawning over Margaret Beaufort last night.
“You lack business acumen, you see. Whereas I, as you can tell, am well-informed and a quick thinker.”
Of course, the real reason I was doing this wasn’t because I actually wanted to go into business with this man.
“What in the…!”
“I managed to get the son of the greatest ducal house on the continent to the negotiating table, after all. In just a few minutes.”
I pointed a finger at Eric.
At my words, Eric’s face grew redder and redder. Unable to contain himself, he shot up from his seat.
This is exactly what I wanted—
He paced over to the window as if trying to swallow his anger, but eventually, it burst forth.
“Ha…”
For Eric Orleans to hate me.
I calmly sipped the tea the maid had brought. Mmm, delicious. The expensive stuff really is the best. Not that I’d ever buy it with my own money.
For the record, this mansion was temporarily lent to us by a friend my mother has some dirt on, and this tea was a gift from the Duke a few days ago.
Meaning we didn’t pay for either of them.
What was it that friend, whose house my mother had extorted, called her…?
‘You parasitic humans!’
Ah, yes. Parasites. A fitting nickname for us.
But you know? If you don’t want to be infested with parasites, you should have lived a cleaner life in the first place. As they say, it takes one to know one, you scoundrels.
I advised Eric.
“It would be best not to show so much emotion at the negotiating table. Showing your hand so easily makes you predictable, and emotional displays don't inspire trust.”
“You speak as if you’re my strategist, all while blackmailing me.”
Eric glared at me.
I shrugged.
“It’s advice from a business partner.”
“Business partner, my foot!”
“Still, it’s rather impressive. I thought all you knew was how to play the part of the polite gentleman and dutiful son, but it seems you have it in you to defy your father.”
At my words, Eric’s gaze darkened for a moment. I seized the opportunity and asked him.
“It’s not easy surviving in a ducal house, is it? With your father marrying a viscountess who already has two children, you must be worried about the line of succession.”
I deliberately provoked him. His reaction was peculiar.
“The line of succession? I am not doing anything, nor will I ever do anything, because of you and Philip. The two of you, especially you, becoming my…”
“Stepsiblings.”
“...?”
“That’s what we’re becoming. Stepsiblings.”
I grinned. He seemed to be having trouble saying it, so I just said it for him. Why the long face?
More importantly, does this mean he’s not worried about people like us at all?
“Then why did you betray your father?”
“Imeline Wedgwood.”
Suddenly, Eric called my name in a calm voice.
He walked toward me, stopping just inches away. His red eyes glinted before me.
“If you value your life, you’d best stop this reckless behavior.”
His words made my body go rigid. In that moment, his voice sounded exactly like the Duke’s when he had said, ‘Hello, Imeline.’
I looked at Eric, my eyes filled with confusion.
Is this man my enemy? Or my friend?
I desperately hoped he could be my friend.
But if he was a psycho just like the Duke, trying to befriend him would be an incredibly dangerous undertaking.
“Oh, my, Young Lord! I do apologize. I wasn’t feeling well…”
Just then, a familiar voice drifted down as someone descended the stairs.
It was my mother.
Eric quickly turned his head toward her. His face was a hard mask as he bowed his head.
“I’ll leave the list of wedding gifts here, Madam.”
“What? Since you’re here, perhaps you’d like to stay for a cup of tea…”
Eric gritted his teeth at my mother’s words and glared at me.
“I’ve had quite enough tea with Miss Imeline. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Eric stormed out, leaving abruptly. My mother, who had been wearing a fake smile, clicked her tongue the moment he was gone.
“That… that rude brat. He’s acting like this because he’s afraid we’ll take what’s his. I mean, he has so much money, would it kill him to share a little? Who on earth did he get that personality from… I heard his birth mother was a complete lunatic. Does he take after her?”
Instead of responding to my mother’s prejudiced remarks, I leaned back weakly against the sofa and rubbed my temples.
Among the Duke’s evil deeds detailed in the documents I saw in my dream was the murder of the former duchess. It seemed he had passed it off to the public as a suicide.
And now, my mother was destined to share the same fate as that duchess. Once she married the Duke, and he realized that the land she supposedly owned was as good as gone.
The beautiful Helena Wedgwood.
My mother.
I still couldn’t forget the sight of her lying collapsed in the Duke’s office.
“Mother, about this marriage… can’t you call it off?”
I asked in a dark voice. My mother’s expression hardened.
“Why? Because Eric Orleans was being rude? Imeline, since when were you so weak? Have you forgotten what it was like living in that tiny barn?”
My mother looked at me, her eyes welling with tears as if she would cry at any moment.
“You don’t understand. The Duke truly cherishes me. It’s true I came to like him for his money, but… with him, I feel like I can really start a new life. I can forget all those horrible memories…”
I bit my lip at her words.
Horrible memories.
What were the horrible times for her? The days we were chased by debt collectors and she worked in a restaurant? Or…
I shook my head.
“But what if the Duke is actually the seed of misfortune? What if he doesn’t make you happy…?”
At my question, my mother looked up at me, her eyes suddenly filled with a strength that proved her near-tears were just an act.
“I don’t care if it brings misfortune. I’ll endure it for you and your brother.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
How am I supposed to persuade a mother like her? By saying, ‘Mother, I had a dream’?
*That would never work…*
If only I had concrete evidence… Even if I couldn’t use it to pressure the Duke, I might at least be able to convince my mother.
Concrete evidence.
*Like documents, for example. Or papers. Or something of the sort…*
Seeing that I had fallen silent, my mother spoke as if relieved.
“Now, let’s go to the dressmaker’s. Spending all the money the Duke sent with the gifts will make all those strange thoughts disappear!”
“Mother, you were just pretending to cry, weren’t you? You were acting.”
“Be quiet, you…!”
✵ ✵ ✵
The list of wedding gifts personally delivered by Eric Orleans included a dress for me.
When I heard its exact price, I nearly fainted.
“…Couldn’t they just give me the cash instead?”
As I said this, the face of Lily, the maid dispatched from the Orleans ducal estate to help with wedding preparations for the week, stiffened.
Her expression clearly said:
Is she serious?
I quickly put on a joking face and played it off.
“I just mean it’s an overwhelmingly generous dress, Lily.”
“Haha… I see. Miss Imeline, you’re quite different from what I’ve heard.”
“And what did you hear?”
“Um… I heard you were a quiet person who didn’t really tell jokes.”
Looking at Lily’s practiced smile, I thought, *this woman is a veteran maid*. What she really meant to say was that she’d heard I was some insecure country bumpkin.
Anyway.
I was now standing in front of a mirror in the dress shop.
I looked at myself in a yellow dress, one that would suit the wedding hall that was to be decorated with yellow lisianthus, and gave a crooked smile.
It doesn’t suit me at all.
Noticing my displeased expression, Lily asked, “Is something not to your liking?”
“No. I like it. Very much.”
As I flashed a grin, I heard my mother screaming from her fitting on the second floor.
“She’s trying on a dress, right? Not fighting a dragon.”
I asked the clerk, and she gave an awkward laugh.
“It seems the madam is not accustomed to corsets.”
Since when did my mother have any belly fat to hide with a corset?
Do these capital nobles think women don’t have ribs?
From husband number one to number four, my mother upgraded their status from commoner to rich commoner, and then to a viscount. But the higher their station, the more demanding and depraved my stepfathers became. And wasn't Duke Orleans the pinnacle of them all?
I shuddered, the image of Duke Orleans from my still-vivid dream flashing through my mind.
I will never give my mother to that psycho. Never!
And I’ll never give him my life either!
Truthfully, the best way to ruin this marriage was to use Eric.
That was why I had subtly prodded him by mentioning the line of succession.
If the Duke and my mother married, Eric would gain stepsiblings with not a drop of shared blood, so of course he wouldn’t look upon it favorably.
So, I had hoped to exploit that point, to provoke his nasty temper into sabotaging the marriage himself… but…
He said we were no competition for him.
And I couldn’t really argue with that.
No matter how official the marriage, how could the children of a country viscount—and not even the Duke’s biological children at that—ever hope to usurp Eric’s position?
The collateral branches were completely wrong to think Eric felt threatened by Philip and me.
Eric hadn’t felt the slightest bit threatened, even when I held his weakness over him and blackmailed him. In fact, he had threatened me.
‘If you value your life—’
A clear threat.
Real threats are made by powerful people like him. Not by a nobody like me.
Even if I tattled to the Duke about his business dealings, he wouldn’t disown his son for such a trivial reason. Eric would probably just get an earful, and that would be the end of it.
But I…
I would be relegated to a position where I was under the scrutiny of both the Duke and his son. And if both men were psychos, the threat to my life would be doubled.
“Then now…”
I started to tap my leg, my heart filling with anxiety.
As I shifted my weight to one leg and tapped my foot, Lily approached me with a startled look on her face.
“Ah, Miss!”
What now.
*What, never seen a noble lady stand on one leg before?*
In the end, the only option left was to cause a huge scandal myself, instead of trying to provoke Eric directly.
A scandal big enough to make Eric or the Duke declare that they couldn’t possibly allow a woman with a daughter like me into their family.
Of course, I’d have to cause this trouble without my clueless mother finding out. If she caught me, I’d be dragged away before I could even start.
A scandal… Should I go to some night ball, grab some random guy, and do something scandalous enough to end up in the papers?
Just as I was thinking this.
“Miss, the young ladies over there are looking this way. Please, stop tapping your leg…”
Lily said urgently.
It would have been nice if you’d told me a little sooner…
“Well, well, look who it is. Isn’t it red-haired Imeline?”
At the same time, a lavishly dressed noble lady from the capital approached me, a condescending smile on her face.
Red-haired Imeline.
Calling me by my old nickname.
“You are…”
