Previously
Georg Salt attempts to force his wife, Henrietta Salt, to become the Emperor's mistress to secure his political advancement. Henrietta, disgusted by his opportunism, demands a divorce and physically assaults him to create a legal justification for their separation.
Billy, an aide known for ferreting out all sorts of trashy rumors, brought forward a rather intriguing story.
“Who?”
“Count Salt, the Vice Minister of Finance. The one who recently received that unprecedented promotion.”
“Count Salt filed for divorce?”
“No, sir. I’m telling you the Countess filed it.”
As far as the Duke knew, Count Salt was far removed from the primary grounds for divorce, such as gambling or violence.
Of course, the man was petty and greedy, but flaws of character were hardly legal justification for divorce.
“Why? Did the Count commit adultery or something?”
“They say it was irreconcilable differences.”
“What?”
The story was growing more interesting.
“What’s even more absurd—and this is actual testimony from the courtroom—is that the Count took a beating from his wife.”
“…”
“He took quite a thrashing, apparently. The police who first found him thought he was dead. Isn't that something?”
Who was the remarkable one? The one who merely took the beating, or the one who dished out that much?
“Even so, the Count insisted he wouldn't divorce his wife.”
Evidently, the one on the receiving end was the remarkable one.
To want to stay together after that.
“In the end, it wasn’t irreconcilable differences, but the wife’s domestic violence that was accepted as grounds, and the divorce went through.”
“Which means….”
“Yes. Since the wife was the one who turned violent and the one who demanded the divorce, she was thrown out without a copper. The lady herself, that is.”
“Is the woman a fool?”
“Who knows? Her reputation in high society seemed decent enough. But what she said in the courtroom was a real spectacle.”
“‘I intend to keep beating my husband in the future. Because his behavior calls for it. Unless my husband changes, I see no reason to change myself.’”
In short, she had spouted the classic domestic abuser line: he had it coming, so she hit him.
“So it's not gossip, it’s a crime.”
He felt a faint curiosity about what was going on in the head of a woman who cast away both honor and fortune over mere differences in temperament.
If she had gone so far as to push through such a disgraceful divorce, there might have been a real reason behind it.
Yet at that point, the Duke's appetite for stimulation ground to a halt.
Light gossip and the parlor chatter of socialites offered an entertaining spark, but they were equally volatile and fleeting.
Well, the world was full of oddities. Perhaps it really was just a clash of personalities.
The Duke gave the former Countess no further thought.
And just like that, boredom settled over him once more.
***
“Henrietta Matyas, come out. You're released.”
A cold voice sounded, and the iron door of the cell swung open.
Henrietta roughly tidied her disheveled hair and stepped past the iron door.
Two guards were waiting for her.
“How long has it been since I was locked in here?”
At the unexpected question, one of the guards furrowed his brow and replied,
“Two months and ten days.”
“Is that all? Isn’t that a bit too fast for a release? Aggravated assault is a serious offense, after all.”
She had driven the heel of her shoe straight into Count Salt’s groin, so it certainly qualified as aggravated assault.
The guard confronted by Henrietta's question parted his lips slightly in utter disbelief.
What was this? Why did she sound unhappy about being let out early?
He had suspected as much ever since hearing she beat her husband half to death, but this woman was clearly out of her mind.
“It's because you are a noble, and your husband didn’t wish to press charges.”
“Ex-husband.”
“…”
The guard didn't even bother to respond now.
With an utterly bureaucratic detachment, they unbarred the front gates and ushered Henrietta out as if kicking her to the curb.
Outside the prison, families of inmates awaited their loved ones, but none of them belonged to Henrietta.
Her ex-husband was no longer family, and she had never expected anything from her aunt to begin with.
‘Oh, so that means….’
Am I truly on my own now?
I like this.
“Heh.”
Her shoulders shook with a muffled laugh, as though she could hardly contain her joy.
Naturally, onlookers stared and whispered among themselves.
With her notoriety already blanketing the entire capital, kind words were out of the question.
“Look, it's her. That lunatic Countess. They said today was her release date.”
“No, they say she isn't crazy. Apparently she spoke with perfect clarity in court.”
“Which makes her a lunatic! Would anyone sane do that?”
“I heard she beat her husband within an inch of his life, bragged she was in the right, and demanded a divorce. It makes no sense; she’s either an idiot or a madwoman.”
“I read in the papers that an expert called it intermittent explosive disorder, a personality flaw.”
“Doesn’t that just mean she’s got a rotten temper?”
People edged away to clear a path, avoiding her as she strolled past with an unhinged smile.
While Henrietta had been idling away her time in prison, she had become the empire's official villainess.
Yet Henrietta didn't care in the slightest.
At this moment, infamy was far more useful to her.
No matter how much of a rake the Emperor might be, even he would hesitate to take in a woman saddled with this degree of notoriety as his mistress.
The summer sky was remarkably blue.
Basking in the stares of the crowd, Henrietta spread her arms wide and drew in the scent of freedom.
Though slightly tangled, her hair caught the sunlight and gleamed with a noble golden hue.
Everything was perfect.
There was only one minor issue: she was virtually penniless.
All Henrietta possessed now were a few pieces of jewelry left behind by her mother and the key to the chest holding her family’s fortune.
She wasn't whining about being practically broke while holding the key to a family fortune.
Henrietta let out a sigh as she looked down at the key, as weathered as an ancient relic.
‘Is that really the only way?’
Risking one’s life over livelihood was, in a sense, only natural.
However, to secure a living through ‘that method’ Henrietta had in mind, she would have to wager her life in a literal gamble.
In high society, it was merely known that the Matyas family had fallen into steep decline after her great-great-grandfather, Horvat Matyas, perished in the Monster Forest.
That wasn't wrong, but it wasn't entirely accurate either. The true reason the Matyas family fell was a lack of money. They didn't run out of money because of their ruin; their ruin occurred because they had no money.
Her great-great-grandfather died in the Monster Forest, and her great-grandfather, barely escaping with his life, abandoned the family fortune in the forest as he fled. So desperate had his escape been that he couldn't even grab a handful of jewels.
Afterward, her great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and uncle had all ventured in and out of the Monster Forest to recover the fortune, only to go missing.
Missing was just a polite way of saying dead.
And Henrietta, the last blood of the Matyas line, had never possessed even a speck of interest in retrieving the family fortune.
Even back in her great-grandfather's time, there had been a few parcels of land remaining in their estate, but her grandfather and father had squandered them away bit by bit to outfit expeditions into the Monster Forest.
She was utterly sick of the family fortune and monsters alike.
That was the very reason she had endured a humiliating marriage.
To survive.
Yet in her current penniless state, there was no helping it.
Even a divorcee had to eat.
‘Better to put up a fight than starve to death.’
Henrietta gripped the key firmly with grim resolve.
If there was one slight hitch, it was that the Monster Forest was currently designated a restricted area, but fortunately, she had a way to solve that problem.
***
Time flowed slower for Duke Krakow than for other men.
To the Duke's perception, it was practically standing still.
The drowsy summer sunlight did its part in dragging out his dull hours.
It happened one day while he was dozing off, feeling the afternoon sun warm his short, chestnut hair and the breeze by the window soothingly cool it.
The Duke's closed eyes snapped open, and a spark returned to his dull black pupils.
“Who did what?”
His aide had just reported that a slight problem had arisen regarding an enlistment application.
Upon hearing the applicant's name, Kalinin's sleepiness vanished, and he promptly resolved to conduct the interview himself.