Chapter 19
The incident where the Duchess of Monde was officially banned from entering the imperial palace was a tragedy for the Monde ducal family, who were already scrambling through high society to gather funds and pay off their debts, but to everyone except the Monde family, it was merely a flashy headline that splendidly adorned the gossip columns of society.
What an utterly thrilling story! My goodness, ever since the sudden announcement of the marriage between the Lüsenford Duke and the Ostein Duke’s Daughter, one entertaining event after another has been popping up!
The marriage itself was already intriguing enough, but on top of that, the Duchess of Monde—who was perfectly attached to it—ignored the Ostein Duke’s Daughter’s greeting in the morning and was banned from the palace by evening!
Kline high society, pretending to modestly hide their vulgar voyeurism, became even more proactive in hosting events to gather the latest news. Hosting events drew people in, and where people gathered, new stories naturally emerged. Who would pass that up!
“I heard that the Duchess of Monde had already gone to the Lüsenford Duke before that and given him a piece of her mind? Is that true?”
Pretentious gentlemen, who already knew everything, feigned ignorance to draw out the talk once more.
“Who doesn’t know that? Her voice was so loud it echoed through the palace corridors. It was so noisy that His Imperial Majesty couldn’t possibly have missed it.”
Ladies pretending to be refined eagerly poured oil on the topic and fanned the flames. It was the typical sight in Kline high society.
“Well, the Mondes do need to be put in their place. They don’t have the means to pay off their debts without Lüsenford, and now that they’ve even torn down their castle to sell the building materials, with the marriage slipping away too, what can they see right in front of them?”
“But still, ignoring a greeting from someone young enough to be her daughter? Does that even make sense? Where did she leave her manners? Goodness. She should be ashamed.”
Elderly ladies and gentlemen shook their heads, adding their more overt remarks. At their age, they could wield their seniority like a shield to speak more colorfully. The crankier they were, the more direct their words became.
“It’s a marriage ordered by His Imperial Majesty, so of course she couldn’t protest to him… and the Lüsenford Duke is a soldier who won’t listen to reason, so the Ostein Duke’s Daughter seemed like the easy target, right?”
“Even with a mountain of debt, she spent lavishly, and now she can’t even distinguish between a mere duchess and an imperial family member.”
Words sharpened after just a few turns. That was one reason the Ostein ducal family remained completely silent. Others were handling it for them, so they had no need to even mention the Duchess of Monde.
The Emperor had stepped in to sort it out, and society naturally followed his command. Thus, the Monde family had no choice but to shrink back on their own.
“What the hell is this, Mother!”
Beatrice Lavalle, the flower of society, unleashed her fury on the Duchess of Monde.
“Don’t you have any sense? You do that kind of thing where no one’s watching! What were you thinking doing it right in front of people!”
“The pillar was blocking the view, so I didn’t see! Did you think I wouldn’t notice someone there? And of all places, Countess Syner had to be right there!”
She had been caught red-handed by Countess Syner and the two Empress’s ladies-in-waiting.
The Duchess of Monde was the Empress’s friend and chief lady-in-waiting, and in the position of looking after the Lüsenford Duke, she wielded considerable influence even in the palace. That influence was her lifeline of money. The funds Beatrice swept in from society were enormous.
But setting aside their massive debts, the two who lived seeing only the glamour in society ended up spending just as much as they brought in, so it all balanced out in the end. The debts cleared at a slow, agonizing pace.
“Oh, just stop it! You’re making my head spin too!”
“How am I supposed to go out there when you’ve been humiliated! Don’t you know how important society is?”
“You think I don’t know that?”
In the excessively purchased Kline townhouse of the cash-strapped Monde ducal family, angry shouts filled the air. The maids kept a safe distance from the drawing room.
“Who the hell ignores my mother like that? Do you think you could’ve come this far without me?”
Beatrice rolled her eyes, her face showing she was about to lose her mind because of her screaming mother.
“What have you even done, Mother! It was all me, scraping by at the bottom and suffering to achieve it!”
“Listen to her!”
“If you were going to make such a fuss, you should’ve gone to Pheon and handled it properly! At least said something like congratulations on the marriage!”
“You try it!”
In truth, Beatrice’s personality made it impossible for her to go and offer congratulations.
No matter how little she saw Pheon as a man, it was a matter of pride. But with things turning out like this, she could only blame her mother. Blaming others was something anyone could easily do.
“I went to all the trouble of giving birth to a pretty girl like you and raising you, and now you think you did it all yourself and act so insolent? Where do you get off being so rude! Did I raise you like that?”
“It’s true that you acted like an idiot! Do you know what they’re saying out there? They’re mocking you, saying a mere Duchess of Monde dared to treat the Ostein Duke’s Daughter like that! If you do something like that, what am I supposed to be in front of that wench!”
Kaella, of all people! Honestly, even Beatrice had felt dizzy when the marriage announcement came out. It felt exactly like the Emperor looking at her and saying, ‘Know your place.’
To stick that snot-nosed girl Kaella de Shasser—who was of higher status yet had always trailed after Pheon like a puppy—to him… When the three of them were together, Kaella had seemed ridiculous, but to outsiders, Beatrice looked like Pheon’s mistress.
She had no desire to become that. Her dreams reached higher. She’d clawed her way up this far, but from the moment Pheon announced his marriage, the way things were rolling just didn’t sit right with her.
“Don’t you know how important it is for us to enter the palace? And now it’s blocked for three whole months—do you think you can keep your position as the Empress’s chief lady-in-waiting even after three months?”
“Who’s taking it from me? Because I’m the chief lady-in-waiting, it ended with just three months of confinement. And stop making a fuss. I can go anywhere except the palace.”
“Stop talking nonsense! What’s the point of going other places if you can’t enter the palace?”
The Duchess of Monde had the privilege of getting close to the Empress—something even the Emperor rarely showed—which set her apart from other nobles. But with the Empress fallen ill and now banned from the palace, the losses were immense.
“You’re really saying anything to me now! Did you pop out on your own and raise yourself? Huh?”
“You made things this bad, so why can’t you read the room! Everyone’s laughing at us now, and next they’ll be chattering about how luxurious Kaella’s wedding dress is!”
It meant losing attention. Beatrice, who had lived off that one thing—attention—had always satisfied her desires by looking down on and ignoring Kaella.
When a quiet, demure type who sat primly embroidering or reading books, blindly devoting herself to Pheon, suddenly popped up like this, it was bound to be infuriating. You couldn’t do anything about their status.
Separate from her feelings about Pheon, Beatrice vowed to pay her back properly for this. Kaella had always been someone she could step on without a peep, so she had no right to crawl up just because she was marrying her dream crush.
*
“I can’t even imagine how upset you must be about this, but all your father can say is don’t let it bother you.”
Adeo took off his glasses and opened his arms to his daughter. Kaella calmly hugged him back.
“I’m fine.”
“No, no, that’s not true. Ignoring a direct greeting? That’s unacceptable. It’s an insult you can’t just forget.”
But both father and daughter knew that, in terms of position, honor, and face, it was far better in every way to ignore such petty behavior.
Even if she met the Duchess of Monde again, Kaella would smile and greet her the same way. That was the proper way of the de Shasser family.
What could she do? For Kaella, the Emperor personally intervening weighed far heavier and was far more important than the fact that the Duchess of Monde had ignored her greeting. There was no escape from this marriage. The Lüsenford Duke must have felt the same.
“She’s not worth your attention.”
A rather merciless statement came from Adeo, who was known for his gentle nature. That was also the reason he had survived the cutthroat world of high society with his mild temperament.
“Judging by how she treats you, someone young enough to be her daughter, it seems impossible to deal with her by common sense. So just ignore her completely. His Imperial Majesty took great care of it, after all.”
It was more that it had turned out this way to Kaella’s fortune than gratitude toward the Emperor.
“Yes. I’m glad it happened out of sight.”
“Honestly, it’d be a lie to say it didn’t bother you. That family has a long connection with your future husband, after all.”
Adeo actually thought it was for the best that the notoriously gossipy Monde Duke and Lavalle family stayed out of sight. If Beatrice, who had wormed her way into imperial circles through Pheon, stole the spotlight even at Kaella’s wedding, Kaella would truly be upset.
“Since it’s come to this, let’s just focus on the wedding preparations. It’s once in a lifetime, after all. I’ll do my very best.”
But Kaella had no interest in wedding preparations. Whether others called it once in a lifetime or not, it held no meaning for her. So she was just vaguely going along with whatever—sure, yes.
If prettily decorating the path to death halved or erased the pain of dying, she’d throw herself into it wholeheartedly, but since it wouldn’t, she had no interest.
“Don’t overdo it, Father.”
“You’re too modest for your own good. How can you have no ambition?”
That was because she’d already gone through a wedding, scraping together the minimum with the paltry funds the Emperor guiltily provided after taking everything. Things were different now, but no matter how much they prepared, she knew Lüsenford wouldn’t welcome her.
“What do you want for a wedding gift? If there’s anything you desire, I’ll make it happen. Just say the word.”
Kaella smiled. She didn’t need gifts that would be useless anyway. As she arranged flowers in an empty vase in the study, she murmured.
“As long as you’re healthy, Father.”
At that response, Adeo made a face as if the world had crumbled.
“Good heavens. To think my daughter’s sense of humor is this outdated. Kaella! Isn’t that straight out of <Hekerkos’s Morals for Children>? Now that you mention it, where is that book? I need to burn it. It’s the most useless book in the world.”
Lüsenford’s harsh cold had killed even her sense of humor, so Kaella gave an awkward smile.
“Be ambitious, Kaella. It’s just once in a lifetime! I want to give you everything I can. Honestly, I’d like to give you a fine manor too. What’s the use of me being healthy? Your happiness is what matters.”
Adeo pulled his briefly separated daughter back into a hug and patted her.
“They say Lüsenford is cold and harsh, but I believe you’ll adapt there. The Duke will support you solidly. If it gets too cold, come stay at the manor your father gave you for a bit. Yes, that sounds good.”
“I’m fine, really.”
But no matter how much Kaella tried to dissuade him, Adeo wouldn’t stay still. If her father was one thing, what startled Kaella—enough to frighten her—was how aggressively the Lüsenford Duke was coming forward.
From suddenly setting the wedding date and starting preparations, tailors for the dress, lawyers to negotiate the marriage contract, imperial palace officials conveying opinions on the wedding scale—all shuttled back and forth multiple times a day between the Lüsenford ducal house, Ostein ducal house, and the palace, making timing tight.
“You’re too disinterested, that’s why.”
“I’m reviewing every single document.”
“Even so, how can you have no opinion on the dress? The Duke sent over heaps of fabric to ensure even the veil is perfect for you.”
Indeed. Why was he doing that? Was Lüsenford’s finances that solid? Pheon was pouring enormous funds into this marriage, enough to worry unnecessarily. It wasn’t like the man who always prioritized military funds.
’No, maybe it’s just a new side I didn’t know about.’
Even as Duchess, Kaella might face suspicion of being the Emperor’s spy her whole married life. Getting involved in household affairs would be extremely difficult.
But Pheon had tremendous prestige among his people. He was kind not just to people, but to warhorses, dogs raised in the castle, even stray cats wandering about. Kaella, who had been treated worse than a stray cat, couldn’t understand it.
‘Is it because my father is still alive?’
Was he showing her moderate respect because of her title as Ostein Duke’s Daughter? Even so, she was still the Emperor’s niece—why? She couldn’t figure it out. Not knowing made her increasingly anxious.
“Of course the groom doesn’t interfere with the wedding attire, but nothing should be lacking. And yet you won’t wear even one jewel?”
“Yes, clean, simple silk is enough without any adornments, Father.”
Kaella answered absently, lost in thought. Wasn’t this all a trap? Pheon’s actions so far were impeccably proper.
He was following the textbook to the letter. Where had the Lüsenford Duke gone, the one everyone despaired over for not knowing how to bow properly? He seemed like a completely different person…
“Kaella?”
With a sharp crash, the vase slipped from her hand and shattered. Shards of porcelain scraped across the floor as they rolled.
“Oh no. Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt?”
Adeo startled and pulled Kaella back from the broken vase.
“I’m fine.”
Staring at the shattered vase, Kaella murmured with wide eyes. She heard her father calling the maid from afar. A chilling fear swept over her for a moment, but Kaella repeated to herself that she was fine.
She was fine. She always had her last resort, after all. No matter how hard she tried to figure things out and survive, nothing changed. She was fine.
“I’m fine.”
Kaella clasped her trembling hands. Feeling fear ultimately meant wanting to live.
She knew that, but today, she gave up once more. If she wanted to die easily and comfortably, she had to go through with this marriage. At least in a place beyond the Emperor’s gaze, she could die without pain.
*
“Take good care of our Pheon, Kaella. As you know, he’s a boy with so many wounds.”
But dying quickly and painlessly wasn’t easy either. Before the marriage, she had to deal moderately with all sorts of meddlesome people.
For example, someone like Beatrice Lavalle, who pretended to bump into her by chance in public and smiled sweetly as if to say, ‘I know your future husband better than you do.’
Kaella looked at the beauty—compared to the full moon, summer roses, lush gardens—with a listless face.
Some people changed completely after dying and waking once, while others hadn’t changed a bit.
“I thought the Duchess of Monde was speaking. Maybe because you resemble her so much, sister.”
Why couldn’t Kaella change too? She mentioned someone who had greatly wronged her and smiled at Beatrice, the object of her husband’s affections.
What was wrong with openly hating someone she could never beat in her lifetime? Treating Beatrice Lavalle well wouldn’t make the Lüsenford Duke turn to Kaella or respect her anyway.
Even if the ugly, stupid Kaella did something stupid and mean again, so what?
