“To think I believed I could pretend to have a family with such trash.”
“Y-you, are you done talking? From the looks of it, you’ve been kicked out of Evergale, so what gives you the right to act so proudly? Why don’t you go back immediately and beg for forgiveness?”
Matilda’s sharply raised eyes were fierce. Helena unclenched her fists that had been tightly balled up until now. She felt the sting where her nails had dug into her flesh.
Or perhaps it was some invisible place that hurt more. In truth, she couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from.
She merely spat out her final words like someone with indigestion.
“I wasn’t kicked out, I left on my own. And I’ll do the same here.”
There was a metallic, bloody smell from her bitten lips. Helena stormed out of the mansion, slamming the door behind her.
Bang!
A violent vibration struck her eardrums, but no further commotion followed. Behind her determined strides was only her own shadow.
Ah, suddenly Helena realized.
What trapped her wasn’t a simple regression. It was a perfect misfortune designed just for her.
No matter how much she struggled, there was no way out—the world seemed to mock her with a blood-red, grinning mouth.
****
After the commotion had passed, Matilda fanned her flushed face and slumped into a chair.
Viscount Owen, thoroughly drunk, had already buried his head on the table and was fast asleep.
“My, my, that wretch…”
Matilda let out a long sigh as she tried to calm herself. She soon poured out her criticism of Helena in her tough manner.
“A few days ago, some decent-looking madman came looking for her. I wonder how she’s been behaving. No wonder the Grand Duke became angry and chased her out.”
“The Grand Duke didn’t seem like the type to do that.”
“It’s been five years since they married. It seems the noble Grand Duke no longer finds Helena appealing.”
“Still, he used to cherish Helen quite a bit.”
“Hmph. I knew a day like this would come. Men caught between the legs always slip away like grains of sand, my son.”
Eric yawned languorously, barely listening. He stared vacantly into space before crushing out his cigarette and clicking his tongue.
“That love… had quite a short expiration date.”
As he recalled, the Grand Duke had treated Helena with the utmost devotion when they married.
So much so that all the young ladies in the village envied Helena to the point of trying to harm her.
He hadn’t expected their love to cool, as Matilda suggested.
To such a high-ranking person, Helena would be nothing more than a pretty porcelain doll.
No matter if she had become the lady of the Grand Duke’s household, it was the same. After all, Helena was still standing in the same world he lived in.
The moment familiarity seeps into love, the doll gets discarded. To make room for a new doll.
In Eric’s view, Helena was that kind of existence. Her fate was all but predetermined.
Born with such a face into a life of hardship, what else could there be?
The path Helena could choose was only one from the beginning.
‘Well, we benefited a lot thanks to her. But if she was going to hang on, she should have lasted at least ten years, not just five years before coming back and causing this scene.’
Although it was quite regrettable that the steady flow of money might be cut off, it wasn’t a problem.
With that pretty face, she could surely find another husband even if remarried.
‘I heard that newly rich old man Hector is looking for a new bride in his twilight years.’
It would be perfect to hand Helena over to him in exchange for clearing his gambling debts. Surely he would pounce on Helena like a dog in heat the moment he saw her.
Having settled his concerns, Eric brought up another topic.
“But who was that guy?”
“Which guy?”
Eric rubbed his bruised eye with his unbroken arm.
“The bastard who did this to me.”
Five days ago, a man had visited the mansion.
Shabby appearance like an ordinary commoner, yet with a handsome face that didn’t match at all.
The man who had barged in asking about Helena’s whereabouts seemed quite desperate.
But aside from the fact that he was looking for Helena, he was quite infuriating.
He was the one who had left the Owen family in turmoil.
Recalling that nightmare, Matilda frowned deeply and waved her hand.
“Helen must have been flirting around again. The man had nothing but his looks—could he be her lover? The Grand Duke must have already been tired of Helen when he noticed and temporarily sent her away.”
“Ah, she would have been kicked out anyway, but if mom hadn’t told him that Helen was dead, he wouldn’t have gone so crazy. Dad and I just got beaten up for nothing.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. That way he’ll give up and stop looking. By the looks of it, they probably planned to elope together.”
“Come on, that innocent girl wouldn’t do something so reckless…”
“Hmph, the quiet cat is the first to climb onto the stove.”
Though Matilda asserted this with stubbornness, Eric inwardly scoffed.
‘Helena committing adultery and eloping? The girl who kept sending money even after Basil died? If she had that kind of courage, she would have cut ties with us long ago.’
It was absurd even to hear in passing, but Matilda acted as if it were an established fact.
As if she wanted confirmation that Helena was no different from herself—vulgar, vile, and without principles.
Eric shook his head as if giving up.
“What if she really runs away?”
“No, Helen will return to us.”
Matilda was resolute.
“She has no choice. With nowhere else to go and always thirsting for affection. If the Grand Duke happens to ask about her whereabouts, we just need to keep our mouths shut.”
“It seemed like they would end soon anyway… And there’s no guarantee that thug won’t go to the Grand Duke. Wouldn’t it be better to give Hector a heads-up?”
“What nonsense! Do you know what kind of place that is! Are you telling me to be the fool who chases away the golden goose? First, we need to hold out until the end. We can approach Hector afterward.”
“The position of the Grand Duchess isn’t something that can be maintained just by holding out…”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. Until they’re completely divorced, it’s not over. We’ve never seen Helena or that man. We don’t know anything. Understand?”
Helena had clearly said she left the Grand Duke’s residence of her own accord.
It seemed like things had already ended by that point, but faced with Matilda’s fierce glare, Eric had no choice but to nod.
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
****
The magnificent chandelier illuminated the hall as bright as day. Beneath it, soft music and laughter intermingled.
Eugene inwardly clicked his tongue and swallowed his wine as if grinding it.
‘The taste is as consistent as ever.’
Had the host not been his own mother, he wouldn’t have even set foot in such a dazzling affair.
Although her vigor had diminished somewhat after her husband’s death notice, her stubborn nature hadn’t subsided. As if to represent that, eye-catching brilliance comparable to a royal banquet glittered everywhere.
Eugene slowly tilted his glass in succession, surveying his surroundings with just his gaze. Most of the men and women moving in pairs immediately came into view.
Much to his annoyance.
These were also people he wouldn’t have wanted to face if it weren’t for the social mask of being a collateral relative that he had to maintain due to his position.
Eugene suppressed his irritated mood and waited for the host to appear. He had originally planned to just show his face and leave.
Fortunately, before his patience ran out, the person he was waiting for appeared. An extravagantly adorned elderly lady approached, fluttering her fan.
“It’s been a while, Eugene.”
“It seems your time and mine are different. I feel like I see you too often.”
“Your lack of affection still hasn’t been corrected.”
“You never wanted it to be.”
For blood relatives, their first greeting was rather cold. Though it would have been reasonable to end the conversation, Christine ignored it and continued with her pretense.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. When I die, just bury me with plenty of diamonds. Stones that never change throughout life are much more lovable than people. Every time I see you, I become more convinced of that.”
A hint of the displeasure Eugene had been barely suppressing flashed across his face.
Watching him, Christine quietly smiled. Despite the traces of the unkind years, she still maintained her outstanding beauty.
However, as if refusing to allow even a single wrinkle, Christine raised her fan to cover her mouth.
Then she gestured to the empty seat beside Eugene.
“By the way, it’s unusual not to see her. She used to follow you around like an eager hunting dog.”
Her.
In settings that didn’t require formality, Christine would often refer to Helena that way.
Not the Grand Duchess of Evergale, not a dear daughter-in-law, not Helen, but “her.”
Eugene corrected “her” in his own way and made an excuse.
“My wife is unwell and resting. She won’t be able to go out for a while, so please don’t arrange any unnecessary gatherings, Mother.”
At that, Christine’s expression immediately turned fierce.
“Now you’re making all sorts of excuses. Tsk, becoming increasingly lazy… Sitting in an undeserved position yet not fulfilling her duties. It’s shameful.”
“I believe entertaining the mother-in-law is not a daughter-in-law’s duty.”
“Then you shouldn’t have lied in the first place.”
Christine put away her fan and expressed her anger openly, muttering.
“You don’t know how impertinently she behaves whenever she sees me. Last month, she advised me to reduce the size of the party because a famine might be coming. Her excuses are as impoverished as she is. If I had known she would confront me like this, I would have disciplined her more strictly back then.”
Christine slightly waved her folded fan toward the surrounding nobles, signaling them to join the conversation.
Count Baron who had been hovering around waiting for an opportunity quickly attached himself to Christine and whispered.
“How inconsiderate of you. Why don’t you understand His Grace’s feelings, Madam? The Grand Duke must be tired of seeing his wife every day. Please be patient for just one day.”
Not to be outdone, the countess wrapped her hands around the count’s arm and laughed brightly.
“This is why they say people should meet similar kinds. They’re a couple, so they should understand each other.”
“Fortunately, my wife and I, whose standards match, never get tired of seeing each other every day.”
Watching the crowd barking like Christine’s faithful dogs, Eugene let out a small scoff.
Once those disgusting skins were stripped away, only indistinguishable skeletons would remain, yet they had such pride. Were they planning to price the bone fragments?
Eugene really wasn’t in the mood to forcibly swallow such uncomfortable conversation today.
So he spat it right back out.
“That seems to be your own delusion, Count.”
The short sentence fell heavily. With just that, the flow of air in the room reversed. The freely flowing current began to concentrate on one person.
Christine, who had been laughing comfortably, the count and countess, and the nobles who had been watching in agreement, all held their breath and looked at Eugene.
Eugene, unconcerned, cast a mocking glance at the countess.
“Your desperate pleas that you would abandon both child and husband to come running if only I would accept you are still vivid in my memory, so it can’t be that old a memory. If you wish to test my memory, I understand, but as for my patience…”
Turning his gaze to the count, Eugene’s face had completely erased even the sneer. Only a suffocating aura remained clear in his golden eyes.
“Well. I don’t know how much more I can endure.”
