Chapter 2
As her husband’s hand fell from her shoulder, the vision soon vanished.
Cedric slumped down, spilling vomit onto the bed.
“Urgh…!”
“…What… is this…?”
But Belle, instead of being concerned about her husband’s retching, was lost in thought, trying to understand what she had just seen. The vision had been too vivid to be fake. It was as though she had overheard the conversation between the two right in front of her.
“Uurgh!”
With a face as pale as a ghost, Belle looked again at Cedric, who was vomiting once more.
Her once-friend, and her husband, who had smiled while talking about killing her.
The first thought that crossed her mind was that perhaps she had finally lost her sanity in this crazy household. It was certainly possible.
Belle was Cedric’s wife, but she was treated worse than a maid.
It was even worse than when she had lived with the Count of Agrita.
She hadn’t been treated well there either, but at least they had kept up basic standards, as she was a valuable asset to be married off. But not here in the Rothiers family.
The person she feared more than her verbally abusive husband was her mother-in-law, the Duchess.
At least Cedric never raised a hand against her, but the Duchess would frequently beat her under the guise of teaching her manners.
Every day, with the same insults and abuse, she felt her spirit slowly dying.
In such circumstances, it wasn’t surprising she thought she must finally have gone mad after seeing something so unbelievable.
She’d often thought that it would be better to just die.
It was a thought that haunted her during the constant pain. But then, she suddenly considered that if she were to die, Cedric and Deloni would only be pleased, and that twisted her mood.
She refused to die in a way that would grant them their wish.
If she were to die, everything would go exactly as they wanted. She had no interest in such a meaningless death.
A surge of defiance arose in her, something she had never felt before while living as the daughter of Count Agrita or as the wife of the Rothiers heir.
“Cedric.”
“Urgh… you damned woman…”
By now, he was writhing on the bed, which was stained with traces of his vomit.
Even in this state, he was cursing her.
Wondering if it might happen again, she gently placed her hand on his shoulder. This time, she saw something different.
Cedric and Deloni were deep in thought.
“What’s the cleanest way to get rid of Belle?”
“It won’t be difficult to deal with her. She’s barely treated as the heir’s wife anyway.”
“A hired assassin…”
“No, why should we waste money on that woman? We may have plenty of it, but I don’t want to spend it on her.”
“…Still, shouldn’t we make sure it’s done right?”
“How about poison, then?”
“No, that won’t work!”
At the mention of poison, Cedric shouted, almost in a fit.
“If anyone in our family dies by poisoning, Father will hunt down the culprit to the very end. He’d even apprehend his own son if necessary! He’s that kind of man, so poison is absolutely out of the question. It has to look like an accident somehow.”
“I-I see.”
“Come to think of it, using an assassin could be risky too. They’re professionals at getting rid of people, so it’d be too clean. Father would never fail to notice that. Del, you’re right.”
“Uh, so…?”
“…It’s better to have some lowlifes handle it.”
“Lowlifes?”
“There are plenty of scum around the estate who’ll do anything for money.”
So the two of them secretly found two burly men, unwilling to spend the money on an assassin.
They selected the dirtiest, most desperate men they could find, ones who were neck-deep in gambling addiction and wasted all their earnings at the gaming tables. When promised a large sum, they gleefully agreed to the job.
They dared to take on the task of killing the heir’s wife.
Thus… the two men made their move and sneaked into the annex.
Startled by their sudden appearance, Belle fled toward the garden, but they chased her down.
Before long, she was captured and overpowered, with no means to defend herself. She struggled but was no match against the two men. Her dress became smeared with dirt and blood, and she could see herself, crying piteously, gazing in a certain direction.
“Ha… Ce…dric…”
With her last, faint breath, the name that escaped her lips was Cedric’s—her husband’s.
“Haha, finally I can say goodbye to this tiresome woman.”
Cedric looked down at his dying wife, laughing with apparent joy.
“…Deloni.”
She stood by his side.
Both of them looked down at her with raised smiles, as if savoring the satisfaction.
As if urging her to die already.
“I’m sorry, Belle.”
Yet Cedric’s lips uttered hollow words of apology.
“What… what is this?”
She was clearly watching herself in her final moments. But as soon as she pulled her hand away from Cedric, everything faded away like a mirage.
She collapsed, staring blankly at the sleeping Cedric, then cautiously reached out to touch him again.
This time, however, she saw nothing.
“…What was that?”
It had felt so vivid, as if she were witnessing everything right before her eyes.
Even the air, the humidity, and the pain had all felt real.
Could an illusion feel this lifelike? Yet no matter how many times she touched him, nothing appeared as it had before.
She couldn’t stay like this forever, and the stench in the bedroom was becoming unbearable, so she got up and headed outside.
Two maids were standing by the door, but they simply stared at her without reacting.
“…The young master vomited.”
“So what?”
The maids responded boldly, challenging her.
“Tell me at least where the bedding and cleaning supplies are.”
“What’s she talking about?”
They even snorted at her, and she couldn’t muster a response. She wasn’t hurt; she’d expected this kind of reaction.
However, not only did they refuse to help, but they also ignored her completely. Belle had no choice but to move on her own.
She knew that if Cedric found out he had slept in his own vomit, he wouldn’t let it go with just insults.
But on days like this, the maids would intentionally hide the cleaning supplies to make things harder for her, so it took her a long time searching the grounds before she could clean.
* * *
The next day.
After finally tidying up Cedric’s clothes and bedding, Belle managed to fall asleep only at dawn.
Even though they were married, they had never shared a bed. From their first night together, he had shunned her, saying he wouldn’t share a bed with a filthy traitor’s daughter.
Since then, her sleeping quarters had been a storeroom attached to the annex of the ducal residence.
No one cared that the wife of the Rothiers heir lived in such a place, and Belle had come to find it comfortable in her own way.
Still, she always waited for Cedric, because if she didn’t, he would cause an uproar.
He would accuse her of daring to fall asleep before her husband, who was delayed by official duties.
As a result, if he didn’t return all night, she was forced to wait endlessly without a wink of sleep.
Not knowing when he’d arrive made it all the worse.
“…Sigh.”
Perhaps Cedric simply needed someone to vent his frustrations on.
Whenever he saw Belle, he would blame her, saying that she was the reason he was still a mere figurehead.
“This is exhausting.”
After enduring it for a year, Belle finally reached out to her father for help.
Because of her, Count Agrita had managed to gain a foothold in the empire’s noble circles, even if it meant being scorned as a traitor.
However, her father turned his back on her.
The letter he sent in response contained only two lines:
[I told you before you got married to forget about Agrita. Don’t contact me again.]
After that, no matter how hard things got, she never contacted him again.
She simply endured.
Through it all, she had come to a painful realization that her life was entirely her own. After that, she closed her heart completely.
There was no one who would help her. She once dreamed of a prince on a white horse, but not anymore.
Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling from the previous night.
If she was truly going mad, that would be a relief, but the memories had been too vivid.
Just in case, Belle decided to buy a potion. She knew of a small gap in the wall that some servants secretly used to come and go.
She had never dared to use it herself, but this time she gathered the courage and went out.
She was extremely nervous, but the annex remained quiet. Her brief absence hadn’t caused any trouble.
In the end, she was able to buy the potion she’d wanted.
The cheapest one, but it had still cost all the money she had painstakingly saved, bit by bit.
“Sigh…”
She felt a bit pathetic for clinging to such a restricted life. She laughed bitterly as she gripped the potion, feeling foolish for her thudding heart.
Just then, she heard unfamiliar footsteps and breathing nearby, a place where no one should have been.
“…She’s here, right?”
“They said she is.”
“Wow… no matter what, it’s hard to believe the heir’s wife is staying in a place like this.”
Servants never approached Belle’s quarters, so the conversation sounded all the more unusual.
“This’ll be easy. Are you sure it’s okay?”
Easy?
Suddenly, the memories that had flashed through her mind when she touched Cedric yesterday rushed back.
Could they really have sent someone to kill her?
