HPBUY Chapter 97

It wasn’t intended rudeness. Though he was putting on an outward show of malice, in truth, the Duke was in a situation where he could barely maintain his rationality.

His steps quickened as he moved away from Sienna. Cold sweat trickled down his pallid face. Only when he reached the corner at the end of the deserted corridor did he stop, breathing heavily.

As the sensation of his airways being constricted persisted, his wrinkled hand hastily pulled off his tie.

The Princess could no longer prosecute him now. The evidence had already disappeared, and Melophe had willingly accepted all charges and offered up her own neck.

Nevertheless, the fact that the Princess had finally begun to question her mother’s death drove the Duke into endless anxiety.

“…It was just rotten luck.”

He muttered with a half-crazed expression.

Memories from the past that had been buried for a while began to resurface. The memories came back with striking clarity, making all those years of trying to forget seem futile as they invaded his mind.

The Duke’s face gradually contorted as he recalled the past, breathing heavily.

As the Princess had said, the culprit wasn’t the tea leaves but the teapot. However, the Duke’s intended target hadn’t been Emperor Carlos, but Melophe.

By that time, many nobles had already harbored resentment against Melophe.

Carlos didn’t consider his wife’s intelligence a shame; rather, he took great pride in it. He believed obtaining such a wise wife was the greatest fortune of his life.

Even when handling state affairs, he listened to Melophe’s words. It was already irritating enough that someone existed who whispered nonsensical ideas into the Emperor’s ear, but beyond that, Melophe was desperate to overturn the Empire’s succession laws.

That’s when the nobles’ antipathy toward Melophe grew stronger.

Though the Emperor’s favor toward Melophe remained unchanged, after Sienna’s birth, conceiving another child proved difficult.

Meanwhile, the illegitimate stepson grew into a handsome young man day by day, and Melophe knew full well that if he became Emperor, neither her nor her daughter’s future would be smooth.

It was natural that as Joseph grew, Melophe’s anxiety increased.

She raised the need to revise the Empire’s inheritance law based on legitimate logic, point by point. But Carlos rejected that request. Despite showing such affection for Sienna, he wouldn’t promise any way to protect her.

Carlos’s firm stance regarding succession ultimately lit the fuse.

That day, Melophe surely knew the tea was poisoned. Yet she still served it to the Emperor.

At the time, Joseph hadn’t yet come of age, so if the Emperor died then, Melophe could have wielded enormous influence in determining the succession. Moreover, she had her family’s support to back her.

But in the end, everything came to nothing, and the Emperor was enraged.

There were no nobles to take her side. The Empress who had been speaking up for women’s inheritance rights was already nothing more than a thorn in their eyes. If the law was revised as Melophe wished, most of them would lose their titles overnight or have to split their properties.

She was already beyond salvation.

So when the Duke visited Melophe in prison, it was to threaten her that since the Emperor’s heart had already turned from her, if she wanted to protect her daughter, she should keep her mouth shut.

But when he actually faced Melophe in prison, her demeanor was detached.

[Carlos will kill me anyway.]

Her voice carried no trace of despair. Her composure, uncharacteristic of someone facing death, rather broke the Duke’s momentum.

[Gregory. If you feel any guilt towards me, perhaps you could grant me one request.]

Instead, Melophe turned the tables and pressured him.

[The Valley of Igris, or anywhere will do. Let me be buried in Ricata territory.]

The Duke furrowed his brow at the unexpected words.

[What’s this all of a sudden….]

[I’m trying to grasp at even the faintest hope.]

After suddenly muttering these seemingly nonsensical words, the corners of her mouth turned upward.

[Should I congratulate you? With Ricata gone, the House of Lowell will truly become one of the Empire’s most prestigious families. Your efforts of blood and sweat for family prosperity will finally shine.]

[You brought this death upon yourself. This situation too. And Mikhail’s death as well.]

When he spoke mockingly, Melophe responded in a monotone.

[Joseph did it.]

[You’re being endlessly ugly about this.]

[It’s true. That child informed on me. He did well reporting to his father about seeing Mikhail entering and leaving my private chambers.]

Her calm eyes turned red as soon as Mikhail’s name left her lips.

[Mikhail was innocent. It was my fault for needlessly stirring him up when Carl wouldn’t listen to me.]

The Duke snorted harshly.

[Even so, your empty delusions were the root problem. Your arrogance in thinking you could change inheritance laws that had been effective for centuries was the real cause of everything.]

[Is that a problem?]

Melophe laughed cynically.

She approached the iron bars and reached out toward the Duke. The Duke’s gaze fell on the blue object Melophe handed over. It was the wedding ring the Emperor had given her.

[Why are you…]

[When the whispers about me in the world eventually die down, give this to Sienna.]

As the Duke raised his eyebrows in bewilderment, Melophe’s lips twisted sardonically.

[You came here to threaten me not to tell Carl what you did, didn’t you?]

The Duke’s face contorted at being caught off guard. But he didn’t deny it.

[If the Emperor wishes to harm your daughter, I have no way to stop it.]

[That won’t happen.]

[But he made you like this, despite cherishing you so.]

[Don’t you understand?]

Melophe gave a bitter laugh.

[I, whom he took as his wife despite taking unnecessary risks, ended up ruining everything.]

The Grand Duke’s carriage accident was a kind of warning from the Emperor to her. It meant this was the limit to tolerating her foolish actions.

Melophe’s death sentence wasn’t for simple treason. It was more like revenge born from the betrayal and resentment that the woman he had given his heart to had tried to take his life.

[But I had no choice but to end up like this.]

[…..]

[My ambition mattered more than Carl. I…]

Her blue-green eyes filled with tears. Whether what dwelled in them was regret or something else – before it could be gauged, a guard entered to announce the end of visiting hours.

Melophe’s face cleared of all emotion as if nothing had happened. The Duke, after looking down at that face for a moment, turned his back without saying goodbye.

****

The Duke watched Melophe’s final moments from quite close to the execution platform.

Melophe’s gaze, as she was dragged onto the platform with restraints on her hands, stopped somewhere in the crowd. Her tightly closed lips moved faintly.

The Duke frowned. He turned to look, but it was difficult to distinguish individuals in the dense crowd filling the square. Though it would be relatively easier from the raised platform.

Even so, finding a small girl among such a huge crowd wouldn’t be easy. Nevertheless, Melophe’s eyes found her at once – a child with fear-stricken eyes, clutching a red candy as if it were a lifeline.

Soon her vision was blocked by the cloth placed over her head. The crowd’s cheering grew louder.

If the stories passed down in Ricata territory were true, Melophe had wanted to return to when Teril was alive.

She would never become entangled with Carlos again. Her mind was filled only with the desire to go back to that time and change everything.

But her mind, which had been buried in the past, flowed in a different direction the moment she spotted Sienna. With her eyes covered by the cloth, she thought about what would happen after her death. More precisely, she imagined the world Sienna would live in after she died.

In her mind, her daughter’s future life wasn’t difficult to picture. Every time Carlos looked at Sienna, he would be reminded of her. The daughter would eventually lose even her father’s love.

And as time passed, she would surely live as if walking on thin ice under her half-brother’s oppression.

Finally, a sturdy rope was placed around her neck. Because of this, the cloth covering her face pressed against her tear-soaked face.

The ground beneath her feet gave way, and the solid rope tightly constricted her neck.

What Melophe thought of last wasn’t resentment or hatred toward anyone. Nor was it regret about her failed plans.

If someday in the distant future, that child falls into an irreversible quagmire. May she be given at least one chance to make amends.

So in the end, what Melophe wished for in her final moment was atonement for her young daughter.

This was a fact that no one would ever know.