~Chapter 3~
She thought he wouldn’t even look at her, but unexpectedly, he turned his head toward Harriet and briefly made eye contact with her. His gaze was so piercing that Harriet clenched her teeth and lifted her chin, refusing to back down. It was probably only for two or three seconds, but to Harriet, it felt like a long time.
Just as she thought his gaze seemed to soften for a moment, John spoke solemnly.
“I sincerely want to apologize. I’ll send my nephew to a convent to reflect on her actions, and we’ll give compensation, however much you want.”
Harriet’s eyes widened at those words.
“U-Uncle! A convent?”
But no one paid attention to Harriet’s confusion. Cedric looked down at John, who had bowed his head, and clicked his tongue briefly.
“That won’t be necessary. From what I’ve heard, it seems there was no real intent to insult me or my late father…”
His eyes briefly glanced at Harriet again.
“Maybe I overreacted a little.”
John’s shoulders relaxed slightly in relief. Cedric turned away as if he had no more interest in Harriet or the people of the Listerwell family.
“I just hope we don’t meet again under such circumstances.”
“Of course. Thank you for your leniency.”
John bowed deeply once again, but Cedric didn’t even bother to look at him and returned to where he had originally been standing. Once the spectacle was over, the crowd that had gathered murmured and dispersed, and the banquet resumed as if nothing had happened.
However, Harriet’s nightmare was far from over.
“Harriet! Go back home. No matter what anyone asks, don’t say a word!”
“Uncle, but I…!”
“Do you want to argue about this here? How much more do you want to embarrass me?”
Harriet shrank at John’s angry shout, the man who held her fate in his hands. Her guardian, the only person she could rely on, the closest family she had. It wasn’t wise to upset him further.
“…I’ll go back now.”
Harriet bowed her head and slowly retreated. She had achieved her original goal of leaving the banquet early, but this wasn’t how she had wanted it to happen.
A spring breeze, fragrant with flowers, brushed against the back of Harriet’s neck, but she felt nothing.
***
“Just spend a year at St. Clarissa’s convent.”
“What?”
Harriet widened her eyes in disbelief.
“I’m saying this for your own good. By then, everyone will have forgotten about this incident.”
“U-Uncle!”
“You have to get married, Harriet. In the current situation, no one will propose to you, and you won’t even get invited to any parties!”
John was making a decision that would erase an entire year of her life, as if it were nothing.
Harriet shook her head.
“Uncle, I already explained everything earlier. I didn’t steal the Duke of Kailas’s brooch. I didn’t even find it. It was pinned to my dress, and I wore it on my chest just like Bella suggested. There were more than a few witnesses!”
When she had calmly explained what had happened at the banquet, John had nodded and listened quietly, so she thought the misunderstanding was cleared up.
Then why was the conclusion still that she had to go to a monastery? For a whole year!
Harriet clung to the hope that she could change John’s mind and tried to persuade him again.
But John let out a sound of frustration and slammed his palm on the desk.
“The truth doesn’t matter! If we upset the Duke’s family at this point, it’s over. And why did it have to be something that belonged to the late Duke…!”
“I’m telling you it wasn’t my fault!”
“Sigh, Harriet.”
John’s voice softened. Harriet knew what always happened when he called her name like that. It was never good.
“Can you go to the Duke’s mansion right now and make the Duke of Kailas feel better? Can you stay in the capital and put an end to all the bad rumors about you?”
“That’s…”
“A year is a small price to pay. If you’re out of sight, people will lose interest in you, and once the rumors die down, you might get a marriage proposal. It’s entirely possible.”
His gentle, coaxing tone weighed heavily on Harriet’s shoulders. If she refused, even though her uncle was being so kind, she would feel like she was a terrible person, as if someone would accuse her of being selfish.
“So, Harriet, just do as I say. I understand your unfair situation, and it’s partly our fault too, so when you get married, I’ll give you a generous dowry. It won’t just be the dowry; I’ll have the most famous designer make your dress, and I’ll make sure you have plenty of jewelry too.”
“Are you…serious?”
“Of course! Do you think I’d forget all the things you’ve done for Bella?”
John laughed heartily, his face friendly. Where had the man who had slammed his desk in anger gone?
Harriet slumped her shoulders and nodded.
‘In the end, I can’t refuse what Uncle has decided anyway. And if I’ve secured his promise for dowry and wedding jewelry, then I’ve done pretty well.’
Her tightly clenched hands were damp with sweat, but Harriet tried to comfort herself.
“…Alright.”
“That’s a good decision. You’ll get a notice from the convent soon, so in the meantime, don’t go anywhere and just pack your things. You don’t need to take many clothes or jewelry since you’ll be wearing a nun’s habit there.”
Harriet didn’t argue with his thoughtless instructions. There was no point in adding more despair to the despair that had already settled over her.
***
“What did Harriet say?”
“What could she say? She’ll just have to do as I tell her.”
John stabbed a thick piece of meat with his fork as he answered Bella. But before bringing the fork to his mouth, he shot a sharp look at her.
“But still, Bella, this time you went too far. We almost got caught up in the trouble ourselves.”
“Do you think I would have known that it was the late Duke’s keepsake? Anyway, we’ve succeeded in getting rid of Harriet, so the goal is achieved.”
“Father, it actually worked out well. Since it was such an important item, no one will think it’s strange that Harriet is being sent to a convent.”
When Aston also sided with Bella, John no longer blamed her. After all, this whole plan was something he and Bella had come up with together.
“Dad! Let’s bring Harriet to the upcoming banquet.”
“Her? Why?”
“You said you want to get rid of her, right?”
“Then why should we bring her to the banquet? This banquet is very important!”
“I have a plan. You might feel a little embarrassed, but in the end, people will sympathize with you, so you’ll have to endure it.”
John hesitated at first when his beloved daughter said, “You might feel a little embarrassed,” but the plan of using the current trend of wearing ‘confession brooches’ to create an excuse to send Harriet to a convent sounded pretty good.
‘It’s about time to get rid of Harriet anyway.’
Bella was already 21 years old. With her beautiful looks and sweet, kind personality, Bella had started to receive some decent marriage proposals recently.
Of course, John wasn’t completely satisfied with them, but it was time to seriously prepare for her marriage.
And that’s why Harriet, who had always been Bella’s ‘cleanup girl,’ needed to disappear from the capital.
“It would have been better if she had been on that boat that day.”
John sighed and muttered. Harriet was the only child of his older brother and sister-in-law, who had died in a boating accident. Though he had always acted like a caring uncle, he had never actually felt any affection for her.
If his brother and sister-in-law hadn’t been so kind to him, or if it wouldn’t have looked bad to abandon his orphaned niece, he would have sent Harriet to an orphanage a long time ago.
“That’s true. If that had happened, we wouldn’t be dealing with this headache now,”
Bella responded, and her mother, Miriam, chuckled softly from beside her.
“Still, you should feel a bit sorry for her. She’s helped you out of some tricky situations a few times.”
“Mom, are you serious?”
“What I mean is, you should be careful from now on. It’s time to focus on finding a good marriage for you.”
“Don’t worry. After this incident, I’ve made a connection with the Duke of Kailas. Who knows? I might become a duchess.”
There wasn’t a trace of regret in Bella’s voice, but the Listerwell couple only looked at their daughter lovingly. To them, Bella was a precious gem who would bring them another step up the social ladder.
“Of course! There’s no girl as pretty as our Bella!”
“That’s right. I bet the Duke of Kailas was captivated by her! Oh, we should find out about any parties the Duke is attending and make sure Bella is there too.”
The couple smiled as they imagined a future where Bella would be the Duke’s lover. ‘The in-laws of a Duke’—what a sweet dream!
“By the way, how did you even get your hands on that brooch? Are you still not going to tell me?”
