Episode 11
Deborah was silent for a moment as if overwhelmed by April’s momentum.
But then, not wanting to give away her embarrassment, she bit her lower lip hard once and then spoke up.
“Yes, you shouldn’t be doing this to me!”
“Why not?”
She began to tilt her head slightly to one side as if she didn’t understand.
“Why not, do you not understand, is that what you……!”
“Because she’s a paid bride?”
April cut Deborah off mid-sentence and sneered.
Deborah looked flustered as if she hadn’t expected April to reveal her predicament so openly.
“Well, yes, I’ll let you know exactly where you stand!”
But Deborah’s voice rose again, brazen.
“I have known for years that the tide has been tipped against you. I’m the one who saved you from a life of hardship. I’m the one who saved you.”
Deborah laughed and began to chastise her daughter-in-law with a stern tone as if she were trying to show her paternal dignity.
But April was just being sarcastic, sarcastic, sarcastic.
“You didn’t save her. You’ve only made her worse.
Deborah’s snake eyes glared at her as April stuck her tongue out without warning.
Deborah began to kick her tongue as hard as she could as if she couldn’t lose.
All I could think was that I shouldn’t back down like this today.
I need to keep getting paid, and if I back down now, it will only make it harder in the future.
She wanted to take my son’s wealth and spend it as she always had and always would.
Deborah smiled.
“Sweetheart.”
The quivering corners of her mouth showed she was forcing a smile.
“You must understand, my dear, that I was a little overcome with emotion and spoke harshly. Ever since my son Quirn died, I’ve been a little moody.”
With the air of a loving mother-in-law, she continued in a soothing voice.
“Don’t you see, my dear, that you and I are the only two people in the whole world who can rely on each other?”
Aha, appeasement?
April couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the obviousness of it all.
Deborah’s attitude made her anger flare up again, but unfortunately for her, it was on my end, so she barely held it in.
“Now that you’re a Falcon, I’ll teach you a few things.”
What bullshit.
April shot Deborah a pointed look.
“When you were gone, we had our customs. Like, rules.”
“Of course.”
April nodded and smiled brightly.
Deborah, interpreting the look as a sign that she was listening to me, relaxed a little.
“My son Quinn would always pay me because that’s the way he was raised.”
Deborah gathered the two pieces of paper April had torn in half with an impatient touch.
“A daughter-in-law is a child.”
“……Haha.”
April laughed hysterically, and Deborah frowned slightly as if she were offended.
But then she composed herself and continued to play the doting mother-in-law.
“You’re like my daughter now. I’m going to be a mother to you, and you’re going to think of me as your mother. So, speaking of…… this, let’s pay this bill first because it’s urgent.”
But April didn’t even glance at the bill.
“There’s no such thing as a daughter-in-law, Godfather.”
She crossed her arms and spoke sternly.
“And I don’t have the money to pay you, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with you, why you’re playing this can-you-give-my-son-money-or-can’t nonsense!”
Deborah’s voice rose again, apparently enraged by April’s hardline attitude.
April wasn’t intimidated at all, but she deliberately made the tips of her eyebrows droop as she spoke.
“I don’t think you understand me. I’m telling you that your godfather’s son screamed himself to death on a dime.”
“……what?”
“The Count of Falcon doesn’t even have enough money to pay his users now. Everything is debt, debt. So much so that he’s considering bankruptcy.”
Deborah’s lips parted slightly in shock.
Then, a beat too late, she realized, raising her voice in denial.
“That can’t be!”
April snapped back.
“You’ve been writing all this time, and you never bothered to look at the books, and this is what happened?”
“I can’t believe the Earl of Falcon is bankrupt, that’s impossible, and what about my bills!”
Deborah’s voice was so loud it burned my ears.
“Well, I can help you put out the fire in a pinch.”
“Are you sure about that?”
April smirked, meeting Deborah’s gaze as she looked at me expectantly.
“I think I know where the money will come from instead.”
That must have been a tantalizing suggestion because Deborah stopped being angry and stared at April blankly.
The look of anticipation and desire on her face was so obvious, with no attempt to hide it, that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“There’s a hole for the money……. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
April nodded, pulling the corners of her lips up in a smooth line.
She looked at Deborah again, her face calmer.
If the Earl of Falcon was over forty, that meant his mother, the godmother, was at least in her mid-to-late fifties.
But the woman in front of me could have been in her mid-forties, ten years younger than me.
Partly because of the thick makeup, but also because of her colorful outfit.
Deborah seemed to grow impatient as April’s silence lengthened.
“Come on, sweetie, tell me. Tell me how you’re going to get the money.”
April resisted the urge to click her tongue and opened her mouth again.
“It’s simple.”
She glanced at Deborah, who was listening intently and continued.
“The earrings you have in your ears now, and the two rows of pearl necklaces, and the rings on six of your ten fingers.”
Well, what more?
She scanned my mother-in-law’s attire with a meticulous eye.
“Oh, and you have an emerald in your hat, that too.”
Deborah, meanwhile, looked puzzled.
She frowned for a moment, then finally gave in to her curiosity and asked impatiently.
“Sweetie, what are you doing all of a sudden, and why am I dressed like…….?”
As if the emotion was over, April turned to Deborah and locked eyes with her, her eyes curving into bows.
“If you sell those things I just told you about, you’ll have enough to live on for a while.”
“……what, sell what?”
“I mean the trinkets you wear on your body. You could sell some more of the things you have at home. Oh, and why don’t you move your house to a smaller place, and with the difference, you’ll be able to live well, if not richly, at least on your deathbed.”
Deborah, who had been listening to April’s story from beginning to end like someone who’d been out of her mind, snapped out of it at the word ‘deathbed’.
Her face lit up with anger and she screamed.
“What? Deathbed, honey, what did you just say?”
April rolled her face and clamped her fingers over both ears.
“Can you please speak in a low voice when you’re this close to me, and Godfather, dear? Don’t you know my name? I gave it to you as soon as I met you, and I feel bad for you.”
“Who cares about your name right now!”
I said, “She’s a bride I paid for like a commodity, how could she not know your name?
“Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t expecting it.”
April shrugged her shoulders and pouted her lips, then said coldly to Deborah.
“Anyway, given the circumstances, you’d better get going. I can’t even offer you a cup of tea, the economic situation here is seriously difficult.”
April repeated with a stern face.
“If you don’t believe me, perhaps you could stop by Gordon on your way home and ask to see the earl’s books.”
Deborah, who had been looking dazed, as if unable to accept the situation, turned her venomous gaze back on April and exclaimed through gritted teeth.
“Then…… what about my debt!”
April’s mouth dropped open in disbelief.
“Do I owe you that debt, and why do you keep asking me what to do about it?”
That asshole who was Igor’s ex-boyfriend, and this halmashi.
All I see is money, money, money!
“I’ve been left in charge.
April, all traces of her childishness gone, looked at Deborah wistfully, her eyes cold.
“I told you what to do: sell everything you own.”
“Look at her, why would you sell it!”
“Then why did you buy it in the first place?”
“Because it’s pretty!”
Ah……. That bossy attitude…….
April lost her fighting spirit.
“Talk is cheap.
Deborah was only forty years older than me, but she was a child at heart.
“Oh. I don’t know what this conversation is about.”
I didn’t ask her to sell me that thing.
“It’s the hair…….”
April whispered, her eyes closed as she pressed her forehead against his.
My cool fingers quickly transferred the heat from her forehead.
“I’m getting a fever.
There’s no way his sunfish-like body could handle that much stress.
The uninvited visitor in the middle of the night, the mother-in-law who came to visit and started a full conversation.
“You’ve had enough, cancer.
Eventually, she decided to get out of the sordid situation.
As her body began to feel strange, April spoke up again, not bothering to hide her irritation.
“Fine, do as you please, it’s your godmother’s property, and I don’t care if you sell it or not, but I told you, I don’t have the money.”
It was a fruitless conversation from the start.
The sooner she left, the sooner she could save her sanity.
As April stood up without the slightest hint of regret, Deborah’s gaze followed her rising face.
“I, I’m……!”
Deborah, unable to let April walk away with nothing to show for her efforts, raised her voice and stopped her in her tracks.
