Chapter 64
The maids around the Grand Madam scrambled to please her, piling on words.
“Even so, who would have thought His Grace would do something so shameless…”
“A child on the way already? And not with Lady Sepina, but some vagrant woman…”
Clara, too, was sweating as she watched the Grand Madam’s face.
“You know your task.”
“Yes.”
“If you fail to carry it out…”
“…I’ll keep it in mind.”
Getting close to Lucy under the Grand Madam’s orders had gone well enough.
Her first try at sowing doubt hadn’t worked, but with time and steady work, she’d thought it could be done.
But before she could properly win Lucy over and coax her.
Edward had announced that Lucy would be duchess.
‘What now.’
Now that he’d declared her his betrothed, Edward would keep a tighter watch around Lucy.
That could mean trouble for the Grand Madam, and for Clara herself, who’d approached Lucy on her orders.
They’d only just started, and already the whole plan had come apart.
No. Before that…
Clara stole a glance at the Grand Madam’s frozen face.
‘So she really does hate it.’
She’d talked about making that woman their ally, but Clara knew the Grand Madam’s noble pride ran deep.
Hadn’t she called Lucy a “low thing” all through their talks?
And that wasn’t all.
The Grand Madam took great pride in being the mistress of the ducal house, the duchess.
To have a new duchess come and threaten her place might be more than she could bear.
Worse still if the next duchess was the very woman she’d looked down on as so low.
Lucy would likely find herself in a hard spot.
Clara swallowed without thinking.
‘…Still.’
“That must have been hard.”
“It’s upsetting, isn’t it, things like that.”
She hadn’t seemed like a bad person.
‘…And she didn’t exactly look like a pushover either.’
Lucy had looked at her, steady and calm, and said she’d best be careful with her words.
Those eyes had seemed far wiser than any vagrant the duke picked up. Like she was looking at someone who’d already weathered plenty.
‘…No. A person so innocent-looking couldn’t be like that.’
Clara shook off her weakening heart.
‘What I should worry about now is the shards of anger flying at me.’
She looked down at her scarred hands.
She had to carry out the Grand Madam’s orders, no matter what.
The punishment for failure was one thing, but the money from the Grand Madam was what kept her family fed.
The trouble was that with Lucy set to become duchess, the watch around her would only grow tighter.
And the question of just how far the Grand Madam’s mood had soured…
It was then.
“Haha, hahahaha!”
A bright, cheerful laugh rang out, out of nowhere.
The Grand Madam burst into loud laughter, even as everyone else stood baffled.
As if she’d heard the most delightful thing.
“Ahaha, hahahaha! Truly, truly…”
“…”
“This is all the better.”
“Grand Madam?”
Everyone traded confused looks. Then the Grand Madam stopped laughing, wiped a stray tear, and smiled with real pleasure.
“The more precious something is, the more it hurts to lose.”
“That is true, but…”
“And if it’s a beloved woman and his own child, how precious would that be?”
The Grand Madam’s eyes went cold.
“How torn his heart would be, if those vanished in an instant?”
Her face had turned to ice. She spoke like she was chewing the words to bits.
“It’s time that boy tasted a blow like that.”
Grind.
The vassals and maids felt a chill crawl up their backs.
‘The duke is one thing…’
‘But the Grand Madam, too…’
No matter how they looked at it, wasn’t this her own son? And wasn’t the child in Lucy’s belly her own grandchild?
But the Grand Madam’s manner now held nothing of a mother toward her only son.
It was closer to how one faced an enemy.
The maids rolled their eyes. They’d known she’d lost power after her husband’s death and been cast out, but they hadn’t known her bitterness ran this deep.
The Grand Madam paid them no mind, her eyes straining until they nearly showed red.
“Yes, yes… But if they’ve grown that close.”
She slowly turned her gaze to Clara.
“Ordinary means may not win her over.”
“…”
“That sly boy Edward will have planted people to keep me from getting close.”
Clara felt a strange chill at the glint in those eyes.
The Grand Madam tapped her chin with ring-covered fingers, deep in thought.
“Ah.”
A few minutes later, she smiled bright, as if the answer had come to her.
“Then let’s do this.”
* * *
A few days later.
Tick, tick, tick.
Inside the grand ducal office.
Tension hung in the air, over the busy sweep of the clock’s hands.
Stare.
Lucy’s eyes were open so wide they looked ready to roll out, but she didn’t blink.
No. If anything, she forced strength into her dry, tired eyes, as if not to lose to Edward, who sat before her.
Edward watched her without blinking and held out the seal.
“Stamp it.”
“No.”
“After all that fuss about wanting it stamped.”
“I do want to stamp it! Really!”
Not long ago, Lucy had chased after him, throwing fits for a stamp on her contract, and Edward had paid her no mind.
Now the tables had turned.
Edward glanced down at the marriage contract on the table with a sour look.
Every time his brow knit, Lucy flinched inside. But this one thing, she couldn’t bend on.
“Still, you have to put this in!”
Bang, bang!
Her hand came down on the marriage contract with all its small strength. The hastily scribbled new clause showed.
Edward glared at it like a needle and opened his mouth.
“So… ‘After marriage, for any reason, between the two parties…'”
“‘Should the two parties divorce or choose to end the contract due to fault!'”
Lucy nodded and recited along.
Grind.
The sound of teeth came from Edward’s mouth.
‘Huh?’
Lucy flinched and looked at him, but his face hadn’t changed.
While she quietly read his mood, Edward drew a breath and, as if loathing it, read the rest.
“‘At the least, things naturally occurring between a married couple shall not be held as fault.’?”
Nod, nod.
Lucy nodded with gusto, clasping her hands together.
Edward looked the clause over again and again, then narrowed his eyes at Lucy and asked.
“‘Naturally occurring things’ meaning what?”
Lucy swallowed and opened her mouth.
“That is to say…”
“To say what.”
“For example… if you and I were to do something that might lead to a… a child!”
She shouted it out and rubbed at the belly he’d stroked before. A smile tugged at Edward’s lips.
For some reason, an odd tension seemed to drift through the air.
“So you did have it in mind after all.”
After all? What was that supposed to mean?
But before she could chew on it, the lazy echo of his voice pooled in her ears and raised the fine hairs on her skin.
His red eyes were fixed on her, darker than usual.
They seemed to say, even without words, “How naughty.” Lucy’s ears went a little red.
“W-We’d be married! You never know what might happen!”
“…”
“Anyway! I’m saying, when we divorce later, let’s not go at each other over who took whose innocence or who dared to get handsy!”
At that, Edward’s brow crumpled again.
As if the easy good mood had never been. The air around him turned rough in an instant.
