chapter 18
“Here, add a bit more pink rouge. Ah, yes—right there.”
Elisa smiled in satisfaction at her reflection in the mirror. Dressed up elaborately by the maids, she looked every bit the noble daughter of a duke.
But the smile didn’t last long. Her expression hardened at the news that followed.
“My lady, Lady Cornelli and the young master are waiting in the garden.”
A maid standing outside the room delivered the message.
“Natalie and Lawrence are here?”
Of all times, those frightening ones had to show up. Elisa felt goosebumps rise all over her body. Ever since Edith had married out, they hadn’t visited the ducal estate.
Things had been peaceful for a while. Elisa frowned deeply.
Natalie Cornelli, Lawrence Cornelli…
The twin heirs of the Cornelli ducal family.
They had been childhood friends of Stella and Edith.
Frequent interactions between the families, along with the shared trait of being twins, had quickly brought the siblings of the two houses close together.
All gloss on the outside, rotten within.
Elisa knew—because she had stayed by Edith’s side—just how cruel they truly were.
She couldn’t keep them waiting, so she quickly made her way to the garden.
The red-haired twin siblings sat at the garden table like figures from a painting, sipping tea.
“Oh my, sorry to keep you waiting, Natalie. Lawrence.”
Elisa curved her brows apologetically, as if she truly felt sorry.
“It’s fine. I heard you’re getting engaged to Rihardt? Congratulations.”
Natalie smiled like a blooming rose.
“Yeah… thank you.”
“I’m glad everything has returned to its rightful place. Isn’t it wonderful to end up with the person you’ve liked since childhood? Hehe.”
Flinch.
At Natalie’s added remark, Elisa’s body stiffened.
“You… knew I liked Rihardt?”
“Of course. You wore the face of a girl deeply in love—did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Natalie smiled sweetly as she spoke.
Her tone was casual, but her green eyes were cold as they looked at Elisa.
Those eyes clearly said—
Did you think I was that much of a fool?
Sensing danger, Elisa quickly responded.
“Thank you… for pretending not to know. Your consideration is so deep, Natalie—I don’t think someone as ordinary as me could easily understand it.”
Elisa smiled shyly, as if genuinely grateful.
“Hehe, calling something like that consideration…”
Only then did the chill leave Natalie’s gaze as she lifted her teacup. Elisa secretly let out a breath of relief.
Outwardly, Natalie was like a bright, beautiful rose. Her voice was clear like rolling jade beads, and she was known as a saintly woman of boundless kindness.
A noblewoman everyone wished to befriend.
But only a select few knew that the thorns of that flower were coated in deadly poison.
Elisa, one of those few, swallowed dryly.
I must never end up like Edith.
Because Edith had failed to save Stella, she had suffered all kinds of secret humiliations at the hands of the Cornelli twins.
Having witnessed it firsthand, Elisa never let her guard down around them.
“You’re coming back from visiting Edith, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“What did you go for? A lawsuit, perhaps?”
Whenever the twins visited the Adelheit family, there was always one topic they never skipped:
Edith Diel.
They despised and loathed her more than anyone—yet their interest in her was immense.
“Yeah… I went to see if Edith was okay. We were friends once, after all, so I was worried.”
“Friends? Weren’t you more like a lady and her maid?”
Lawrence, who had a boyish and playful impression, chuckled lightly as he refuted her.
“R-right.”
Elisa nodded awkwardly.
Resting his chin on his hand, Lawrence idly toyed with a flower on the table.
“Seriously, Elisa is way too kind.”
Then he snapped the flower’s stem as he muttered:
“If it were me, I’d snap her neck the moment I saw her. Haha.”
Unlike Natalie, who hid her thorns from time to time, Lawrence made no effort to conceal his cruelty.
It made him all the more chilling.
“Elisa, we’ll help you.”
Natalie’s face was filled with nothing but goodwill as she said it.
The exact same words she had once said to Edith.
“What are friends for?”
“Exactly. Just tell us.”
Their eyes—filled with schemes to torment Edith—twisted into something eerie, like snakes coiling around a rose.
Before long, the day of the trial arrived.
The courtroom was packed with spectators, buzzing like a pot about to boil over.
Normally, this imperial court handled cases of treason, making this lawsuit relatively trivial by comparison.
But the fact that the defendant was Adelheit—
And the plaintiff was the so-called “fake lady” of Adelheit, Edith Diel—
made it a major topic of interest.
“The outcome is obvious.”
Most people expected my defeat—Edith Diel.
As I entered the courtroom, the nobles who had been whispering fell silent all at once.
Duke Adelheit sat at the defendant’s table, speaking with his aides, while the duchess, Caleb, and Elisa sat side by side in the witness stand.
Normally, direct family members weren’t allowed to sit there.
Must be nice, receiving such blatant favoritism from the imperial family.
I let out a quiet scoff and took my seat at the plaintiff’s table.
Archduke Orpheo wasn’t visible yet.
So the real star makes a grand entrance at the end?
The spectators snickered among themselves at the sight of me alone.
“She doesn’t have a single witness.”
“Well, that’s the result of all her past actions. The ending’s obvious.”
“Still, she looks pretty confident. Maybe the rumors about her being crazy are true.”
I ignored their murmurs and checked the copies of the evidence I had submitted.
My body wasn’t strong from years of desk work, but Russ Mattie’s skills were precise.
No one in their right mind would file a lawsuit against Archduke Orpheo, so I shouldn’t have had experience preparing for one.
And yet, the evidence had been organized cleanly and clearly.
“Oh my, meeting you again here, Edith.”
At that moment, someone spoke to me.
I looked up—and my expression stiffened.
Flame-like red hair, green eyes, and beauty reminiscent of a rose.
Though they looked like an innocent boy and girl due to their youthful features, they were adults the same age as me.
The Cornelli twins.
Their bright smiles were so natural, as if they were greeting a long-lost friend.
…I fell for those faces once, too.
Back then, I hadn’t remembered the original story, and I had believed they were my friends.
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
I answered casually and returned to my documents.
Then Lawrence placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear.
“Poor Edith, are you okay?”
“Edith, if things get tough, tell us. We’ll help you.”
“This is your last chance, after all, isn’t it?”
The last remark carried a chilling tone.
I swallowed a hollow laugh and replied:
“Get lost.”
At my firm rejection, the twins smirked and headed to the spectator seats.
I looked down at my hands for a moment.
Whenever I faced them, my palms were drenched in cold sweat.
Was it because the trauma from the past still lingered deep within me?
Fragments of old memories surfaced.
Edith, there’s a pretty flower here!
It had been not long after Stella died.
The twins had invited me to their estate, saying they’d cheer me up by showing me their garden.
Without suspicion, I stepped forward toward where they beckoned—
And suddenly, the ground gave way beneath me.
I fell straight down.
“Ahhh! Edith!”
Natalie’s scream grew distant as I plummeted.
I injured my leg and ended up trapped in a dark pit.
The ground below swarmed with black rats.
They had dropped me into a rat hole.
On purpose.
Time passed, and even when I didn’t return to the ducal estate, no one came looking for me.
I’m going to die like this…
Terrified, I dragged my injured leg and barely managed to crawl out of the pit.
They looked shocked, as if they hadn’t expected me to survive.
“Are you hurt anywhere? I’m so sorry…”
“We’ll call a Cornelli physician right away.”
The twins apologized, acting as if it had all been an accident.
But on the way back to the Adelheit estate, I realized something:
No knights from the Cornelli family had come to rescue me.
It had all been deliberate.
Just to scare me.
After that, every time they met me, they put me in danger.
Falling into water and nearly drowning became almost routine.
There was even a time I was nearly shot.
Bang!
“Haha, sorry. I thought you were a deer. You’re not hurt, are you?”
Lawrence had dragged me to a hunting ground and fired at me.
Even now, I couldn’t forget the look in his eyes—
Thick with resentment over Stella’s death.
And regret… that he hadn’t hit me properly.
Since then, I couldn’t go near flower gardens, ponds, or hunting grounds without being reminded of those incidents.
Feeling inexplicably defeated, I rubbed my hands harshly with a handkerchief.
