Chapter 35
Cecilia clutched her chest and widened her eyes.
“What’s wrong, sister?”
Cecilia didn’t know that Hera had gone to the Loranga estate the night before.
“It’s nothing. I was just… surprised.”
Hera, unsure if she should tell Cecilia the truth yet, evaded the question.
The head maid continued what she hadn’t finished saying.
“This isn’t the sort of thing one should say in front of respectable young ladies, but…”
Leaning toward the table, she lowered her voice to a whisper.
“There’s a rumor he dropped dead during a debauched party with prostitutes…”
“Is that true?”
Cecilia covered her mouth in shock, but then her lips curled into a smirk.
“Not all that surprising. Viscount Bouvier’s heir is already infamous for that sort of thing.”
There was a reason he was still unmarried in his forties.
His reputation was utterly disgraceful.
With not a hint of sympathy, Cecilia said to Hera,
“You know, don’t you? He even tried to make a move on you a few years back. Don’t you remember?”
Cecilia naturally sought agreement on the memory, but Hera didn’t respond in kind—because Cecilia often forgot that her sister had lost her memories.
Cecilia awkwardly cleared her throat and changed the subject.
“Tomorrow’s tea party at Derilda’s will be all about this, I bet.”
**
As Cecilia had predicted—
“I even heard he mixed alcohol and an aphrodisiac.”
“Well, the Bouvier heir was past forty, hardly in his prime. At that age, living so decadently is bound to ruin your health.”
After the scandal involving her secret meeting with Marriot had become the talk of high society, Hera had declined every party invitation for a while.
But the day she went to Loranga, news came that Young Lord Albert had died—and she couldn’t bring herself to just stay at home.
Someone might know she’d been at the Loranga estate, and more than that, she was worried Marriot might get caught up in trouble.
The ladies gathered at the tea party each gave their take on Albert Bouvier’s death.
Most of it was pure speculation, and the only clear thing was that his reputation was abysmal.
All the rumors centered on him, and because of his notorious lifestyle, no one found his death suspicious.
“He was already drunk when he grabbed my waist. To think he’d die like that…”
Ever since remembering that Albert was the man who had groped her, Hera felt a chill.
Perhaps while she had been drinking with Marriot, he had taken his last breath out in the hall.
The thought made life and death feel so sudden—it was frightening.
“Miss Olivia, have you heard anything? Your father is the Minister of the Interior, after all.”
The ladies, who had been gossiping freely about Albert, turned toward Olivia Orentia, the only daughter of a marquis family.
Sitting at the head of the table, Olivia glanced around at the women.
Olivia…
Hera’s gaze drifted to the small beauty mark at the corner of Olivia’s mouth.
She remembered what Marriot had said at the Winterale Count’s Vale Hall—how curious he was about the mark beneath her lip.
It’s really there.
She didn’t even realize she was staring so boldly until Olivia lowered her head to hide it.
It seemed Olivia knew about what had happened at the memorial service as well.
Seeing Olivia’s flustered expression, Hera regretted her rudeness.
It wasn’t even the sort of thing one could easily apologize for.
Eyes down, Olivia fidgeted with her teacup and answered the question in a shy tone.
It seemed she was simply a timid person in general, not just because of Hera.
“Well… I haven’t really heard anything. But…”
Her ears flushed red as if recalling something.
“That morning, very early, Lord Julian came to speak with my father. I think he was asking whether it would be permissible to bring guards into Loranga, since the duke is such a high-ranking person.”
The ladies exchanged knowing looks.
And they teased her.
“Oh my? Then you must have greeted Lord Julian in his uniform?”
“N-no! I was still in my nightclothes, so only from afar…”
Startled, Olivia clinked her teacup loudly against the saucer.
Seated beside Hera, Cecilia leaned close and whispered,
“Olivia likes Julian. It’s an open secret.”
Then she added,
“Her parents want her to be the crown princess.”
Hearing this made Hera feel even guiltier toward Olivia.
Perhaps she had been objectifying her—thinking of her only as the noblewoman with the pretty eyes and beauty mark who had caught Marriot’s attention in a portrait.
That was why she had unconsciously searched for the mark beneath her lip.
She hadn’t cared in the least what kind of person Olivia truly was or what worries she might carry.
That, Hera suddenly realized, was a far greater discourtesy than staring at her face.
“In any case, thanks to Young Lord Albert, the Duke of Loranga will be caught up in yet another scandal. Before long, he’ll earn himself the nickname of Central’s troublemaker…”
The chattering women suddenly fell silent and turned their eyes toward Hera.
The scandal they spoke of included her own with Marriot.
If she hadn’t been there, they surely would have dissected it in detail—how wild the Loranga party had been that night, and how the duke treated the ‘poor baron’s daughter’ so dismissively.
But even they couldn’t resist bringing it up, speaking to Hera with the same teasing tone they’d used for Olivia earlier.
“Miss Emilia, you must be worried.”
“…Pardon?”
“Well, when it’s the duke, of course you’d be concerned. Especially with this kind of scandal…”
They trailed off and giggled behind their hands.
Since becoming “Emilia,” Hera had attended more than a few social gatherings.
Her conclusion, based on experience, was that the less people had to do, the more they concerned themselves with others.
She didn’t mean to belittle the young ladies here, but as long as they had no other occupation, they would always thirst for fresh scandal.
It was the only entertainment in their dull lives.
“Miss Derilda, Viscount Lucio Levinas has sent you a gift.”
Attention shifted from Hera to Derilda as the butler of the Buel barony arrived, holding a massive basket of flowers large enough to cover an adult man’s torso.
“Oh my.”
“My goodness, it’s like he sent an entire flower field.”
Viscount Lucio Levinas.
Hera had never met him, but she knew he was a man whose wealth was impossible to ignore.
Sending daisies at this time of year meant he owned a greenhouse big enough to bloom flowers year-round—
and that he had a space there dedicated solely to growing flowers for Derilda.
“Daisies suit you so well, Derilda. How thoughtful of him.”
“You should go ahead and announce it—that you’re engaged to Lord Lucio.”
“Yes, secret romances get dull if they go on too long.”
The ladies looked at the daisies filling the table with envy.
But Derilda herself didn’t seem happy.
Cecilia took her arm and asked with concern,
“Derilda? Is something wrong?”
“No…”
Yet the slight tremble in her chin made her look almost afraid of the daisies—though that made no sense.
At the same time Hera was attending Derilda’s tea party, Marriot Loranga was sitting in the city guard’s office looking bored.
“I came here because I said I’d cooperate, but…”
He sat slouched on the sofa, rolling his neck from side to side after being in the same position too long.
“Isn’t holding me here for over six hours a bit much?”
After Albert’s death, the city guard had searched the Loranga estate from top to bottom.
Of course, it was practically a ruin—there was nothing to find.
So Julian’s next move was to summon Marriot as a “witness.”
Not that they could interrogate a duke, but under the guise of asking for help, they had brought him in.
But to Marriot, it was obvious Julian’s real reason wasn’t the Albert case—
The somber-faced captain knew that his younger sister had been at the Loranga estate that day.
