121. Darius’s Lie

Thwack! Thwack thwack!

She scratched the ground with an innocent trowel. The memory of the intimate time she spent with Darius in the gallery kept coming back, making her face flush repeatedly.

“Ugh!”

Is this the time for such thoughts? When the cotton field is failing again today!

The cotton field, on which she was focusing her research with the North’s future at stake, showed no signs of progress whatsoever, which filled her with despair.

“Madam!”

“Oh my goodness!”

The sudden loud voice from behind startled her. Turning around, she saw Apple’s cheeks were flushed bright red.

“Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Your younger sister!”

“Younger sister? Why suddenly?”

“Oh my, your younger sister Caitlyn is visiting the castle today!”

“What?”

Her jaw dropped at the name she hadn’t heard in such a long time.

Her?

Why?

For what reason?

‘What nerve does she have to come to my home? If she had any sense, she should be grateful I’m not bothering her and live with her head down.’

“Ah, the largest guest room is prepared, but I wonder which maid should attend to Miss Caitlyn…… Being from the South, she must be sensitive to cold? But you weren’t that sensitive to cold when you first arrived, my lady.”

First, let’s correct an important fact.

“She’s not my younger sister.”

“Pardon?”

“Anette Pochet, Caitlyn Pochet. We share the same surname, but we’re complete strangers.”

She would rather claim Apple as her sister than acknowledge her. As she recounted their history and vented her frustrations, Apple’s eyes widened.

“Oh my goodness! To our lady! How dare she!”

* * *

She followed Apple, who was clearly distressed, into the reception room to meet Caitlyn.

It had been a long time since she last saw Caitlyn, who looked at her with deliberately exaggerated blinks. Caitlyn seemed intent on appearing fragile, but the act didn’t suit her in the least.

“Why don’t you remove your arm from leaning on Sir Lucion? Our Sir Lucion seems quite uncomfortable.”

“As you know, sister, I have a delicate body.”

“My. I’m surprised you know the word ‘sister.’ You kept calling me Anette, Anette no matter how many times I taught you, so I thought your limited brain couldn’t understand hierarchical relationships.”

“Ho…… hoho, sister, really. You still seem to misunderstand me so much……”

Grind. Caitlyn abandoned her thoroughly benevolent expression and gritted her teeth. Sir Lucion, who was standing beside her, stiffened his face in surprise at the sharp exchange.

“Oh, you’re surprised. Don’t worry, it’s just a common quarrel between sisters. Still, sister, shouldn’t you first greet your younger sister whom you haven’t seen in a long time?”

“Because I’m not happy to see you.”

Bang, Apple pulled the refreshment trolley from one side of the reception room and threw the tea in front of Caitlyn, while carefully placing it in front of Anette. As a result, Caitlyn’s teacup shook, causing tea to spill.

“The maid is not careful.”

Caitlyn, who had criticized Apple, pretended to be refined and took a sip of tea. Huh? Caitlyn frowned. And then.

Pfffttttt!

“Cough, cough, cough! Hack, ack!”

The tea Caitlyn had in her mouth sprayed magnificently onto the tablecloth. It looked no different from a ruffian spraying rice wine on a sword—such an unseemly display that Sir Lucion’s face was now crumpled beyond description.

Tea stains are hard to remove.

Tsk tsk, she frowned with concern about washing the tablecloth.

“And you drink your tea so carefully.”

“T-tea! This tea!”

“Yes, this is called tea. Did you perhaps learn that word today? If so, it means your vocabulary is growing day by day, which is truly something to celebrate.”

“What on earth did you put in this tea!”

She took a sip of her own tea. Her eyes met Caitlyn’s indifferently.

“It tastes the same as usual.”

“Not yours, mine! That maid poisoned my tea!”

“Really?”

She tilted her head and pulled Caitlyn’s tea toward her and put it to her lips. Not only Caitlyn but even Sir Lucion tried to stop her.

“My lady, didn’t she say it contains poison!”

“Hmm. But it seems fine to me?”

She smiled brightly after drinking Caitlyn’s tea.

“It tastes exactly the same as mine.”

“Th-that can’t be.”

“You said it was poisoned. But it tastes fine to me. It seems you’re just making a fuss over nothing, but if you don’t like it, shall I exchange it?”

Caitlyn shouted irritably.

“I won’t drink it!”

“You’re still as rude as ever. You don’t seem to be in your right mind, so let’s meet again when you’ve calmed down. I’m not free enough to deal with a crazy person. Sir Lucion, you don’t need to entertain my troublesome younger sister either.”

She added, looking at Sir Lucion with a “you know what I mean” expression.

“She’s always been, well, like this.”

She completely made Caitlyn look like a madwoman and left the room.

Caitlyn’s shout of “Aaaaargh!” continued for a long time behind her as she walked away.

After leaving the room where Caitlyn was, she had taken only a few steps.

“Blegh.”

“My lady!”

Only then did she crumple her face. Apple hurriedly grabbed her with a tearful expression.

“Why on earth did you drink that!”

“How much salt did you put in her tea? Ugh, it’s so salty, you didn’t have to go that far. Ugh, I had a hard time maintaining my expression.”

“That’s…… because I thought you wouldn’t drink it!”

Sniff, Apple rubbed her hands together apologetically.

Considering what Caitlyn had done to her all this time, she had no intention of treating her well from the beginning. But that meant serving cold tea or soup without any substance, not playing pranks with the food.

“Anyway, don’t drink anything randomly next time! When someone says it tastes strange, why would you gulp it down, not knowing what I might have put in it?”

“You shouldn’t do that either. Is that something someone who put something in tea should say?”

She stroked the head of the maid who had stepped forward to take revenge on her behalf.

“But it was funny when she spat out her tea. I think I won’t be able to drink tea without laughing whenever I sit at that table from now on.”

“Sniff…… hmph. Pffft. But that was really funny.”

Caitlyn would probably never forget it either.

* * *

A little later, when Caitlyn called for her again, Sir Lucion had already left.

Having been taught a harsh lesson, Caitlyn finally threw off her ill-fitting mask of an affectionate younger sister and revealed her true nature.

“Do you think I came here because I wanted to see you doing well?”

“Then why did you come all the way here? Caitlyn, unfortunately, I don’t even want to see you doing poorly. I’d prefer if we just lived without hearing news of each other.”

“Eek! If Inkheart had kept its promise, I wouldn’t have come here either! After brazenly taking only the dowry!”

“Promise? What promise?”

“The promise to raise our family’s status! Since you married the Grand Duke, our family name should be on the Golden Plate, but it wasn’t!”

Caitlyn spoke as if driving in a wedge.

“Anette, your marriage hasn’t been registered in the capital! Legally, you and Darius Inkheart are nothing to each other!”

The marriage hasn’t been registered?

The shocking statement felt like someone had hit her on the head. But she couldn’t lose to Caitlyn like this, so she gathered her wits and added:

“Nothing to each other? Are your eyes bad? Can’t you see me perfectly functioning as the Grand Duchess? And what did people here call me? Unless your ears are deaf, you couldn’t have missed it. Tsk tsk tsk, if your brain is poor, at least your body should be healthy. You’re completely hopeless. What are we going to do with you?”

“Ha! What does it matter if you’re doing the work of a Grand Duchess when nobody knows except the people of Inkheart or Pochet territory! If you don’t believe me, check for yourself. At the Great Temple, you’re still a Pochet person! Even though it’s been two years since you got married!”

“Is it news that the temple is slow in processing matters? If you were in such a hurry, you could have bribed them yourself.”

Despite the shock, her expression remained indifferent when facing Caitlyn, as if it didn’t matter, and her words flowed smoothly.

“Anette, don’t you know that even in a common-law relationship, legal marriage is what matters in the end?”

“Why worry about such things when we won’t separate anyway.”

But her hands, hidden under the table where she sat with Caitlyn, were trembling with shock.

‘What? The marriage hasn’t been registered?’

I was planning to backstab this person and run away, but it turns out he was preparing for it first?

Right, he made it convenient for divorce by not even getting married from the beginning!

I was only thinking about creating secret funds in case I couldn’t get a share of the property and would be kicked out during a divorce, but I never thought about the marriage registration.

After pretending to be so smart all this time, I turned out to be the biggest fool!

“……I definitely signed the marriage covenant on our wedding day, so what do you mean the marriage isn’t registered? You should say things that make sense.”

“So, you just signed it, but it wasn’t submitted. The submission!”

“You probably don’t know because you’ve never handled such matters, but sometimes mistakes happen even when you think everything has been processed thoroughly.”

Though she was defending Darius in words in front of Caitlyn, if Darius had been holding back the marriage registration until now to check on her, she would kill him.

This person had a sacred marriage but didn’t get it certified?

And yet he said with those lips that he loved her? While often accusing her of being flirtatious?

In her mind, thoughts crossed between the belief that Darius wouldn’t do that to her and doubts about where Caitlyn’s confidence was coming from.

“Well, since you’re whining so much, I’ll look into it. Though I’m sure you’re misunderstanding something.”

She maintained an attitude of extreme annoyance until the end and stood up from her seat. Then she calmly left the reception room and asked Apple in a heavy voice:

“Where is the Grand Duke?”

Apple would later say that she had never seen such a terrifying expression on her face before.