Chapter 200
“It’s been done, as you ordered.”
Talfrin reported with a self-satisfied tone. Nerys smiled faintly and praised him.
“Good work. Now that everyone knows what they need to, the rest will be up to Megara and Natasha.”
“Indeed. Who do you think will win?”
“I think both will lose.”
Her confident reply made Dora glance at her mistress with quiet awe. ‘So she plans to destroy them both…’ For all her fragile appearance, there was no one Dora trusted more than this woman.
Knock, knock.
Cledwyn entered without waiting for an answer, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief at the sight of his subordinate.
“I told you to go to the palace, and you stopped by here first, did you?”
Technically, Talfrin was Cledwyn’s man. Reporting to Nerys about her assignments before carrying out the Grand Duke’s orders was… unconventional, to say the least.
Nerys looked mildly apologetic.
“Oh, he had other tasks. I’m sorry, dear. I needed his help with something.”
“I didn’t say it was wrong. If you need him, that takes priority—just as my duties do for me.”
Cledwyn shrugged lightly, stepped close to his wife, and kissed her.
‘Chup.’ Just a brief sound of lips meeting and parting—but it didn’t stop there. Another kiss followed. Then another.
Talfrin groaned and quickly exited the room. Dora, recognizing her cue, followed and shut the door tightly behind her.
Now alone, Cledwyn placed his hands on Nerys’s shoulders and kissed her deeply. Her head began to spin slightly.
It was fortunate she had drunk the herbal tea Joan had sent—a tonic for health. Without it, she might not have survived her husband’s sudden bouts of passion.
“…Hah.”
After a long, breathless exchange, Cledwyn finally pulled back, reluctant. Nerys, flustered, lowered her gaze, her eyes flickering briefly to his moist lips before she quickly turned away to look at her desk.
“When will you get used to this?” he teased.
“I don’t know. Someday, maybe?”
She fanned herself gently with one hand, trying to cool her flushed face. Cledwyn chuckled and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“Adorable.”
The fanning was pointless. Even though he said such things a dozen times a day, each time it sent strange ripples through her heart—ripples that only grew stronger over time instead of settling.
It was as if waves were stirring in the small space of her chest, brushing against her heart, making her tingle. She muttered in embarrassment,
“You came here just for this? I still had instructions for Talfrin.”
“Tell me. I’ll relay them on my way out. And is it wrong to come just for this?”
“Not… exactly.”
After all, what husband needed an excuse to find his wife for a kiss? Nerys’s response faltered, and she lifted her chin in a half-defensive, half-dignified gesture.
Cledwyn chuckled. She always did that—straightened her posture, composed her face—whenever she was flustered. These days, even the servants could tell: if the Grand Duchess suddenly became ‘too perfect’, it meant her emotions were stirred.
“I did come for another reason, though,” he said, voice softening. “I made contact with one of Silver Moon’s informants. Things move much faster when I’m in the capital.”
That name—Silver Moon—made Nerys’s brows rise slightly. It was Camille’s masterpiece, a monster nurtured from childhood, devouring every secret and method the Imperial Palace could offer. Countless nobles had vanished under Silver Moon’s blade.
Knowing that, Nerys couldn’t help but look at him with admiration.
Cledwyn smirked. “I like that look—you admiring me. But when we’re alone, I’d rather be seen as ‘charming’ than ‘capable’.”
She blinked. Was he serious? Never in all her thirty-some years had anyone said something like that to her. She hadn’t even realized people actually ‘said’ such things.
Her face flushed red enough that a poke might have drawn color from it. Cledwyn’s grin turned sly.
“My dear wife, why don’t we prepare for that play you arranged? We have too much money sitting idle in the house—I’d like you to spend some of it for once.”
He meant shopping. Again.
One room was already overflowing with dresses; now they were spilling into another. And they’d be leaving this house soon anyway.
“Don’t you think I have enough dresses already? I only have one body—how could I wear them all?”
“Then we’ll buy jewelry instead. It takes up less space.”
She sighed. His habit of buying her things whenever he was in a good mood was awkward, but once he decided, he never let go until she agreed.
“So that’s why you came, after all—talk of informants was just a pretext.”
“My little indulgence. I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany me.”
Nerys sighed again and rose. Cledwyn slipped an arm around her waist, laughing softly.
“I love that look—the one where you wear the grandest jewels imaginable and still look like you think they’re just rocks. You’re beautiful.”
There it was again—that word. ‘Beautiful.’
Nerys turned her eyes toward the door, pretending indifference. But then she froze, caught by her reflection in the mirror beside it.
Since her academy days—since the bullying had begun—she had avoided mirrors. What she saw there had always been a grotesque creature with hateful eyes. All but once.
But today… today the mirror simply showed a woman.
A woman attempting, awkwardly, to smile.
Nerys remembered that expression. The last time she’d seen it was when Diane visited last year. No—there was something livelier about it now.
“Shall I have the mirror removed?” Cledwyn asked softly.
Nerys blinked out of her thoughts and shook her head faintly.
“No. Leave it. It’s… necessary.”
❖ ❖ ❖
A dark chamber, untouched by sunlight, deep within the Imperial Palace.
Since the humiliation she suffered at Natasha Grünehals’s hands, Princess Camille had grown even quieter. Her attendants, sensing her mood, scarcely dared to breathe.
At last, her most trusted subordinate approached carefully.
“Your Highness.”
“What is it?” Camille’s tone was a growl.
The servant flinched but continued gently, “We’ve received intelligence concerning the daughter of House Lykeandros.”
“Megara?”
Camille straightened, eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“What’s happened to her?”
“Not her, Your Highness. The problem lies with the marquis himself.”
The story was so outrageous that even an experienced agent of the Silver Moon struggled to report it. In their line of work, they often unearthed the grotesque scandals of noble houses—but rarely one that was such a thorough, decades-long deception.
A deception that corrupted the very purity of noble bloodlines.
When he finished, Camille’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“The marquis and marchioness have lost their minds.”
“Yes, Your Highness. But they both had something to gain from it—that’s why they were so meticulous.”
“If they were that meticulous, they should’ve silenced the caretakers at the convalescent estate too. Carrying the child back alive was the mistake that doomed them.”
The words were cruel, but perfectly in character for Camille—who valued caution above all else.
“What shall we do?” her subordinate asked carefully. “Shall we silence the woman who claims to have attended the marchioness twenty years ago?”
He knew the value of this secret. If the truth came out, the marquis would face censure by the Peerage Council—if not imprisonment or crippling fines for deceiving the Imperial Family.
But the fewer who knew a secret, the more powerful it became. Once it spread, Camille could no longer use it as leverage.
After a moment of contemplation, Camille replied coldly, “Don’t touch her yet. Just watch her closely. Her words alone won’t hold much weight as evidence, but they might prove useful later. Instead, investigate Rebecca Shirley’s movements. Find anyone who can confirm she gave birth back then.”
She had already deduced that Rebecca must be Megara’s true mother. It was the only way the marquis and his wife could have both benefited from the lie.
Camille had always wondered why, even after years of living together, the marquis had never married Rebecca formally. For appearances? For politics? Or something more personal?
‘Of course. She endured for her child’s sake.’
Though Camille prided herself on logic and restraint, she ‘believed’ in love—or at least in how love made people foolish.
From her perspective, the marquis loved both Rebecca and Megara. And that love, she thought, would be his undoing.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Camille’s expression soured. “Then I suppose I’ll have to let Natasha handle Megara. Both are insufferably arrogant, and I care little for either. But I can’t allow Abel’s first child to come from filth.”
And just like that, in Camille’s mind, Megara became filth.
Even if the marquis begged for mercy, even if he offered the Imperial Family a fortune to bury the truth—it wouldn’t matter.
If Natasha died tomorrow and the position of Crown Princess opened again, Megara would ‘never’ sit on that throne.
She would never be permitted to taint the Imperial bloodline.
“Shall I warn Lady Grünehals?” her subordinate asked.
Camille shook her head.
“No need. Natasha’s clever enough to realize I’ll stay silent. She’ll take it as permission.”
❖ ❖ ❖
A brocade gown dyed in Tyrian purple, embroidered with gold thread.
A shining crown adorned with violet diamonds resting atop hair like spun sunlight.
Pure white silk gloves—the kind worn only by those whose hands never touched anything but books.
Truly, only someone with ‘too much wealth to spend’ could dare to wear such finery.
Nerys gazed at herself in the mirror.
The high neckline flattered her narrow shoulders, and the skirt swelled in a graceful shape without overwhelming her frame. Dora clapped her hands delightedly.
“You look magnificent, my lady. Of course, you’re always beautiful—but this gown makes your eyes even more radiant.”
“Thank you.”
‘Beautiful?’ Nerys blinked at her reflection, almost startled to see a woman who looked… human. Maybe even—not ugly.
‘Though inside, I’m still broken.’
Her expression hardened.
She still couldn’t forgive. Not herself. Not them. Not any of it.
Resolute strength shone in her eyes as she turned toward the door.
“Come, Dora. Let’s go. We’re about to witness a story that will be the most talked-about scandal in the capital for the next ten years.”
And the girl who had spent her whole life cruelly pressing Nerys down—would now lose the one thing she cherished most.