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Chapter 59
Will You Deny Your Bloodline?
“You can’t take our Ilina! I was the one who sent the letter to Lord Loriols.”
Soon, Anne began to speak, her face contorted to the extreme, her words laced with screams.
“Your Majesty the Empress! I was the one who starved Lorencia, beat her, and abused her. I was the one who sent a letter to Lord Loriols and instructed him to humiliate Lorencia. I did it all. I did! I did it. It was absolutely not our Ilina.”
After desperately confessing all her sins, Anne soon began to wail. Watching Anne act so viciously for Ilina’s sake, the anger in Lorencia’s eyes rose to its peak. Beneath the fully surfaced anger, sadness welled up. The hatred, suppressed deep beneath the constant, aching, sorrowful pain, began to burst forth.
“I had no idea you were capable of such deep maternal love. I truly didn’t know.”
Lorencia gritted her teeth and continued speaking. Anne, showing this so-called maternal love, seemed disgusting to her.
“Covering up the sins your child committed can never be called maternal love, Madam Anne.”
“What would you know, born from your filthy parents!”
Anne, who had raised her voice, suddenly shut her mouth. Her lower jaw trembled. She began to look at Lorencia with a helpless expression, gauging her reaction.
“Lorencia. I was wrong all this time. I’m sorry. I’m a bad person. It’s all my fault.”
“You’re apologizing to me now? To a filthy illegitimate child?”
“Yes. So please, just leave our Ilina alone. I’m begging you on my knees like this.”
“Are you asking me to forget everything that happened just because you’re apologizing now?”
“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
Her apology was an incredibly cruel word to Lorencia. Her breath caught in her throat automatically.
“Sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“Even if I forget what was done to me, people will remember the evil deeds you committed, Madam Anne.”
Finally, Anne, whose tears burst forth, gritted her teeth and bowed her head deeply. Her pitiful sobs could be felt between her gasping breaths. But Lorencia felt no particular sympathy. She knew that the reason Anne was apologizing to her was a forced apology out of fear that something might happen to Ilina.
It wasn’t a sincere apology for what she had done to Lorencia.
“The person who will become known as a worse villain than Madam Anne will be Ilina from now on.”
Anne, her expression distorted in devastation, stared at Lorencia. Lorencia looked down at her with an utterly unreadable expression.
“Please, not Ilina. I’m apologizing like this, Lorencia. Please, aren’t you two half-sisters after all? I was the one who told her to send the letters. Ilina just did as she was told.”
“You don’t actually believe I think of Ilina, who abused me, as a sister, do you?”
“I’m sorry. I was really wrong. I’ve bowed my head and apologized like this… There’s no need to kill sisters who share the same blood, right?”
Anne spoke with trembling lips. She was willing to accept even death. She was willing to accept the shame of kneeling before Lorencia.
“Lorencia, you are Ilina’s half-sister. Will you deny your bloodline?”
Lorencia wanted to tell Anne the secret of her birth right then and there. She just wanted to curse the vile Brandt, who used her father Cain’s life as a hostage to make her mother Musilla his mistress. But she couldn’t reveal the truth now. Because the future would go awry.
Anne’s future was to be assassinated in the convent and disguised as a suicide. If she revealed that they weren’t half-sisters, Anne could use that as a pretext to save her life, and things would get complicated.
“I plan to renounce the Pol Heredian Count’s family from now on.”
“What? Do you plan to become a commoner?”
“Wouldn’t the life of a commoner be better than that of an illegitimate child trapped in a Count’s residence?”
Because she had thoroughly abused Lorencia all this time, Anne couldn’t continue speaking. Her mind went blank. She had nothing to say.
“Let me rephrase. I’m going to erase Count Pol Heredian.”
“How dare you, a mere illegitimate child!”
Lorencia frowned slightly.
“Because I am a monster.”
“What…?”
“I was called a monster so often that I became a real monster. So, look forward to it.”
Lorencia spoke while looking at her own reflection in Anne’s eyes.
“To everything that will be shattered by the hands of this monster.”
Lorencia smiled a twisted smile and drove the final nail into Anne’s coffin. She straightened her bent back and turned around. Behind her, she could hear Anne’s screams, but the knights silenced her.
“Madam Anne… committed suicide…?”
Charlotte took a sip from her teacup. Madam Anne, who had been sent to a remote island convent, ended her own life in less than a week.
“But I can’t help but think the circumstances of her suicide are very suspicious…”
Adrian, who investigated her suicide, found evidence of foul play. Even someone contemplating suicide would have a fear of death, so ‘signs of hesitation’ should be found right before death, but Anne showed no such hesitation. It was clean.
“I feel the same, Your Highness Princess Charlotte.”
“Then it seems like the right time to reveal that letter. What are your thoughts, Lady Lorencia?”
Lorencia smiled brightly.
“Please reveal it after I meet Ilina.”
“You plan to meet Lady Ilina? Lady Lorencia.”
“Yes, Your Highness Princess Charlotte.”
“Marquis Téshar probably won’t allow it…”
Charlotte shook her head, thinking of Téshar, who was pathologically obsessed with Lorencia.
“It’s alright. If I ask Marquis Spencer nicely, he’ll allow it. He said he would grant me anything I want.”
Lorencia nodded, thinking of Téshar, who would grant her anything.
“Marquis Téshar knows very well that Lady Ilina once laid hands on you recklessly and hurt you. Do you think he’ll let you two meet alone?”
Lorencia’s lips twisted awkwardly. And as expected, Téshar vehemently opposed Lorencia’s wish to meet and talk with Ilina.
“Absolutely not.”
Téshar had received reports from the Crimson Moon, the Repository of Shadows. The reports stated that after Anne’s death, Ilina cried all day long, and as a starting point, she muttered to herself, ‘Lorencia. You filthy monster.’ or ‘Filthy illegitimate child,’ while destroying everything in her room or verbally abusing and tormenting the servants for no reason.
If Lorencia had remained in the Count’s residence, it was clear that all that abuse would have been directed at Lorencia. That fact alone was unbearable for Téshar.
Therefore, he absolutely could not let Ilina and Lorencia meet.
Seeing Téshar’s firm opposition to the meeting, Lorencia slightly furrowed her brow and then relaxed it.
“I know you’re worried about me.”
“If you were to be physically assaulted like last time, I would be so angry. I don’t think I could hold back.”
Téshar sighed. Ilina had sent letters repeatedly wanting to meet Lorencia, but he had refused due to the past physical assault. Lorencia had also clearly stated she did not want to meet Ilina.
But now, because of the letter’s revelation, she said she wanted to meet Ilina, which frustrated Téshar.
“I have to meet her eventually.”
“Lady Ilina is dangerous.”
Téshar spoke with a sigh, moving closer to Lorencia to express his anxiety. Letting the cruel and violent Ilina be alone in the same space with Lorencia was unthinkable.
“Marquis Spencer. I’m more dangerous than Ilina now.”
Téshar tilted his head. There was no way the child of Goddess Ella could be dangerous.
“Lady Lorencia is absolutely not a dangerous person.”
Téshar took a small, thin comb from his inner pocket and gently combed Lorencia’s disheveled bangs, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“You are a very special and precious being.”
Téshar looked intently at Lorencia as he spoke.
His words made Lorencia’s chest feel strangely ticklish. To suppress the tickling sensation, she picked up the cup of cocoa Téshar had brought her and drank it in one go. It was a little hot, but it was fine to drink.
“Wasn’t it hot? You have a little cocoa on the corner of your mouth.”
Téshar put the comb back into his inner pocket, then took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the corner of Lorencia’s mouth. At his touch, Lorencia’s heart began to pound loudly.
She felt as if a warm spring breeze had blown into her chest, but the moment his hand barely touched the corner of her mouth, she felt a strange emotion. It was a different feeling from the comfort she felt when he patted her head.
What was clear was that she never disliked it when Téshar touched her.
“Lady Lorencia.”
“Yes, Marquis Spencer.”
“Is it absolutely necessary for you to meet Lady Ilina?”
Lorencia nodded at his question.
“It can’t be helped, then.”
“It can’t be helped.”
“In that case, I would like to be by your side when you meet Lady Ilina.”
‘It would be better to just leave this place.’
Aden, the head butler who had worked for the Pol Heredian Count’s family for a long time, reached that conclusion amidst the chaotic atmosphere of the Count’s residence.
Brandt’s once-thriving business was in trouble. Fortunately, with the help of the Graykan Duke, it was just barely being maintained. Anne, the former Countess, had been exiled to a convent and recently ended her own life.
When Ilina heard the news, she seemed to have lost her mind. Aden even thought that her previous behavior of tormenting the servants was better, as Ilina was suffering so intensely from Anne’s death.
<Aden, please call Julie back for me.>
Julie, the former head maid of the Pol Heredian Count’s household, whom Ilina had relied on the most. Aden went to find Julie for the suffering Ilina.
Frankly, he still found it puzzling why she had quit so suddenly. And after meeting Julie, his puzzlement turned into a sense of something being wrong.
<I can never return to that mansion where that monster is.>
<Monster? More importantly, Lady Ilina needs Head Maid Julie now more than ever.>
Aden offered Julie a large sum of money, but she stubbornly refused.
