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Chapter 1
Adding Insult to Injury
‘Damn bastard!’
I cursed inwardly while keeping a calm expression on the outside.
It was absurd to pretend to be composed while pouring wine over someone else’s head, but at least my face probably looked dignified.
Well, of course. I’d been practicing this expression for years.
Tilting my lips slightly, I completely flipped the wine glass.
Splash.
The bright red wine soaked Countess Frey’s golden hair.
Her mouth moved as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened, and then she screamed.
“W-what are you doing?!”
“That’s what I should be asking.”
She had been loudly gossiping behind people’s backs, and yet here she was, looking aggrieved.
I looked down at the flushed face of the young countess.
She was a lovely girl, small and gentle, with round eyes and a head full of golden curls.
Ah, I should say “used to be full of hair.” Now it was drooping.
On top of that, her dress had red stains.
But my mood didn’t improve one bit.
The countess, who I expected to look ridiculous, still appeared charming.
No, she even looked smaller and more pitiful—like a little rabbit.
Compared to her, I looked…
“You witch!”
Yes, I must have seemed like a witch.
I tilted my head to match that title.
“Melissa Frey. Say exactly what you said earlier.”
“……”
“Hm? Say it again.”
“I-I…”
Melissa clutched her skirt tightly and pressed her lips together.
“Not going to say it?”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Fine, if she wanted to play innocent.
I snatched a wine glass from one of the spectators and poured it straight onto Melissa.
“Kyaaa!”
This time, her friends screamed instead of her.
“Your Grace! Isn’t this going too far? What did Melissa do wrong?”
“Apologize immediately!”
“Hah. You want me to apologize? Me?”
Their words weren’t even worth replying to.
I smirked and repeated word for word, tone for tone, what Melissa and her friends had just been gossiping.
“Did you all hear? The Grand Duke and Baroness Flame are having an affair!”
“Wasn’t that just a rumor?”
“I thought so too, but apparently the baroness has a ‘bluebird’.”
The spectators, who had been watching me like I was crazy as I acted out three roles at once, now gawked.
“A bluebird?!”
This ‘bluebird’ wasn’t just a bird with blue feathers—it was a magical bird that high-ranking nobles used to secretly deliver love letters.
“One bluebird costs the price of a castle, and the baroness has one?”
“So that’s why people are saying the Grand Duke gave it to her?”
“Has anyone actually seen the bluebird carrying a letter?”
“W-well… I’m not sure…”
The murmurs around us grew louder.
“Wait, but doesn’t Baroness Flame already have a fiancé?”
“That’s right! She’s engaged to Count Evans.”
Whether that was true or not, I continued.
What mattered was what Melissa had said at the end.
“Well then…”
At that moment, Melissa’s face went pale. She clearly knew what she had just said.
I twisted my lips and continued.
“Lady Ramirez will be deposed, right?”
“……”
“—That’s what I said.”
The crowd fell silent. Melissa only shed tears.
“Y-Your Grace…”
Wasn’t it her and her friends who had come right up to me and loudly gossiped? Now, acting flustered and aggrieved, was laughable.
I stared coldly at Melissa, whose golden hair soaked in wine made her look even more pathetic.
“You dare mention someone being deposed, and then call me, the Grand Duchess, ‘Lady Ramirez’?”
Rumors about my husband’s affair had started a month ago.
I’d only heard of them a week ago.
Even if it had been a nameless noble having an affair, it would have been interesting, but the Grand Duke himself? How exciting! I could understand people gossiping about my husband’s affair, whether it was true or not.
Even if it wasn’t a love marriage, even if my husband liked someone else, it didn’t matter.
I could act as if it didn’t bother me, even if I felt disgusted and betrayed.
But I couldn’t stand someone else using the name I abandoned.
I had discarded the name Ramirez.
All my fury was aimed at Melissa.
She seemed on the verge of collapse as I stepped forward, trembling and leaning on her friends.
“Hah.”
Unbelievable.
If I were truly afraid, I wouldn’t have dared mention a word about a ‘rumor’ in a crowded party hall.
I gritted my teeth, folded my ruby-encrusted fan, and lifted Melissa’s chin.
“If you know who Lady Ramirez is, you’d better watch your words. If you get deposed, you’ll return to your family estate and beg your father to cut off your neck.”
Finally, real fear appeared in her eyes.
Well, the Marquis of Ramirez probably wouldn’t care about what I said.
He would likely just glance at me with disdain before walking away. Being slapped would be lucky.
But that didn’t matter.
Outwardly, the Marquis of Ramirez maintained an angelic image, even covering up his illegitimate child’s misdeeds.
The mere possibility that he might take pity on me and retaliate was enough to scare her.
She was just a daughter of a family with a title of count, barely allowed into the court, not capable of confronting one of the top nobles of the kingdom.
“Look forward to the day you kneel in the Grand Duke’s castle, Melissa.”
I closed my fan and passed her. The crowd parted as I strode through the hall, head held high.
“With a temper like that, no wonder the Grand Duke had an affair in just a year. Tsk tsk.”
“Where could someone of low birth hope to go?”
“A half-blooded noble flaunting herself…”
I ignored the whispers behind me.
“Ah! You bastard! Trash! Liar!”
One hour after returning to the Grand Duke’s castle, I shouted until the room was filled with my voice. But it didn’t ease my anger; instead, I felt hollow and empty inside.
“I’m ruined…”
Suddenly, after just one year of marriage, I was about to be ousted from my position as Grand Duchess. There was no way I could feel fine.
Biting my nails, I looked in the mirror—what I saw was a disaster. My dress was wrinkled, my pale face was marked with irritability, and my hair was a mess of red strands.
I pounded the mirror in frustration.
“Ah! Ugh!”
Of course, the sturdy mirror didn’t break, and only my hand hurt. But there was no other way.
No way to quell the fire burning deep inside.
“Damn it…”
My hair, fiery red, made me hate myself. My green eyes too.
The Ramirez family had always had dazzling platinum hair and blue eyes. Even the current marquis’s wife had golden hair and blue eyes.
Among them, my hair could only stand out.
Since I was ten.
Ever since I was given the Ramirez name, always.
“I thought things would change once I became the Grand Duchess.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. In that brief moment, my life flashed before me like a slideshow—how had it come to this?
“Are you awake?”
A shabby ceiling and a tense man’s face.
That was my first memory.
At that time, I didn’t know who the man was. I didn’t even know who I was.
Except for the name Eleanor, nothing else came to mind.
“You don’t remember?”
I nodded. He smiled brightly.
“I’m Roman Ramirez, your father.”
“…Father?”
“Yes. Now, get up. We need to go home.”
It was a freezing winter day.
He wore a pure white coat like an angel and had elegant hands. Knights stood behind him to protect him.
It was enough to steal a child’s heart.
Yet I couldn’t easily follow him.
He was my father? He looked so amazing… why was I like this?
My clothes were torn, I was barefoot, and my hair was sticky with something.
The house I peeked at was small and shabby. It didn’t match his white coat.
“And my mother?”
I grabbed the hem of the marquis’s coat and asked.
“Where is my mother? Isn’t she coming home with me?”
“Oh, poor Eleanor. Seems you truly don’t remember anything.”
The marquis gently stroked my hair.
“Your mother abandoned you. You have no choice but to come with me.”
It was a brutal thing to tell a daughter, yet at the time, I only thought his touch was kind. Foolishly.
I was young and had nowhere else to turn.
And he claimed to be my father.
Trembling, I held his hand.
He brought me to the Ramirez estate, washed me, dressed me in nice clothes, and fed me delicious food.
Of course, he just gave orders—everything was done by the maids—but I was treated like a princess.
For only one month.
“You really don’t remember.”
Every day, the marquis checked my body and memory through my physician. One day, he was certain.
A shiver ran down my spine.
The marquis, eyes wide, grinned. The unease I felt the first day I met him returned in full.
It was not paranoia. From that day, his behavior changed.
“How dare you!”
Hours ago, we had been eating together, but suddenly I was slapped and chased away.
“F-Father…?”
“Shut up. Who’s your father?”
His cold voice pierced through me. The murderous look in his eyes left me frozen. I didn’t even notice my bleeding mouth.
At first, I couldn’t believe it.
No, it couldn’t be. I must have made a mistake, or perhaps something upset him.
But over time, I had to accept reality.
Hands flying at me without warning.
Glares that turned cold the moment he saw me.
The Marquis of Ramirez was not a kind man.
I can’t stay here. I have to run.
Unable to bear it, I sneaked out of the estate and went to a hospital.
“Help! My father hit me!”
The doctor calmly let me in, despite the late hour.
He sat me in a soft chair, treating my cheek.
“Swollen… why would anyone hit such a little girl…”
His concerned voice calmed me.
He wouldn’t kick me out immediately.
“Where do you live? Who is your father? Your mother?”
“I live in a mansion on Brin Fifth Street. My father is Marquis Roman Ramirez… my mother is…”
I choked back tears. My mother wasn’t the marquis’s wife. The marquis had told me that my real mother had abandoned me because of poverty.
The maids at the estate whispered daily that I must thank the marquis for taking me in. Forget my irresponsible mother and be grateful to the marquis who fed and clothed me.
I couldn’t.
I preferred the mother I didn’t remember over the rough-handed marquis. Desperately, I clutched the doctor’s sleeve.
“My mother is far away… but if I call, she’ll come! Could you help me just until tomorrow morning?”
“What?”
“Just until tomorrow morning. I’ll go to the guards to find her.”
“Oh, the poor child…”
The doctor sighed and patted my head.
“Come here. Want some cocoa while you wait? I’ll call your mother.”
“Really? You know my mother?”
I asked excitedly. He scratched his cheek and turned hastily.
“Um… anyway, I’ll be back shortly. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“Yes.”
His voice was as warm as the cocoa he brought.
I was lucky. Someone at the hospital knew my mother.
I wouldn’t have to go back to the marquis’s estate.
I can see my mother… my mother…
Feeling relieved, I drifted into a light sleep.
After a while, voices outside the clinic woke me.
Who is it? …Ah, my mother! The doctor must have brought her!
Excited, I jumped up and flung the door open.
“Mother!”
But the person the doctor brought was someone else.
Recognizing the familiar shoes and the long white coat, I craned my neck—and froze.
“Eleanor.”
Standing at the door was the cold-faced Marquis of Ramirez.
