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Chapter 8
“I am the lady of this house…….”
“I know there is a hierarchy in this world, and that superiors must correct the faults of their subordinates. But that doesn’t mean superiors are allowed to punish their subordinates anytime they want, does it?”
At Amber’s words, the servants who had been trembling nearby lifted their heads, one by one, and looked at each other.
Everyone had surprised faces. Because it was the first time they had seen a noble speak like Amber.
Nobles didn’t treat commoners as human beings.
Though they were somewhat more lenient with those who worked for their family in their own castle, that was only in comparison to how they treated other commoners.
This wasn’t a problem unique to the conservative Eastern nobles.
Nearly all nobles, from the South, East, North, and the capital, treated commoners as less than human.
But Amber was different.
Amber was the daughter of a rising noble family from the West that had built its house through commerce.
From a young age, she had seen countless commoners and middle-class people interacting with her father.
Her father, Viscount Riat, treated commoners with proper courtesy without hesitation if they were capable, and always strove to deal with them as equals.
As a result, Amber naturally came to hold a different set of values from other nobles in the Empire.
In her past life, she had been too withdrawn to have the opportunity to express such values. She had even deliberately kept her mouth shut for fear of standing out among the Eastern nobles.
But now was different.
Amber had no intention of hiding her values, nor of keeping silent for fear of standing out.
Moreover, Xenia’s safety was at stake.
Even if she had been afraid and reluctant, she would have spoken up.
“Amber, my new daughter. It seems you truly don’t understand.”
Bella sneered at Amber.
“To make an enemy of me just to protect one lowly laundry maid, you will surely regret…….”
That was as far as Bella got.
“Mother? What are you doing here?”
Calix’s voice was heard.
Both Amber and Bella, startled, turned their heads toward the voice.
Calix came into view, having just rounded the corner leading from the laundry room to the garden, accompanied by two or three knights.
He stiffened his expression in surprise at the scene unfolding in the laundry room.
“Calix?”
Bella’s voice rose unnaturally. She spread her arms and quickly approached Calix.
“What brings you here? Come, give your mother a hug.”
The moment Bella’s arms touched Calix’s body, a chilling coldness, like a frost, flashed through his navy-blue eyes.
But the coldness vanished so quickly one might think it was a mistake.
Calix embraced Bella in a very slow motion.
A satisfied smile appeared at the corners of Bella’s lips as she received Calix’s embrace.
Smiling, Bella looked back at Amber with a triumphant expression.
Amber barely managed to suppress a long sigh.
‘Now that he’s here, the situation is going to get worse.’
Looking at Calix, Amber thought this.
Calix didn’t explicitly take Bella’s side in an obvious way.
But like other Eastern men, he absolutely refused to involve himself in household matters.
<You two should work it out yourselves.>
Whenever a conflict arose between Bella and Amber, Calix always said this.
Even if Bella and Amber had been on equal footing, it would have been an infuriating thing to say, but since Bella was far superior, Calix’s words were usually interpreted in a way that benefited Bella.
“What is going on?”
Calix asked, looking back and forth between Xenia lying on the floor, Amber holding her, and Bella clinging to him.
“It’s nothing.”
Bella quickly moved to block Amber and Xenia from his view.
“The new daughter and I had a slight disagreement over the dowry. It seems she disapproves of what I’m doing.”
Amber thought Calix would utter those infuriating words again this time.
But Amber’s prediction was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“The dowry, you say?”
“Eung?”
Bella was flustered by the counter-question instead of the expected ‘do as you please.’
“What do you mean by that?”
Calix asked again.
Caught off guard by the unexpected turn of events, Bella couldn’t easily answer.
“Hey.”
Unable to stand it, Calix called out to Grace, who was standing behind Bella.
“Tell me what happened. Everything, without leaving out a single detail.”
“W-Well…….”
Grace turned pale and hesitated, but ultimately couldn’t disobey Calix and began to speak.
Naturally, the story that came out of Grace’s mouth was not the truth. It was considerably edited to favor Bella.
Bella taking the dowry without a word was transformed into a kind gesture for the new Duchess, who was inexperienced with money management and unfamiliar with the East. And the justifiable request to return the dowry was changed into Amber’s tantrum, upset that she couldn’t indulge in luxury.
The fact that Bella had tried to hit Amber didn’t come up at all.
“That is what happened. The Dowager Duchess tried to persuade the new Duchess with kind words as best she could, but…….”
Grace tried to continue defending Bella, but Calix raised his hand to silence her.
“Is what the maid says true?”
Calix asked Bella.
“Hm? Well, yes, that’s how it was.”
Since the story was edited to be as favorable to her as possible, Bella nodded without hesitation.
“So you’re saying my wife is unable to freely use her own dowry.”
Calix remained silent for a long while.
The problem was that his expression, with his mouth shut, was frighteningly rigid. Even Amber, who was familiar with his subtle facial expressions, couldn’t guess what was going on inside his mind at this moment.
Not only the servants, but even the knights who had followed Calix couldn’t open their mouths carelessly and watched his mood.
It was a suffocating silence.
Looking at Calix’s statue-like rigid expression, Amber searched through her past life memories.
‘I’ve seen him make a face like that once. Just once.’
There was one time, the first and last, when Amber had cried and clung to Calix in her past life.
It was the year Amber turned twenty-six.
That year, it had been particularly difficult to survive the winter.
Having poured all the territory’s assets into the subjugation of the Kingdom of Cale and received no proper compensation, the budget for winter was severely lacking.
To make matters worse, a bitter cold spell struck, freezing even the small amount of food they had stored.
That was when Calix declared that, by the Emperor’s orders, he would again depart on a campaign to a neighboring country.
Going hungry was fine. Physical hardship was also fine.
But having to shoulder the responsibility for the lives of the territory’s people all alone was too difficult.
On the day Calix’s departure was decided, Amber, waiting for him in the bedroom, eventually couldn’t bear it and burst into tears.
Saying she didn’t want to live in the East anymore, that it was too hard, she clung to Calix and wept endlessly.
That’s when Calix had made that very expression while looking at her crying.
Amber, terrified by that chilling, expressionless face, never spoke of her hardships again after that day.
“Why, why are you looking like that?”
Bella stammered, frightened by Calix’s expressionless face.
It was the same expressionless face that had stopped even the exhausted Amber’s tears. There was no way anyone else could handle that expression.
Calix ignored even Bella, who was watching his mood, and continued his silence.
It was only after Bella, unable to endure it, carefully patted his shoulder that the silence was broken.
“Mother.”
Calix slowly turned his head toward Bella, who was clinging to his shoulder.
“Regarding the dowry issue…… I will discuss it with my wife.”
Bella’s face hardened, and surprise appeared on Amber’s face.
‘He can say things like that too?’
Amber looked at Calix with wide eyes, thinking.
It was a passive response, but it was a hundred times, no, a thousand times better for Amber than ‘do as you please.’
“But Calix!”
Bella, unwilling to give up, put on an exaggeratedly pitiful voice.
“The matter of your new wife’s dowry is my jurisdiction. You know that, don’t you? If I back down here, I’ll lose all face.”
Calix had broken the unwritten rule that men do not involve themselves in household affairs.
Ironically, the target of criticism at this moment was not Calix, but Bella.
Rumors would also spread about Amber, but since she was a newly arrived bride, the general opinion would be to wait and see a little longer.
Regarding Bella, on the other hand……
<How poorly must she have managed the household that her son had to step in?>
Rumors criticizing her incompetence would circulate.
In fact, since Bella had ruined the East’s finances, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Rather, it was funny that no one said anything while Bella was controlling the situation, and it was only after Calix stepped in that voices that could be called criticism emerged.
In any case, for this reason, Bella could not back down.
“Calix, I will coax the new daughter well, so you don’t worry and go on your campaign.”
At Bella’s words, Calix let out a long sigh. His expression was less fierce than before, but he still radiated an unapproachable aura.
“Did you not hear? My campaign has been cancelled.”
“What? Cancelled!”
Aghast, Bella glared at Grace, and Grace again wore an aggrieved expression.
‘I tried to report it!’
While Grace was screaming silently, Bella quickly turned her gaze back to Calix.
“It seems the new daughter threw a tantrum, telling you not to leave her behind and go on campaign. Calix, don’t do that, I will take care of the household matters, so…….”
“Mother.”
Calix let out a long sigh and cut Bella off once more. Now his face was filled with undisguised fatigue.
“Please…… let’s end today’s matter here.”
“How dare you speak to me like that…….”
With a deeply shocked face, Bella slowly removed her hands from Calix’s body.
Leaving Bella standing pale and stiff as a statue, Calix approached Amber.
Amber held Xenia tightly and looked up at Calix warily.
‘Why on earth is this person acting like this?’
Amber’s mind was now full of questions.
Looking at her husband frowning down at her, it didn’t seem like his personality had suddenly changed.
Even with his wife sitting on the floor in disarray, he just looked down without any intention of helping her up. He was still a brusque and indifferent man.
‘But…….’
But just now, he had clearly taken Amber’s side.
It was passive, and without any will for a concrete solution, it was merely an act to smooth things over.
But his attitude had clearly tilted slightly in Amber’s favor.
