TLDWAE 30

Episode 30

“Then allow me to ask you this: just how long did you think I would endure it? Until my insides rotted away and I finally took my own life with my own hands?”

“Duchess!”

Her face, far from kind, was contorted with malice as she spat those terrible words. Hesis thought she was making the worst possible assumption to provoke his guilt, but unfortunately, it was the reality she had lived through.

And Calia had not the slightest intention of showing mercy to either the person who had directly caused her misfortune or those who had knowingly enabled it.

“See? Even in this situation, it’s still ‘Duchess’ to the end.”

“-That is…”

“To you, and to everyone in the Duke’s household, the only mistress is the one who passed away. So, I’m unnecessary, correct?”

There were many reasons why Calia had been so ostracized within the family, but the fact that her husband and his two friends had cold-shouldered her was largely due to the influence of the late Duchess.

Were all four of them close friends? It was said that those two, who always obediently followed the Duke’s decisions, were the only ones who opposed this marriage. Asking if he felt no pity for the deceased wife.

For Calia, it was an utterly unjust situation. She hadn’t killed the previous Duchess to take her place, and the marriage discussions themselves took place after the previous lady’s death. So why did they resent her as if she had stolen the late Duchess’s position?

And now, they acted disgusted as if they didn’t want a divorce?

The reason was simple. They regretted losing the Imperial family’s support.

“I have nothing more to say. When you come again, persuade the Duke to bring the divorce papers.”

Calia finished her meal and rose from her seat. But Hesis couldn’t bring himself to stop her as she coldly turned her back.

Persuasion is useless if the person to be persuaded doesn’t open their heart. Calia had already reached her conclusion and left no room for doubt. Her heart had completely turned away.

Ruberdeph Pandeon, who had been holed up alone in his room for over half a day in shock after his wife left the house, finally came to his senses late in the dark night.

And the first thing he did was not to check on his mother, who was said to be lying down ill, but to summon the butler and ask who on earth ‘Ellie’ was.

“Are you Ellie?”

“Y-yes… Master. I am Ellie.”

The butler looked puzzled but soon mentioned there was a maid named Ellie and brought her forward.

The Duke, seeing the brown-haired maid bowing before him, narrowed his eyes and stared at her for a long time before scowling deeply and asking again.

“Butler, why is this maid still in the mansion?”

“-What do you mean, why is she here?”

“Isn’t she the one who made the Duchess fall down the stairs the other day? I’m certain I ordered measures to be taken.”

“W-well, that is…”

He hadn’t realized it while she was bowing her head in fear, but after staring at her face for a while, he recognized her as the maid who had pushed Calia on the stairs and injured her.

If handed over to the Imperial family, she could have been charged with attempted assassination of a royal and executed, but she seemed so startled and collapsed on the floor that it appeared unintentional, so he had told the butler to handle it quietly.

So why was she, who should have left the mansion long ago, still wandering around perfectly fine?

As Ruberdeph pressed with a terrifying expression, the butler looked bewildered, unsure what was wrong.

“According to Ellie, the Duchess was standing blankly at the top of the stairs, was startled upon seeing her, tripped over her own feet, and fell… We concluded the matter with a three-month deduction from her wages.”

“Tripped over her own feet! I saw clearly with my own eyes that maid push the Duchess with a laundry basket!”

The maid had given the Duchess, who was lost in thought, a solid shove in the back. Whether it was a mistake or intentional, she had approached the motionless Duchess and pushed her with enough force to make a thump sound. How could she tell such an absurd lie?

When Ruberdeph turned his head sharply and glared at her with fierce eyes, Ellie, terrified, fell to her knees on the spot.

“I-I’m sorry, Master! I was afraid I’d be driven out if I told the truth! I was just joking around like I usually do, and suddenly it became such a huge incident…”

“Like you usually do? Do you usually go around pushing the Duchess like that?!”

It wasn’t even a mistake; it was intentional. The butler hadn’t even listened to the Duchess’s side and had taken her word at face value, administering a slap-on-the-wrist punishment like a mere wage deduction. The chain of command was a complete mess.

As he rose, his eyes blazing, and slammed his fists on the desk, the door to the Duke’s study opened and Lamia entered. Shaking off the knights trying to restrain her, her small body stepped in front of the maid.

“Father, don’t scold Ellie! Ellie did nothing wrong, she’s my friend!”

“You, do you know what this maid did to your mother?”

“She’s not my mother! My mother passed away long ago! That thing is not my mother!”

Lamia shouted, her eyes welling up with tears. She was too angry to contain herself.

In a single day, her grandmother had collapsed and the entire household was in an uproar. Her nanny had grabbed her, sobbing, ‘Poor Madam the Dowager, what shall we do!’

She was told all this chaos in the house was that woman’s fault. That woman who hurled insults at her, calling her a wretched child, and who pushed her head away, making her fall!

“Father, it’s all that thing’s fault! They said she tormented Grandmother, and that she’s the one who made the mansion so chaotic now?!”

“‘That thing’?”

“Yes, that thing! That bastard wench! We took in the trash discarded by the Grand Duke’s house, and how dare she do this to us? This is why you can’t trust those without proper lineage!”

“Lamia Pandeon!”

Ruberdeph couldn’t contain his anger and shouted explosively. Lamia’s eyes widened in shock seeing her father, always the rational and sophisticated gentleman, yell like that.

Her father had always been tender with her. Feeling sorry for not being able to be with her often, he always brought her a gift—a doll, a small hairpin—when he came to the mansion. He was someone who never got angry, even when she skipped lessons or ran around in an unladylike manner.

Even as Lamia’s eyes welled up with hurt tears and she sniffled, Ruberdeph didn’t apologize, saying she had gone too far. Instead, as if annoyed, he averted his gaze and covered his face with his hands.

“Butler, was it always like this? Has everyone in the mansion always been this disrespectful and negligent towards my wife? Even you?”

“Master, w-well, that is…”

“No wonder the Duchess was so furious.”

Was this the karma for being too busy with external affairs to pay attention to the household? He thought it was fine because his mother was here, because the Knight’s Order was guarding, because his two friends would take care of things. He was wrong.

The lack of problems was only because no one had raised any issues. Because his wife had endured and tolerated everything for his sake.

‘Your Grace. You look pale. Did something unpleasant happen?’

She was always the first to worry and care if Ruberdeph was ill or upset, but he had not done the same for her. At first, it was out of guilt towards his late wife, then out of defiance towards the Imperial family, and later, because she never said anything, he assumed she was managing fine.

To be honest, he found it convenient that she didn’t cause trouble. So he wanted to maintain that distance from his wife. Looking back, what an arrogant thought that was. The effort to bridge the gap had always been hers.

“Summon all the mansion staff. I will personally instruct them on how they must serve the Mistress.”

He thought he could correct what was wrong, even now. He believed that fixing the mistakes would allow them to return to their previous life. He didn’t realize how selfish that thought was.

He still made no effort to comprehend how deeply hurt she was, or how much thought and resolve it must have taken for her to bring up divorce.

He didn’t even consider for whose sake the outcome of her returning to his side would be.

All of that was the reason she had left.

“So, the Duchess is getting a divorce. Ah, I suppose I shouldn’t call her Duchess now. Should I say Grand Lady? No, I hear she isn’t returning to the Grand Duke’s household either.”

Noah had been beaming for hours after hearing that Calia had spectacularly exposed the information he provided and declared divorce to the Duke.

‘Yes, that’s right. Hmph!’

Angered by the knights’ rude behavior he had witnessed earlier, he had looked into how she had been living all this time, and wave after wave of infuriating stories emerged.

He was angry about everything: the Dowager Duchess banishing her to the estate alone after the marriage, the servants there ostracizing, ignoring, and even failing to provide basic care for her, and the fact that things hadn’t improved much even after her return. But the most unbearable thing was the Duke.

He had taken no action while his wife suffered and withered away. He even consistently ignored all the clear signs right before his eyes.

‘How on earth did she live with such a man?’

He recalled Calia’s vibrant red eyes that seemed almost haughty. Every aspect of her—her expression, her gestures, even the way she blinked—exuded composure.

But it was different from mere aristocratic boredom. She concealed a sharpness within her softness. Anyone who applied force carelessly would have been cut immediately.

Why would such a person live through such an ordeal? Could it be that she actually loved that piece of trash who only looked decent on the outside?