“Damn it! Stop it! Do you think we’re in the Chester Mansion now?”

“Show your manners, Ilius! Do you think you can solve the problem by bluffing like that? These days Sorman’s barbarians do not fight in such an ignorant way,” Mrs. Chester quipped.

Mrs. Chester stopped smiling instantly, looking at Ilius with disdain.

“What did you say to me? Barbarian? Ignorant?”

Ilius’s face flushed red immediately. He was very hot-tempered. When he couldn’t stand his anger and growled like a bear, this time Duke Hubble stared at his son, clicking his tongue.

Belatedly sensing his father’s sharp look, Ilius turned around with a sunken face.

“It doesn’t matter even if the emperor relieves you of Chief Chamberlain. I didn’t think he was going to keep you in that position for long anyway.”

“Gosh, sir! How can you say that?”

It was too harsh for Hubble to say so in front of Earl McMillan. He couldn’t hide his resentment.

“I think it was better for you. Just shut up and check out the situation of the Treasury Department and report it to me faithfully.”

Hubble emphasized ‘shut up’ when he said it curtly.

Earl McMillan had to shut up because he had done something wrong as the Chief Chamberlain. Hubble was a man with patience, but he was not that generous. Accordingly, McMilan just shut up because he could be fired at the Treasury if he wasted his breath again.

“What are you going to do with my daughter? I hope you won’t have her live in disgrace for her life,” said Earl Lonstat with a sly smile.

“You don’t have to be impatient. Even if Duke Kling’s daughter has a ceremony, she is no more than the emperor’s fiancée at this point, ” Hubble said.

“Good point. I’m not sure if she can have the engagement ceremony peacefully, ” said Mrs. Chester with a smile and agreed with Hubble. Each word implied her malice, so her direct threat to ruin the ceremony would have sounded much softer than it was.

She continued, “How wise you are! In my mind, they don’t match each other well. I heard that even before Duke Kling met the emperor, he was given a short shrift at the palace’s main gate. There are lots of rumors going around that her daughter was forced to get married to the emperor, that the emperor kidnapped her, or she would be divorced even before her marriage.”

The rumor was touched off by small gossip originating in the Elior Mansion. Even small things often snowballed into a big fuss when they were on the lips of noisy parkers.

Upon hearing rumors about the trouble between the emperor and Marianne, Earl Lonstat immediately planted spies in the salons and social circles.

“Besides, Marianne allegedly loves Sir Ober more than emperor..”

As there were lots of nobles who attended the tea party hosted by Mrs. Chester, it didn’t take more than one day for the rumors to turn into a fait accompli.

“Marianne is a very naive lady,” said Ober calmly.

Mrs. Chester slightly turned her head at his son’s reaction.

His fascinating eyes frowned quickly.

He continued, “But it’s impossible to make her turn coats right now. Since the duke brought her up like a precious treasure, she is very picky and chicken-hearted. You will have to take some time to get her on your side.”

Ober recalled Marianne’s words as she jumped into his arms at the tea party.

“I want to go back to you.”

Her green eyes sparkling amid her crying looked stupid and beautiful. Even though he didn’t trust her entirely, her innocent actions emboldened his hope of taking her back.

He assumed that it might be the emperor’s intention to make him give her up. In fact, Marianne still loved him. So, he felt he couldn’t easily let the emperor take away Marianne from him. He even thought he would rather make her his woman and use her for his own purpose.

“We have to focus on ruining their engagement ceremony, above all,” Ober said.

He slowly swept his dark red hair, looking at those around him with dark eyes.

* * *

Eve was an orphan born in the slums. She didn’t know who her father was, and her mother was a flower seller. Her mother gave birth to Eve without being married.

Eve’s mother was addicted to drugs since she was four years old. She sold flowers during the day but helped drug dealers at night. She bought drugs again with her pay. There was more drug residue and bugs than bread or potatoes in her house, and even that old house disappeared after she died from drug addiction, leaving Eve alone.

When she turned seven, Eve began eating out of the trash. She slept wherever she found eaves. She ran barefoot here and there, regardless of dry and wet ground.

Then, on a summer day when she was 15, she was noticed by a woman named Anne by chance. Anne asked, “Hey, don’t you want to eat hot bread as much as you can? You can live as decently as others if you do as instructed.”

Anne’s proposal was like natural water in a desert to her. Eve followed her without hesitation. Then she had a small room with a roof and windows. She could eat bread and soup twice a day, and she could burn some dry firewood on cold days.

A so-called ‘teacher’ came to her room twice a week. The teacher was an old lady with gray hair. Eve learned from her how to comb tangled hair like a magpie, knot clothes, and sew. She also learned how to whiten stained clothing and make stew with meat and vegetables.

She stayed there for three years.

Anne finally gave Eve a new family name and given name. She also gave Eve a new job after some short training. Her workplace was the Elior Mansion that she had never seen before, even in a dream. She was sent there as a maid.

Eve was assigned to the garden management team. She carried water to the flowers and trees as told by the gardener. She pulled weeds around the trails for easy walking, or polished benches and a fountain. As she went to the trouble of cleaning untrodden places in the mansion, she quickly memorized the complicated road in the back garden. Even though she worked so hard, Eve had never really seen what the owner of the garden looked like.

It was close to disrespect to let the owner watch housemaids working. When the owner was taking a walk, they were forbidden from entering the garden. The owner didn’t come out for a walk when she cleaned the garden.

Eve heard some rumors while working there. Luckily, employees like her who saw Marianne at a distance said that the new owner was a very beautiful woman. Of course she was because young ladies of the noble families usually had white skin, thin waists, red lips, and tender hands.

But according to Lotus, who had seen the new owner for the longest time, the new owner had a charm that was hard to compare with other noble ladies.

She had sweet hair like chocolate, moist, sparkling emerald eyes as if they were just plucked out of the ocean, and loveliness, which seemed to fly away like a fairy when fitted with pretty wings on her back.

Just like that woman.

‘She is coming.’

Eve put a note in her apron pouch which she had been fiddling with. She didn’t know what it was about because she couldn’t read. Given Ann’s facial expression, it seemed like an important message as she was told to convey it to the new owner secretly. She thought how good it would be if she served the new owner at hand. As a lowly maid, the most she could do was climb up a tree after cleaning the garden and waiting for the new owner to appear. By sheer luck, she overheard the gardener saying the new owner would appear in the garden today.

‘How can I deliver it? I think she will scold me for me hiding in the garden secretly if I appear before her suddenly. If she is accompanied by a knight, he might cut my neck. It can’t make any noise even if I drop the note since it’s paper..’

Eve bit her lip while waiting nervously. Sitting on a dark tree and looking down from there, she glanced between the new owner and her maid approaching toward her. Fortunately, only two of them were coming.

‘Can I climb down and ask for forgiveness? I might bump into her again in the future.’

Eve did not have many options from the beginning. There was no chance for a humble maid of low birth to meet the new owner alone.

So, she felt it was the best to look away and disappear when the new owner was alone.

That was the only safe and successful way. She might be beaten by her maid if she attempted to speak to the new owner, but it was much better to take the note back to Anne.