Meanwhile, Castle Taylor was like a beehive that had been stirred into a frenzy.
“The girl who was supposed to be quietly locked in her room is gone?! How the hell do any of you do your jobs?!”
Having slapped the butler’s cheek several times over, Duke Taylor collapsed onto the sofa, exhausted by his own tantrum. Already sprawled upon the bed, the Duchess muttered through her tears.
“To pay off the debts, I have to hand over all my jewels…… Do you know how I collected those radiant things!”
The Duchess shot upright and glared at the butler standing nearby.
“Can’t we sell part of the territory instead?! The wheat fields are so vast—can’t we sell some of that land?!”
To say she would rather sell territory than jewels—was that the sort of thing a liege ought to say?
The butler wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and answered in a cracked voice.
“Under Imperial law, territories cannot be privately bought or sold. When there is no heir left to inherit, they are transferred to the temple……”
“Who doesn’t know that?!! Grace……! That damned wretch……! How dare she repay the kindness of our raising her like this!!”
They had no interest whatsoever in what kind of man Grace’s husband would be or what sort of married life she might lead. The ducal couple cared about only one thing: who would bring in the largest dowry. In that sense, Grace Taylor was the greatest remaining asset the Duke and Duchess possessed.
Never had they dreamed that she would burn her own life to the ground and vanish with her own two hands. To think she had declared she had a paramour in the sacred chapel where the wedding was being held, with the Empress’s own nephew right before her!
“She had a man hidden away! So her body and heart were impure?! She was nothing but a wench locked up all day looking at documents!! She never took a single step outside the territory!! That brazen liar……!! If this happens, it will cause tremendous harm to our Rosette’s marriage prospects too!!”
To a house where the bride had declared she had a lover and stormed out of the wedding hall with the Empress’s nephew, the Young Count of Saxen, standing right before her—which family would dare send a marriage proposal? Already tottering, the honor and fortune of House Taylor had been buried in the mud by this day’s events.
“There must be people who smuggled her out, so catch them at once as well!!”
The Duke roared at the top of his lungs. While several servants shrank back, it was Lady Cornwall who stepped forward. She had, for many years, been the ducal couple’s most loyal retainer.
“Calm yourself, Your Grace. This may rather be a good thing.”
“……What?”
As the Duke echoed her, the Duchess’s furious voice erupted.
“Where have you been hiding that you only show yourself now?! Rather a good thing! What do you mean by that?!!”
Lady Cornwall quickly approached the Duchess and spoke as if to soothe her.
“I was delayed searching through documents related to the debts. My apologies.”
“Never mind that. Finish what you were saying.”
“Because of what happened at the wedding, Grace is already as good as dead in high society. She will not be able to enter even as a wealthy merchant’s concubine, let alone a noble house, so there is no chance whatsoever of her bringing a dowry into House Taylor. Rather, so long as the name Taylor is attached to Grace, House Taylor can only suffer losses. Therefore, cast her out of the family.”
The Duke rose from the sofa and asked again.
“You mean to strike Grace from House Taylor?”
“Yes. Grace’s scandal will adversely affect Lady Rosette and Young Duke William’s marriage as well. Furthermore, Count Saxen’s house is Her Majesty the Empress’s natal family. Since she publicly shamed the Young Count and the Count and Countess, this is no different from an insult to Her Majesty the Empress herself. Her Majesty’s wrath will turn toward House Taylor.”
“Th-then what should we do?”
The Duchess’s face turned deathly pale. The butler chimed in, supporting Lady Cornwall.
“We must prove to Her Majesty and the entire world that House Taylor is innocent and unrelated to this matter. Thus, you must cut Grace out of the family.”
The Duke, who had been listening, puffed out his shoulders and boasted.
“You heard me say in the chapel that I would strike that wench from the family register?! I had already foreseen this far when I said that!”
“As expected, Your Grace’s foresight is extraordinary.”
“Ahem!”
“First, I will secretly dispatch men to track Grace down. I will also find out who aided her, so the two of you should worry first about how to settle the debt owed to Count Saxen’s house.”
At those words, the Duchess lay back down and closed her eyes as though she did not even wish to think on it, while the Duke opened a bottle of liquor. Debt. The very thought was sickening. He could not even remember when or where he had borrowed such a vast sum. The Duke poured the alcohol with abandon and shouted irresponsibly.
“Butler! Lady Cornwall! Handle it yourselves! And prepare the documents to strike Grace permanently from House Taylor so that I need only stamp my seal!”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
As the butler and Lady Cornwall bowed their heads respectfully, the Duke drank and muttered savagely.
“A ducal house is nothing special. What did they spend so much on that the family fortune vanished in less than twenty years? Can’t even sell this great hunk of land that’s only big. Tch, really.”
The butler and Lady Cornwall quietly withdrew, leaving him as he was.
＊ ＊ ＊
Laid low and burning with rage was not only the Duke and Duchess of Taylor. Count and Countess of Saxen were also spewing every curse imaginable as they packed up every gift and present they had brought without leaving a single one behind, returning to their territory.
“I will never forget this humiliation!! Aah, I want to wash out my ears!! What?! She has someone she loves, so her body and heart are not pure?! She doesn’t have the confidence to love my son?!”
The Countess lay in her carriage, not ceasing her vitriolic denunciation of Grace.
“My dear! As soon as we return, you must inform Her Majesty the Empress of today’s disgrace. Her Majesty will never overlook this matter!”
The Count too repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fist, his beard trembling.
“The moment we arrive, I will enter the palace and have an audience with Her Majesty.”
“Yes, you must.”
The Countess had been agreeing with her husband when she suddenly sniffled back tears. Then she sprang up and stuck her head out the window. In the middle of the long procession was the carriage her son rode in.
“How hurt our son must be. To have suffered such humiliation before so many nobles……!”
The Countess dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and spat out the words, biting them off.
“Grace Taylor—I will never forgive that insolent wretch. Never!!”
She would dispatch men and find her without fail. Once found, she felt she would have to beat her until Grace wept and clung to her, begging forgiveness for today’s affair, before she could ever rest easy again.
Lady Taylor? The name of House Taylor held no fear now. The moment the previous Duke and Duchess passed away side by side, the house of Taylor had already fallen. Even so, there was no benefit in drawing the public eye once more over such a matter, so she only needed to catch her secretly.
The Countess’s eyes gleamed savagely.
Meanwhile, Jack Saxen was also thinking about Grace. The figure that had stacked the gifts neatly before him and was walking away brazenly flickered like an illusion. He was devastated that the damned priests had held him back, preventing him from following that woman out.
To think a woman who should have been locked in her room like a criminal had vanished without a trace. Where could a lady who had supposedly never once stepped outside Castle Taylor have gone?
*‘I have someone I love.’*
When he recalled anew that profile, white as the first snow, his chest burned. Jack Saxen’s lips twisted crookedly.
“So she was said to be a modest, demure lady, yet she had cleverly hidden away a paramour. So she’s with that bastard right now, is she?”
The Young Count’s breathing grew rough.
Even though he had clearly suffered tremendous humiliation, a sense of loss rose in him—as if a magnificent dish had been snatched away just as he was about to eat. Whether it was her rare beauty, her noble demeanor, or the resolve with which she had declared she could never love him, he did not know. But his anger toward Grace began to twist bizarrely.
A savage emotion settled into his gaze.
“You pushed me into a cesspit, and right about now you’re whispering sweet nothings with that bastard, aren’t you?”
Jack Saxen roughly ran a hand over his face, then licked his lips. Reclining long in his chair, he muttered words like curses.
“I’ll find you, and I’ll hack that bastard to pieces and kill him right before your eyes.”
Then those round, pretty eyes of hers would flood with tears, wouldn’t they?
The thought alone was so thrilling that Jack Saxen let out snickering laughs.
“Then I’ll drag you back, Grace.”
Grace.
Grace Taylor.
“I even like your name.”
His voice, steeped in madness, uttered Grace’s name over and over again.