At those words, Olivia looked up.
It was the news that had the entire city buzzing—the very news that had conveniently quieted the scandal surrounding the Melvitch family.
Olivia turned her gaze to her teacup, as if to hide the glimmer in her eyes.
“Do you know anything about that, Miss Melvitch?”
“Well, my father said it seemed to be due to diplomatic issues with the Kingdom of Belloc, but honestly, who knows the real story?” Vivian chirped, chattering on like a lark.
“Perhaps the Grand Duke finally came to his senses and decided he couldn’t possibly marry such an uncultured woman?”
Olivia, who had been silent, spoke in a serious tone.
“I don’t think that’s the case.
If it were, he wouldn’t have just postponed the wedding; he would have annulled the engagement.
Grand Duke Greenfield is not so irresponsible a man.”
At that, Vivian let out a light, tinkling laugh.
“As you say, Lady Olivia, the Grand Duke isn’t one to make such a choice easily.
But surely he knows people call his fiancée the ‘Wild Bird of Greenfield.’ Don’t you think he’d annul the engagement in a heartbeat if given the chance?
Postponing the wedding might just be the first step.”
Olivia remained silent.
“He won’t be the least bit happy, even if they have children.
It’s bad enough that Greenfield is being called a house of half-bloods, but if their child is born with that damned red-gold hair, he’ll sigh every time he lays eyes on it, won’t he?”
Olivia felt a prickle of discomfort at the naked slander, yet as her mind entertained the possibility that it might be true, her feelings became a tangled mess.
‘Does he really want to annul the engagement?’
She dismissed the burgeoning hope with a sip of tea.
It was a sweet thought, but realistically, it was nonsense.
He was a man who had made his decision knowing all of that.
To change his mind now would be entirely out of character.
“Honestly, all this unpleasantness is entirely the fault of that wench, Merdi Langlen.
Princess of a foreign nation, my foot.
Our housemaid has more elegance than she does.”
Vivian looked at Olivia with undisguised envy.
“If ‘you’ had become his partner, Lady Olivia, there wouldn’t have been any of this scandal.
You are a bride that any young lady would be forced to acknowledge.”
Olivia smiled faintly, as if she were already accustomed to such burdensome compliments.
It was a statement that needed neither affirmation nor denial.
As Vivian had said, before Clifton’s engagement, many had predicted she would become the next Grand Duchess.
Her family, the Whitbys, were not only the sole remaining Ducal house in the capital but had also managed to retain their dignity, power, wealth, and honor despite the rise of the bourgeoisie.
Some whispered that her father, the Duke of Whitby, was blinded by money, but such slander was but a speck of dust on the honor they had built over generations.
So, no matter the rumors, the facts remained: the eldest son of Whitby had distinguished himself in the recent Palesword War, and Olivia, whose beauty grew more radiant by the day, was the bride every man desired.
Yet, Olivia could not boast of what she possessed.
For all that others envied her, she had failed to obtain the one thing she wanted most.
And that was Clifton Mayall de Greenfield, the man who was now another woman’s fiancé.
“I understand your feelings, Miss Melvitch, but it would be better not to speak of such things.”
Hiding her bitter thoughts, Olivia admonished her gently.
Normally, Vivian would have taken the hint, but today her spirit was exceptionally bold.
“No.
Just you wait, Lady Olivia.
I wrote a letter to the Grand Dame Margaret a few days ago.”
‘A letter?’
Olivia blinked, looking at her.
Vivian’s smile was bright and sharp.
“Since my family suffered considerable damage because of that wench, I felt the Grand Dame should pay a price for failing to conduct the bridal lessons properly.”
The clink of her teacup against the saucer was sharp, almost fierce.
“Who knows?
Perhaps, having finally seen the light, the Grand Dame will be the one to break this engagement.”
As clouds drifted lazily across the sky, obscuring the sun, shadows began to creep across the glittering spring garden.
As news of the postponed wedding spread, Merdi found herself confined to her bedroom.
People, hungry for details, waited like a pack of jackals for anyone from the Greenfield estate to emerge.
To make matters worse, the firing of the entire annex staff and the hiring of their replacements plunged the already chaotic household into even greater turmoil.
Still, Merdi didn’t see the situation as entirely negative.
Confined to her room, she was finally able to read the books she had bought, completely undisturbed.
Furthermore, with the news breaking, Clifton had become too busy for their late-night meetings.
For Merdi, this was cause for celebration.
She wished she could have gone to see the sheep, but that was impossible now that she needed his permission.
The thought made her chest tighten again.
The more Merdi learned of Clifton, the deeper her disappointment became—a truly bitter pill to swallow, considering how overwhelmingly she had once adored him.
To think he would stoop so low as to hold innocent sheep hostage.
The more Merdi dwelled on her plight, the more depressed she became, so she did her best to push all thoughts of him aside during the day.
She consoled herself that it was better to be satisfied with the temporary reprieve from that rude, cruel man.
Merdi spent that morning reading as well, and after lunch, she had her scheduled lesson with the piano teacher.
“Goodbye, Lady Emily.”
After seeing the piano teacher off, Merdi turned and surveyed the annex, which had been eerily quiet for the past few days.
The Grand Dame was no longer confined to her bedroom, but since news of the wedding postponement had spread, she seemed to be constantly out meeting with people.
The new maids, except for Emma, were all walking on eggshells, their silence adding to the stillness.
As she started back toward her bedroom, Merdi’s eyes fell on the calendar hanging on the wall, and they widened in horror.
‘Wait…
today is Sunday?’
Between being cooped up in her room for days and having her piano lesson, which was usually on a Saturday, she had completely mistaken the day.
A cold sweat broke out across her skin at the belated realization.
On Sundays, she was required to attend the church in the capital, no matter what.
Of course, she had missed several services due to her trip to Belloc and the subsequent commotion, but today was different.
Today, there was no excuse.
If Margaret had the mind to berate her, she wouldn’t have let Merdi get away with not even being ready to leave by now.
Merdi knew she had to attend that gathering, where they would be waiting to tear her apart, and offer a plausible explanation for the postponement.
The thought of it felt like walking to her own execution.
It was even worse knowing that Vivian Melvitch would be there, waiting for her with sharpened claws after the ghost-painting incident.
‘If I leave now, I won’t be late…’
If she had realized it was Sunday too late to do anything about it, she could have simply dismissed it.
But having remembered at this ambiguous hour, Merdi now had a choice.
Go to that terrible place, or not.
Merdi cursed her own resilience.
If only she could will herself to be sick, to vomit until she was too ill to attend, she would have.
‘Though what a miserable ability that would be.’
Knowing the answer in her heart, she called for Emma.
It was time to get ready.
While Emma combed her hair, Merdi mentally prepared answers to the questions she knew would be thrown at her.
But it was probably pointless.
This would be the first gathering since her run-in with Vivian, and she knew that Vivian and her clique would be lying in wait, ready to sneer at her every word.
With a sigh, Merdi pulled on her white gloves, her preparations complete.
Just as she reached for the handle of the annex’s main door, it swung open from the other side.
‘Whoa.’
Merdi froze, her heart seizing with the fear that it might be Margaret.
But as she took in the large silhouette backlit by the afternoon sun, she let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Where were you going?”
The person who had opened the door was Clifton.
She had assumed he would be out all day, but here he was, dressed far more comfortably than usual.
“…To the church in the capital.”
“If you go to pray with a face like that, I doubt God will be particularly pleased.”
Clifton spoke with his hands thrust into his pockets.
“He probably won’t be…
But it can’t be helped.
I, too, must accept things I don’t desire.”
“In that case, wouldn’t it be better for both parties to avoid an encounter?”
‘What is he getting at?’ Merdi hesitated, clasping her hands together.
“…I can’t do that without a reason.”
“It sounds like you just need an excuse.”
His ambiguous tone made Merdi blink as she looked up at him.
The sunlight caught his face, revealing a faint grin.
“I can provide that excuse for you.”