Gulp, Lily swallowed hard, stealing a cautious glance at Charlotte.
The present Charlotte was different from usual. Her gentle voice was gone, her warm gaze had vanished, and her kind expression was completely missing. It felt as though she had become an entirely different person.
At that, Lily instinctively took a step backward.
“Answer me. What protest should I make in times like that? Should I claim that because the ducal estate’s finances were failing, we had no choice but to share our clothes?”
“Pardon? N, no, absolutely not.”
“If I do that, Richard might accept it, but rumors will start spreading that the ducal estate’s coffers are running empty.”
“T, that is…”
It was only natural for Charlotte to inherit and wear the dresses, shoes, and accessories previously worn by Marlene, the second young lady and the truly legitimate daughter of the Duke. She had been doing so for over a decade.
Yet why was she suddenly venting her dissatisfaction? Why was she suddenly pushing back? Rolling her eyes anxiously, Lily tried to retrace the altered reality in her mind.
“Lily.”
Charlotte slowly raised her body.
With Charlotte’s footsteps, her thin chemise dress fluttered and swayed. The sheer dress, through which the inside was faintly visible, exposed her skinny arms and legs just as they were.
Moving her fragile legs, Charlotte approached Lily and grabbed the chin of the somewhat flustered maid. She looked deeply down into Lily’s trembling eyes.
“Your role is to reduce me to a insignificant existence, not to make others look down on the ducal estate.”
“I, I, I had no such intention whatsoever—!”
“Would there be anyone in this ducal mansion who acts without intention?”
Charlotte let out a dry chuckle.
“If that is the case, then you are not someone needed in the ducal mansion.”
“Th, that—!”
At this very moment, Lily felt an immense terror she could not dare to fathom.
Though she could not clearly pinpoint the reason, a gut instinct told her that the Charlotte before her eyes was not the Charlotte she had known. Her instincts, honed from surviving a long time by walking on eggshells among nobles, warned her that she must not act as she used to, and that if she pushed back even slightly here, she could easily be thrown out or whipped without recourse. With great difficulty, Lily managed to open her mouth.
“I, I will bring a new dress.”
The corners of Charlotte’s mouth curved upward into a round arc.
“That is a good idea.”
Before long, Charlotte obtained into her hands a beautiful silver-hued dress that she had never once worn, touched, or even laid eyes on before.
It was the very garment she had always stretched her neck out to envy from afar.
“D, do you like it, My Lady?”
Charlotte’s blue eyes swept over every detail of the dress, then turned to observe the feet of Lily, who was rapidly grasping her own position.
In her past life, Charlotte had lived while giving up so many things. Telling herself that it was not her place, that it was not hers, and that it was something she dared not reach out for, she constantly berated herself and defined her own limits.
However, things are different now.
“I like it very much.”
Because she likes it, she will not just sit idly by.
She will claim everything.
She will make it all her own now.
Richard paced anxiously back and forth across the parlor.
Biting relentlessly at his fingernails to show his restless agitation, he soon took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his palms. Then, suddenly, he felt a sensation as if a small bug were crawling across his palm.
Damn it! He scratched at his palm fiercely with nails he had intentionally kept dull. Yet, the bug still would not vanish. It felt as though tens of thousands of hideous bugs were crawling all over his body. The itching all over his skin grew steadily worse. He felt like rolling around on a bed of sand just to shake off all those wretched bugs!
He wanted to pull out the medicine from his inner pocket and inhale it right away, but with the last shred of his reason, he managed to stop himself. It was because he remembered what his mother had said before he left home.
“Even if it is already a rumor spreading around society that you are a junkie bastard, is there any need to turn that rumor into truth? A rumor is always best when it remains just a rumor.”
“You must leave it as a scandal spread by trash who coveted the title of the second son of the Count Cosmo family.”
“The ducal household must also believe it is merely a rumor. Make it look like smoke rising from a chimney where no fire was ever lit. If you do not, I will chase away every single junkie bastard associated with you.”
No, no!
A similar incident had happened once before.
It was the very next day after he had broken his promise to his mother. In the blink of an eye, all the delivery men who supplied him with drugs had vanished completely. Ever since then, Richard followed the Countess like a puppy that rolled onto its back and wagged its tail at her command.
That is right. Therefore, he must endure it even now. If he were to inhale the drug here, the exact same thing would happen again, and he would spend days writhing in agony unable to find any drugs. He is the second son of the Count Cosmo family. No matter how addicted to drugs he might be, he has at least this much patience.
Richard pulled his hand out from his inner pocket and abruptly seated his body on the sofa. Loosening his necktie rather roughly, he ground his teeth together.
“Just when is she coming?”
Before this withdrawal symptom grew any worse, he had to show his face to Charlotte as promised with the ducal household and then leave the place. He needed to do that so he could rush out quickly and inhale his drugs in the carriage, yet this damned wench was not showing up!
A wench who had the good fortune to catch the Duchess’s eye and rise in social status, only to put on airs of refinement like a true noble. A wench who had nothing in the world and nothing to look at besides a pretty face, yet dared to look down on him, the second son of the Count Cosmo family, as if he were her inferior.
And yet she always acts like a pitiful woman pretending to be the victim. If only I could slap that pale cheek, I would have no greater wish! The more anger toward Charlotte rose, the more severe the itching became. Scratching his arm over his clothes, he soon pulled back his shirt and began scratching his bare skin frantically. If he could, he wanted to thrust his fingernails into his flesh and tear it apart. Damn it, damn it!
Richard picked up the nearby water cup and chugged the cold water. When his thirst still was not quenched, he repeatedly sat down and stood up from the sofa, rubbing his neck, and that was when it happened.
“Lady Charlotte has arrived.”
The door of the receiving room opened slightly, and the servant’s voice was heard. Regaining his composure somewhat, Richard tugged sharply at the hem of his jacket and gasped for breath. “Bring her in.”
As soon as he spoke, the door flew wide open, and Charlotte appeared. The moment Richard saw Charlotte, he widened his eyes in spite of himself and wore a look of astonishment.
Who was Charlotte Aubry?
Was she not a fool who had seized the position of a ducal young lady despite being a plebeian, thanks to innate celestial luck?
Therefore, the people of the ducal family, in other words, the Duke and Duchess, the servants, and the maids alike, all looked down upon Charlotte.
You could feel that just by looking at her usual appearance. A dress that looked as though it had been worn once and left unkempt, a scarf with stains that would not wash out, shoes with worn-out toes, and unmanaged hair. Charlotte always acted as though appearance was nothing to care about, but Richard did not like that sight.
There had even been times when he shouted at the top of his lungs, asking why she did not dress up even a little bit when she was his fiancé of all people, and declaring that she was entirely determined to look down on him. However, after learning that such shabby appearances of Charlotte were the “unavoidable” poverty instructed by the ducal family, he had inevitably tucked his tail between his legs.
However, how was Charlotte today? She was wearing a dazzlingly silver dress embedded with dozens of diamonds. On top of that, her neat makeup and flawlessly pinned-up hairstyle told him that Charlotte had paid attention to her appearance more than ever before. Since her natural features were not bad, no, Charlotte was a woman belonging to a very beautiful category, possessing silver hair sparkling like the Milky Way and deep, clear sky-blue eyes that seemed to hold the sky, she, who was properly dressed up now, shone so noticeably that she could not dare be compared to the myriad of women in high society.
Therefore, Richard faltered for a moment, but soon let out a clearing of his throat and, unlike usual, somewhat politely pointed to the opposite sofa.
“Sit.”
Charlotte nodded with her characteristic expressionless and cold face, continued her steps, and seated herself.
With a sharp thud, the sound of the door closing was heard, and silence settled between them.
“You have waited long, haven’t you?” Charlotte said, looking at Richard’s hollow eyes.
“I am sorry. Marlene said she was coming, so I waited for that child and completely forgot the promise.”
It was a blatant lie, but Charlotte purposely dropped Marlene’s name. Since she had seen Marlene and Richard kissing right before she died, it was self-evident that they were in a romantic relationship.
However, she did not know precisely when they had started kissing and holding hands. Therefore, she had to find out. Only then could she formulate a proper plan and systematically tear them down step by step.
Charlotte picked up her teacup and quietly watched Richard’s reaction.