“Marlene or whatever her name is, are you telling me that a mere girl like that made me wait? You sisters always manage to piss me off.”
Whether it was a blessing or a curse, Richard did not seem to have joined hands with Marlene just yet.
After all, the displeasure plastered across that face carried a truth too genuine for a man like Richard to ever fake.
Curving her lips into a rounded arc, Charlotte replied.
“I am sorry.”
At her laughter, Richard briefly caught his breath.
A smile from Charlotte.
It was an expression he had not seen a single time in the past fifteen years since they became engaged. Was she even a woman who knew how to smile like that? Ruffling his bangs, Richard clicked his tongue.
“Whatever. You have shown your face, so my business here is done. Make sure you pass the word along to your mother, meaning the Duchess. Let her know that despite my busy schedule, I waited hours just to catch a glimpse of your face before leaving.”
“Yes, I will do that. If I happen to cross paths with the Countess, I will be sure to mention it to her as well.”
“Hey.”
Rising to his feet, Richard strode over to Charlotte and slammed his hand down hard against the back of the chair she was sitting in.
“If you are planning to spout nonsense to my mother, drop it. If you do, I will tear your mouth apart.”
“Why would you assume I am going to spout nonsense?”
Charlotte said, looking up at Richard’s face as he drew close.
“Could it be that you are the one who whispered nonsense to His Excellency, my father, which is why you suspect me?”
“Charlotte Aubry!”
Richard clenched his fists until his fingers ached, growling in fury.
“Cut it out. The only reason I tolerate your insolence is because of my mother’s orders.”
“I know. That is why I am speaking to you as sweetly as I possibly can.”
“Insolent wretch.”
Realizing that arguing any further was pointless, and repeatedly thinking of the medicine he had left behind in the carriage, Richard decided to give up on dealing with her and make a quick exit.
“You do know there is an imperial ball coming up soon, right?”
Pulling the bell cord to summon a servant inside, he spoke as he accepted his coat.
“Show up looking like you do today. At least enough so that I can save face.”
Charlotte tilted her head to one side.
How truly absurd.
The idea that the appearance of a woman by a man’s side could function as a way to save his face. If a man’s pride depended on something so trivial, one had to wonder if he ever had any dignity to begin with.
Suppressing the sarcastic thoughts welling up inside her, Charlotte nodded.
“Yes, I will do that.”
“I am leaving.”
Leaving behind Richard, who waved his hand dismissively as he departed, Charlotte let out a long breath and looked up at the ceiling.
Richard and she were in an engagement. This was a political marriage that had continued for 15 years, meaning it had been formed immediately after she was adopted into the ducal household. If not for this political marriage, or if Richard had been a decent enough man for the Duke and Duchess to judge him favorably, Charlotte would not have been adopted by them. However, Richard was a nasty man, and thus the Duke and Duchess had dragged Charlotte into their lives in order to protect their biological daughter, Marlene.
In a way, Richard’s existence might have been what pulled Charlotte out of the abyss of social class. However, that was simply it. Richard was trash who had betrayed her and stood by watching her death. Furthermore, he was a target upon whom she had to exact revenge. Yet, the problem, if it could be called one, was that an engagement could not be easily annulled. If Richard’s weakness, in other words, the fact that he was irredeemable trash and a common scoundrel unworthy of the title of the Count’s second son, were to be revealed to the entire world, an annulment might become possible.
Charlotte slowly closed her eyes, which had been gazing at the ceiling, and took a deep breath.
“Let us prepare to go out.”
And then, she said to Lily, who was watching her from the doorway.
“Because there is someone I need to meet.”
Rather than trying to force her way through something she could not do alone, finding an ally would be much wiser. Charlotte brought a certain person to mind as she raised her body.
Clatter. The carriage rattles. Yet, Charlotte’s posture, sitting with her back held rigidly straight, does not collapse. Maintaining an elegant posture, she turned her head just like that to look at the scenery outside the window.
Winter is in full swing outside. The sky is hazy and sunlight fails to pierce through, making it feel nothing like midday. As the dry wind flows coldly over the parched earth, Charlotte feels that perhaps this dreary world mirrors the future she is destined to face.
A future without a single ray of sunlight. A future filled only with bleak winds and barren land. At the end of that future, Charlotte will not exist. Because she will have already died and turned to dust. Yet, that is fine. Even if she dies and vanishes, even if she becomes a being forgotten in everyone’s memories, it is fine.
If she can take revenge on Marlene. If she can only make the sister she once loved so dearly shed desperate, bloody tears! If only she can make that happen, Charlotte could effortlessly throw away her own life.
Therefore, she had to make it happen without fail. The fixed future will never change, at least not before Charlotte breaks.
Contrary to what she had told Richard, Marlene is not currently at the mansion. Shortly before, at the slightest hint of a lingering cough from the chilly weather, the Duke and Duchess had panicked and sent her off to recuperate at a warm southern villa.
“My daughter, who wouldn’t hurt even if placed in my eyes, must not fall sick even in the slightest. My hope is you, my life is you, and my value is you. You must be happier than anyone else.” Those were the words of the Duchess, who had made all sorts of a fuss, embraced Marlene, and left tear tracks before sending her away.
Charlotte, meaning Charlotte who had quietly watched that ludicrous spectacle, suddenly had this thought: Does that mean I do not need to be happy? Is the I of the present truly happy?
It was then that Charlotte first thought that this life she was living as a duchess was quite unbearably miserable as well.
In truth, just being chosen by the Duchess and leaving the orphanage should have been enough to immerse her in a sense of happiness, but that is a memory from a dozen years in the past. Clinging to that faded memory and saying she was happy is nothing more than self-consolation and self-denial. She was sick and tired of letting others’ words go in one ear and out the other, words telling her that at least she was chosen, so wasn’t that enough, or that if she had continued to live in the orphanage, she would have spent an unhappy life.
The statement that she would have lived an unhappy life if she had not been chosen back then, and that she should therefore be satisfied with her current life, is, after all, cheap advice rooted in the assumption that her life began from unhappiness. Who knows? Perhaps life at the orphanage might have unfolded in a different direction and brought genuine happiness. Since Charlotte had received nothing but abuse and discrimination ever since she came to this place, if this was to be called happiness, then happiness was truly a cheap form of self-deception.
At any rate, the Charlotte of that time felt an unpleasant emotion watching the Duchess and Marlene hug each other and cry their eyes out. They could have seen her off in Marlene’s room, but to purposefully stage such a tearful farewell right where she was felt like a warning telling her to know her place clearly. You are different from Marlene. You exist merely because of your utility, so do not dare think of coveting Marlene’s position. That was what it meant.
It was a very appropriate treatment to dish out to Charlotte, who had been bedridden with a severe cold just a week ago. “I am sorry, Sister. Because my body is weaker than yours, I am the one leaving like this.” “However, it seems I caught my cold from you, so you will understand, won’t you?” Back then, Charlotte had simply thought Marlene was genuinely sorry toward her.
So she had thought that the ones tormenting her were solely the Duke, the Duchess, and the servants, and that Marlene was a beautiful younger sister who worried about, loved, and cherished her. But she realized far too late that it was not true. As an example of that, after Marlene left, Charlotte was whipped by the Duchess once again. The reason was that she was a bad girl who had given Marlene a cold.
Moreover, the Charlotte of that time inevitably complied. No, she accepted it. If not for her, Marlene might not have fallen ill, and daring to rebel against the Duchess was something she could never have imagined. But looking back on it now, Charlotte felt endlessly wronged. Just as Marlene had her own life, Charlotte had her own life, the life of Charlotte herself. However, ever since she was chosen by the Duchess, Charlotte had never once lived Charlotte’s life.
Charlotte’s life consisted of being whipped by the Duchess according to their moods, receiving subtle harassment from the Duke, being ignored by the servants, facing open discrimination, and ultimately being betrayed by her younger sister and poisoned to death. All of these were results created by the choice of the Duchess. They were by no means results chosen by Charlotte. Therefore, that was not Charlotte’s life.
So, the current Charlotte intends to live her own life from now on. A life of her own that can distort the faces of all of them. However.
I am not enough on my own.
Charlotte is, after all, a woman with a weak body. That is all. Money, power, strength, she had none of these things. The only thing Charlotte could boast about was knowing the future up to about two years ahead, and that was precisely all she had.