Kicking the door open had been a fairly effective way to announce my presence to everyone inside the room.
The problem was that the effect hadn’t lasted very long.
“Then I shall take my leave.”
“I won’t allow it!”
After sparing me only a single glance at the noise, the Marquis delivered his piece to the Marchioness and walked out without another word. Watching his cold retreating figure, the Marchioness let out a despairing scream. The nanny hurriedly caught her before she collapsed onto the floor in sobs.
It wasn’t as though I was newly wounded by the attitudes of the Marquis or the Marchioness. Still, being ignored to my face was irritating no matter how accustomed I was to it.
“Ahhh—!”
The Marchioness tore at her own hair in hysterics. Curly red strands flew wildly in every direction beneath her rough hands. Though her hollow cheeks and sunken dimples made her look pitiful, her bloodshot eyes were filled with such venom that they were almost terrifying.
People often said daughters resembled their mothers in fate.
Perhaps that was why the Marchioness now looked frighteningly similar to the dying Vionne who had once cursed the entire world.
She had been the only daughter of the famous Count Peaceon family, renowned merchants of enormous wealth. At eighteen, she married the Marquis Ellient and became the Marchioness. Her years-long pursuit of the Marquis had been so infamous that even now society still gossiped about it.
The moment she first saw him, she fell hopelessly in love.
And to marry him, she used every method imaginable.
She lingered around him countless times a day and bribed those close to him to learn every detail of his life. Six years older than her, he had inherited the title early at twenty-four after losing his father. Young, handsome, unmarried, and already a marquis—he was more than enough to attract endless attention from women.
There had been countless women who tried to approach him.
Using her wealth and status, she crushed every single one of them. At times she even sought them out personally and caused scenes without hesitation. Nothing frightened her.
He was her entire world.
And when she finally married him, she believed herself to be the happiest bride alive.
Rumors spread that the Peaceon Count family had nearly staggered into financial ruin after paying her astronomical dowry, but she did not care in the slightest. If anything, she thought such an amount still wasn’t enough to prove her worth.
People whispered that she had bought the Marquis with money.
She ignored them all.
He had become hers, and she believed her future would be filled only with roses.
Reality, however, differed greatly from her fantasies.
The Marquis was an extraordinarily cold man. Not only did he refuse affection, he even avoided physical contact with her whenever possible. No one knew why he had agreed to marry the Marchioness. Whether the rumors were true and he had married for money, or whether there had been some other reason, only the Marquis himself knew.
One thing, however, was certain.
He had never married her out of love.
He treated her with the proper respect owed to a Marchioness, but that was all.
As the years passed, her obsession only deepened. The older he grew, the more dignified and attractive he became—and the worse her hysteria became in return.
She endlessly craved him.
She became utterly insane over him.
And for a woman like that, even a child she had personally carried and birthed could never truly enter her heart. Perhaps things might have changed had the Marquis shown interest in the child born between them. But a daughter incapable of inheriting the title meant nothing to him.
What mattered to him was the prosperity and stability of the family.
What mattered to her was only him.
Neither of them had even the slightest interest in me, their daughter.
“It’s all your fault!”
Her shriek snapped me out of my thoughts. While I had been distracted, she had fixed me with eyes overflowing with hatred.
“If only you had been born a boy!”
A laugh escaped me at her desperate scream.
Would anything really have changed if I had been born male?
She was deeply mistaken.
The Marquis did not ignore her and me because I was a daughter incapable of becoming heir.
He simply had no interest in either of us.
Even if I explained that to her, I doubted the madwoman would understand. There was no point trying to reason with someone insane. Only the speaker’s mouth ended up hurting.
“Aah—! It’s your fault! Yours! Die! Die! Just die already!”
At last she swung at me.
Her long nails narrowly grazed my face.
“Milady, please calm dow—ugh!”
The nanny barely managed to seize the Marchioness’s arm and tried desperately to soothe her, but perhaps the saying was true that mad people gained unnatural strength. She shoved away the nanny—who was nearly twice her size—and lunged toward me.
Seeing a crazed woman with bloodshot eyes charging at me as if she truly meant to kill me, even I couldn’t remain calm.
Human survival instinct was impressive.
Before my brain could even process the situation, my body reacted first. I quickly stepped backward to avoid her and grabbed the doorknob.
Bang!
Something slammed heavily against the other side of the door. I felt the vibration faintly through my back as I leaned against it. Satisfied by the sturdiness of the door, I relaxed slightly.
“M-My lady?”
The maids waiting outside stared back and forth between me and the door I was bracing shut, faces pale with shock.
I accepted their stares with the most indifferent expression possible.
My face had long since grown thick-skinned.
Vionne—no, I—had once been called the shameless number one of the Empire. Mere looks from servants couldn’t bother me.
“Aaaaaaah!”
A shrill scream burst from the other side of the door.
I gestured toward the knight standing guard nearby. With a stiff expression, he approached me. I pointed at the doorknob.
“Hold it.”
Though he looked utterly confused, he obediently grabbed the handle. Right then, the door shook violently as someone tried to wrench it open. Reflexively, the knight pulled back to keep it shut.
The screams from inside grew even louder.
Sweat rolled down the knight’s face as he looked at me helplessly.
Ignoring him, I beckoned toward the nearest maid. Hesitating, she cautiously approached.
“Listen carefully.”
“Pardon?”
I frowned at her response. Irritation was beginning to rise.
Pointing at the sword hanging from the knight’s waist, I spoke flatly.
“Take that and wedge it through the handle so she can’t get out.”
“Eh?”
The moment I narrowed my eyes, the maid flinched and hurriedly obeyed. She removed the knight’s sword and jammed it through the handles of the door.
The knight stared between me and his sword with a dumbfounded expression.
Creeeak—
“Milady, please!”
Unable to open the door, the Marchioness apparently began clawing at it with her nails. The horrible scratching sound sent chills down my spine. The nanny’s pleading voice followed after it.
Turning around, I smiled brightly at the frozen servants.
“Well then, good work everyone.”
No one answered.
They merely gaped at the unprecedented scene before them.
I gave the stunned group a casual little wave before walking away without hesitation. Two maids belatedly remembered their duties and hurried after me.
Thinking back carefully, today’s Marchioness had definitely been more hysterical than usual.
It was probably related to the Marquis I had just encountered in her chambers.
To be honest, I had been slightly shocked to see the Marquis there at all. In all my life, I had never once seen him visit the Marchioness’s residence. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of times I had ever seen the two of them occupying the same space together.
Unlike the Marchioness, who frequently stormed into the Marquis’s quarters, the Marquis never visited hers. He had even stationed knights outside his residence and office to prevent her from barging in whenever she pleased.
The fact that I had even been born between those two was practically miraculous.
Some fools whispered that I might not even be the Marquis’s child.
Whenever such people were caught, they paid accordingly. Crippling them was the bare minimum, and occasionally I had not hesitated to take lives.
Even so, the rumors never disappeared.
To be fair, purely judging by appearances, the gossip was fairly convincing.
There was not a single feature I shared with the Marquis.
I resembled the Marchioness perfectly. There was no trace of the Marquis anywhere in my face.
The reason the rumors persisted was my hair color.
The Marquis possessed dark navy hair.
The Marchioness had red hair.
Yet among neither side of the family—not relatives, nor ancestors—could anyone with golden-brown hair like mine be found.
Despite the growing rumors, the Marquis never spoke.
He neither confirmed nor denied them.
And because of that silence, the rumors spread as though they were truth.
Those who disliked me mocked me subtly with those stories. Some openly sneered to my face. Naturally, with my personality, there was no chance I would let them off peacefully. I insulted them in return and sometimes resorted to outright violence.
The more I fought back, the lower my reputation sank.
Still, my pride refused to let me endure it quietly.
‘Am I truly the Marquis’s biological child?’
The Marchioness was so obsessed with the Marquis that it was hard to imagine her having an affair.
Yet outwardly, there was nothing about me that resembled him.
Only the Marquis and the Marchioness knew the truth.
And if I truly wanted answers, it would be more reliable to ask the Marquis than the insane Marchioness.
Assuming he would actually answer.
The truth frightened me.
That was why I reacted so violently whenever the rumors surfaced.
Vionne Lossa Ellient.
That name was everything supporting me.
The title of legitimate daughter of House Ellient was my pride—my unshakable foundation.
“Should I go ask him right now?”
“Pardon?”
The maids trailing behind me blinked in confusion at my muttering.
Ignoring them, I turned my head toward the corridor leading to the Marquis’s office.
Compared to the indifferent master and the lady of the house who cared nothing for decorating, the corridor itself was appropriately elegant and luxuriously refined. I had never once paid attention to the mansion’s interior before, but whoever managed it was clearly quite competent.
“My lady, that way is—!”
