Chapter 136
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 136
“Father!”
“…Why are you here?”
Oscar, who had been screaming at his father with veins bulging in his neck, was suddenly struck speechless.
For the first time, a glimmer of life returned to Ernst’s eyes. He glared at his son, his own eyes bloodshot, and spat out his words.
“Why are you here?”
“……”
Ernst looked around, seeing neither stairs nor a ladder, and flew into a rage.
“How in the hell do you plan to get back up? Why did you come down here?!”
“……”
“Answer me, Oscar! What is that in your hand?!”
Only then did Oscar look down.
Clutched in his hand was a deep red hair ribbon. The very sight of it sent a dull ache through his chest. Seeing it soiled with dirt and crumpled made it hard to breathe. Oscar carefully brushed the dirt from the ribbon, smoothing its wrinkled folds again and again.
If Ernst had brought Charlotte’s letter with him into this pit, Oscar had brought Seo-ah’s hair ribbon.
“Oscar!”
At Ernst’s roar, Oscar looked up.
Two pairs of blue eyes, identical in hue, stared blankly at each other.
The father and son, terrifyingly alike, were now wandering the depths of hell side by side.
* * *
Barbara stared at the vivid red wax seal for a long time. The words Marchioness of Reinhardt were clearly impressed upon it, stamped at the bottom of a document whose contents were impossible to believe.
“This room should be sealed,” Charlotte had said, turning to Margaret Rose von Franz, who stood beside her. “It has always been an unsettling place, even when Ernst was alive. Besides, it hasn't been used in years. Isn't that right?”
“What do you think, Dowager Lady? It would be best to close it, wouldn't it?”
“In the old days, there were always rooms like this, but they serve no purpose in our time. Abigail, wouldn't a room like this make you uncomfortable as well?”
Abigail, standing beside the Dowager Lady as stiff as a board, let out a shallow breath. She closed her eyes tightly and replied, “Yes, Great-Aunt.”
At that, Charlotte smiled benevolently, as if she were speaking to her own daughter, Sabine.
“Abigail.”
She approached Abigail, who flinched before looking up. Charlotte took her hand firmly. “How do you find the manor? Do you like it?”
Abigail stared into those violet eyes—as beautiful as they were dangerous—and answered in a trembling voice, “Yes... Marchioness.”
“If there is anything you wish to change, tell me anytime. I will have it decorated exactly as you like.”
After bringing the Dowager Lady, Sabine, and Abigail to the manor, Charlotte had ordered a tea party. During the gathering, she occasionally lost herself in reminiscence.
“If my Ernst were alive, he would have doted on you, Abigail,” she said. “He would have shown you around the manor himself. He did the same for me when I first arrived.”
Whenever Charlotte spoke like this, Sabine’s expression darkened, but the heartless mother seemed entirely blind to her own daughter’s pain.
Barbara quietly returned to her office and wrote a letter on a thin sheet of paper. She handed it to a Wolf and whispered, “Send a sparrowhawk to His Excellency. Every second counts.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Cornered, Charlotte had finally crossed the line.
Just as the Wolf slipped out of the room, the door burst open. Charlotte swept into the office.
“Marchioness.”
Charlotte slowly scanned Barbara’s office, which was lined with safes, before strolling toward the desk. Tapping a sharp fingernail against the wood, she asked, “Where is that woman?”
“……”
“Where did you hide her? Did Oscar hide her, or did you? Are you making her take contraceptive pills? Surely I don't have to manage that myself, do I?”
“Marchioness.”
“Honestly,” Charlotte sneered, “when a lowborn creature with no pedigree like you hangs around Oscar, pretending to be his aide, you only attract more of your kind.”
“……”
“If a thing like that were to get pregnant, have you considered what a massive obstacle she would become to our Oscar’s future? I'm so worried I can barely sleep at night.”
“…Is that why you are acting so suddenly?”
“Suddenly?”
Charlotte laughed as if dumbfounded.
“I have waited long enough. My only wish is for Oscar to build a proper family. I waited with such anticipation, believing he would eventually bring home a splendid young lady who would perfectly suit my tastes.”
Her voice grew increasingly sharp.
“And yet he dotes on a woman like that! A young lady of noble birth, carrying royal blood, is a hundred, a thousand times better than a girl like her. It’s not just better—there is no comparison!”
“Even so, accepting five hundred billion Kerte—such an astronomical sum—as a dowry without consulting His Excellency…”
“I am Oscar’s mother. I received that dowry as payment for giving birth to him. Five hundred billion is a small price to pay for my son.”
To her, Oscar was nothing more than a premium commodity. Her logic was simple: since her product was so exceptional, it was only natural to demand a high price.
“His Excellency will never stand for this—”
Thud.
The heavy wooden pen holder from the desk flew through the air, striking Barbara across the forehead. A stream of blood silently trickled down her cheek, but neither Barbara nor Charlotte so much as blinked.
Charlotte took several deep breaths before speaking in an imperious tone.
“We will prepare for the wedding. Since it is the Marquis’s wedding, it must be grand. I expect we will need about one hundred billion Kerte for the preparations. Have it ready in a few days.”
Barbara remained silent. Seeing her defiance, Charlotte’s eyes turned bloodshot with rage.
“You wretched wench. To the very end, you refuse to acknowledge me as the Marchioness, let alone as Oscar’s mother.”
“……”
“Tell me. Did Ernst order you to do that?”
“……”
Charlotte walked toward Barbara, who stood by the entrance. Even so, Barbara kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, not sparing the approaching woman a single glance. Glaring at Barbara with murderous intent, Charlotte whispered in her ear, “But whether you acknowledge it or not, I am the Marchioness of Reinhardt. That is a reality even Oscar cannot change.”
“……”
“Get the wedding funds ready.”
With those final words, Charlotte brushed past Barbara and stepped outside.
On her way to the second-floor hall, Charlotte glanced toward the backyard. The doors had been left open, perhaps for ventilation, revealing the lilac garden beyond. As if possessed, she found herself drawn toward it, her feet carrying her to the threshold before she stopped short.
“……”
One of the reasons she had never wanted to return to this manor was that being here inevitably brought back memories of him.
The master of this manor, and Oscar’s father.
Ernst—a man so cold he felt like he was burning.
“Charlotte.”
He had never once called her “Char.” From the moment they met until the day he died, he had always pronounced her name clearly and precisely.
Perhaps he simply saw no point in giving her a pet name.
Even so, her married life with Ernst was not as bad as one might think.
What she had needed was the wealth and power Ernst possessed, and the secure shelter they provided.
Charlotte was satisfied with her new life. However, his piercing blue eyes always sent a chill down her spine. Whenever he stared at her as if reading her innermost thoughts, she was overcome with unbearable dread.
Charlotte did not want to take a single step out of the comfortable life she was enjoying for the first time.
To avoid being abandoned by this infinitely cold man, she did everything she could. She hovered around the taciturn man, positioning herself wherever his gaze might fall and offering a smile whenever their eyes met.
It was a truly desperate struggle.
No matter how much she smiled, he never smiled back, only turning his cold gaze away. But then, inevitably, he would look back and stare at her again.
His emotionless eyes felt cruel, as if he were merely observing her pathetic struggles from a distance. After watching her in silence like that, the man asked her one day:
“Do you love me?”
The question left Charlotte utterly dumbfounded.
Love.
What on earth was that?
To her, love was merely an emotion that arose when the circumstances were right, only to vanish soon after. The world was full of lovers who burned with passion one day only to hate each other the next. Besides, back then, she still hadn't forgotten Dietrich, had she?
“I asked if you love me, Charlotte.”
Even his questions were overbearing.
She recalled Dietrich once whispering his love to her. Dietrich, who had trembled as he confessed he couldn't live without her, was entirely different from the Ernst standing before her now.
How should she put it?
Ernst’s question made it sound as if her loving him was a privilege far beyond her station.
Despite the suffocating coldness, Charlotte ultimately approached him. The weak are always pathetic. She embraced the overbearing man who acted as if he had no need for the love of someone like her and said, almost pleadingly, “Yes... I love you.”
Ernst stared at her with narrowed eyes for a long time before holding her for the first time that day. It was a cold, painful, and terrifying coupling.
Even after that, he remained as cold as ever. Far from smiling at her, he would often walk right past her as if she weren't even there.
Moreover, the previous King would occasionally make demands of her, and Charlotte was in no position to refuse.