Chapter 111
Chapter 111
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 111
Chapter Title: Marquis Guinness
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"Oh dear. I didn't expect to see Duke Carlisle here."
The area outside their seats grew noisy, and someone swept aside the curtain to offer a greeting.
"What brings you to the South?"
It was an elderly nobleman with graying hair.
For his age, his back was straight, and his attire was splendid, but his eyes were sharp like a snake's.
Lennox didn't even nod toward the old noble who had barged in to greet him.
"Marquis Guinness."
"To think you remember me. What an honor."
Marquis Guinness simpered.
The southern noble had arrived with a throng of attendants, creating a scene that inevitably drew eyes.
The gazes of everyone in the racecourse turned their way.
It was a well-known fact that Marquis Guinness regarded the northern ducal house as his mortal enemy.
"But who might this lady accompanying you be..."
The marquis's gaze shifted to Juliet.
"Lady Monad, I presume?"
Marquis Guinness feigned surprise.
"Hello, Marquis Guinness."
It was an act so transparent you could see right through it.
"It seems rumors truly can't be trusted. I've heard some unsettling talk from the capital."
The marquis blatantly scanned Juliet up and down, then clicked his tongue.
"I'd heard that Lady Monad had finally met with some tragic misfortune, and it weighed on this old man's heart."
At that, Juliet smiled brightly.
"Is that so? I was heartbroken to hear that your foster son had fallen ill."
Crack.
Everyone present heard the sound of the old marquis grinding his teeth.
"If you'll pardon my rudeness, how do you know my son, Miss Juliet?"
"Oh, please call me Lady Monad."
Juliet grinned openly.
"I met your son at the temple a few months ago. I advised him against groping my wrist in front of his fiancée."
"......I see."
Marquis Guinness's eyes flashed murderously.
Lennox's eyes darkened as he watched Juliet grinning.
'Who groped whom?'
Lennox was so baffled he clicked his tongue inwardly.
Now he understood why Juliet had let Viscount Fusilli go just days ago.
She had anticipated that showing the viscount a hallucination and sending him back would provoke a reaction from the marquis.
Because a few months earlier, she had done the exact same thing to his foster son.
'Count Casper.'
Childless, Marquis Guinness had taken a distant relative as his foster son.
And the fool who had grabbed Juliet's wrist at the temple and thrown lecherous advances at her, grating on her nerves, was none other than the marquis's foster son.
After the incident at the temple, word had it that Count Casper was trembling in fear, holed up in his home.
Lennox had even guessed that Juliet had deliberately lured Marquis Guinness out.
The marquis made no effort to hide his displeasure.
"I'll see you in the capital next time. Ah, wait."
As if it had just occurred to him, Marquis Guinness paused on his way out in a huff and dragged one of his attendants from the back forward.
"I happen to have someone to introduce."
The one dragged out by the marquis was a young woman about their age.
"Introduce yourself, Dolores."
"I-I'm Dolores."
The woman, who seemed somehow cowed, introduced herself.
"My wife."
Lennox frowned at Marquis Guinness's introduction.
It was infamous that all of the marquis's previous wives had died in suspicious accidents.
The marquis had no biological children aside from his foster son.
Yet in conservative southern society, no one took issue with it. Marquis Guinness was one of the great nobles, and in the South, multiple marriages weren't seen as a flaw.
But at that moment, Juliet grabbed his arm and staggered slightly.
Reflexively supporting her, Lennox saw her blinking in apparent confusion.
"Oh dear."
Sensing something, Lennox swiftly pulled her close, shielding her expression from view as he embraced her.
"Apologies, but we'll have to excuse ourselves first, Marquis."
Lennox kissed Juliet's forehead and smiled calmly.
"As you can see, I'm in rather a hurry."
"......Very well."
*
Marquis Guinness's displeased gaze followed them, but Lennox led Juliet away from the spot.
Juliet remained lost in thought until they boarded the carriage.
"Juliet."
"Ah."
She snapped her head up, startled.
"Sorry. I was lost in thought."
Lennox knew that when Juliet sank into thought with that expression, it was best to leave her be.
He quietly draped a blanket over her.
"Let's head back."
"Yes."
Even after the carriage set off, Juliet stayed deep in thought.
Her fingertips toyed with the soft blanket.
'No way...'
Juliet harbored a personal grudge against Marquis Guinness. Though only briefly in her previous life, she remembered living as his eighth wife.
In that prior life, she recalled how brutally the marquis had whipped her.
But what had unsettled Juliet was Dolores's presence.
Seven years ago, when she had left for the North with the duke, she had assumed the position of eighth wife would simply vanish. She hadn't expected it to be filled by someone else.
And in this life, Marquis Guinness was known not to have taken an eighth wife. At least, that was the common knowledge.
So where had this woman named Dolores come from?
'I thought it would be fine.'
Juliet had believed she could face Marquis Guinness without issue. And indeed, she had at first.
But the moment she confronted a girl as young and terrified as her past self had been, the vivid memory of being whipped until her blood welled resurfaced.
However, Lennox's mind was on something other than Marquis Guinness or his young wife.
The old man in the white robe standing behind Marquis Guinness just moments ago.
Juliet had apparently missed him in her shock over Dolores, but Lennox found the elderly priest familiar somehow.
The old man wore common priestly robes, but his briefly exposed arms and skin were mottled dark, as if stained.
It was unmistakably the side effect of a divine curse.
"Indeed, just as rumored—a depraved wench."
Bang.
Leaving the racecourse, Marquis Guinness boarded his carriage and kicked the door in impotent rage.
"Exactly as Lady Dalia said."
Marquis Guinness ground his teeth.
The robed priest and Dolores hurriedly boarded the carriage, watching the marquis's mood.
A few months ago, after his foster son Count Casper returned from the capital's grand temple, he had cowered in his home, gripped by fear.
No matter how they pressed him on what had happened, he only rambled about seeing monsters and the like. It had to be connected to that woman somehow.
"Yes, yes, exactly. No ordinary harlot!"
The old man in the robe quickly chimed in.
His name was Cardinal Solon. Until just a few months ago, Solon had been a high-ranking cleric, the Pope's right-hand man, basking in every luxury.
But the Pope he served, Sebastian, had been exposed as a fraud without divine power, guilty of all manner of crimes.
After the false pope was ousted from Lucerne, Solon—Sebastian's right-hand man—had fled swiftly.
He had sought a powerful protector, and found one in southern Marquis Guinness.
"But how do we deal with that Monad wench?"
"I have a way."
Cardinal Solon boasted, though Marquis Guinness sounded skeptical.
"Sebastian's puppet failed, didn't it?"
"But everyone believed it until it was exposed!"
Solon protested as if wronged.
And it was true.
Sebastian had manipulated Lucerne for years using his sister's relic, the soulstone, and exquisite puppets.
Though not a genius born with divine power like his sister Zenobia, Sebastian was a genius in his own right.
He crafted puppets so lifelike they passed for humans, kidnapped the previous pope and other dignitaries, and faked their deaths.
"If that Juliet Monad wench hadn't appeared, they would still believe it!"
Cardinal Solon ground his teeth.
To be precise, none of it would have happened if Sebastian hadn't kidnapped Juliet in the first place.
Yet Solon believed he had become a fugitive solely because of her.
And if that weren't enough, while fleeing the altar that day, he had been struck by a glowing shard, afflicting him with some unknown divine curse.
"Lady Dalia won't tolerate such excuses."
Marquis Guinness spoke with unusual gravity.
"If you and the materials you've brought prove useless, you'll pay the price."
"O-Of course."
In his haste to flee, Solon had seized vast troves of forbidden records Sebastian had hoarded.
As a pope without divine power, Sebastian had been deeply interested in black magic to bend people to his will.
The volumes he had amassed as an inquisitor of heretics were immense.
Clutching them, Solon had fled to Marquis Guinness in the South, who had secretly sponsored Pope Sebastian.
"As Lady Dalia said, I've accepted you for now, but we must deal with that wench decisively."
"No need to worry this time."
Cardinal Solon bowed his head hastily.
In Solon's eyes, Marquis Guinness was just as dubious a figure.
After years apart, the marquis he met again was reverently following a young woman he called "Lady Dalia."
The existence of this "Lady Dalia" felt utterly alien and unsettling to Solon.
'I'd never even heard of her in Lucerne.'
Dalia wore the pristine white robes of the order's priestesses, yet Cardinal Solon—a man of his station—had never heard her name.
He had glimpsed her only once or twice, but he couldn't fathom what made this Dalia so special that a cunning old noble like Marquis Guinness followed her so blindly.
If that weren't enough, she appeared and vanished like a ghost, as if she weren't even his retainer.
But for now, their goals aligned.
Marquis Guinness viewed the arrogant northern duke as a thorn in his side, and this Dalia woman seemed to have Juliet Monad as her target.
"So, what's your plan?"
"We'll use this."
Cardinal Solon shook a small silk pouch.
Inside was a lock of light brown hair, apparently from a woman. It had been stolen from her hairbrush by a barely bribed maid.