Chapter 166
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 166
“Everyone on that ship is under scrutiny, and you’re telling me to willingly dive into the mud? Don’t you understand how difficult that is?”
“If you were so afraid of that, why did you go around wearing such a flimsy mask?”
“Oh, Bella, Bella! You pretended to be Harriet because you thought you wouldn’t get caught, didn’t you? I was the same! I had no idea things would blow up like this!”
Tez was already swamped trying to keep everyone quiet in the wake of the incident. Hearing Bella demand that he ‘confess’ made a slow, sharp irritation bubble up inside him.
But Bella still didn’t seem to pick up on his mood.
“Still, you’re the one who brought that girl onto the ship, so you should take responsibility! Am I supposed to take the fall for this alone?”
“Responsibility? Did you just tell me to take responsibility? Who was it that asked me to find Harriet’s weakness in the first place?”
“I never told you to take her on that ship. The plan was yours, so the responsibility is yours as well.”
“Ha…! Hahaha!”
Tez let out a loud, incredulous laugh.
He knew Bella was selfish, but he had never imagined she could be this brazen.
Was this what it felt like for the last drop of affection to dry up? That face, which had once drawn nothing but his admiration, didn’t look particularly pretty anymore.
After sleeping with her a few times, the initial thrill had vanished. If things continued like this, he would simply become a fool for Bella to bleed dry. Tez decided to cut ties then and there.
“I refuse, Bella. Go find some penniless fool willing to throw everything away for you. I, for one, have too much to lose.”
“Tez!”
“Go to the Imperial Palace and insist until the very end that it wasn’t you. They won’t be able to do anything if you hold your ground. Well, I’m leaving now.”
He pushed her aside and walked out of the room.
Only then did Bella realize that the man she thought would always be her shield was, in fact, someone ready to abandon her at a moment's notice.
* * *
Harriet, too, had not expected the situation to unfold quite like this.
“Bella is apparently refusing the summons to the bitter end. At first, everyone thought there must be some misunderstanding, but now they’re whispering. They’re saying, ‘Didn’t Bella actually board that ship? She’s terrified her marriage talks with the Cheslow family will break off, so she’s using Harriet as an excuse again, isn’t she?’”
Viviana, who had rushed over in a flurry of excitement, giggled with ill-concealed delight as she updated Harriet on the latest gossip.
“But isn’t she truly malicious? If it wasn’t her, it wasn’t her—but how can she lie again and claim you were the one impersonating her?”
“Y-yeah, I suppose so.”
Harriet quickly raised her teacup, hiding an awkward smile behind the porcelain rim.
Viviana didn’t notice the slip and continued to huff indignantly on Harriet’s behalf.
“She can only use that excuse so many times. She drags your name into every scandal she’s involved in, and people are finally starting to realize something is off.”
“Really…?”
“Yes! I overheard some people talking at the bazaar yesterday. They said, ‘Didn’t Bella pin everything on Harriet before?’ Of course, they said it jokingly, with a laugh, but still!”
At those words, Harriet’s mind snapped into focus.
The reason she hadn’t revealed Bella’s past misdeeds was her conviction that no one would believe her, no matter what she said.
But now, regardless of the reason or how it had come about, the seeds of suspicion were budding against Bella. Why had she dressed up as Harriet and boarded that ship in the first place?
‘You wanted this outcome! Don’t be a hypocrite, Harriet!’
She gave herself a sharp mental slap, then composed her expression into a smile more natural than before.
“In that case,” Harriet said to Viviana, “it seems it’s finally time to clarify the past.”
“Oh, Harriet! Have you finally made up your mind?”
Viviana clasped her hands together, looking even more excited than Harriet herself.
Harriet found her reaction amusing but was deeply grateful. Someone was so earnestly wishing for her reputation to be restored; she couldn’t afford to be passive any longer.
“Bella has given me a rare chance to strike back. It wouldn’t be polite to let it slip away.”
Indeed, she didn’t have the luxury of wasting such a stroke of luck. There was still a long way to go and much to reclaim.
Harriet recalled the cherished gardens of the Listerwell estate and the memories buried within them. She reached out and seized the opportunity.
* * *
The first stage for her counterattack was Annabelle Leighton’s tea party.
Harriet, attending the regularly held event, had been looking for an opening to bring up Bella. As it turned out, she didn’t even need to try; ‘that ship’ and the Imperial summons were the only topics of conversation from the moment she arrived.
“An acquaintance of mine says someone they know was a passenger on that ship. Given that they fled to their country estate in the middle of the night, it’s a fairly credible rumor.”
“It’s embarrassing to admit, but my cousin’s household is in an uproar as well. Her husband was secretly frequenting that ship. It seems they’ll be filing for divorce soon.”
“I haven’t heard of anyone in my circles receiving a summons. Could it be that only a very small number of people are actually in trouble?”
“No, that’s not it. There were many high-ranking passengers, and I hear those people have already settled matters with the Imperial Family. But the cost of hushing it up was supposedly astronomical.”
The Kingdom Ship was causing immense turmoil in high society.
At first, there had been quiet criticism of the Emperor and Cedric for stirring up a hornet’s nest. However, as the shocking details of what had occurred on the ship gradually came to light, those complaints quickly subsided.
Fortunately, this only strengthened the perception that the two were finally lancing the Empire’s festering wounds.
“Oh! Miss Harriet, are you alright?”
“Me? Are you asking me?”
When one of the ladies asked after her with a curious expression, Harriet tensed.
“I heard a rumor that Miss Bella Listerwell pinned the blame on you, Miss Harriet.”
“That’s right! I heard it too. She received a summons but is refusing to comply, using Miss Harriet as an excuse again…”
Harriet felt a strange sensation as she listened to their concerns.
In the past, everyone had believed Bella’s words implicitly. Now, they were taking it for granted that Harriet was the innocent party.
‘Back then, I thought Bella was an impregnable fortress I could never defeat. Now I see she was just a sandcastle waiting for a single wave to crumble.’
The years of her childhood spent in tears, ignorant of this truth, felt newly unfair.
But she couldn’t indulge in self-pity now. Harriet adopted a deliberately distressed expression and spoke.
“Oh, that story? When I heard it, I was so dumbfounded I could hardly bear it. I thought I wouldn’t be used as a scapegoat again, so I tried to bury the past, but…”
When she trailed off, the women leaned in, their eyes wide as they waited for the rest of the story.
It was time to reveal a truth that had been buried for far too long.
“Actually… you all remember the old scandal where I supposedly impersonated Bella and got involved with those men? All of that… Bella did it herself.”
“What?”
As expected, the reaction was one of pure shock. Half of them looked as though they couldn't believe their ears.
“Whether you believe it or not is your choice. But please, just listen to my story until the end.”
Harriet stated the premise she always used when confessing her past, then began to detail the things Bella had done to her.
From the initial ‘Julian Faith’ scandal to the various masquerade ball incidents, the rumors that she had tried to seduce married men, and the stigma of being pathologically jealous of Bella.
As she recounted deeds too malicious and cruel for a teenage girl to have committed, someone asked with a doubtful frown.
“If that’s true, why didn’t you say anything then? Why are you only exposing it now?”
The same question always came up. Now, Harriet almost wanted to laugh.
“Ladies, back then, my uncle was my sole guardian. I was just a child, not even twenty years old.”
She had been an orphan, tied by the leash of guardianship, her contact with the outside world almost entirely severed. Had that not been obvious to them?
“Could I, in that position, have caused trouble for Bella? Even knowing that if my uncle grew angry, I’d be thrown out onto the streets without a penny?”
Reflecting on the past, Harriet suppressed her rising anger and took a long, steadying breath.
“I only went to Saint Clarissa Convent because I believed my uncle when he said that if I stayed for just a year, he would find me a good marriage prospect. But you all know the result, don’t you? My uncle dumped me at the convent and then severed our guardianship entirely.”
By then, the tide of the room had shifted toward sympathy.
Harriet remained composed until the very end.
“Indeed, what a convenient tool I must have been—a foolish, dependent cousin who couldn’t utter a peep no matter what was done to her. Looking back, I’m frustrated with myself for simply saying ‘It was my doing’ whenever Bella and my uncle told me to.”
“No, Miss Harriet! You were just a girl back then. Your uncle’s influence must have been absolute.”
Annabelle, who had been listening in silence, took Harriet’s hand in a show of support. Seeing the host take a side, the others quickly added their voices.
“That’s right. Refusing the demands of your sole guardian is an incredibly difficult thing to do.”
“I’m so shocked that Miss Bella would do such a thing. To think she was just pretending to be a saint in front of us all this time!”
“Do you think the Cheslow family knows?”
“They’ll certainly find out now with this summons issue. Countess Cheslow is far too meticulous to miss this.”
The tea party quickly devolved into a free-for-all of gossip.
The clamorous voices of the crowd rose in a crescendo. To Harriet’s ears, it sounded like the rumble of a massive stone finally beginning to roll.
Bella’s reputation, which had once seemed unshakeable, was finally beginning to tilt.