CH 46.2

Emma looked down at the corner of the table with a grim look as the cheerful voice of the Countess continued.

“If you’re going to drink, it’s better to do it with those your age. Hmm…” Karina stretched her red lips and smiled, pointing to the knight who thought highly of himself the most. “Cleve, recommend a drink for Miss Herman.”

The knight named Cleve was a young man with an aquiline nose and a scarred eye. The skin on his face was filled with acne, perhaps due to his active youth. Aside from his large physique and status as a knight, he wasn’t easily likable due to appearance. Moreover, he acted arrogantly, as if he had great confidence in his looks.

“Miss Herman. It is an honor to have a drink together. I’ll especially offer you some sweet wine.”

Cleve put an empty glass in front of her and lifted a bottle of wine high in the air. Slosh. Slosh. Slosh. The wine, which was poured from his shoulder level, thinned into a crimson line, filling up the glass. Before long, the glass was filled almost to the brim, and Cleve offered Emma the drink, a pleased look on his face.

“Please take this glass,” he said, bringing the full glass towards her.

Emma’s face turned stiff as she studied the full glass.

He made a show with his hands, said, “It would be best to down it all at once. Since it’s filled with my sincerity.”

It was a bowl of deathly wine. Emma’s head throbbed just from looking at it. She had a memory of passing out from hard liquor in the past. The wine at eye level had a lower proof than hard liquor, but the amount was almost three or four times more than normal. She remembered being naked and ending up in Irvan’s arms after having a few sips at the cabin. She couldn’t imagine what nefarious event would happen if she drank all of this at once.

Her heart sank with anxiety. ‘What now?’ she thought.

She was deeply worried. Around her were no allies, only enemies on all sides. If Emma made a fool of herself at the dinner hall, the first person to applaud and be delighted would be Countess Karina, followed by Chairman Collin and the countess’s royal bodyguards and the rest of the spiteful nobles.

“Miss Herman?” Cleve pressed her, glancing at her with sly eyes.

When Emma scanned the surroundings with frozen eyes, a welcoming face at the aristocrats’ table entered her field of vision. Sensing Emma’s crisis, Baron Berne was about to step up. However, she could not candidly accept his favor. Once Countess Karina had pointed her out, Baron Berne could not stand a chance, and there was a good chance that he could impel Countess Karina’s twisted malice with unnecessary provocation. In response, Emma expressed to the baron that she was fine with a simple wink and took a deep breath. She would have to break through this situation on her own somehow.

“I rarely drink wine, so I’m really nervous.” With that, she reached out to try to grab the wine glass. She had an idea to pretend to knock the glass over naturally.

“Hold on!” The countess’s commanding voice sounded. Her eyes narrowed at Emma. “That looks too much for Miss Herman. Pour her another glass.”

With the countess watching, the easy way out didn’t seem to work. Then she had no choice but to come up with another way.

“Oh, is that so? That is my fault for being inconsiderate. I’ll take the drink as a punishment for my rudeness. Please forgive me,” Cleve said.

He raised the glass of wine to his mouth, drank it in one gulp, and then filled it up halfway again and held it out to Emma. The glass was dirty with his saliva, but no one pointed that out. Cleve proudly handed her the covered glass, urging her to drink it right away.

“This time I filled it only halfway. That doesn’t mean I’ve halved my sincerity, so don’t worry,” he said.

Emma hid the disgusted expression from her face, and tried to control her noisy stomach. She lifted the wine glass with calmness. She put it on her lips and was about to tilt it, but then she put it back down and shook her head slowly.

“What’s wrong? Miss Herman?”

Emma stared into Karina’s eyes, slowly standing up. “Come to think of it, I heard that I have to learn drinking etiquette from a seasoned adult. And it’s strange for me to take a drink in an official setting. If I had one tiny wish, I’d like to have my first drink from the most honorable and noble countess here.”

“Oh-ho! Then you’re fine with ignoring Cleve’s rare good faith?” Countess Karina shot Emma a sharp glare.

Emma, however, smiled innocently as she glanced back at her. It was as if she really didn’t know why Karina felt displeased.

It would be a big catastrophe if she took the glass from Cleve. Although she was called a guest in the Van Wert Castle, Emma’s status was in fact an unidentified commoner woman brought by Irvan. If she was caught drinking from a glass a man had already drank from, she would be labeled as a promiscuous woman. The courtiers and the noble people who had their eyes on her will accuse her of impropriety.

Moreover, given Countess Karina’s sinister mood, the wine glass would not just end with Cleve. The countess’s royal bodyguards would scramble to offer a glass, and even if Emma wasn’t forced to drink it, she would almost be treated as a hostess. There was an ulterior motive for driving her into a corner.

‘This is not good.’

At that, Emma made her decision.