Chapter 125

After ordering the servants and maids who gathered due to the sudden disturbances,

he looked at Giyom who was winking at him to get rid of the dirty thing right away.

“Excuse me.”

“No! Marquis! Sorry…Let go of me! Sorry! I won’t do it again! So please listen to me… Ahhh! Let go of me! Yuck…”

Giyom grabbed her waist as she was crawling on the floor. He shut her mouth with his large hand. Roxanne, whose body was smaller than Marianne’s, was taken out of the room while she was struggling.

Like Marianne herself at the last moment in her previous life when she was dunked into a quiet lake at night, his private space became quiet as if nothing happened. Quick-witted servants and maids hurriedly cleaned it up and went back to their place. Cordelli also reluctantly went out of the room.

“Were you surprised very much? I knew she was a jealous woman, but I’ve never thought she did a terrible thing like this. I wonder if she is really crazy…”

“…”

“Just forget it. You don’t have to care about it. I will make sure she won’t harm you.”

Marianne stared at her back for a while as she was disappearing. After a brief awkward silence, she nodded and took pains to smile.

“I’m alright. Please don’t reprove her too much. I understand Miss Roxanne hates me. If I meet her later and clear the air, I think will get along well again.”

Fearing that he might send poison the Lonstat family because he was annoyed at Roxanne’s attitude, Marianne quickly reassured him that she would reconcile with Roxanne.

Ober frowned as if he thought she wouldn’t go through the trouble of doing so. But what was important to him was to sympathize with Marianne, so he nodded silently.

“Above all…”

Marianne felt nauseated by his actions, but she barely put up with it.

And she just focused on what he had to do at this moment.

Her green eyes concealed her fatigue and slowly looked around.

“I would like to take a walk for a change. Can you go with me to the garden? I won’t refuse it if you show me around the garden.”

***

Two days passed since then.

As she had experienced before, the rumors getting around in the capital spread in a flash.

Marquis Chester’s mansion was a special place that drew the attention of busybodies and moles even when nothing special happened. As the moles Chester planted in various places secretly spread rumors, his mansion, which had been quiet until recently, was now topsy-turvy.

And it was not without reason.

Rumors originating in his house were about Lady Marianne, Duke Kling’s only daughter, her former lover and one of Aslan Empire’s most powerful men, Marquis Chester, and the daughter of Earl Lonstat who was ranked as the leading candidate as Chester’s fiancee.

In short, it was a scandal involving their entangled love affair, the people’s favorite topic!

“Did you see that? No, did you hear? Lady Marianne came to the main palace today.”

Moreover, there were more rumors getting around in the Imperial Palace than anywhere else, including the noblemen’s districts.

“Oh my gosh. How brazen-faced she was! How come she came to see the emperor after she had an affair? Didn’t they know anything about the rumors at the Elior Mansion?”

“Of course, they know. She knowingly came to the palace. But it looks like she didn’t see the emperor. I hear the emperor was meeting someone to take care of state matters. I don’t think that’s the real reason. Kloud allegedly denied everybody for an audience with the emperor. Nonetheless, I hear she went back with a smile.”

“I think you would need guts like her to attract such powerful guys like the emperor and the marquis.”

“You bet. Yuria told me she was a very good person, but it seems she is totally different when dealing with men.”

Before leaving after shift duty, several maids, sitting under the shade of the flower garden, babbled about rumors over snacks.

As they say, the most interesting thing in the world was watching other people quarrelling. Each of the maids began to tell what they saw and heard.

“Hey, don’t scare me. Roxanne, the earl’s daughter, cried out in an uproar, and Lady Marianne apologized to her, saying she didn’t know she was there first. Wasn’t it more scary? I’d rather rebuke her right away in that situation.”

“By the way, Roxanne went too far. I hear she was pretty violent on purpose. If I were in Lady Marianne’s shoes, I would’ve slapped her. How can an earl’s daughter be so rude to a duke’s daughter?”

“You don’t have to tell me about it. Everybody knows how hot-tempered and violent Roxanne is. I heard she was taken out of the place by the marquis’s attendant. She fell on the floor and begged him earnestly. How ugly! She is not a lowly housemaid, but a noblewoman!”

“Yeah…but I would have gone crazy in that situation. Why? She missed the fish you almost caught, right? Count Lonstat often hangs around with Duke Hubble and Marquis Chester, so he must have thought that if his daughter couldn’t be the empress, she could be Chester’s fiancee. That’s why Roxanne was quite busy trying to meet Chester for the past several days. I just feel sorry to hear that.”

“Why do you feel sorry for her? Don’t you know that Chester has set his heart only on Lady Marianne? I think Roxanne didn’t know her place and daydreamed until now.”

“By the way, is that rumor true, too?”

“Which rumor?”

“That secret meeting between Lady Marianne and Chester, which Roxanne said she saw. I hear the two were having passionate physical contact there… According to the rumor, it looks like they were seen kissing passionately.”

A dark-haired maid stuck her tongue out, winking at them in a humorous way. Then the maids around looked at each other, blushing.

“Oh, no. Did Roxanne see it? If that’s the case, I can understand why she was so upset.”

“I think Lady Marianne is too mean. She already had the engagement ceremony, right? What about the emperor? Isn’t she ashamed of herself as a lady?”

“Emily. Power and love are selfish by nature. You don’t need any face-saving before your instincts. If you think about it, wasn’t it the emperor who took away Marianne first?”

“Well, I read hundreds of romance novels, but they are nothing when compared to this scandal. Never did I think I would see this kind of scandal during my life! I guess reality is more cruel than fiction.”

“You took it right out of my mouth. Who will win eventually? His Excellency? Marquis? If not, is it possible that Lady Marianne will find another man? Who knows if she will suddenly fall in love with a nice knight or a prince of another country and flees there for a runaway marriage?”

As if they enjoyed gossiping about the scandal, the maids laughed together.

Even though the scandal involved the emperor and powerful noblemen, it was nothing more than a gossip topic to them. As long as they didn’t bring it up before them, or someone leaked it to them, they could freely talk about it in a private setting.

“… Runaway marriage? If that’s the case, she would be killed even before leaving Milan.”

Marianne, who was listening to their babblings across the high rose wall, was shocked because she was their main topic. She was directly involved in that exciting scandal.

Marianne grumbled feebly and grabbed Cordelli’s arm, who was huffing and puffing in a fit of anger.

While being dragged out by Marianne, Cordelli stared at the wall with an unpleasant expression. She couldn’t run over the fence as she was bothered by her quarrelling with Roxanne, but her face grew red like a ripe tomato as she couldn’t suppress her anger.

“As things ended up like this, I would like to give them a good scolding with the warning that they shouldn’t spout their mouths off. You went to the palace to give the emperor some medicine. Like they said, you were not expelled by Sir Kloud, right? And you didn’t even kiss Ober when Roxanne saw you, right?

“Yes, you’re right, but you shouldn’t deal with the maids now.”

“Why?”

“That rumor was created and spread by Ober on purpose.”

“Really? It wasn’t Lonstat, but Marquis Chester who spread such groundless rumors?”

Codelli asked back as if she couldn’t believe it. Marianne nodded, crossing the garden along the maze-like fence.

Roxanne definitely had not started the rumors as she was allegedly confined to her house after her shocking humiliation at the Ober’s place. If she had, then the rumors would have included her own excuses. Or she would have attended a marquis’ tea party held yesterday, telling everybody how unscrupulous Marianne was.

The rumors, however, were not favorable to Roxanne, and they were also harmful to Marianne.

Besides, the rumors did not contain any single word attacking Ober’s responsibility or harsh attitude who committed the same infidelity as Marianne. The rumors were fully grounded on facts, but they had a mixture of lies and speculations that only one person would benefit from.

Considering all the circumstantial evidence, the generator of the rumors was Ober.