About Becoming My Ex-Husband's Mistress - Chapter 132

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 132. I Wanted to Kill Her
“This is part of the confession we obtained from interrogating the two of them.”
“Already? So soon?”
“The confession is lengthy, and we’re still transcribing it. I’ll bring you more once it’s complete.”
He then told me he’d witnessed a servant secretly greeting Madame Laber.
He was referring to the Muscleman who worked at the Mansion.
“After confirming his identity seemed trustworthy, I assigned him to surveillance for the time being.”
I examined Walter carefully.
Despite his smiling expression, veins bulged prominently across his forehead, though his appearance remained immaculate. He looked freshly bathed and his hair still held traces of moisture.
My gaze then shifted to the documents. Sections of the pages bore reddish marks.
To an unknowing observer, they might resemble traces of red ink, but to me, they appeared to be bloodstains hastily wiped away.
“Sir Walter, could these marks perhaps be….”
“The woman may have need of her appearance for certain purposes later, so I’ve kept her looking presentable on the surface. As for the Coachman….”
Walter’s words suddenly trailed off.
“Surely he’s not dead?”
“They may confess publicly later, so we can’t kill them prematurely. All you need to do is verify whether what they’ve told us matches what you know to be true. It seems some falsehoods are mixed in.”
“You can tell the difference?”
Walter’s smile became even softer.
“Why would I be in charge of interrogations otherwise? I’m no fool to fall for theatrics. I can extract the truth again if needed.”
I skimmed through the documents.
The first page contained a lengthy account of my childhood, and later pages mentioned that Melissa Bilsty was indeed Wood’s daughter.
Count Bilsty’s fall from his horse occurred on the very day he learned this fact.
I nodded, my mood growing heavy.
“Thank you.”
I carefully reviewed the documents again from the beginning.
Yet some of the accounts regarding my childhood were factually accurate, while other portions were lies, just as Walter had suggested.
For instance, the claim that I was raised with love.
She occasionally wielded the rod, but it was loving discipline, she claimed. That I was well-fed, well-clothed, and well-educated. As if I should remember it myself.
I wondered if Matilda truly believed this in her heart.
Back then, living amid all that gaslighting, I believed it too. But now I know absolutely that it was not true.
The food I received wasn’t the bread Melissa left uneaten, and the clothes weren’t the garments and books Melissa was about to discard.
As for my education, Matilda’s account held some truth.
But it wasn’t Matilda who had cared for my studies. It was the etiquette instructor who taught me from the beginning.
The woman I called grandmother had once taught children of high nobility in her youth before retiring to the countryside.
I was the last child she ever taught.
After my father passed away, even knowing I was being abused by Matilda, she never spoke a word against it.
She merely told me, as if it were a refrain, that if I cultivated the dignity of nobility, all circumstances would eventually unfold as they should.
Looking back now, I realize she was careful not to say too much, lest Matilda dismiss her.
Because then she could teach me no longer.
She passed away roughly two years before I married.
I remembered crying throughout the funeral, and tears welled up in my eyes once more.
‘Where was her grave again?’
Now that my duties were less scattered and I wasn’t quite so overwhelmed, I thought I should visit tomorrow.
As I set down the documents, Walter asked me a question.
“Is there any falsehood in it?”
I nodded and asked in return.
“Surely there are no parents who raise their daughters while calling whipping an act of love?”
“My parents were truly strict. I rebelled quite fiercely in my own way. But no matter what, there was never whipping beneath it all.”
Walter’s immediate and resolute answer stirred painful memories of my own difficult past, and my heart ached. His response came so naturally, yet I had been far too weak back then.
I would never endure such a thing again.
“I owe you so much. Thank you again.”
As I spoke with renewed determination, Walter’s smile widened even further.
“Not at all. Then I’ll uncover more of her crimes.”
* * *
Walter, who had handed over a portion of the confession to Priscilla with a lively expression, felt his face harden like that of a demon the moment he stepped outside.
The anger he had deliberately concealed in front of Priscilla to avoid alarming her now surfaced openly across his features.
Matilda’s malice from the early stages of interrogation, when she had been defiant and sharp-tongued, continued to circle through Walter’s mind.
Melissa and Count Veloda Genoma knew Walter to some degree. They understood that he was the escort of Priscilla at the Raber Salon and a knight of Prince Wintem.
But Matilda knew nothing of Walter. That was why she had spoken carelessly to him.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those fools bewitched by that whore? I heard you were a doctor, but you weren’t?”
There were indeed nobles who occasionally hurled abuse at salon designers. But only a select few knew that Priscilla was Priscilla of the Raber Salon.
Because of this, Walter could not understand why such a contemptuous term had come from Matilda’s mouth.
But Walter did not deliberate on it.
After all, his assigned task was to extract hidden truths by inflicting cruel pain and terrible fear upon his subject.
His excellence at this was such that he had completely reformed Bernard Heser’s behavior when the man had attempted to deceive Luderne Sellen.
It took less than ten minutes to extract a confession from Matilda.
Confessions beyond imagination concerning Priscilla poured out relentlessly.
Learning the reason behind the contemptuous language directed at Priscilla, Walter’s rage surged even higher—to the point where, if Luderne Sellen would permit it, he wished to kill her as painfully as possible.
The Coachman seemed to have little to hide, yet the aftermath of that rage was directed fully upon him.
Once the torture directed at her ceased and the pain subsided, Matilda regained her senses and began pleading that she had raised Priscilla with love.
“I’m not her birth mother, so there could be misunderstandings, and there might be times she felt hurt. But to subject her to such unheard-of torture? Isn’t this too much? Sob…”
I genuinely wanted to kill her.
But I could not kill her immediately, and since Matilda insisted, I had her write out a confession first.
It was then that I discovered certain portions of the content were subtly inconsistent with her confession.
“I was in such pain that I can’t even remember what I said. Please let me meet our daughter, Priscilla. If you compare what she says, you’ll understand.”
It was unlikely that any mention of a daughter would emerge from the confession alone.
Yet final verification was still necessary. No matter how abhorrent, I could not entirely dismiss the possibility that she might genuinely be wronged.
So I first confirmed only an extremely limited portion of the confession with Priscilla.
Only enough that Priscilla would not be shocked when learning the truth—merely the question of whether she had been raised with love or not.
The confessions that followed, not yet documented, contained far more serious content.
She had broken her promise to marry Count Veloda Genoma and fled, and the reason was supposedly that she’d taken a lover—another man—or that there was a lust curse scroll written for Priscilla.
Matilda Bilsty was convinced that because of that scroll, Priscilla must have degraded herself shamefully, writhing about in desperation.
The last time she’d seen her, her face had been flushed crimson with arousal, and she’d trembled like an aspen leaf, suffering visibly.
If he didn’t believe her, he could ask Priscilla herself.
At the memory of that statement, Walter’s fists clenched, trembling with rage.
He recalled Priscilla as he’d first met her in the tavern on Heril Island—her face had flushed without apparent reason, and there had been unmistakable distress in her expression.
Remembering that, the claim of a curse suddenly seemed credible.
But he absolutely could not ask her about it directly.
Regardless of the truth, the question itself would be violent, and if it were true, Priscilla would be far too pitiful.
Besides, the Priscilla that Walter had observed all this time was not that sort of woman. Unless she was receiving subtle yet relentless affection from Luderne Sellen.
But if she had been enduring all this while….
Walter’s teeth clenched.
‘How much must Miss Priscilla have suffered.’
Because of this, Walter had no desire to bring Priscilla and Matilda Bilsty face to face immediately.
No—truthfully, he never wanted that to happen.
Even if he were to arrange a confrontation to verify the truth, he wanted to cut out Matilda Bilsty’s tongue so she couldn’t speak of it at all.
After a moment of consideration, Walter exhaled a long breath.
At least he couldn’t cut out a tongue on a whim. When he met with Priscilla, Matilda Bilsty and the Coachman needed to be in a presentable state.
He would need to educate them thoroughly so they wouldn’t speak unnecessarily, even if they came face to face with Priscilla.
If she saw them now….
In the best case, it might satisfy her. She might even be grateful to him for doing the dirty work in her stead. Priscilla was kind enough that such gratitude would be entirely plausible.
But the marks of torture were his shadow as well, and he didn’t want her to see them.
And no matter how good-natured Priscilla was, he sensed that her eyes would betray an unmistakable fear when looking at him.
That was simply the nature of torture.
So Walter made his way to the room of Menglow Breeze.
The old woman Matilda Bilsty had mentioned seemed to be Menglow Breeze, after all.
What he’d heard from Menglow Breeze differed somewhat from what Matilda Bilsty had said, but there were points of agreement. If the old woman was indeed Menglow Breeze, he could verify the truth without involving Priscilla.
Walter hoped that the curse Matilda Bilsty had spoken of was not the truth.
After taking a deep breath, he knocked, and Menglow Breeze appeared at the door, leaning on her cane.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————