I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 37

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 37
The Countess’s attendants, standing nearby, scrambled to curry favor with her.
“Even so, Your Grace, I never imagined the Duke would commit such an uncivilized act….”
“The Heir appearing first? And not with Cepina, but with some vagabond woman like that….”
Clara, too, felt cold sweat trickling down her spine as she gauged the Countess’s mood.
“You know what you’re to do.”
“Yes.”
“And if you fail….”
“…I shall bear it in mind.”
Getting close to Lucy under the Countess’s orders had seemed manageable enough at first.
The initial attempt at sowing discord hadn’t yielded much, but Clara had thought that with time and steady persuasion, something could be made to work.
Yet before she could properly win Lucy over and secure her allegiance,
Edward had proclaimed Lucy to be his future Duchess.
‘What now?’
Having announced her as his betrothed, Edward would only intensify his watch over Lucy’s surroundings.
For both the Countess and Clara, who had approached Lucy at the Countess’s behest, this could prove a grave problem.
She had barely begun the operation, and already it lay in ruins.
No—before that, even….
Clara stole a glance at the Countess’s rigid expression.
‘She truly hates this, doesn’t she?’
For all the talk of bringing that woman to their side, of managing this or that,
Clara knew that the Countess possessed a most exalted aristocratic pride.
Throughout their conversation, hadn’t she called Lucy “base” repeatedly?
But there was more to it.
The Countess took immense pride in her station as the mistress of the Ducal House and as the Duchess.
The prospect of a new Duchess—one who would threaten her position—might be something she could never bear.
Especially if that future Duchess were the very woman the Countess had so thoroughly despised as lowborn.
Lucy would find herself in a most cruel predicament.
Clara swallowed involuntarily.
‘…Still.’
“It must have been difficult for you.”
“These things are upsetting, aren’t they?”
She didn’t seem like a bad person, exactly.
‘…Though there was something about her that didn’t seem entirely guileless, either.’
The way Lucy had stared directly at her, choosing each word with deliberate care—her eyes had held a composure and wisdom that belied her years.
It felt as though Clara were face to face not with some vagrant the Duke had dragged in, but with someone who had already weathered many storms.
‘…No, that’s ridiculous. Someone who looks that innocent can’t possibly be like that.’
Clara shook her head, steeling her wavering resolve.
‘Right now I need to worry more about fragments of her anger flying my way.’
And she glanced down at the wound on her hand.
In any case, she had to carry out the Countess’s orders without fail.
The Countess’s punishments for failure were severe enough, but Clara depended on the money she received from her to support her family.
The problem was that surveillance and security around Lucy—now destined to become the Duchess—would only grow tighter.
And then there was the question of how twisted the Countess’s mood had become….
It was then.
“Haha, hahahaha!”
An unexpectedly bright and cheerful laugh broke the silence.
To everyone’s bewilderment, the Countess burst into loud laughter.
As though she had just heard something delightful.
“Aha, hahaha! Really, truly….”
……
“How fortunate this is.”
“Your Grace?”
As the others exchanged confused glances among themselves,
the Countess, her laughter subsiding, wiped away tears that had begun to fall, her expression radiant.
“It’s always the way—the more precious something is, the more it aches when you lose it.”
“That much is true, Your Grace, but….”
“And if that precious thing is the woman he loves and his own child—how dear they must be?”
Gradually, the Countess’s eyes turned cold.
“How torn apart his heart would be if those things vanished in an instant?”
Her face had turned glacial, and she spat the words as though they tasted of poison.
“Now that fool needs to experience a shock of his own.”
Crunch.
The servants and attendants felt a chill creeping up their spines.
‘The Duke is one thing, but….’
‘The Countess is really something else….’
Still, he was her only son, and what Lucy carried in her womb was his grandchild—wasn’t it?
Yet the Countess’s demeanor bore no resemblance to how a mother addresses her sole heir.
It was more like the bearing of someone facing a mortal enemy.
Though they said she had lost her influence and been cast out after her husband’s death, the servants exchanged glances—they hadn’t realized her resentment ran this deep.
Either way, the Countess strained so hard her eyes reddened with the effort.
“Yes, yes… but if they’re that close…”
Then, slowly, she turned her gaze toward Clara.
“Ordinary methods might not suffice to turn her.”
……
“That cunning wretch Edward—he’ll plant people around me to make sure I can’t get close.”
At the glint in her eyes, Clara felt an inexplicable shudder run through her.
All the while, the Countess tapped her chin with her bejeweled fingers, lost in thought.
“Ah.”
And a few moments later, as if the solution had struck her, she smiled radiant and bright.
“Then we’ll do it this way.”
* * *
Several days later.
Tick, tick, tick.
Inside the ornately decorated Duke’s Study.
Tension hung heavy in the air, mingling with the sound of the minute and second hands moving with purpose.
Pop.
Her eyes were so wide they looked ready to roll clean out of her head, yet Lucy refused to close them.
No—if anything, she widened them further still, refusing to be bested by Edward, who sat across from her.
Edward held Lucy’s stare and thrust the seal toward her.
“Stamp it.”
“I can’t.”
“And yet days ago you were practically throwing yourself at my feet begging for this.”
“I really do want to stamp it!”
Not so long ago, Lucy had been the one chasing after him, sprawling across the floor to beg for the stamp on the contract, while Edward had feigned indifference….
But now the tables had turned.
Edward stared down at the Marriage Contract on the table, his expression clouded with displeasure.
Each time his brow furrowed, Lucy felt a tremor of unease, yet on this matter she could not compromise.
“But you absolutely must include this clause!”
Bang, bang!
She brought her palm down on the Marriage Contract with negligible force, revealing hastily scrawled new conditions beneath.
Edward’s eyes narrowed to slits as he fixed them on the clause and opened his mouth.
“So what you’re saying is… ‘After marriage, for any reason whatsoever, between the two parties…'”
“‘In the event that either party decides to divorce or dissolve the contract due to fault on one side!'”
The moment Lucy nodded and cried out the completion of the clause.
Crunch.
The sound of Edward’s teeth grinding echoed from within his mouth.
‘Hm?’
Lucy started and looked at Edward, but his expression remained unchanged.
As Lucy covertly watched for his reaction, Edward drew in a breath and recited the remaining clause as though it pained him.
“‘Neither party shall hold the other responsible for anything that naturally occurs between spouses’?”
Nod, nod.
Lucy nodded enthusiastically, clasping her hands together.
Edward stared at the clause several times over before narrowing his eyes at Lucy and asking again.
“And by ‘naturally occurs between spouses,’ you mean…?”
Lucy swallowed hard and opened her mouth.
“Well, what I mean is…”
“Well, what?”
“For instance… in case you and I were to, ah, do the sort of thing that might result in a child!”
She blurted this out loudly, and as she gently rubbed the lower abdomen he had once caressed, a smile curved Edward’s lips.
For some reason, an odd tension seemed to drift through the air.
“So you did have the will to do it, after all.”
After all? What on earth did that mean.
But before she could dwell on it, the lingering echo of that drawling voice pooled in her ears, and goosebumps rose across her skin.
His crimson eyes, darker than usual, fixed themselves upon Lucy.
Those eyes seemed to whisper the word “sly” without speaking, and Lucy’s ears flushed a bright scarlet.
“B-because we’re married. Who knows what might happen!”
…….
“In any case! When we divorce later, let’s not quibble over who took whose chastity, or dare to nitpick about any indiscretions!”
At that, Edward’s brow furrowed again.
Gone in an instant was the ease and good humor that had lingered moments before; the atmosphere around him turned menacing.

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