I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 60

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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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Episode 60
Several people who grasped the meaning of her gesture drew sharp, audible breaths.
Sepina bristled with satisfaction, though she ground her teeth.
In truth, she’d wanted to handle this more elegantly.
But she had no choice—not after the other side played the pregnancy card first, and Edward ignored every letter she sent.
‘To overturn this marriage, I need something bigger to cover it!’
So her only option was to drive public opinion toward believing she’d gotten pregnant first.
Edward would certainly claim nothing had ever happened between them.
But what mattered was that others wouldn’t believe him.
“Remember this, Sepina. People don’t love truth the way they think they do, nor do they truly wish to believe it.”
“They don’t?”
“They believe what they want to believe.”
One of the Pope’s whispered words came back to her mind unbidden.
‘If I say I’ve been pregnant for quite some time…’
The crowd would grow angry and condemn Edward, and the priestess—the test subject—would find herself barred from his side.
Then she could naturally take her place beside him.
What could even the distinguished Duke of Tetheron do against an Imperial Decree?
Though the Emperor had sided with the Temple and fallen silent—whatever he’d gained from Edward in return—
The very fact that he’d issued the decree commanding Edward to marry her was truth itself.
‘After that, I don’t care what happens!’
At the right moment, she’d announce a miscarriage from stress and file for divorce. Then all the sympathy would flow to her.
She’d never intended to actually throw herself at Edward and bear his child.
If she had a child, her plan to keep multiple men in her orbit as a saint would crumble.
All that mattered was experiencing it once.
Sepina trembled with that singular desire.
“Edward, Your Grace…!”
Those who saw her pitiful figure froze in shock.
Her dress, its hem muddied from the ground, its hem dirtied from climbing the wall, and her hair slightly disheveled—all of it clouded the onlookers’ vision.
‘The Saint has always been so composed, so pure!’
Moreover, the pristine white dress she wore had the effect of cementing which place should have been hers.
Had another noblewoman appeared in such a dress, she’d have been criticized for disrespecting the bride—but this was Sepina at Edward’s wedding. The situation was altogether different.
Sympathy blossomed across the crowd’s faces in an instant.
“Your Grace…!”
The maid’s sobbing voice—the one who’d been trampled underfoot—was long buried beneath Sepina’s delicate cry.
“Goodness, the Saint!”
“You’re there! Come down at once!”
Those who heard her call rushed forward, reaching out their hands to help her descend.
Seeing all those hands extended toward her from below, Sepina felt a thrill of satisfaction and deliberately delayed her descent.
Then, just as she was about to let an unguarded smile slip, she hastily suppressed it and scattered tears instead.
“Actually, the truth is…!”
That was when it happened.
“The Duke of Tetheron has emerged!”
Someone’s cry rang out, and all eyes snapped away from Sepina in unison.
The curtains of the balcony that opened from the indoor hall onto the outdoor courtyard were being drawn back.
As the bride and groom appeared, the crowd gasped as one.
“Ahhhh! Duke Edward!”
The sight of the two figures that revealed themselves was…
So beautiful it stole away every shred of attention Sepina had seized.
Edward, his golden hair swept back, dressed in formal Tetheron ceremonial wear, needed no introduction—
‘…That’s the bride?’
The crowd was bewildered by Luciana’s face, seeing it for the first time.
And no wonder—their minds had been filled with an image of a wicked, licentious temptress who’d stolen Sepina’s place.
But what actually appeared before them was a gentle face with clear, dark eyes, flushed cheeks worn shyly, a small and harmless-looking woman.
‘She’s more beautiful than I expected.’
…In fact, quite lovely.
The dress she wore, the assembled high nobility recognized at once, was a masterpiece made with painstaking care.
That Edward—that Edward—had his hand resting naturally at Luciana’s waist, smiling, was even more shocking.
‘He’s never held Sepina like that even once.’
Even on the rare occasions when he and Sepina attended the same gathering, Edward had never touched her with such tenderness.
‘In fact, he seemed to barely acknowledge her at times…’
Only then did something strange begin to flicker through people’s minds.
‘Wait. The bedroom rumors are famous, but I can’t remember seeing them affectionate anywhere else….’
If one thought about it carefully, the passionate affair between Sepina and Edward was nothing more than hearsay passed along in whispers among the servants and nobles in the know.
But the Edward standing here now was somehow different.
His eyes dripped with honey, and whenever his gaze met that of the nobles outside—especially the male ones—his brow furrowed with unmistakable displeasure.
As if proving the words someone had whispered earlier: ‘He loves her so truly he doesn’t want her seen outside.’
‘Then could it really be….’
That Sepina’s love was not genuine?
People were on the verge of falling into confusion.
“Hic….”
Sepina’s trembling voice cut quietly through the air.
People’s senses snapped back as if waking from a spell, and their eyes hardened.
‘…No. That woman stole the Holy Maiden’s place!’
‘Behind that innocent face, she’s hiding the heart of a temptress!’
Yet Luciana, who now bore the brunt of their hostile stares, wore an expression of genuine bewilderment.
The fragility of her appearance had a momentary softening effect on hearts, but people deliberately worked to shake off that impression.
After all, Luciana had to become the villain of legends.
“Your Grace, there’s something you must hear!”
As those words rang out and Sepina placed her hand over her lower belly once more.
Luciana was secretly clicking her tongue.
‘Impressive. She’s really something.’
This was the first time Luciana had laid eyes on Sepina directly.
She’d only vaguely thought of her as the one who kept draining her Holy Power.
But the Sepina before her in person was truly a woman of stunning beauty and mysterious presence.
Knowing what Sepina had done to possess Edward, Luciana found even her appearance unsettling.
In any case, it appeared that Sepina was an uninvited guest.
‘Well, truth be told, everyone gathered out there seems to be the same.’
She’d gathered that the absence of guests inside was Edward’s deliberate choice.
He’d intentionally kept them out and arranged for them to gather like this on the outside.
‘…Could he have arranged this beforehand out of concern for me?’
At the thought, her fingertips tingled with warmth.
Yet Sepina had somehow managed to breach the barrier he’d erected and draw everyone’s attention.
And now, right here, she seemed about to claim that she too was with child.
Glance.
Luciana’s gaze shifted carefully toward Edward.
In truth, even with things unfolding this way, she felt no anxiety.
The stability provided by Edward’s hand firmly around her waist was reassuring enough, but….
‘He said there was a last resort.’
Her only concern was that she herself didn’t know what that method was.
‘…I wish there had been time to discuss it.’
No matter how busy things had been, couldn’t he have found a moment to at least talk through something like that?
The disappointment that had vanished in an instant when she saw Edward’s face at the altar now raised its head again.
Smooth.
Edward casually entwined Luciana’s fingers with his own.
Then he lifted them for all to see.
“Breath….”
People held their breath without realizing it at such a small gesture, and even Sepina watched in suspense, until—
Edward slowly began to remove Luciana’s gloves.
With tantalizing slowness, yet somehow charged with intimacy.
‘This, this shameless man—what is he doing?’
It was only with great effort that Luciana kept her eyes closed against the ticklish sensation creeping across her chest.
Soft-thud.
Luciana’s gloves, fully removed, fluttered down to rest on the balcony floor.
Edward then reached into his coat and drew something out.
A small square case of velvet.
There was no question what it was.
‘…Surely not.’
She’d thought the ring exchange would be omitted.
Whether he’d deliberately chosen to do it before all these people, Edward casually withdrew a ring.
Then he tilted his head toward Luciana.
“My bride.”
His voice cut through the air—low but clear—and in the moment he slipped the ring onto Luciana’s ring finger with the same swift motion he’d used to remove his gloves, the world shifted.
Whoosh!
“Good heavens!”
Golden fire erupted across the bride’s hand, and the crowd gasped in shock.
When that torrent of golden flame extinguished in an instant….
Everyone held their breath, nearly gasping in awe.
“That’s—that’s—!”
A scar in the shape of a dragon’s wing.
The Mark of Contract was branded upon Luciana’s exposed hand for all to see.

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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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