Rewriting the Trash Ending - Chapter 23

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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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23.

***

Lumiere stirred awake, blinking slowly as she murmured to herself.
“What on earth is this situation……?”
She realized why she felt so confined—quilts and blankets were piled thickly atop her in layers.
‘Even if he was worried I’d be cold, this is ridiculous.’
She felt like a nestling tucked deep inside its nest.
A flutter of warmth spread through her chest.
She laughed softly and began to peel away the layers one by one.
‘It’s sweet of him, but still… a little disappointing.’
The warmth she’d felt in his embrace last night seemed to linger still, yet the source of that warmth had vanished.
“Though these sheets are remarkably clean, aren’t they?”
The bedding looked far too pristine for a wedding night—she’d need to do something before the servants noticed.
There was no benefit in word spreading that there had been no consummation.
She was in the midst of rumpling the pillows and sheets appropriately when—
Knock, knock, knock.
A careful rapping came at the door.
“Your Highness, it’s Terra. May I enter?”
“Come in.”
Terra stepped inside with measured composure and offered a bow.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning to you as well.”
“How are you feeling?”
Terra asked with careful concern.
……Surely she hadn’t guessed?
“…Ah, just a bit weary, I suppose.”
Lumiere feigned exhaustion with a small groan while studying Terra’s expression.
“The Grand Duke instructed me to tell you to rest and not exert yourself today.”
“The Grand Duke said that?”
“Yes, he said you must have had quite an ordeal last night…….”
Lumiere felt a flush of embarrassment and coughed awkwardly.
Really, what ordeal?
Anyone hearing that would get the wrong idea entirely.
Though his words hadn’t seemed calculated, his innocent phrasing would keep the truth hidden—and for that she was grateful.
“Where is he now, then?”
“He received word this morning that Monsters had been sighted near the City Wall, and he set out for the Fortress at dawn.”
“Did he say when he’d return?”
“No. I suspect he won’t come back until the City Wall has been repaired.”
“…I see.”
He must have been exhausted from the wedding itself.
While she’d slept warmly, he’d been bracing against the bitter dawn wind—the thought weighed on her heart.
“There is one more matter I should mention.”
“Go on.”
“In a few days, prominent families will be coming to pay their respects to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes. The ladies will call in the morning, and the unmarried daughters in the afternoon…….”
Terra paused, her brow furrowing slightly before she continued.
“There is one person Your Highness must be wary of.”
A name someone should be wary of.
A particular face rose to mind unbidden, yet she pretended ignorance and asked.
“Who would that be?”
“The Countess Mobert, who is the Grand Duke’s aunt.”
As expected.
At the confirmation of her suspicion, a cold smile curled at Lumiere’s lips.
It was a face she’d watched with weariness across a lifetime.
Magda Mobert.
She was a woman who exploited her connection as Axid’s aunt to move through the Grand Duke’s Estate as though it were her own home, grasping for control of domestic affairs whenever the mistress was absent.

“It grieves me that my brother came to such an end, but bearing my nephew was entirely her own decision. What fault could our nephew possibly bear…….”

A woman who had tightened the noose around Axid’s neck on every anniversary of the former Grand Duchess, extracting every advantage by exploiting his guilt.
The stipends she received each month, the prestige she enjoyed in society by trading on the Grand Duke’s name.
All of it—every bit she’d savored while gnawing away at her husband’s life—would need to be disgorged.
So let her strut about with that vile temperament of hers, arrogant and full of herself.
Then she would walk into her own grave of her own accord.

***

Count Mobert’s Residence, Glass Conservatory.
A woman who appeared to be in her late fifties opened her mouth.
“Thank you all for making time for this.”
Reddish-brown hair and cold grey eyes.
It was Magda Mobert, the current Grand Duke of Winterheim’s aunt.
“We’re the ones who should be grateful. To be invited to such a beautiful conservatory.”
“If you hadn’t taken the trouble to arrange this gathering, when would we ever have had the chance to enjoy such luxury?”
Magda had long served as the face of the Grand Duke’s House in society, standing in for the Grand Duke himself, who rarely appeared in public circles.
It was only natural that the women fawned over her with flattering smiles and honeyed words.
“I’m pleased that you enjoy it.”
Magda set down her teacup with evident satisfaction, then continued in a measured voice.
“……But then, I’m sure you all have some sense of why we’ve gathered like this?”
The women fell silent for a moment, though their eyes gleamed with the knowledge of precisely what had brought them here.
“What do you make of the new Grand Duchess?”
The women spoke carefully.
“She seemed different from what I’d imagined at the coronation ceremony. She has quite the talent for managing her expression…….”
“But when I think of what I heard at the reception, the rumors don’t seem entirely unfounded.”
That she’d clung to some man without shame, and worse, threatened to take her own life.
The way the delegation’s representative had spoken of “one she longed for” suggested the rumors held truth.
“The problem is that such a woman now occupies the inner chambers of the Grand Duke’s Estate.”
At Magda’s quiet words, they all fell silent.
None at this gathering had hoped to see their own daughters become Grand Duchess, but an Imperial woman claiming that position was an entirely different matter.
Her origins were already questionable, and she brought with her a trail of embarrassing scandal.
“We must break her spirit from the start. Otherwise, how insufferably arrogant will she become?”
Several months ago.
Magda had gone to the Grand Duke’s Estate, attempting to overturn this marriage that so many nobles opposed.
There was no better opportunity to flaunt her influence in society.
But she’d only managed to lose face when her nephew turned her away at the door, merely for opposing the union.
She’d kept her distance from the Estate since then as a kind of protest, yet now she found herself having to meet that woman in person…….
“But if we consider what we saw at the reception—how His Highness took offense…….”
“There were rumors that he sent the maid who ruined the Duchess’s dress to the Fortress. If we’re careless, we might find ourselves in an awkward position.”
Magda pressed the hesitant woman who was trying to retreat.
“An Imperial woman who mocked our homeland dares to play at being Grand Duchess? Are you all simply going to watch and do nothing?”
The Grand Duchess must be isolated in society before she establishes her position.
Only if that woman were powerless could she bend things to her will, and only then could she restore the dignity she’d lost before her nephew.
“…If you’ll forgive me, might I say something?”
Magda turned her head.
Radiant blonde hair and emerald-green eyes.
It was Belia, the daughter of the Foreign Minister and the celebrated flower of society—the young Countess of Fendro.
She was the one Magda had personally invited to lead the noble ladies in their visit to the Grand Duchess.
“Go ahead.”
With Magda’s permission, Belia spoke quietly.
“Your concern is entirely natural, Countess. As the elder of the Grand Duke’s House, you must worry more than anyone, and if the Duchess were to neglect her husband out of distrust, how distressed you would be…….”
“Hmm, indeed.”
Magda composed her expression into one of grave authority.
The truth was her nephew showed her little respect as an elder, but there was no need to let that show.
She herself had drilled it into him from childhood—beaten it into his ears—that his mother had died because she bore the bloodline of the Grand Duke’s House.
As long as he could not forget his mother’s death, he would never cast her out.
Turning a blind eye to her nephew’s influence, allowing his stipend to continue for decades—wasn’t it all rooted in guilt, in the end?
“But we still don’t know what sort of person the Grand Duke’s wife is, do we? Perhaps we should discuss this again after we’ve met her?”
“And if the Grand Duchess decides to ignore us in the meantime, am I supposed to just sit back and take it?”
“If you feel that strongly about it… couldn’t you postpone the formal audience?”
“Postpone it?”
Magda’s eyes gleamed with interest.
Breaking with custom meant refusing to acknowledge her as the Grand Duchess.
For someone not yet firmly established in the North, it would be an excellent way to shake her foundations.
With her own people planted inside the city, it wouldn’t take long to bring that woman down.
“According to propriety, we ought to pay our respects first, but you don’t object to that?”
“Since we still don’t know what sort of person the Grand Duke’s wife is, if you were to step forward and something went wrong, that would be quite awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“Hmm….”
Belia lowered her gaze, adding her words with subtle persuasion.
“Besides, young ladies can afford to slip up and still recover somehow, but married women find that much harder to manage.”
True enough—a young lady’s “mistake” and a dignified matron’s “mistake” carried very different weights.
And if something did go wrong, it would end at the level of a count’s daughter, which wasn’t an unfavorable outcome.
“A woman as discerning and thoughtful as you ought to be beside our nephew….”
Magda sighed the words under her breath, and Belia responded with a shy smile, lowering her head.
“You’re too kind, madam.”
Magda’s sense of regret deepened at the sight.
Had it not been for the curse, Belia—the flower of Northern society—would be the one sitting as Grand Duchess by now.
“If you should have any interest in becoming an Honorary Marquis Lady, I shall exert myself on your behalf.”
The position of Grand Duchess was reserved only for one willing to dedicate her life to bearing an heir.
But the position of Honorary Marquis Lady—the Grand Duke’s concubine—was something she could arrange with her own hands.
“Madam, you speak too generously. How could I ever presume….”
Magda smiled gently as she spoke.
“Generous? In my view, there is no woman more suited to our nephew than you.”
“….”
“You need only stay at our nephew’s side. The heir will be born through the Grand Duchess’s sacrifice, so it’s hardly a bad arrangement for you either.”
The Grand Duchess was merely a vessel for producing an heir, a consumable—the true prize was the Honorary Marquis Lady.
In name a concubine only, yet she would be the one who raised the next heir and would inherit the substantive authority of the household mistress.
With her own person in such a position, her standing in the Grand Duke’s family would be entirely different from what it was now.
‘If she’s as obedient as the Count of Fendro’s daughter, I can handle her however I wish.’
Magda’s eyes began to gleam with cunning calculation, and a knowing smile flickered across Belia’s lips as she watched.

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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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