Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 26

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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 26

The chambers were opulent.
Each room opened without doors, hung instead with translucent fabric that billowed gently whenever the wind stirred.
It looked more like the exotic landscape of some distant desert kingdom than anything belonging to an empire.
But Cleo, the Imperial Consort, spared nothing to cater to the Emperor’s whims—as she always did.
For her own purposes too. If something wasn’t worth using when needed, she believed it was better not to have it at all.
That was her philosophy, and so her palace overflowed with treasures found nowhere else.
Costly foreign silks, suspicious perfumes rumored to stir men’s desire, and rare antiquities layered with medicines and poisons alike—dangerous even to the touch of skin.
In that luxurious chamber, Cleo muttered in a cold voice.
“Where did that girl get her information? The library? That vapid creature who’s never read a book in her life? It’s all a farce.”
Mary bowed beside her, speaking softly.
“As I mentioned, that Princess Titania doesn’t have the sharpest mind, does she? Surely she couldn’t have—”
The Consort struck Mary’s cheek with the fan she held.
The sharp snap echoed through the room, Mary’s face snapping to the side. Her eyes trembled, but she forced out a foolish laugh as if nothing had happened.
Naturally, after the incident involving Bibi and Titania, the Imperial Palace fell into chaos.
The Castrain Family turned the palace upside down not just searching for Bibi, but saving Titania’s life.
Since the Imperial Consort’s Palace was the closest to the palace center, Titania was laid to rest in an empty chamber there.
And they practically abducted the High Priest and brought him along.
In this affair, there was no room for the Rose Palace servants to intervene.
In truth, even had the Rose Palace been closer than the Imperial Consort’s Palace, it was questionable whether Raymond would have taken Titania there at all.
After Titania’s treatment began, mistrusting the palace household, the Castrain Family sent their own people to guard her around the clock.
The Rose Palace servants trembled with anxiety.
Everyone knew Titania was a princess with nowhere to turn, a burden to no one.
So even had they been remiss in serving their mistress, until now there had been no one to reprimand them.
But Titania had saved the life of the new adopted daughter that the Castrain Family treasured like gold.
In the chaos, their mistress had vanished for hours—and the servants didn’t even know where—and word of this reached the Emperor himself.
‘Am I to hear from those fools that the palace doesn’t know where the princess is? How did that arrogant wretch treat me? What are these servants doing?!’
The Emperor raged at the disrespect Raymond had shown him, yet displayed intense interest in the “kindness” Titania had shown the Castrain Family. How Titania had been treated in the Rose Palace was irrelevant.
The Emperor wanted only one thing.
‘If I can secure Titania’s marriage to the Young Duke through this incident, it would be ideal.’
And for that, he saw no need to be concerned with means or methods.
Yes, for example, if the Castrain Family hadn’t brought the High Priest and so thoroughly demonstrated their determination to heal her—
If they hadn’t used the oppressive method of having the Castrain brothers take turns guarding the Imperial Consort’s Palace—
If they had simply left a scar somewhere on Titania’s body, he could then insist that ‘in this ruined state, the Castrain Family must certainly take responsibility for Titania and bring her in as the next lady of the house.’
Divine Power could cure almost any external wound, but healing a fresh injury and treating an old scar long since healed carried entirely different difficulty.
To heal a scar that the body already recognized as “fully recovered,” one had to cut the flesh anew and treat it again.
One could not deliberately cut the noble princess’s body, so one could insist: you must take responsibility for this blemished princess.
That had been the Emperor’s aim, but it failed when the Castrain Family so openly kept watch, preventing Titania from waking safely.
The Castrain Family refused to let any information about the wounded Titania leave the Imperial Consort’s Palace.
The Empress herself, as if by design, aligned with the Castrain Family’s movements and lent them her palace.
As matters developed this way, it was natural that Cleo, sensing something amiss, summoned the spy she had planted in the Rose Palace.
She had deliberately sent competent servants initially, fearing they might wheedle the girl and slip away from the Consort’s grasp—so she’d chosen mediocre ones instead. And now they were proving utterly useless.
Cleo clicked her tongue openly, watching Mary’s trembling face.
“I was stupid, I was foolish!”
“Does that girl have so little regard for her own life? A timid mouse. The only way that fool could lose even her soul would be for one reason—her betrothed. Well, he is rather remarkable, I’ll grant. But…”
Cleo spoke with a tone of irritation.
“How did that girl possibly know the Castrain Family’s ‘new member’ was coming to the palace—information even the palace itself didn’t have—and set a trap, throwing herself in their place?”
“An inferior person like myself could never imagine what the wise Imperial Consort cannot comprehend.”
Cleo looked coldly down at Mary, who had instinctively lowered herself in fear, and thought.
Should she dispose of that foolish maid soon? The Rose Palace servants had already fallen from the Emperor’s favor. Before she was caught out further, she might need to quietly sever the connection.
She had no doubt that Titania’s actions were a calculated performance.
Coincidence? It was far too convenient.
Where did that presumptuous mouse find the courage to throw herself away—not even for her own betrothed, but for a younger sister newly admitted to his family?
What if she died in the attempt?
So naturally she threw herself knowing she wouldn’t die, having relied on the Castrain Family to save her, having anticipated their rescue.
She might even have learned beforehand of the Castrain Family’s valued new adopted daughter and deliberately drawn her to that very place.
This was what troubled Cleo most.
If Titania truly orchestrated it all, then Titania was far too clever.
And now she would gain the title of the Castrain Family’s benefactor. If left unchecked, the future danger she posed was too great.
But then again, if Titania had the means to orchestrate all of this, what exactly did she possess?
It wasn’t as if the Rose Palace servants hadn’t been watching Titania’s every move—and besides, what had Titania actually been doing all this time?
She spent her days changing clothes a dozen times, braiding her hair, fasting for the sake of her figure, endlessly waiting for Raymond, loving her embellishments.
Writing tediously long letters begging him to visit, then punishing the servants when no reply came.
At best, drying flowers in the garden to use as bookmarks, practicing so-called “elegant steps” again and again.
Rehearsing dances with her betrothed that she would never perform at a banquet.
When she finally met him, all she did was pout, scowl, and rage—an ignorant girl.
‘A foolish girl.’
Did she truly believe he would marry her, simply because she was the Emperor’s daughter and the Emperor willed it?
Not that it mattered—she was easier to control that way.
Cleo clicked her tongue, set down the fan, and reached for the sweet pastry that Natalie, standing one step behind her, silently offered.
Watching her capable attendant—so unlike the foolish Mary—serve her with perfect attention, Cleo’s voice softened slightly as she asked.
“Has there been any word from Licoris Palace?”
“No reaction whatsoever.”
“That woman too is laughable. There are only so many men in the world, and how long ago was all that? Whatever happened in the past, if she chose to enter the palace of her own accord and bore a child, that should have been the end of it. What good is being the most beautiful woman under heaven if she withers away, pretending not to see whether her own daughter lives or dies? Better to die than live that way.”
Cleo genuinely regarded Elaine, the second Imperial Consort, as foolish.
However it happened, once a woman caught the Emperor’s eye at a banquet, her fate was sealed from that very moment.

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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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