Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 8

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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 8

It was probably because I’d let slip a clue about the private conversation I’d had with Raymond.
I deliberately stomped my foot in mock anger and ground the shattered teacup scattered across the floor beneath my heel, crushing it into smaller and smaller pieces.
Ah, I cut myself. Ouch!
Then again, this is Titania we’re talking about—someone who scuffed her heels and toes raw daily in shoes that never quite fit right.
When she was this angry, one little cut was hardly going to dampen her fury….
“It’s, it is, it is, so shabby it doesn’t suit the Imperial Palace, Raymond!”
Crack-crash!
Rose, I’m sorry!
I grabbed a handful of the roses that had been hanging as decoration on the wall and tore them apart as if my fury had overcome me, scattering the petals everywhere.
As I threw my fragrant tantrum, I began thrashing about wildly again.
“He, he mocked me! It’s all because of you people!”
“My goodness…. Did the Young Duke Raymond really say such a thing?”
Mary’s eyes shifted subtly. Sara caught Mary’s gaze and crept closer in my direction with the same subtle movement.
The contempt and mockery I’d grown accustomed to flickered across their faces. At that point, I deliberately fell silent as if my feelings had been hurt.
“Please, Princess Titania. Getting this angry isn’t good for you. Why don’t you move to another room and have a cup of sweet cocoa while you tell us what’s troubling you?”
Mary coaxed me with a honeyed voice. She normally refused to give me sweets, claiming I needed to maintain my appearance, but she was certainly generous with them at times like this.
There wasn’t a single person willing to offer me even the hollow remonstrance that “the Imperial Family must maintain its dignity, so you shouldn’t take your feelings out on those below you or objects, but rather compose yourself.”
Though granted, there was always the possibility that a maid who lectured me that way would provoke the princess and get scolded for it.
But these two had clearly received orders to deliberately provoke Titania’s temperament.
As the stubborn little girl threw more of a fit, expressed a desire for something sweet, and began to waver slightly, rolling her eyes hesitantly, I noticed Sara slip away as if the moment had come.
That was when it happened.
“The First Imperial Consort, Cleo Den Atri Hamastion, has arrived.”
Natalie, whom I’d wondered had disappeared from the room, appeared alongside the uninvited guest.
I was impressed.
Well, I’d expected it, but she really was fast.
Not quite the final boss, perhaps, but to think the middle boss herself would come directly.
“Princess.”
A smiling woman walked toward me with light, measured steps. By appearance alone, she was strikingly young and beautiful. Near her right eye, feline and sultry, was a beauty mark that had clearly been placed there deliberately.
Her dress, made of gossamer-thin white silk layered several times over, let her skin show through. Atop her blue hair, swept up cleanly, gleamed an ornament set with an orange diamond that had been nicknamed the “Ocean of Stars,” a gift from the Emperor.
Her entire outfit was ostentatious by design.
Especially considering that this “Ocean of Stars” was the very jewel traditionally passed down to Empresses, yet the Emperor had bestowed it upon the Imperial Consort, causing quite the scandal.
“I hear you’ve been quite unwell. However shall we manage…?”
She blinked her eyes in feigned sympathy, but her gaze as she assessed me was sharp.
The Empire observes monogamy by law. Noblemen who take mistresses have no legal standing for them.
However, the Emperor alone may keep concubines.
Though their number is limited: three Imperial Consorts and two Palace Concubines.
An Imperial Consort need only be of noble birth or higher, whereas those of common or lower status enter as Palace Concubines.
Even if they bear Imperial Grandchildren, they are only treated as people if they are born of an Imperial Consort.
Of course, emperors throughout history have rarely filled all five concubine positions. Most have not even had three Imperial Consorts.
Yet the fact that this lecherous Emperor maintains only two Imperial Consorts is entirely due to this woman’s capabilities.
“I am well through Your Grace’s kindness,” I said.
But even as I spoke those words, I deliberately turned my head away and pouted my lips as if my anger had not yet fully subsided and I remained upset.
“Oh my, oh my. However did our princess manage to get so cross?”
The Imperial Consort smiled with her eyes as though watching a kitten pout, and brushed my cheek. The enchanting fragrance that grazed the tip of my nose and the soft touch of her fingers would have been affectionate enough to captivate any innocent child.
Originally, she had planned to have me killed the moment she bore a daughter of her own. But after giving birth to the First Prince Brian, she suffered repeated miscarriages and eventually became infertile.
So she left me alive and exploited me instead. Had I not known all these facts, I might have been swayed a little.
No matter how high-born the other party, none but the Empress could dare speak to the Emperor’s child in informal speech. Both must use respectful language.
But who in the world would dare counsel the great Cleo, First Imperial Consort and the Emperor’s foremost favorite, to treat a wretched princess with a little more courtesy?
“P-please, Your Grace the Imperial Consort. What if Raymond thinks I’m ugly?”
And so, before the one adult who treated me with any warmth, I played the part of a spoiled child, looking up at her with eyes ready to cry.
I watched as she blinked her feline, narrow eyes and made a subtle gesture with her hand, quietly dismissing the maids.
The First Imperial Consort Cleo treated Titania as one might a beloved pet.
In substance, she paid no real attention to her, instead lavishing hollow sweet words and meaningless gifts.
So that the little girl, who received scraps of attention from no other adult, would become dependent on her.
So that, thirsting for this false affection—sweet but entirely empty of nourishment—her teeth would rot and her hands and feet would break without her even noticing.
All while she gaslit her with things like, “Your own mother won’t love you, but I do.”
Yet every time the Imperial Consort’s arms—ostensibly embracing me with such tenderness—brushed against me, I deliberately felt my skin crawl.
She was undoubtedly the figure most directly culpable in Titania’s ruin.
After feigning to love her like a daughter and making her compliant, the moment Bibi appeared—though born a second daughter to the Castrain Ducal House, she was beloved by all—Cleo discarded Titania. It was to probe new marriage possibilities.
Though none of this should have been surprising. It was Cleo the Imperial Consort who cleaned up after all the women the licentious Emperor constantly took up with.
Although he was the firstborn, Prince Brian lacked legitimacy compared to Adrian, who was born of the Empress.
If another prince born of one of the women the Emperor had touched ever came to prominence, it could work against Brian’s interests.
So she deliberately arranged beautiful but low-born women to offer to the Emperor, and once his interest waned, had them quietly killed without anyone knowing.
The Emperor knew but pretended not to. It was far easier to tacitly approve an Imperial Consort who handled things perfectly, rather than bother himself with increasing his concubines’ numbers.
“Why do you think that?”
“Well….”
Although Cleo was indeed paying attention to Titania and grooming her, at this point Titania was ultimately not a piece she could use.
Rather, her real focus was on probing and observing the state of the Castrain Ducal House through Titania—more specifically, the Young Duke Raymond.
So whether Titania threw fits or broke things, lived or died, it was all the same to her.
Yet the reason she had come here at all was….
“…He said that if he truly loved me, if he liked me, it wouldn’t matter what I looked like. That the battlefield always reeks of blood and filth and all you see are weak people scattered about…. So I thought maybe the Young Duke would say I was pretty even if I were suffering.”
I deliberately performed a broken voice and averted my gaze.
Cleo’s eyes became subtle.
…When Titania should have called a Priest to heal her and gone to meet the Young Duke looking perfect.
She had done something “strange”—visiting the Young Duke with her body still sick and injured.
Cleo was sharp-eyed. To be precise, she had good instincts about the targets she’d already marked for exploitation.
But I felt her gaze shift to one of “well, what did I expect” as she looked at the young princess with her sight fixed downward, her cheeks flushed with frustration and disappointment.
Laughable, really. When the little girl had nearly died and had only just regained consciousness, Cleo hadn’t even come to visit.
She comes in person now to probe the contents of the private conversation with the Young Duke? It was only because Titania was truly a senseless child that this wasn’t completely transparent—her intentions were far too obvious.
“Princess.”
Cleo’s voice became subtly more cunning. She reached out her hand in pretended affection and swept my hair behind my ear, speaking in a feigned tone of concern.
“Well, it can’t be helped. You’ve always, until now, presented yourself to the Young Duke Raymond as beautiful and untouchable.”
In other words, until now Cleo had been packaging Raymond’s look of distaste as, “He deliberately shows his dislike because approaching a noble lady of the Imperial Family first would damage his reputation.”….
What kind of logic was this?

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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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