The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 10

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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 10
“……”
Owen fell silent at her words.
He could piece together what must have happened.
While drowning in mounting duties and the Emperor’s orders for deployment, Albert must have insisted on maintaining the Manor’s appearance for the sake of Owen’s Dignity as a Count—a matter that seemed to clash with the urgency of his situation.
The discussion about the Blue Rose likely arose around that same time.
It wasn’t mere indifference on Owen’s part alone that had created this predicament.
Setting aside Fashion or Dignity, Owen clearly knew little of aristocratic society.
What troubled him was that the funds he’d carefully allocated had gone to line the belly of a liar.
Pesha thrust forward the flower she’d been holding before Owen’s expression could grow any colder.
“This is the Blue Rose from the garden.”
The Blue Rose in Pesha’s hand displayed layers of pale blue petals splayed open in full bloom.
“I’m not trying to say you misunderstood Fashion.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“How much did you pay for this rose?”
“How much?”
“I heard you spent considerable coin on it.”
“I did allocate the budget, but managing the Manor’s finances falls to Albert. I never gave thought to the actual price.”
“What if this rose were false?”
“False?”
Pesha snapped off the head of the Blue Rose she’d shown him and crumpled it in her palm.
The blue petals scattered to the floor like snow.
Owen’s eyes widened at the sight of her suddenly crushing the flower.
“In truth, a blue rose doesn’t exist. So why would Albert go so far as to lie and purchase counterfeit blooms?”
“Albert could have been swindled himself, couldn’t he?”
Pesha let out a soft laugh, watching Owen cling to his desire to trust his servant despite likely knowing the answer already.
“Perhaps. But I believe Albert deliberately created false roses to skim funds from the budget. Isn’t that why he was so determined to highlight my insufficient knowledge while refusing to show the Financial Ledger?”
“What exactly did Albert criticize about you?”
Owen’s expression, which had shown little change even when told he’d been deceived by a man he’d trusted for years, turned cold in an instant.
Pesha, startled, hastily opened her palm to show him the crushed petals.
Where her fingers had gripped, the original white color of the petals showed through.
But on Pesha’s hand clung the blue Plant Dye, unmistakably proving the petals had been dyed.
“This is the nature of Plant Dye. It won’t wash away in water or fade easily, but when it touches something with high heat, the color peels away at once. That’s likely why he forbade the servants from approaching the flowers. You had no interest in them, so he thought himself safe.”
“……”
“Moreover, this isn’t even a rose. It merely resembles one—it’s a wildflower worth far less than a proper rose.”
Pesha finished speaking and posed her question.
“What will you do? Is this servant, bold enough to mock his master with lies and embezzle his funds, still one of your people?”
Owen’s gaze, grown glacial and distant, fixed upon Pesha.
He pulled the bell cord without a word, and a servant appeared moments later.
“Yes, sir. You called for me?”
“Fetch Albert. Now.”
The servant, alarmed by Owen’s ominous demeanor, bowed hastily.
While the servant went to retrieve Albert, Owen stared down at the scattered petals on the floor and asked quietly,
“How did you come to know of this?”
Pesha, who had expected him to press further about Albert rather than turn the question back on her, shrugged lightly and answered offhandedly.
“Simply that I’ve had an interest in plants and flowers since childhood.”
Her father had disapproved of Pesha studying Herbology—a pursuit unrelated to the proper accomplishments of a noblewoman.
The expensive education required was impossible without his support.
That was all there was to it.
Owen, who had expected a careless answer to satisfy him, pressed further despite the hollow reply.
“If you had an interest, did you receive special instruction? Was a specialist hired as your tutor, perhaps……?”
He had scarcely finished speaking when—
the servant who had gone to fetch Albert returned.
“Sir, I’ve brought Albert.”
The butler, summoned on such short notice, appeared somewhat bewildered.
He placed a hand over his heart and offered a bow, his face growing tense as he sensed Owen’s ominous mood.
“I was told you called for me, sir.”
“Albert.”
At Owen’s grave utterance of his name, the butler’s eyes shifted nervously.
“Y-yes, sir……”
“Several years back, the success of the Toriea Plains campaign owed much to your aid. You came forward to tell us where the enemy lay in ambush, despite being a civilian who ought to have been kept safe, and you swallowed your fear to do it.”
“Y-yes, that’s so. Just thinking of those days makes my legs go weak even now……”
Why was he bringing that up all of a sudden?
Cold sweat beaded across the butler’s forehead.
Though Owen saw the butler’s anxious glances, his voice remained unnervingly calm.
“Because of you, I was able to spare many soldiers from death or injury. I thought it only right that I repay you for that. I took the trouble to employ you at Count’s Manor not merely to hand over coin once, but because I believed you to be a trustworthy man.”
“……M-master……”
“But looking back now, I suspect I made that decision on impulse, intoxicated with the flush of victory.”
The butler squeezed his eyes shut as if to speak—whether excuse or confession, Owen could not say—but Owen did not wait to hear it.
“I’ve no time to waste listening to pointless excuses. Answer plainly: how much did you embezzle through the Blue Rose?”
“Th-that is……”
The butler’s hands began to tremble visibly.
“Answer.”
He seemed to be trying to wriggle free of the situation somehow, but to endure Owen’s piercing gaze was beyond him.
“Some fifteen hundred Gold Coins……”
Pesha’s eyes, listening to the exchange beside him, widened.
‘With that sum, we could buy fresh provisions for the Manor in abundance, fill the wine cellar to bursting, hire two more gardeners, and still have plenty left over!’
Having confessed the amount from his own lips, the butler, now seized by panic, began to babble incoherently.
“B-but the flower itself is genuinely a rare variety! I was merely trying to preserve your Dignity, master……”
Pesha, watching the butler with contempt as he began to weave lies in a desperate bid to lighten his guilt, opened her mouth.
“Stop talking nonsense. We couldn’t possibly not know that the rose is dyed a false blue, that the claim about blue being fashionable in the Capital is rubbish, or that you skimmed money. Where’s the lie in any of that?”
“H-how could madam possibly… Could it be that……”
The butler’s face flushed red with fury in an instant as his gaze met Pesha’s.
“That’s a lie!”
“What?”
Pesha could only gape as he thrust his finger at her and shouted.
“This flower is a genuine Blue Rose! I beg you to believe me, master!”
Pesha watched as the butler threw himself down before Owen, begging, and muttered in astonishment.
“What does he take us for……”
“You hold it against me that I didn’t hand over the Financial Ledger, and that’s why you’re treating me this way!”
“This is ridiculous. As if anyone wouldn’t know you didn’t even hire a gardener just to hide your fake Blue Rose!”
As Pesha, her temper rising, threw back his words, the butler, having lost his composure, rounded on her with a flushed face.
“What would a hothouse flower like you know? You pick up scraps of knowledge and use them to slander me!”
“What did you just say?”
“Master. Allow me to bring in a new expert. Let us ask them to settle this matter once and for all!”
His performance of wounded innocence was genuinely masterful.
She wanted to agree, but if they called in someone new, there was no telling what schemes the butler might employ. Who could say he wouldn’t produce someone he’d bribed to turn the case against her?
Who could be certain he wouldn’t do exactly that?
She was about to insist it was absolutely out of the question.
A low voice rang through the study.
“No.”
It was Owen.
Both Pesha and the butler, mid-quarrel, turned to look at him at once.
With a cold expression, Owen rose from his seat and walked toward the butler with heavy steps.
Then, as the butler knelt with his hand pressed to the floor, Owen stepped down hard on the back of his hand without mercy as he spoke.
“Ahhh!”
“Whether you’re innocent or guilty will become clear once we conduct a proper full inspection. But that said—”
He ground his foot down so relentlessly that even Pesha winced, as if her own hand were the one in pain.
“Your loyalty ought to be to the lady of this house. That you would defy her and ignore her commands—that, I cannot comprehend.”
“M-master, please wait…!”
“If it comes to light that your story is false, you will answer for every word you’ve spoken to my wife today as well.”

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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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