CH 14

“Even if the Young Lady Bright is a villainess that everyone hates, I don’t see why she should be blamed for something she didn’t do.”

I didn’t want to criticize the crown prince, but I couldn’t help it. Whatever misdeeds Young Lady Bright had done, she had been a thorough victim, at least in this entanglement with the Second Prince and Countess Olette.

“Iris, you’re right, I do feel very sorry for Young Lady Bright.”

“This is really… Hah.”

My temples ached as anger rose to the top of my head. I was taking a deep breath to calm my bubbling anger when the crown prince spoke, his voice calmer than it had been a moment ago.

“In my defense, it was the Empress who covered up Pavel’s misdeeds, and the Emperor doesn’t know much about this.”

“I know the Emperor hasn’t been feeling well lately and hasn’t been keeping up with current affairs, but I still don’t understand.”

Everyone was quiet, but it was clear that the emperor was not feeling well, but even that was not a convincing explanation. It didn’t matter if the Empress had schemed and deceived people but how could the Emperor and the Bright Family not know about it? It was like a con job.

“The matter of imperial marriages is solely the empress’s prerogative, and even the emperor cannot interfere, or rather, it would be more accurate to say that he has no interest in it.”

“It’s a big deal that the prince of the empire cheated on the woman he was supposed to marry.”

“It is a big deal. That’s why they’re hiding it so thoroughly.”

I felt horrified that the empress, who I had never seen, would use the victim as a scapegoat to cover up her own child’s shame.

“In other words, she sacrificed a perfectly healthy child for her own.”

“If His Majesty had known about this, Pavel would have been out of sight forever, and the Empress would not have been able to tolerate that,”

the Crown Prince continued, his face shadowed, his expression serious. “The Empress wants her own blood to ascend the throne.”

That, too, was somewhat expected. It was a fairly common occurrence for nobles to remarry in the Empire, and there was often a lot of fighting over who would be the head of a family, especially when it came to the Emperor, who was the head of the Empire.

“Do you know the Empress’s family?”

“I know. It’s the Marquis of Douglas.”

“I see.”

The Marquis of Douglas was not as prestigious as the Bright family, but he was still quite familiar with them. In fact, it went deeper than the Bright family in terms of family history.

“The Marquis of Douglas is a great noble of the south, where the granary of the empire is located, he was a landowner of the fertile plains, and he rose to become a count as one of the founding contributors, so he’s not as well off as the more established families.”

“What’s Count Olette like?”

“He’s the type to lick the Empress’s toes if it meant getting ahead of everyone. He rose from viscount to a count on the merit of his grandfather’s work, so he’s not as wealthy as a traditional family.”

“There must have been some political dealings between the Empress and the Count of Olette.”

I gulped down my lukewarm tea, after feeling my throat burn. I’d expected it, but the more I listened, the more my chest tightened. The more I knew about the situation, the more it still didn’t make sense.

“I don’t know about Countess Olette, but the Empress is definitely not someone a mere child of a marquis without a title can contend with.”

The Countess of Olette, with The Empress, the pinnacle of imperial society at her back. A rough picture was immediately formed in my head. Young Lady Bright was ostracized by the noble society, and she didn’t even have the protection of her family.

It would be easy for them to frame her, Young Lady Bright, who was already branded as a Villainess…

“Still, if… this gets out, the Bright family won’t take it lying down.”

As far as I can tell, the Duke of Bright is a man of honor, and if he were to find out about this? He would not remain silent. The Marquis of Bright was not one to go quietly either,

“Of course not. Even at the time of the divorce, the enraged Duke of Bright visited the Second Prince’s palace and went on a rampage.”

“What? The Duke of Bright did that?” I opened my mouth in surprise at this unexpected statement.

“He didn’t seem like the kind of person to do that.”

“Perhaps you just have a firm grudge on the Duke of Bright.”

“First impressions are the worst.”

“Ha-ha. But it’s true. He grabbed Pavel by the scruff of the neck, shook him, and then slammed him on the marble floor. After that, he was put on probation for two months for injuring a member of the royal family.”

“That’s surprising—.”

Surprising indeed. The score for the Duke of Bright on me went up ever so slightly, if at all, but it’s still a minor one.

“First of all… I’d like to hear the answer I didn’t get last time.”

It was time to hear the answer I hadn’t gotten because of the aide’s interruption, and it would solve the question I’d had all along. I opened my mouth, feeling the tension rise.

“How in the world did Young Lady Bright become a famous Villainess? What evil deeds did she commit that everyone in the capital, noble and commoner alike, knew about it? The discernment of the capital’s nobility is so poor. What do you expect from eyes that can’t even distinguish between human faces?”

“How did Young Lady Bright become so famous that everyone in the capital, nobles and commoners alike, knew about his misdeeds?”

“It was because of the newspapers.”

The crown prince replied as if he’d been waiting. I was expecting a more detailed explanation of where, when, what, and how Young Lady Bright had committed her misdeeds, but his answer was terse. But he sounded convinced that he had the right answer.

“The newspaper?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that…. Ah.” After a moment of confusion, I realized what was going on. The newspaper was a small daily mail that was published three or four times a week and had been in vogue in urban centers for several years. The advantage of newspapers over books was that they were cheap, readily available, and up-to-date.

They were also popular in our manor because they could provide news about politics, economics, society, and other areas at once.

However, our estate could not afford a newspaper, so the butler would go to the neighboring estate once a week and buy seven newspapers at once.

“At first, most of the newspapers were specialized in politics and economics, or were published by the state, but about ten years ago, anyone could run a newspaper, and now there are more than twenty newspapers in the capital.”

“That’s a lot,” I said, and then I realized that there was one at the entrance to the alley where we entered the cafe from, and even though there are only a couple of big cities in the provinces, more than twenty is too many, taking consideration of the size of the capital, it’s still too many.

“Newspapers, like any business, are driven by money. Newspapers, They need people to buy them, to advertise in them, to run them, and that’s why every single one of them is desperate to sell one more copy.”

“….Did the evil deeds of Young Lady Bright appear in the newspapers?” I asked, and instead of answering, the crown prince smiled bitterly.

That was the answer.

“It would be faster to see it than to explain it.”

The crown prince raised his hand, and a stack of newspapers lying in the corner of the café flew toward me in a ball. I hesitantly picked it up and saw the headline in big, bold letters.

“Young Lady Bright Kicked Out for Drunken Rampage at a New Year’s Party?”

It was powerful from the start. I looked at the Crown Prince, speechlessly, and he jerked his chin as if to say something else.

“The young daughter of the Marquis of Bright, in a fit of pique, climbed the spire of Central Square and went on a self-inflicted rampage…”

The next article was stronger. I picked up the next newspaper with trembling hands. Again, it was about Young Lady Bright from the front page.

“Young Lady Bright pushes Young Countess Olette into the pond at a garden tea party… Oh this is a good one.”

Judging by the timing, I’m guessing she pushed her because she learned that she was having an affair with that seaweed head babel or something. I nodded in satisfaction.

“The young Countess of Olette deserves this.”

“I know.”

“People wouldn’t have known what happened if they didn’t know what was going on,”

I said, and the voices criticizing Young Lady Bright became even louder. If people had known that Countess Olette had committed adultery, the blame would have been directed at her. Even though it already happened so far in the past, she still felt a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Let me see… Immature wench, secretly going to a no-hunting zone and injuring a knight. Young Lady Bright feigns amnesia to get out of her misdeeds, only to be found out and made the butt of everyone’s jokes—-.”

I looked through dozens of newspapers one by one. Every single one of them had a titillating headline about Young Lady Bright. I frowned as I realized that the headline alone gave away the content.