Duchess Mecklen’s Elegant Revolt - Chapter 26 Part 1

“You shameless, deceitful creature. You have no business ethics at all. Do you know what you’re doing is a crime? Stealing someone else’s business and selling their goods is theft.”

“Theft?”

Eleanor made a slightly incredulous sound.

Who was treating whom as a criminal now? Even Brianna, standing beside her, seemed flabbergasted, letting out a strange groan.

“Theft?”

Eleanor released Caroline’s arm. Rather than being angry, she found the situation almost amusing now.

A calm smile spread across Eleanor’s face. “Do you have proof?”

“What…”

“Proof. Do you have any evidence of the theft you’re accusing me of?”

Caroline, who had been shouting for some time, found herself speechless at Eleanor’s calm response.

“If you want to claim it was stolen, bring me proof. Then I will acknowledge it. But the evidence must be precise. Bring me everything—where, when, who, and how you planned this business. Not a single detail should be missing.”

“……!”

“Who did you first discuss the Ceylon tea business with? Did you come up with it on your own?”

Caroline’s eyes narrowed like crumpled paper. The grotesque expression on her face clearly showed her bewilderment. The smile on Eleanor’s lips deepened.

“Lady Brianna.”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember our time at Kuhen? Umar served us some tea.”

“Tea?” Brianna, thrown off by the sudden question, took a moment to recall. “Oh, I remember.”

“That tea was imported from Ceylon.”

“That one?”

Brianna’s eyes widened in surprise. Though she prided herself on knowing a lot about tea, the taste of that tea had been unlike anything served at social gatherings.

Eleanor continued, “Did you know that, Madam Caroline?”

“……”

She couldn’t admit it here. She had erased the records to leave no evidence. But that very effort to erase any trace of it was now tightening around Caroline’s neck.

Eleanor crossed her arms. “If it were truly a unique idea belonging to just one person, then Umar wouldn’t have known about that tea beforehand, would he? Could it really be that I wouldn’t know either? Maybe someone else besides us knew about Ceylon tea as well.”

“That… can’t be.”

“Why are you so sure that I wouldn’t know?”

With Eleanor’s relentless questioning, Caroline’s initial confidence began to wane. As Caroline hesitated, Eleanor slowly walked around the desk, following her retreat.

“Are you really the only one who knew?”

“…Shut up.”

Caroline’s eyes flared with rage as she muttered quietly. She felt deeply humiliated. Nothing else could explain the depth of her discomfort.

Clenching her fists so tightly that they almost bled, Caroline turned away, giving up on the conversation.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Just you wait.”

Though she seemed weakened, Caroline refused to submit completely. The door slammed shut behind her, clearly showing her seething anger.

“Should I go after her?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“It seems like she has a lot to hide,” Brianna muttered, but Eleanor shook her head.

“She’s not the type to easily spill everything yet. We need to take it slowly, one step at a time. Only then will we catch her completely.”

“Hearing you say that makes it sound like we’re mining diamonds.”

Though comparing it to mining diamonds wasn’t entirely inaccurate, it almost diminished the value of the gems. To compare Caroline to diamonds would be to tarnish their worth.

Eleanor’s lips twisted into a long sneer.

26. Conspiracy

Ernst’s face was growing worse by the day.

Vincent, deeply concerned, even suggested that Ernst take a few days off. However, Ernst refused and remained at his desk, though it was clear he couldn’t focus on his work.

Unable to bear it any longer, Vincent suggested that he himself leave, hoping that maybe Ernst would feel more at ease.

“I’ll go inspect the knights.”

“……”

“After all, everyone has been on edge ever since His Majesty forcibly summoned the First Order. I think His Majesty was trying to enforce discipline, seeing how lax the knights had become recently.”

While explaining, Vincent naturally brought up the recent summons.

Lately, there had been frequent remarks about the knights’ declining discipline. The incident of assembling the entire First Order in front of the main palace had been a wake-up call for the knights, snapping them out of their complacency.

Even as Vincent used this as an excuse to leave, Ernst remained silent.

Once alone, Ernst spoke reluctantly after a long pause.

“…Trying to enforce discipline.”

Ernst, staring blankly at the ceiling, frowned deeply. He still wasn’t in a good mood. But it wasn’t because of the issue of discipline that he had just heard about.

‘Unpleasant.’

The memory surfaced again.

The two holding hands.

No matter how hard he tried to forget, the scene kept replaying in his mind, and Ernst covered his eyes with his hand.

The source of his discomfort was none other than the Emperor, Lennoch.

He had always believed his loyalty to be unwavering. But then, what were these feelings? And why couldn’t he forget Eleanor’s face as she shyly reached out to Lennoch?

‘I even dreamed about it.’

The dream of Eleanor being falsely accused of killing Caroline and dying on the guillotine had taken on a new twist. The Emperor, who had cried while holding Eleanor’s lifeless body, eventually met his own death as the dream dragged on.

Whether it was suicide or murder, Ernst couldn’t tell.

All he knew was that seeing Lennoch lying beside Eleanor, it hadn’t been a peaceful death.

Blood had pooled around the Emperor, dark red and overflowing. He would stare at the two dead figures for a long time before waking up.

“What does it mean?”

Why was he having such dreams?

Ernst pondered for a moment. Now not only Eleanor but even the Emperor, Lennoch, was dying.

“They say dreams reflect one’s desires.”

But if that were true, it wasn’t a pleasant one. The recurring dreams left him feeling unrested. They were so vivid, as if he had experienced them firsthand.

‘Wait.’

Suddenly, Ernst removed his hand from his eyes and reached out to open the drawer. He blindly reached inside and easily grabbed the pouch. What he pulled out of the pouch was Kaham’s bracelet. Its subtle shine caught Ernst’s attention as he stared at it intently.

“……”

It seemed he had seen it in the dream, lying where the Emperor had died. Perhaps it had been submerged in the pool of blood. But its presence had been so faint that he wasn’t sure.

Maybe he had mistaken it for something else.

After staring at the bracelet for a while, Ernst placed it carelessly on his desk. An unpleasant mutter escaped his lips. “All I wanted was to have tea together.”

He felt slightly wronged. He hadn’t insisted on rekindling anything. He simply wanted to meet and talk.

Having tea together wasn’t a difficult request—what could be so pressing that his suggestion had been rejected so coldly? But what angered him most was Eleanor’s strange attitude.

‘Why doesn’t she treat Lennoch the same way she treats me?’

As that thought crossed his mind, Ernst found himself overwhelmed by an emotion he had never felt before.

It was as if he were in a furnace, burning with rage. His eyes stung from the fury.

He crossed his arms, his expression full of dissatisfaction. “Still annoyed.”

Ernst pinpointed the source of his displeasure. His sour mood was because of Eleanor and Lennoch. He felt intense jealousy towards Lennoch, even more than anger at Eleanor for rejecting him.

Lennoch had done so easily what he himself could not.

And that led to only one conclusion.

Jealousy.

‘…I look utterly pathetic.’

To think that jealousy towards the Emperor could even affect his dreams. If that were true, Ernst felt he was truly pathetic.

He dismissed the idea as absurd, but oddly enough, acknowledging it seemed to calm the boiling blood within him.

Pedro’s playful words suddenly echoed in his mind.

“Is there anyone around you you’d like to impress?”

Ernst glanced down at the bracelet from Kaham lying on the desk.

Knock, knock.

“…..?”

It was too early for Vincent to have returned from inspecting the knights.

Ernst quickly put the bracelet back in the pouch and slipped it into the drawer.

Who could be visiting him now?

Suppressing his discomfort, Ernst called for them to enter, and the door opened with a smooth sound. To his surprise, the person who cautiously walked into his office was not a palace servant.

“Ernst.”

“…Mother.”

It was Caroline, who had never once come to his office.

Ernst was visibly surprised and asked, “Why are you here?”

She wasn’t one to attend even palace banquets. What could have prompted her to come here?

Caroline’s face looked far from well. Her head was bowed, her complexion pale and devoid of makeup.

“It’s just…”

Caroline, who was always so confident, trembled as her lips quivered.

And then—

“Sob, sob.”

“……!”

Ernst stared blankly at his mother as she suddenly burst into tears. At first, they were heavy tears, but soon her sobbing turned into a stream.

“Sob, sob, Ernst…! Sob.”

Caroline, crying loudly, looked utterly miserable.

Her sobs filled the quiet office. When she could no longer hold herself up, collapsing onto the floor, Ernst had no choice but to rise from his desk.

As her son approached, Caroline cried out in a choked voice, “It was all… all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everything is my fault. Sob. I shouldn’t have done it. I made a huge mistake because I was foolish. Sob, Ernst, please forgive me.”

Ernst couldn’t understand his mother, who was suddenly apologizing and crying.

***

Evan returned to the palace after running errands for the Emperor, as usual.

With the increase in these outside tasks lately, Evan often found himself taking detours, traveling long distances.

At first, he was pleased, thinking that he was trusted enough to handle such secret matters, but gradually, he felt a growing unease.

‘And he hasn’t even pushed me to conclude the investigation into the nanny’s poisoning.’

It had been a month since he had been put in charge of the investigation. But with so few leads, the investigation had stalled, making little progress.

By now, he would have expected the Emperor to have said something, but he only received periodic reports without any reprimands.

That only added to Evan’s unease.

Perhaps the Emperor had other plans.

‘Maybe I’ll be taken off the case altogether.’

“Sob…”

A sorrowful sound of crying came from around the corner of the corridor. Hearing someone cry in the palace was rare, so Evan naturally turned his head in that direction.

And soon after, he froze in place.

“…My God.”

Caroline?

Evan’s skin prickled with goosebumps. He was already shocked to encounter Caroline here, but to see her crying aloud? For anyone who knew the cruel and vicious side of Caroline, it was an unimaginable sight, even in a dream.

Instinctively, Evan felt it would be bad to cross paths with Caroline in her current state. As he tried to quietly turn away and avoid Ernst’s office, Caroline, lifting her head, locked eyes with him.

“……!”

As soon as she saw Evan, Caroline’s tear-streaked lips twisted into a smirk.

***