Duchess Mecklen’s Elegant Revolt - Chapter 35 Part 8

As soon as the trial resumed, Caroline began shouting in court.

“Rachel? That woman was always debauched. She went around with this man and that because she said the former Duke Mecklen made her feel lonely. So I didn’t drive her out. It all happened because of her bad behavior.”

While Marquis Delph couldn’t properly refute the mountain of evidence against him, Caroline found an opening in the testimony pressing her.

Even if she was mentally and physically exhausted, she had to find a way to survive.

She didn’t give up and fought with all her might.

“Let’s be clear. I never framed Rachel. And I didn’t know Vito was her son either. If I had known, do you think I would’ve let that child live? I’d have killed him long ago.”

She glared at Henrik and Vito, who were on the witness stand.

Contrary to worries, Vito had completed his testimony safely, but he didn’t have the courage to retort to Caroline.

Pale and staggering as if he might vomit, Vito was helped by knights and taken to the waiting room.

Left alone, Henrik gritted his teeth and shouted, “Even so, that doesn’t absolve you of the crime of killing my aunt!”

Henrik handed the judge the village chief’s written confession that the Emperor had given him earlier.

The village chief who had managed the secret farm detailed how Caroline had killed Hippias’s Rachel.

“Rachel of Hippias, my aunt, was the legal wife of the former Duke Mecklen. But Caroline desperately coveted my aunt’s position and spread false rumors of infidelity to force her from the seat of duchess. Though my aunt was pregnant with the former Duke’s child, she was driven out in disgrace and had to flee for her life—to escape from you, Caroline!”

Caroline scoffed. “What a load of fiction. Did the village chief say I drove Rachel out? Who else? Bring someone who saw it with their own eyes. Then I’ll admit it.”

“Caroline, you… to the bitter end…!”

Henrik trembled in outrage.

Her slippery deflection of the argument was revolting.

She did not admit to the murder charge, and she intentionally fixated on denying the part about driving Rachel out, clearly to steer the focus.

Though the audience rained jeers upon Caroline, she held her ground with shamelessness.

“Why? Am I wrong?”

“Then allow me to confirm it.”

“…Sister?”

Henrik, who had just opened his mouth to speak, turned in surprise.

Eleanor, who had only moments ago been seated in the gallery, had come to stand beside him.

Seeing Eleanor step up to the witness stand where Vito had stood, both Caroline and Marquis Delph grimaced.

Eleanor looked toward the center. “Your Honor, I’d like to testify.”

Caroline exclaimed in shock. “Y-you want to testify? Ridiculous. You can’t testify without registering in advance…”

“I’ll allow it.”

“What? This is absurd!”

Caroline shouted in protest, but the judge ignored her.

She looked to the audience for support, but they reacted the same way.

Eleanor faced Caroline squarely. “The first day I entered the Mecklen household, you said this to me. ‘Why blond?’ Then you visibly recoiled at the sight of my hair and avoided looking at it.”

“……”

“Coincidentally, Rachel of Hippias also had blond hair and blue eyes like mine.”

“So what?”

Suddenly, Eleanor dropped a line.

“Shall I spare you?”

“……!”

“If I were Rachel, even if you had slandered me, I don’t think I would have taken your life so easily.”

The impact of her words was immense.

Caroline, Henrik, the judge, and everyone in the courtroom were left speechless.

Eleanor, who had made the shocking remark, remained smiling as if nothing had happened.

“If you confess all your crimes truthfully right now, I will spare you.”

“What are you saying…”

“I’ll make that promise before everyone here as witness.”

Silence swept through the courtroom.

Strangely, no one found it unnatural that Eleanor wielded control over a person’s life so casually.

Even the judge, though the discussion had strayed far from legal formality, made no move to intervene.

Caroline stammered without realizing it. “Y-you may become the Empress… no, Your Majesty the Empress…”

In formal settings, honorifics were required.

Hurriedly correcting herself, Caroline mumbled. “You’ll really spare me?”

“Sister, is that really true?” Henrik cried out in disbelief.

Eleanor nodded. “So long as she fully confesses to her crimes—that’s the condition.”

There was nothing she couldn’t do.

If she could survive.

Judging from how the trial was going, it wouldn’t be strange for her to die at any moment.

‘I can’t let this chance slip away.’

Reading the mood that Caroline might really confess, the judge glanced toward the Emperor.

As if to ask what should be done.

The Emperor gave the signal.

‘As Eleanor wishes.’

The judge quietly lowered his gavel. “Will you do it?”

Caroline nodded. “…Fine. Keep your promise.”

“Of course.”

Henrik stomped in frustration, but Eleanor raised a hand to stop him.

Swallowing hard, Caroline looked around and carefully opened her mouth.

“Yes, fine. It’s true—I was the one who drove Rachel out of Mecklen.”

“Good heavens.”

Caroline changed in an instant.

What she’d done moments ago—harshly accusing Henrik—seemed unreal now.

Henrik wanted to strike the cunning woman then and there, but he had to restrain his fury.

As she continued, Caroline repeatedly muttered that the promise must be kept, clearly nervous.

“Rachel and the Duke didn’t get along that well. So I came up with a little scheme. I brought in Baron Baer, whom she often saw at her salon, and planted young men around her, then fed suggestive remarks in front of salon ladies to create scandals.”

Unfortunately, Baron Baer, who had deep ties with Marquis Delph, had already lost his life on the day of the purge.

Eleanor could tell Caroline wasn’t lying this time.

Everything matched Saruka’s account exactly.

She must have been desperate.

She hadn’t even managed to lace it with one of her usual lies.

“After that, I killed Rachel. With my own hands—I strangled her.”

“My god.”

“I was the one who stabbed Vito in the neck, too. I think he was about ten when I finally tracked him down—the child Rachel had hidden away with a loyal servant. The brat came right up to me without fear. So I tried to kill him and stabbed him with a knife. But then I figured it might not be so bad to let him live, so I called a doctor. After that, I imported him as a slave and kept him at the secret farm.”

“…Monster.”

Someone muttered.

That word, echoing through the silence, reached even Caroline’s ears, but consumed by the desire to survive, she ignored it.

Caroline confirmed that Vito was indeed the son of the former Duke Mecklen.

“The Balkan Trading Company—now that I can’t admit to. Sure, I made money from it, but Marquis Delph was worse. He dealt heavily in drugs and that kind of plant. All I did was grow them, and it was the Marquis who provided the seedlings. As for the counterfeit imports, that was an investment move for the Balkan Trading Company. And that was the Marquis’s idea. Looking at it this way, there’s no crime Marquis Delph didn’t dabble in. Am I wrong?”

When Caroline slyly mocked Marquis Delph, his face crumpled like a sheet of paper.

“The rest of the evidence is real, too. I’ll admit I ran the secret farm and built slush funds from it.”

“Did the Duke Mecklen know the source of your slush funds?”

At that, Ernst in the gallery bit his lip.

Caroline let out a deflated chuckle. “No. If he had, that kid would’ve stopped me.”

“……”

“He’s more upright than he looks.”

“So you’re saying none of your actions were related to Duke Mecklen at all?”

“That’s right. He was good at his job, but honestly, he had no real interest in the Mecklen business. Half of Mecklen’s current wealth? That’s practically all me.”

Finally, Ernst covered his face with his hands. “She’s my mother, but…”

She had chosen the worst possible path.

As the questioning continued, Ernst realized why Eleanor had offered to spare Caroline in exchange for her confession.

‘How long has this revenge been in the making?’

He only thought on it for a moment—but now, it didn’t matter anymore.

Soon, Caroline would know.

That she had already walked into a trap.

Just as Ernst expected, Eleanor’s cold voice followed.

“Then the next witness’s confession also has nothing to do with the Mecklen family. It was all your doing, Caroline.”

Caroline flinched.

She couldn’t yet grasp the intent.

Eleanor looked toward the waiting room. “Your final witness.”

“There’s another witness?”

She had said she would spare her.

Caroline trembled with confusion.

She let out a weak scream, but Eleanor called out the name of the one waiting.

“Saruka.”

“……!”

***

“Why did you remain with Mecklen even after your revenge was complete?”

“……”

“It’s because you regret it, isn’t it?”

Saruka couldn’t answer Eleanor’s question.

“The one who killed your father was Oth III. Yet the man you killed with your own hands was his son, Heinrich II.”

Only then did Saruka finally realize the source of the emptiness that had long ruled over him.

Heinrich II had been unusually kind to him.

At least, until he fled the palace.

At the request of the former Duke Mecklen, Heinrich had taken care of him, a mere squire, with surprising warmth.

After learning the hidden truth, Saruka had raged against the imperial family for killing his father, abandoning everything in pursuit of revenge. But when both Heinrich II and the unrelated former Duke Mecklen died together in an accident—

…there was no joy.

“That’s Saruka.”

On the witness stand, Saruka was wrapped in bandages from head to toe.

“Saruka? That murderer?”

“Right, I saw him in the papers.”

“He looks awful. What’s with his face?”

Just his name caused a stir in the gallery.

Thanks to Fox and other newspapers harping on the Balkan Trading Company case for weeks, there wasn’t a single noble unaware of who Saruka was.

Marquis Delph instinctively sensed that this testimony wouldn’t be a threat just to Caroline.

But realizing it now was too late.

“I’ll tell the truth.”

Saruka turned his eyes toward the spectators.

His gaze landed on Count Verdick, who, unlike Caroline and Marquis Delph, hadn’t been in the worst situation.

“I killed Mayor Umar of Kuhen.”

“…What.”

“What now?”

Throwing the courtroom into chaos, Saruka delivered his testimony without pause.

“And the one who staged it as a suicide was Caroline—her.”

“Aaaaargh!”

The moment those words fell, a black figure lunged at Caroline.

It happened so quickly that the knights failed to react in time.

Caroline’s throat was suddenly seized, and she let out a pig-like scream.

“How could you deceive me!!”

The one throttling her with bloodshot eyes was Count Verdik—Mayor Umar’s cousin and closest friend.

“You said it was suicide! You said Umar died for our sake and comforted me! Was it all a lie? You tricked me and made it look like he took his own life? You wicked woman!”

“Guh… g-guh, guhk!”

He strangled her so violently that Caroline nearly passed out.

The knights rushed in and pried him off her.

As Caroline gasped desperately for air, Count Verdik screamed, “I believed you! You killed my cousin and shamelessly lied!”

“Guh… guhk. I-I didn’t kill him. It was Saruka—he did it without my permission!”

“And now you’re trying to weasel out again with another shameless lie!”

Even though she was telling the truth this time, no one believed her anymore.

Just before he was dragged away by the knights, Count Verdik shouted with all his might.

“Your Honor! That woman stole Marquis Delph’s poison and tried to assassinate Her Majesty the Empress Dowager! She even intended to pin the crime on the Marquis! That woman is a traitor to the Imperial Family! Please punish her immediately!”

Overflowing with betrayal, Count Verdik cried out a new testimony.