Tap, tap.
Though they were merely the sound of dress shoes echoing through the hallway, the footsteps were as disciplined as the military boots of a commander leading troops into battle.
Everyone turned to look at once.
“My goodness. I’ve been listening to this for a while, and I simply can’t take it anymore.”
Had she been listening from the very beginning?
Castia swept in, her coat fluttering behind her.
“You were invited to someone else’s wedding, yet you mix criticism into what should be congratulatory remarks. Is this what passes for manners in the Cardel family?”
Her outfit featured sharp, military-style shoulders, gold decorations, and a dark skirt that fell over her heeled boots.
It was an outfit that seemed to stand on the border between a battlefield and a banquet hall.
Castia walked over slowly, her lips pressed into a firm line as she looked Gavin and Veloa up and down.
Her gaze was heavy and cold.
At the sight of her eyes alone, the air around them grew icy.
“You call yourselves siblings who share the same blood… How can you speak so softly while hiding blades in your words?”
Her anger burned quietly as she openly scolded the Cardel siblings.
Odely blinked in a daze.
Castia had appeared at a moment she had never expected, and she was helping her.
“You all come rushing in just because your younger sister said one thing, insisting that she is wrong. And on top of that… Aren’t you treating the North as if it were some barbaric country?”
Gavin tried to say something, but he was so overwhelmed by Castia’s presence that he couldn’t get a word out.
He was skilled at speaking in the refined language of nobles, but he was weak when faced with direct criticism.
Veloa was no different.
Her sly words and fake smile had come to a complete stop, leaving her speechless.
Castia didn’t let up. Instead, she lowered her voice.
Her tone was intimidating, as if her words were meant to crush her opponents.
“The noble Cardels… You must have inherited so much, yet you failed to inherit even a shred of decency or responsibility. Before you speak of power and honor, you should learn what the word ‘family’ means all over again.”
“Your words are a little too… harsh.”
“Nobles should carry themselves with dignity, both in word and deed. But all I see from you now is a pathetic game of dominance and petty tricks, worse than what beasts would do.”
As if those words still weren’t enough, she let out a breath and drove the final nail into the coffin.
“If you truly cared about this child, you should have apologized for the epidemic that broke out in the North and taken steps to keep the blame off her before opening your mouths. Are you really incapable of making even that simple judgment? You, the ‘heroes’ of the Cardel family?”
Was she really going that far?
The crowd had been surprised by Castia’s words at first, but now they could no longer hide their shock.
The castle servants, who had been hurrying about the banquet hall, stopped in their tracks and silently broke into a cold sweat.
‘Your Highness! You can’t say things like that in front of your in-laws!’
‘You said nobles should carry themselves with dignity! What happened to your dignity?!’
‘We only just regained peace through this marriage! What if the wedding falls apart?!’
But she wasn’t finished yet.
Castia turned her gaze back to Odely.
“If your body is as weak as they claim, and you might collapse at any moment, you’d be better off returning to Cardel right away.”
Her voice was as cold as before, but the meaning behind her words…
‘Was she worried about me?’
Odely blinked in confusion, then quickly dismissed the thought. No way.
Thinking back to what Castia had said to her earlier…
Perhaps she was simply the kind of person who never held back when she had something to say to anyone.
The kind of person who couldn’t resist delivering a sharp remark the moment she thought of one…
Something like that.
Having said everything she wanted to say, Castia turned around with a satisfied look.
Everyone could only stare blankly at her retreating figure.
It was as if a storm had swept through the hall and finally passed.
The confrontation with the Cardel siblings ended far more anticlimactically than expected.
Veloa simply dragged Gavin away with her.
‘It must be because Lady Castia scolded them in public.’
She had openly called out the Cardels for their hypocrisy.
And she had done so with almost shockingly direct words.
They must have decided that continuing the conversation would only make everyone think even worse of them.
“My goodness. It seems the former Grand Duchess has misunderstood us… Well, I suppose we deserved that. Even if it wasn’t our intention, didn’t we make you sad?”
“We sincerely bless your marriage. We want to show you through our actions, not just our words, that we will always support you from behind the scenes.”
They continued pretending to care for their younger sister, pretending to love her until the very end.
They left after saying such warm yet meaningful words.
Not long afterward, Ludville appeared. He had been watching everything from a distance.
“So, did you have a nice family reunion?”
His voice carried a restrained, sarcastic edge.
“While leaving your future husband to rot in a corner of the banquet hall, that is.”
In fact, Odely had asked him to do exactly that just moments earlier.
She had told him to stay away and not interfere while she dealt with the Cardel family.
He had followed her request and put up with watching the Cardels, a family he despised. Then Castia had barged in and caused a scene on top of everything else. It was only natural that he would be annoyed.
But Castia’s actions had been an unexpected twist for Odely, too.
‘Why did she do that?’
After all, this was the family matter of a woman who had opposed her marriage so strongly.
Odely couldn’t help thinking that Castia was a truly mysterious person.
“If you weren’t going to make use of me, why did you ask me to play the lovesick fool?”
When Odely fell silent in thought, Ludville raised an eyebrow and asked again.
He seemed quite displeased that she had faced Gavin and Veloa on her own.
‘…I don’t think I ever asked him to play the lovesick fool.’
He had definitely volunteered for that role himself.
And as a result, hadn’t he made Odely look like an immature girl who was crazy about love, too?
Of course, Odely didn’t care what other people thought of her.
Public opinion would be turned upside down soon enough anyway.
“As you know, there’s no point in crushing them here and now.”
“I suppose so. You’re saying exactly what my aide said.”
It seemed someone had already given him an earful.
Odely had suspected from the moment they first met that his hatred for the Cardels was unusually strong, but…
She glanced at him and cautiously asked, “Were you bothered by it?”
“…”
Ludville didn’t answer.
He kept his mouth shut and simply stared at her for a long time.
“…That was an inappropriate question.”
Odely touched her lips with her fingertips and took back what she had just said.
Why had she even asked something like that?
[Article 9. Both parties shall interact with each other while completely setting aside their personal feelings.]
It wasn’t just that their agreement clearly stated this…
There was also an even clearer rule she had engraved in her heart.
‘No matter what feelings Ludville develops toward me, I must never let him remember me.’
She shouldn’t even be curious about what those feelings toward her really were in the first place.
“Yes, it bothered me. Very much.”
“…!”
Suddenly, Ludville took hold of her fingertips.
Odely flinched in surprise and instinctively tried to pull her hand away.
“This is a banquet hall, Odely. Of course I should pay attention to my betrothed.”
He whispered in a low voice.
“There are many eyes watching us. What would happen if people found out now that our love story was a lie? Your entire plan would go to waste.”
“…”
Odely looked flustered.
She couldn’t argue with him at all.
‘Right. That’s how it was.’
She had said that once the wedding ceremony properly began, she would act like a man who was madly in love.
“So I let it slide this once. But from now on, you won’t be able to keep me away from you.”
Ludville casually wrapped an arm around her waist.
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