Now This Family Belongs to My Mother Chapter 36

It was Epirosa. She was able to easily sneak into the underground room. This was thanks to Wise, who had knocked out the servant who was watching Karen.

The straw scattered on the floor still bore clear traces of Karen’s desperate struggle. Epirosa sprinkled something over those wretched marks. It was the same blood-colored solution she had sprinkled on Karen’s torn sleeve.

* * *

It was that morning.

“Karen has disappeared!”

The mansion was thrown into chaos.

“Someone showed up and knocked me out. When I came to, Karen was gone.” The servant who had been guarding the underground room explained.

Stella, who appeared perfectly composed despite the early hour, spoke with apparent sympathy. “Grandfather, it seems Karen escaped with someone’s help. The one who helped her is probably…” Her gaze shifted to Madam Mona.

“That’s not true!” Madam Mona jumped up. “Your Excellency, have you seen the underground room? There were drops of blood falling where Karen had been! Someone must have harmed Karen!”

“Who would harm Karen? There’s no reason for that,” Diane scolded Madam Mona.

Madam Mona then looked resentfully at Stella.

“Where are you looking right now?” Diane asked sharply.

“But Karen had no reason to disappear…” Madam Mona refused to lower her head until the end.

Madam Moan suspects Stella and Diane.

 

I smiled inwardly as I looked at Stella. She was pretending nothing was wrong, but her fingers couldn’t keep still. She looked anxious. She must have ordered the servants to get rid of Karen without a trace. But now, bloodstains had been left on the underground floor. This raised doubts about the assumption that Karen had escaped on her own. Especially, Karen’s birth mother, Madam Mona, was deeply suspicious that something had happened to Karen.

From now on, Stella, Diane, and Madam Mona will never walk the same path together.

 

A group of servants returned to the mansion.

“Your Excellency! We have searched the entire mansion but cannot find Karen!”

“It seems she has already escaped outside the mansion!”

Hubert’s brow furrowed. How could something like this happen in the fortress-like grand duke’s mansion?

At that moment, Madam Mona knelt before Hubert. “Your Excellency! Please find Karen! Someone has definitely harmed her to silence her!”

Stella and Madam Mona’s eyes glinted with hostility.

“Karen ran away on her own, afraid to face punishment for her crimes. So we will find her soon enough. Don’t worry too much.” Diane spoke while trying hard to control her anger, playing the part of the benevolent mistress in front of Hubert.

“Then what about all that blood?” Madam Mona retorted sharply, as if what she was hearing was absurd. No mother who had lost her daughter could be consoled by such words.

“Karen probably got hurt while escaping. How hard do you think it must have been for a young girl to break out of the underground?”

“No! There was quite a lot of blood. She may have been attacked by someone. Your Excellency, please help us!” Madam Mona bowed her head to the ground and pleaded.

Hubert looked at her coldly and spoke. “To get to the bottom of this, we must find Karen.”

“Your Excellency! Thank y—”

“After that, we will decide if Karen is innocent or must be sent to the Tower of the Condemned.” With that, Hubert turned away.

Madam Mona seemed to lose all strength and could not get up from where she knelt. Even if she found her daughter, Karen was likely to be locked up in the Tower of the Condemned. But that was better than dying.

I looked coldly at the devastated Madam Mona, then turned away. Diane and Stella were whispering as they went up to their room.

* * *

“How did this happen? Don’t tell me you laid a hand on Karen?” The moment Diane closed the door, she started interrogating Stella.

Stella nodded without a hint of guilt. “Karen kept acting like she was going to drag me down with her, you know? She was in the way, so I dealt with her.”

“What? Why would you do something so dangerous?” Diane wanted to scold Stella, but with too many ears listening outside, she had to keep her voice low. She was burning up inside with frustration.

“So what? It’s just a maid who disappeared. Isn’t this better? Karen took all the blame and kept her mouth shut.”

“Didn’t you see what Mona is doing? She’ll do whatever it takes to find Karen.”

Stella’s face turned cold. “Then we’ll have to get rid of Madam Mona too.”

“What?” Diane was appalled. She knew her daughter was skilled in cunning and manipulation, but she never imagined Stella would so easily talk about killing someone. “What are you saying now…”

“Are you going to let me lose Grandfather’s trust? I might even end up in the Tower of the Condemned!” Stella said coldly.

That was something Diane couldn’t allow either. She couldn’t lose her precious daughter, who was favored by Hubert.

“Why are you acting surprised, Mom? You turned a blind eye to what Uncle Kobel was doing, didn’t you?” spoke Stella accusingly. At that Diane winced.

Kobel had done many experiments to make Gale the successor. In the process, he secretly used the poor and servants as test subjects. Diane had known about it but pretended not to, all because she wanted to become the grand duchess.

“Mom, you should focus on figuring out how to deal with Madam Mona properly,” spoke Stella coldly once again.

* * *

“My daughter, Karen! Where on earth are you!” Madam Mona sobbed, sprawled on Karen’s bed.

She can’t be dead, can she? But she lost so much blood! The despairing thought made her feel as if she were sinking deep into the ground.

Karen was her precious daughter, born from the man she loved. After her lover died young from illness, Karen became her only reason for living.

My daughter, this mother will find you. Without you, I can’t go on!

 

But whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Stella’s cold gaze.

If Lady Stella really killed my Karen… The mere thought made her whole body tremble. Her throat closed up, and her blood felt cold.

But I have no evidence. Even if I had evidence, how could someone like me take revenge on the grand duke’s granddaughter? And above all, Madam Mona still believed. Karen must be alive. My Karen is still alive! Yet, at the same time, a suffocating unease began to swell within her.

“Sob! Karen!” Unable to overcome her grief, Madam Mona finally burst into tears.

At that moment, a cold shadow fell over her head.

“Madam Mona.”

It was a clear voice tinged with tears. Startled, Madam Mona quickly stood up. There stood Epirosa, with her long pink hair cascading down.

“Lady Epirosa?”

Her pale, innocent face looked even more pitiful, wet with tears. The flush on her pale cheeks was as beautiful as a watercolor.

Madam Mona wiped her tears with the back of her hand and stood up. “What brings you here?”

“I came because I’m worried about Karen. She’s someone I truly care about, and it breaks my heart.” Epirosa’s voice was filled with sincerity.

Madam Mona recalled the things Karen had said.

“Lady Epirosa is so good to me! She never gives me troublesome tasks and lets me rest often, so I can be comfortable.”

 

“Lady Epirosa likes me so much! She’s almost foolishly kind. Even when I tattled on her to Lady Stella, she never got angry.”

Epirosa’s words about being worried for Karen were believable. She was different from Stella, who had only ever used her daughter. Wasn’t it also Epirosa who had healed her daughter’s leg, which Stella had worsened?

“Thank you for worrying. Karen will surely come back.”

“I believe that, too. But there’s something that’s been bothering me.”

“Something bothering you?” Madam Mona’s eyes turned cold.

Epirosa nodded with a sorrowful expression. “Karen used to say it often. That Stella was frightening.”

“Lady Stella?” Madam Mona’s heart dropped.

“Yes. She often asked for my understanding as well. Karen said if she ever betrayed Stella, who knows what Stella might do to her. So she begged me to forgive her if the day ever came when she betrayed me.”

“Who knows what she might do!”

Now that Madam Mona thought about it, Stella had given her daughter medicine to make her leg worse, just to trouble Epirosa. To avoid suspicion, of course. Stella, who could do such a cruel thing to an innocent child, was obviously capable of much worse if someone crossed her.

“So, what if we secretly search Stella’s room? Maybe we’ll find some evidence,” spoke Epirosa in a low voice.