CHAPTER 85………………………..
The mother cat, Ricardo, and Alicia had collapsed.
Fearing that even the kittens might end up poisoned, she quickly wrapped them in her outer coat.
Feeling the cats squirming in her arms, Linaria hurriedly opened the door.
“Kaas! Call a doctor and a veterinarian right now!”
Hearing the word “doctor,” Kaas seemed to think Linaria herself had been injured, and his eyes quickly scanned her.
But Linaria was perfectly fine.
Instead, the parlor behind her was a complete mess.
“No, you can ask a servant to fetch the doctor. You bring the veterinarian.”
Linaria seemed to be trying her best to stay calm, but how many people could really remain composed in a situation like this?
Her hands, holding the cats, trembled slightly.
“Liri, what about you?”
“I… I’m fine. Really.”
“Alright. I’ll be back soon.”
Kaas nodded, hesitated for a moment, then quickly embraced Linaria and let go.
“It’ll be alright.”
“…Yes.”
Thanks to that, she realized there was someone to help her. Her anxiety eased, if only a little.
“Thank you.”
With an embarrassed expression, Kaas ran off. Left alone, Linaria hurried to call for a servant.
“Milady, why are you here?”
At that moment, she ran into the butler in front of the parlor.
The butler looked visibly flustered.
“My brother and Miss Alicia have collapsed. We need a doctor immediately.”
“Oh dear…! I’ll go fetch one at once.”
At Linaria’s words, the butler turned quickly. She seemed very startled at first glance.
But for someone who had just been told her son had collapsed, she wasn’t nearly as shaken as expected.
In fact, she looked most startled at the very moment she came face-to-face with Linaria.
“No.”
Sensing something was wrong, Linaria immediately grabbed her.
“I was confused just now. My knight already went to get a doctor, so you should fetch the veterinarian.”
“The veterinarian?”
“Yes. The cat was poisoned.”
She hadn’t misread it.
Even now, the butler was unsettled by being asked to call a veterinarian instead of a doctor.
“No, I’ll get the doctor. I know a renowned physician, so not a veterinarian but—”
Time was of the essence.
Yet instead of cooperating, she rambled incoherently.
It wasn’t worry over her son that made her impatient when asked to fetch a veterinarian.
It was the fact that she was unable to bring the physician she knew—that’s what made her nervous.
That day, at the gathering, the butler already knew Alicia would announce her engagement. Could she really not have known about the plan to kill Ricardo?
Why she would join a plot to kill her own son, Linaria couldn’t understand.
Maybe it was too much suspicion—but everything, from her being near the parlor at this late hour to her strange reaction now, was suspicious.
“Butler. No—Sophia Bolton. Everyone could die while you hesitate. What exactly are you worried about? Is it really your son you’re concerned for?”
“O-of course! That’s why you must let me fetch the doctor at once.”
Even now, Sophia thought only of bringing her physician.
Linaria couldn’t bear it any longer.
Alicia had carried out her wish to die together with Ricardo.
And Ricardo probably had no idea.
Even then, his concern had been for the cats, not his own life.
No matter that Ricardo was fated to be a traitor—seeing him put his own life aside unsettled Linaria.
“Be honest. Do you want to protect the murderer who killed your daughter?”
That was why.
She revealed the truth.
“What… what are you saying…?”
Sophia’s eyes widened, as if hearing this for the very first time.
“Alicia! Alicia! My daughter! Where are you?”
The Fletcher couple, having heard the news, rushed to Obel Castle.
“Please, calm yourselves. I’ll guide you to her.”
“Lady Obel.”
It was Linaria who greeted them, pale-faced, as they desperately searched for their daughter.
“Our daughter… our daughter…”
“Yes. Miss Alicia drank the poison she herself had prepared and has passed away.”
Even when they first heard from a servant, they couldn’t believe it. But hearing someone else say their daughter was dead—it was unthinkable.
And to hear she had poisoned herself?
“Lady Obel, that’s a cruel joke. My daughter went out saying she would properly apologize for her mistake. How could she be dead?”
“You must have heard the gist of it. Miss Alicia brought poisoned tea leaves as a gift for my brother Ricardo. By all appearances, she intended to kill him.”
“That’s impossible.”
Lady Fletcher pressed her forehead as though dizzy.
Earl Fletcher caught his wife and cried out:
“Then why? Why did our Alicia die?!”
“She drank the same poison.”
“If your assumption is that our daughter bore ill will toward Lord Ricardo, why would she drink it herself? She would know full well it meant death! Isn’t that contradictory?”
“She wouldn’t have drunk it unknowingly. She must have done it on purpose—to die.”
“You mean to say our child took her own life?”
“Most likely she grew afraid. Seeing him collapse, she realized what a grave crime she had committed.”
“…”
“Earl Fletcher, you seem determined to prove your daughter innocent. But bringing poisoned tea leaves alone proves she had murderous intent.”
“This is slander!”
“We also found the purchase records. It seems you give your daughter generous allowances.”
With undeniable evidence presented, the earl fell silent.
“Fortunately, my brother Ricardo consumed only a small dose and survived. But Miss Alicia drank a lethal amount. By the time the physician arrived, nothing could be done.”
“Our child… she truly loved Lord Ricardo. Such a girl couldn’t be a murderer. She couldn’t do something so cruel.”
Lady Fletcher muttered in a trembling voice.
But Linaria spoke coldly.
“Who can say? Whether it was love—or love turned into hatred. She certainly had enough motive.”
Ricardo had refused to cover for her false engagement announcement, humiliating her publicly. Hating him enough to want him dead wasn’t so unthinkable.
“Anyway… anyway. We must see our child.”
Linaria led the Fletcher couple to a guest room.
Meanwhile, Alicia’s nurse, who had followed them, urgently caught the Obel butler.
“What is going on? The young lady is dead? You said it would only put her into a coma!”
Checking there were no eyes around, the nurse spoke in a low but harsh voice.
“I warned her not to take too much. It seems Miss Alicia mistakenly consumed a lethal dose.”
“You mean this was her fault?”
“That’s the physician’s opinion. It’s also an objective fact.”
“…”
“In any case, my son survived. It’s unfortunate about Miss Alicia.”
“How dare you say that!”
To dismiss it as long as her own son survived—the nurse trembled with rage.
“She must have come to her senses, seeing him on the verge of death. It was her choice. Who else can you blame?”
“Even so…!”
“Enough. The purchase records of the poison are already exposed. I want no further entanglement.”
The nurse could only stare bitterly at the butler’s retreating back.
From the start, Alicia had never intended to die with Ricardo.
She only meant to pretend to.
The poison wasn’t lethal unless taken in large amounts—it was meant only to induce a comatose state.
Alicia planned to fall into that state together with Ricardo, showing her parents her determination.
With such resolve, surely her parents would push for the marriage.
And if all went smoothly, Ricardo would rejoice, saying he could no longer refuse a match like this…
The story would spread that the two had taken poison not in malice, but by choice.
A man who, too late, realized his love, and chose death out of guilt.
A woman who tried to stop him, only to join him in death.
Alicia wanted to be the heroine of such a romance.
And once that tale spread, Ricardo, waking from his coma, would have no choice but to accept the marriage.
Her plan seemed perfect.
To perfect it, she obtained poison, and someone had to bring in a physician who could briefly issue a false diagnosis of death.
That role was to be played by Ricardo’s own mother.
But the plan failed.
Catastrophically.
“Alicia! Alicia!”
“Our precious angel, open your eyes, please!”
Their cries and sobs filled Obel Castle.
But Alicia never opened her eyes again.
Late at night, while all slept in Obel Castle.
A shadow moved quietly along the corridors.
It was Alicia’s nurse.
Carefully checking to avoid being seen, she opened a door.
Inside lay Ricardo.
Though he had survived, he had not regained consciousness.
Before his deathlike slumbering form, Alicia’s nurse drew out the hidden vial of poison from her clothes.
To send Ricardo to join Alicia.
