OFR 11

11. The Three Whittegar Siblings

“Quite something, isn’t it? Both your sisters marrying into the imperial family! Guess I’d better stay on your good side from now on.”

“What are you talking about?”

Even as he replied, Roderick’s eyes didn’t leave his book. The Crown Prince might have proposed to Marianne, but there was no way that marriage would happen. Marianne already loved another man, and with a will as strong as her beauty was dazzling, she would never abandon her love so easily.

Roderick kept his finger marking his place and looked up at Tennyson.

“What do you mean—both sisters?”

Marianne aside, Edna was even less likely. Roderick doubted she’d ever marry at all. Edna, married? His handsome forehead creased automatically at the thought.

“I only just heard that Lady Marianne was proposed to by His Highness the Crown Prince, and now the rumor’s spreading that yesterday Lady Edna was proposed to by none other than Duke Ian Lombardi. And the best part—she accepted on the spot! Fiery girl, isn’t she?”

The teasing tone in Tennyson’s last remark made Roderick snap.

“Watch your tongue, Tennyson!”

“You really don’t keep up with your family, do you? You don’t believe me, but it’s true! The merchants in the capital are all gossiping about how the Lombardi estate’s been throwing around Whittegar gold like water. They’re practically weeping with joy!”

Tennyson grinned.

“And get this—apparently, the places they’re spending it are mostly Saluga shops. Isn’t that funny? Don’t glare at me, it’s not my story—everyone’s talking about it. They say spring has come to House Lombardi! That the once-insignificant estate is suddenly polishing itself up and bringing prosperity to the capital. Sure, there’s exaggeration in that, but I don’t think it’s entirely false.”

Roderick was indifferent to family affairs—or rather, he deliberately turned away from them. His research was difficult enough to make even his siblings’ drama seem simple in comparison. But this—this was beyond belief. To learn of his sister’s engagement from Tennyson, of all people?

Roderick slammed his book shut and stood abruptly.

“Hey! Where are you going, Roderick Whittegar? Don’t you have a lecture this afternoon? Hey! You know what happens when professors start skipping classes, right? Even a Whittegar can’t—Roderick!”

But Roderick was already striding down the corridor. It hadn’t been long since their father’s death. However little he cared for household politics, he was now the head of House Whittegar.

True, his stepmother Katrina was acting as interim head, but for him to be the last in the entire Empire to learn of Edna’s marriage—unthinkable. And of all people, Ian Lombardi! The Crown Prince was trouble enough, but Ian was no less of a headache.

As Roderick stormed through the academy halls, his normally mild expression darkened into something sharp and menacing. Students glanced at him in alarm. Though outwardly polite and ever-smiling, Professor Whittegar’s temper was infamous among those who knew him well.

He was unusual for a Whittegar—a professor instead of a merchant. Many students attended the academy not to study, but to build connections. Roderick was a prime target: young, intelligent, handsome, unpretentious—and above all, a Whittegar.

But none of them realized how much he despised that very fact.

The youngest professor in academy history, Roderick Whittegar had grown up surrounded by the ugliness that money bred. He knew better than anyone that eight out of ten people who approached him did so because of his family’s wealth and power.

Whittegar’s gold, Saluga.

He pretended indifference, burying himself in books, but their transparent greed sickened him.

And now, Ian Lombardi? A bastard of the Emperor himself! How dare such a wretch presume to marry a Whittegar! As if it weren’t enough that the Crown Prince was hanging around Marianne, now the Emperor’s illegitimate son wanted Edna? Unforgivable.

A cold fire burned in Roderick’s blue eyes.

When he threw open Katrina’s door without knocking, he found her and Edna quietly sharing tea.

“Is it true?”

“What is?”

Even though the question was blunt and contextless, Katrina immediately understood. But she had no intention of overlooking such rudeness.

The three Whittegar siblings—each born of a different mother—couldn’t have been more different.

Roderick’s mother had been a quiet woman with striking black hair. No one knew how such a calm, withdrawn lady had ever married the Whittegar Count, but Roderick had inherited her dark hair—and perhaps nothing else. His temperament was far more fiery, likely from his father.

Just had to inherit the worst part, Katrina thought, clicking her tongue inwardly.

“Speak clearly,” she said coolly. “You’re no child. I may not have given birth to you, but if you think you can barge in and speak to me like that, I can make sure you don’t hear a word you came for. Maybe you should think about why the late Count left the title of acting head to me—and not to you.”

She set her teacup down noiselessly. Across from her, Edna sat perfectly still, her delicate hands cradling her cup, as if she were part of a painting. She must have known why her brother had come storming in, yet she didn’t flinch.

So much for appearances, Katrina mused with a faint smile.

People thought Roderick intelligent and considerate—a reputation aided by his title of professor. But anyone who’d ever set foot in the academy knew professors were human like everyone else. Roderick was the kind to fail students whose performance disappointed him, no matter how noble their parents, and humiliate colleagues who hid behind their titles. In short, he was terrible at social niceties.

Had he not been a Whittegar, he’d have been dismissed long ago.

And yet, he strutted about as if his position were entirely due to merit!

In contrast, Edna was the most mature of the three.

Her mother had been a fallen noblewoman who came to the capital chasing the short-lived dream of becoming a lady knight. When that profession sank into disgrace—little better than royal courtesans—she joined the Saluga trading company as a mercenary instead.

Even as a destitute noble, she’d never shown shame or hesitation. Proud and bold, Edna’s mother had passed on her fiery hair, her fearless nature, and the Count’s shrewdness to her daughter.

People called Edna an ignorant, rough girl, but Katrina had never met anyone so coldly intelligent. Spend a single afternoon with the Whittegar siblings, and all the rumors about them proved false—including the ones about the Crown Prince.

“So you’re asking whether it’s true that Edna is engaged to Ian Lombardi,” Katrina said.

At that, Edna’s eyes turned to Roderick.

Across countless lifetimes of failure, she had always remembered her brother only at the end. Because they shared only half their blood, she had believed he never cared for her.

She had been wrong. This fiery, proud brother of hers loved his family far more deeply than he showed. When the Imperial Court persecuted her, he had offered up his share of gold and land to shield her—and in the end, had even knelt and begged for her life.

Even with a blade at his throat, he had refused to back down.

“Brother,” Edna said softly, smiling.

Roderick’s brow twitched. What was she up to now?

“Brother, please calm down.”

He faltered, taking a half-step back. For a man eight years her senior, it was hardly a dignified reaction. Realizing that himself, Roderick straightened awkwardly, staring at her in disbelief.

She had never called him “Brother” before.

But then again, her mother had been the same.

When Roderick lost his own mother at a young age, Marianne’s mother followed soon after childbirth, and then came Edna’s mother—the third wife. Once a bodyguard in the trading company, she had been a provincial noblewoman in name only. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, she was cheerful, shamelessly bold, and unfailingly kind.

Like the other Whittegar wives before her, she didn’t live long. This time, the cause was poison.

The Imperial Court’s quiet hostility toward House Whittegar was no secret. The Count’s wives were notoriously short-lived, and so were the Counts themselves. Roderick had realized before the age of ten that beneath that pattern lay a long and bloody feud between Whittegar and the throne.

But unlike the earlier, more subtle “accidents,” Edna’s mother’s death had been open and deliberate—plain, unapologetic poison.