chapter 07
The maid uttered a sugar-coated platitude.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a relief the culprit has been caught.”
“Shut your mouth.”
The maid’s expression froze at Maia’s sharp command.
“Madam…?”
The light that had dimmed in Maia’s eyes suddenly flared back to life.
Caught off guard, the maid blinked rapidly.
Right after, Maia threw off the blanket covering her.
“Bring me a shawl. I’m going to see the Duke.”
Stopping her was useless.
“You’re not even fully recovered yet… Why did you come here!”
You always react with anger whenever you see me.
Cold indifference, or fiery irritation.
I should have realized it sooner. I should have gotten angry from the start rather than going through all of this.
Instead of pathetically resigning myself.
“Mrs. Hauer is innocent. Please release her.”
Duke Weston, who had just draped his coat over Maia’s shoulders, paused and looked down at her.
Maia calmly continued.
“She’s not the one who tried to poison me.”
The Duke’s ink-dark brows drew together slightly.
After finishing wrapping her in his thick coat, he took a step back and answered firmly.
“That’s nonsense.”
She had expected this reaction and felt no anger rise.
“Aren’t you even curious about why I believe that?”
Maia quietly gazed at Duke Weston. Her eyes trembled faintly.
“…Then let me ask. Why do you believe she’s not the one who poisoned you?”
“Your Grace. Everyone in this house knows that Mrs. Hauer is the only one on my side. Everyone except for you, that is—the only one who doesn’t care who’s by my side or who genuinely respects me.”
The Duke’s lips tightened.
“You’re saying it never occurred to you that she might betray you?”
“Betrayal? Of course not. Mrs. Hauer would never do that.”
If she had meant to betray me, she would have done it long ago.
She wouldn’t have stayed by the side of a puppet duchess no one respected.
“You’re being overly optimistic.”
The Duke turned away and walked toward his desk, continuing his speech.
“She may have been ordered by someone or bribed to poison you. Why else would you have gone all the way to the kitchen to eat food she gave you? If you were hungry, you should’ve returned to your room. This incident partly happened because of your own carelessness. You miraculously survived, but the effects of the poison haven’t completely worn off. Don’t meddle in this and go back upstairs.”
Flap—
“Please, just stop already!”
In that moment, Maia roughly pushed away the Duke’s coat that had been draped around her and shouted.
Her voice trembled violently, erupting like a suppressed scream.
“…Maia?”
The Duke stopped at the scream laced with desperation.
Maia glared at him, her eyes red and bloodshot.
I’m exhausted. I can’t… I just can’t keep trying to please someone who has no interest in why I had to endure everything or who doesn’t even care anymore.
I’m sick of it. I feel like I’m suffocating.
Maia screamed out, almost convulsively.
“Why are you doing this all of a sudden? Why won’t you allow the divorce? Why did you trap me back in this suffocating place again! When I gave you the divorce papers, you said nothing. You forcibly brought me back when I tried to leave and threw me into this hellish mansion again—only to leave me alone all over again!”
All the emotions she had desperately tried to suppress—telling herself to stay calm, not to get angry—burst out in an overwhelming tide.
The Duke took a step toward her, his voice flustered.
“Maia, why are you suddenly…”
“You have no right to be angry that a servant tried to poison me. Do you know why? …Because you are the one who let things get to this point. Duke Weston, this is your masterpiece—your perfectly executed betrayal of hierarchy!”
All the disrespect and humiliation I endured.
The danger to my life itself—all of it stemmed from how he stood by and let the staff treat me with contempt.
What servant would respect someone not respected by their own master?
The Duke was speechless.
Maia had never erupted in anger like this before.
For him, Lucas Weston, it was truly beyond imagination.
“I… I didn’t think the servants were treating you that badly…”
He barely managed to speak.
Maia nearly laughed out loud in disbelief.
Just another excuse. Another pathetic excuse.
The fire that had burned through her was now chilling rapidly.
“I don’t want to hear your sorry excuses anymore. The time I wanted you to hold me back was the moment I gave you the divorce papers. Not now.”
She spoke with a cold, emotionless voice.
“Maia! I’ll explain everything—why I acted the way I did. If you understood, you’d see why we shouldn’t divorce…”
It was only then that the Duke realized something was terribly wrong. He stepped quickly toward her.
Maia backed away.
Just being in the same space as him was unbearable.
“I don’t care why my leaving is unacceptable to you. I don’t want to know, and I won’t try to understand. Don’t you dare put a few pitiful words on the same scale as all the pain I’ve endured.”
I loved you. And the price I paid for taking your hand was this.
In just two years, I’ve become a shattered wreck, bearing scars that will never fade from my heart.
“There was pressure from the Imperial Court. If I had shown even a hint of my feelings for you, the Empress would have harmed you without hesitation!”
And now, when it’s far too late, you want to apologize?
“Enough. And remember this clearly: as soon as this poisoning case is resolved, I will divorce you formally.”
“Maia!”
She no longer wanted to hear another word.
With a frozen expression, Maia continued.
“And this poisoning case—since I am the victim who nearly lost her life—I, Maia Weston Hansberk, will personally investigate and punish everyone involved. Do not object to this declaration. If Your Grace has even a shred of conscience left.”
In order to save the poor woman wrongfully imprisoned, she had to hold onto her title as duchess a little longer.
After speaking, Maia turned on her heel without hesitation.
But Duke Weston could not let go.
A large trembling hand gripped Maia’s wrist like a shackle.
When she turned back, the man before her was a stranger.
“Please. I’m begging you. Just this once… hear me out.”
His sculpted features, usually as cold and perfect as carved ice, were now twisted and trembling. His deep ocean-blue eyes roiled with crashing waves.
Even though all that turmoil had been caused by him.
“Let go of me, Your Grace.”
To Maia’s own surprise, she felt nothing.
“Maia!”
She forcefully yanked her wrist from his grasp.
Even though he cried out her name, filled with anguish, she no longer cared.
Maia left the study. Without looking back.
Shale, one of the Duke’s maids, returned to her room in the Weston manor. She had just taken a step toward the bed to lay her tired body down when—
Clack.
A cold piece of metal pressed clearly against her scalp, parting her hair.
Whether it was a blade or some other menacing object wasn’t certain—but she could feel that it was hollow in the center, like a ring.
They say when you’re too shocked, you can’t even scream.
That saying was very, very true.
“……!”
Shale couldn’t even breathe, her eyes rolling back in panic.
“Quiet.”
The voice from behind made her jump in fright again.
“D-Duchess?”
Maia’s cold, violet eyes stared down at the trembling maid.
“How… what in the world…”
“I’m the one asking questions. You said you saw me eating food from Mrs. Hauer.”
Shale flinched hard, like she was having a seizure, and turned her head.
“Answer me.”
Maia pressed the muzzle of the gun harder against her head, stopping her from moving.
Shale, shaken by the duchess’s unimaginable transformation, replied in a trembling voice.
“Y-Yes, yes, that’s true. B-but I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I’m not interested in your excuses. You were originally part of the inner palace staff, weren’t you? There’s no reason for someone like you to be in the kitchen where only common maids go. Be honest. Who ordered you to be there?”
By now, Shale was practically losing her mind.
This duchess—who everyone mocked as meek and foolish—was now holding a gun to her head and interrogating her with a sharpness she never imagined.
It didn’t make sense. How? How could such a fragile woman suddenly be like this? How could she see right through my lie and tear into it?
How…?
