Chapter 175

Everyone in the drawing room was froze. "what?"

It was the Crown Prince who replied first. "What are you talking about?"

"It is exactly what you heard."

Vinter answered briefly. Three pairs of blue eyes shook in consternation The Duke stammered, saying, "I can't believe what I heard."

"She drank it... because she thought it was poison. What do you mean"

"Marquis, why are you sure about that?" Derrick asked back sharply instead of Duke. "that's"

"Tell me quickly, Marquis! You have said she thought it was poison, and she drank it!" "The necklace that young lady was wearing."

At the loud sound of the Duke who was expressing his urge, Vinter hesitated and threw up the truth.

"Before young lady lifted her cup with wine, the color of the bead in the middle of her necklace changed."

"What the"

"The necklace is an artifact with magic that reacts to toxicity. When there was a toxic substance nearby, the color of the beads changed, and I saw that Lady Penelope's beads turned yellow when she lifted the cup."

At the same time, the faces of the Duke and the Crown Prince, who had previously been briefed by Penelope about the necklace, was simultaneously turned pale.

The Crown Prince spoke slowly in a subdued voice. "Then she saw itand drank it?"

"I'm not sure if young lady saw the color change of the necklace. But, she has probably notice it briefly."

"How?"

"Because it was so clear bright color that even I could see it from far away." "Ha"

The Crown Prince blew his breath and swept his bangs roughly away.

The Duke also raised his hand and rubbed his dry face repeatedly, sitting with a blank look on his face as if he had lost all his spirit.

Only Derrick had an expressionless face as it was at first time. When he looked at him unconsciously, he wondered.

"But"

Then, the Crown Prince opened his mouth. As Vinter turned his head, he saw red eyes glared at him.

"How do you know so much about the artifact? It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that the Empire uses."

His eyes were dimmed. The Marquis' blue eyes shook shallowly. But it was a very momentary moment, to the point where illusion might be considered.

"It's a rare item in the Empire..."

Vinter replied, staring straight at the crown prince with an unwavering face.

"I've also had that artifact. In a country where it is commonly used, there is a custom of wearing various objects in fear of evil spirits."

"You really have everything, by the way, all sorts of things. From antidote to a rare thing from a faraway country."

"...That's."

"You are really obsessed with the Princess."

The Crown Prince, who looked at the Marquis with strange look, slowly tilted his head. "So. Did you keep the evil spirits out? "

"Of course."

Vinter, who answered with a sympathetic face, naturally turned to the Duke.

"So the testimony of maid that Lady Penelope ordered the poison to be brought to harm Lady Yvonne doesn't fit the actual situation."

...It is more like the exact opposite is true.

Another person, who had been silent until then, opened his mouth.

"That commoner might have asked Becky to do something about it or whatever for her own safety." "Renald."

The Duke looked back at his second son in astonished eyes. But before he could even say anything, the Young Duke quickly warned.

"What kind of safety are you talking about here? Be careful of what you say."

"It's not clear yet that she had regained her memory, but what if she want to kill our adopted sister?" "Yvonne is...!"

Derrick's thick veins rose on his forehead at the sight of his younger brother, who was easily affected by sarcasm with bloodshot eyes.

"Yvonne was originally not supposed to attend Penelope's coming-of-age ceremony."

For his little sister who had been lost for ten years by a mistake, they were sinful.

How could he erase such cruel suspicions when he asked her for apology and forgiveness? The words, "Don't you feel sorry for her," filled his throat. It was all Derrick could do not to say.

"How can a child who would not have stepped into the hall without me go to the coming-of-age ceremony and plan to poison Penelope?"

"Isn't that the same thing with Princess?"

However, the answer that came back was not from Renald, but from the Crown Prince.

"Young Duke, so do you want to say that Princess predicted that you would bring your own sister?" ""

At last Derrick's lips shut up at Callisto's mokery. For a while a heavy silence fell at drawing room. "So we're divided into two group with two opposite assumptions."

After some time, Vinter carefully organized the situation. "Someone bribed the maid for Lady Penelope or Lady Yvonne, or"

The Duke heard the words that had become blurred without being able to speak out. "Penelope must have played her own game."

No one saw that she had deliberately changed her glasses just before the they drunk from these glasses.

This naturally left the Duke's biological daughter out of the suspect.

Tapping on the armrest with his fingernails quickly, the Crown Prince asked who was lost in thought. "What's the reason of Princess doing such a self-made play?"

"That's enough."

Derrick replied silently, who has always been in charge of the aftermath of her accident. "I'm ashamed to tell you, but Penelope would often demanded such attention in this way." "Do you agree with the Young Duke?"

The Duke and Reynold lowered their eyes down in shame at the question of Callisto, but failed to give another answer.

Derrick's words were no more, no less true.

Penelope would often draw attention in destructive ways. Although she seemed to have grown up recently, it was somewhat understandable from the perspective of her own self-play.

The Crown Prince was on the battlefield around that time, and the Duke had stopped and prevented the spread of rumors inside the mansion, so the Marquis also couldn't understand the whole situation.

However a child's fault is the father's fall.

"I don't think Penelope would have done that far."

The Duke opened his mouth with a heavy face. Renald nodded quickly.

"My father is right. She has something to do. Every week she is busy playing and eating because she gets paid."

"Penelope hated that Yvonne was back." Only Derrick said something else.

Like a man who firmly believes that the end of this case is Penelope's own game. "Servants said, every time they bumped into each other, Yvonne came back crying." "Ha?"

Renald laughed as if he was dumbfounded.

"Which one of us had the blinded eyes? She didn't say or do anything, but the commoner just cried!" "If you look at her words and deeds, in all intents and purposes, are just like a knife to society." Unlike her beautiful appearance, it was true that Penelope's tongue was like a knife

Then Renald, who had been beaten by Derrick's words, was speechless for a moment, and soon looked at his brother.

"So, you are saying that she would have poisoned herself to divert attention from the commoner to herself?"

"Don't jump to conclusion. It's just a guess that this might be the reason for her self-play." "Stop both of you!"

The Duke stopped the two of them in a fit of anger.

"It's not clear that Penelope was involved in a self-made play, but there's no reason to speculate now!" "Self-play, self-play, that's easy to say."

Someone else intervened into the family quarrel.

The Duke bowed his head to the Crown Prince with a very unpleasant expression. "Your Highness."

"If the Princess really did play her own play, doesn't that mean that she only planned it once in her life, for a day that draws everyone's attention?"

"..."

"Isn't it strange? The reason she drank poison herself is that she just want to get your attention?" The faces of the Duke and his two sons hardened.

Does the meaning of the Prince's "self-play" mean that their attention was worth it? Or was it a sign of such a thing because she didn't get one of the attention?

The Duke opened his mouth for an answer. But the Crown Prince was ahead.

"Besides, it's because I listened quietlyThe Young Duke seems to have been anxious to blame the

cause of this disturbance on the fault of the princess."

The Crown Prince's gaze with the red eyes was shifted from the Duke to Derrick.

"Have you been so frivolous about the Princess every time? Not thinking of finding the exact cause, but deciding that it all was the fault of the Princess and finishing it quickly. Is that Eckart's way of solving problems?"

"..."

"Are you a great duke who says, "I'm a Duke, and you're nothing"? Oh, my God." ""

"It's disappointing."

The face of the Duke and Derrick were distorted by the mumbling of the Crown Prince, who became like a man speaking to himself.

With a blush of the shame, the Duke answered back, holding back his anger.

"Your Highness. I beg you, but this issue is within the family. It has no regard to the Imperial Palace, but you shouldn't concern for our business"

"I promised to be engaged to the Princess."

Involved in the ducal family's business, when Callisto heard the Duke saying that it had nothing to do with him, and the Crown Prince snapped violently.

The faces of the members of the ducal family became blank. "Well, what do you mean?"

"What did you just say?"

"After the Princess's coming-of-age ceremony, I was preparing to formally put a proposal to the family of the prospective Crown Princess."

"....."

"So if the princess dies like this, it won't be considered as a family affair anymore, Duke."

Callisto looked back at each and every one of the people in the drawing room, revealing his intentions and laughing.

But unlike the mouth, which showed his smile, his reddish eyes were infested with mysterious ominous sparkles.

When the Crown Prince smiled with his fierce, cruel face, the atmosphere in the hall was intensed as if everyone was poured with cold water.

Vinter, who kept quiet in a bloody atmosphere, managed to make a voice. "I don't think it's a self-play either..."

Hnock knock-.

It was then. Someone knocked on the door that had been closed all the time. "Duke, this is Pennel."

The butler's urgent voice broke the ice in the room. "come in."

The Duke had allowed the butler to enter. Immediately after that the butler came in with a click sound. "I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I have something to tell you urgently."

The butler, who bowed his head and apologized, quickly announced the urgent news with a pale face. "A maid named Becky, who had been locked up in underground prison, died."