Chapter 46
The Grand Duke was busy, and with him gone, the staff at the ducal estate were equally occupied, scrambling to fill the void left in his absence.
Meanwhile, he was making a point of keeping her informed of his every movement.
Now, this was her last chance to act freely, to move as she pleased.
‘If I need to get more contraceptives, it has to be now.’
If she failed to replenish the pills that were running out faster than expected, if by some chance, between her and the Grand Duke…
‘…if I really were to become pregnant.’
She occasionally dreamed of a child who looked just like the Grand Duke, gazing up at her with those pale, metallic eyes.
And whenever she saw those eyes, so unmistakably his, shining silver in the dream, Kyrie felt as though she were caught in a trap.
Whenever she awoke from such dreams, she had to run her hand over her lower belly several times, just in case.
Whenever that wave of dread washed over her, she would quietly tear off a piece of the wildflower she kept in her pocket, chewing and swallowing it down.
‘That would ruin everything.’
She still had no intention of keeping the promise.
People might say Kyrie was a vain and extravagant woman with a taste for luxury, but to her, that luxury had only ever been a stockpile, an escape fund.
All the things she now enjoyed as the Grand Duchess, the expensive jewels and flowers he occasionally gifted her, the elegant, antique room far removed from the cramped little space she once lived in, she saw all of it as borrowed, nothing more.
‘This farce will come to an end eventually.’
If the Grand Duke grew tired of sullying his own reputation, if the Emperor’s favour shifted away from him, then,
She intended to carry on like this, just enough to get by, until the day he discarded her for failing to bear him a child, labelled barren, and cast aside.
‘That would be enough.’
That alone would be enough to call it a decent life. With just that much, she might even be able to grasp a sliver of happiness. She didn’t want anything more. Didn’t dare hope for anything beyond that.
The thought of wanting anything more while she was still trapped in this place, it was unbearable.
‘I’d only end up disappointed.’
Getting the contraceptives in time was important for that reason, too.
Before she became so thoroughly tamed by the Grand Duke that there was no turning back, she wanted the chance to be discarded. She wanted to be thrown away, and then, once she’d left the ducal estate, she could finally begin to think about how she would live.
‘How am I supposed to survive?’
There was no telling whether he’d give her any kind of compensation. If she was divorced without having produced an heir, it was unlikely that much of anything would fall into her hands.
And she had no intention of grovelling to him like a beggar asking for scraps.
‘That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet.’
As she pondered, the distant silhouette of the greenhouse came into view. It had been a long time, just seeing it filled her with a strange relief.
But the next moment, Kyrie froze in her tracks.
‘Damn it.’
Like many other parts of the estate that had been undergoing renovations since her arrival, the greenhouse too was now hidden behind a construction screen.
It had been untouched just the day before, but they must’ve decided to cover it while working on the nearby gardens that morning.
There were no workers in sight, but the obstruction alone was enough to throw her plans into disarray.
Kyrie sighed and paced near the greenhouse. She tried not to look nervous, but her anxiousness showed in her steps.
‘There’s no way around it.’
There were no real options left. Kyrie stared intently at the shrouded greenhouse and made up her mind.
“Let’s just go in and check.”
If the plants inside hadn’t been uprooted yet, the Nellyon flowers she needed might still be there.
Having escaped the estate several times before, she was no stranger to finding a hole in the wall. The surroundings were still quiet.
“…Found it.”
Once again, it didn’t take her long to discover a narrow gap in the covering. Lifting the hem of her dress, Kyrie slipped through.
Crunch, crunch.
Her foot stepped on broken glass, likely shards from the greenhouse’s recent repairs.
The greenhouse had become even more chaotic than before. Scattered building materials and dangerous tools lay everywhere, as if it were still an active construction site. The exposed framework smelled of iron and wood.
‘It’s a mess.’
Still, there was at least one comforting sight. Through the vines hanging from the greenhouse ceiling, a few rays of sunlight filtered down, casting sharp shadows on the floor.
The way the light danced over the floor and tangled among the leaves, at least that much was still worth seeing.
Kyrie took slow steps toward where she remembered the Nellyon flowers growing.
Eventually, she arrived at the patch. Fortunately, a few stalks remained. It was nothing short of a miracle.
“Good.”
Just as Kyrie reached out to pick one,
Crash!
A loud clatter echoed from the far side of the greenhouse. She froze, instinctively turning her head.
What she saw was completely unexpected.
“Damn it! I told you not to push!”
“You shut up! Do you want to get caught and kicked out?”
“Do you have any idea what it took to get this intel?!”
A group of men poured into the greenhouse through a hidden crevice. They wore workers’ clothes, but there was something off, too bookish, too out of place for manual labourers.
They didn’t seem like servants of the Grand Duke’s estate either. Something about them felt wrong.
And their conversation,
“We just need to get the scoop and get out, alright?!”
‘A scoop.’
She remembered the gossip columns she’d read–
[Our reporters will pursue the truth to the end, fuelled by conviction, and heed the public’s call to hold the mad dog accountable.]
Those words flashed through her mind. Then it hit her, this side of the greenhouse backed directly against the estate’s outer wall.
‘No way.’
At the exact moment Kyrie’s face hardened, the group of men spotted her.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆🌷͙⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
So that was how it began, not with any real conviction.
“Damn it. I can’t believe she’s holed herself up in that mansion.”
“Shouldn’t she be out and about by now, stirring up attention like usual?”
A few men sat grumbling in the corner of a dingy tavern, puffing on cheap cigarettes. They were tabloid reporters.
“Exactly. Normally, this is the time when she starts making scenes again.”
“My point exactly. What the hell’s going on with the Mad Dog?”
It was her fault.
Kyrie Ehrenberg, now Kyrie Haswell, Grand Duchess to the First Grand Duke.
Even to the capital’s press, Kyrie’s name was more than familiar. After all, following her turbulent debutante debut, she’d become the top-selling headline maker for a long stretch.
Whenever Kyrie so much as slapped someone in society, the reporters would embellish it into a wild, brutal brawl.
If she batted away the hand of some fool who tried to touch her uninvited, the papers would write that a noblewoman had flown into a rage after being touched by a man far beneath her station, someone not even the Crown Prince. And sales would skyrocket.
‘She’s still making us money even now, to be fair.’
Lately, the biggest talk of the Empire had been the string of incidents involving that infamous Mad Dog.
Back when rumours had spread that she’d been dragged off to a convent, it wasn’t her family who mourned her disappearance, it was the journalists. She had ruled that sweet spot of being both easy prey and pure profit.
So when that supposedly forgotten Mad Dog returned, reborn as the bride of the First Grand Duke, like a phoenix rising from the ashes,
‘Did you hear?’
‘What? Is it true?’
‘My God. This is…’
‘A goldmine.’
The reporters had gone into a frenzy, churning out article after article like men possessed. In their minds, it was their tribute to their queen.
If you gathered only the most sensational, provocative headlines they’d published during that time, it might just be enough to dam the river running through the capital, and that wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
And the Mad Dog never failed to live up to their expectations.
Whether it was public displays of indecent affection with the Grand Duke, tarnishing the image of a once-admired man, becoming the scandalous temptress who’d corrupted him,
Or the jealous obstacle disrupting the love between the Crown Prince and his chosen consort,
Or the brazen villainess who dared to hold her head high despite the hatred of the Empress and the imperial noblewomen,
The press only leaned in harder, spinning increasingly vicious tales that painted her as the ultimate antagonist. Public outrage began to swell.
And it was precisely then that the Mad Dog stopped going out in public.
The real reason was simple– Lexion, the Grand Duke, had begun to call her out less frequently. But the reporters saw it differently.
‘Did we push her too far?’
Even so, if they were taken back to that time, they’d do the same thing all over again, milking her for every story and every headline, boosting their sales figures. She was simply too good to let go.
Through the haze of cigarette smoke, one of them let out a long sigh.
“She should be coming back out soon.”
“Yeah. She needs to show her face and help us sell papers again. It’s the only way we’ll make up for what that Ehrenberg brat cost us.”
“Ugh! Damn that good-for-nothing second son!”
Someone mentioned the Ehrenberg heir, and within moments, the bar filled with curses and complaints from the gathered reporters.
“Why did the Ehrenberg young lord suddenly start acting that way to begin with?”
