Chapter 46
Chapter 46
Too beautiful.
Attractive spouses were often flaunted like trophies, but Alphonsus didn’t like that. There was no need for Chloe to be this beautiful in front of so many strangers. He didn’t know who the designer was, but he didn’t like them.
And what bothered him most was the neckline of her dress, a deep U-shape that revealed her cleavage.
Objectively speaking, it wasn’t particularly revealing, and many other women were wearing similar necklines. But to Alphonse, the only one who mattered was Chloe.
It’s all visible. To those other men.
He remembered the red mark he had left on her nape during their recent intimacy. For a week after that, she had worn only high-necked dresses, and though she hadn’t said why, he had found it oddly satisfying.
He began to consider whether he should leave a mark on her neck every week.
While these idle thoughts occupied his mind, one person was nearly fainting from terror. It was Lady Coleen.
‘She’s found me out.’
When she saw Chloe, who had returned with a completely different style instead of the one she had instructed, Lady Coleen realized that her true intentions had been discovered.
Chloe noticed Lady Coleen looking over from the other side of the ballroom hallway. Chloe stared back intently, enough for the other woman to clearly feel it.
The moment Chloe’s gaze met hers, Lady Coleen visibly flinched in shock, her face pale as flour. She looked as pitiful as a drenched rat.
‘But I have no intention of forgiving her.’
Chloe thought to herself.
Lady Coleen realized that Chloe was looking at her. It was so clear, so unmistakable, that she seemed to have something she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
Lady Coleen looked like she was about to faint. A dreadful premonition gripped her throat: Chloe would never forgive her this time.
‘I have to run.’
Losing her senses, Lady Coleen bolted from the scene.
But her escape was blocked at the front entrance. She was seized by knights who had been waiting there.
“Let me go! I have to leave! Let go of me!”
Lady Coleen struggled desperately, but she couldn’t break free from the knights’ grip on her own.
“No. This is His Grace’s order.”
“The Duke commanded us to arrest you at the entrance, knowing you would try to flee.”
At those words, Lady Coleen felt as if the sky was falling.
‘So… His Grace knew. Everything…’
She was consumed by a bottomless, overwhelming despair. Alphonse would never forgive her. There was no way to escape the fate, or retribution, waiting for her right around the corner. No way at all.
***
Chloe’s birthday banquet continued to bloom in full swing. As one of the only two ducal couples in the Empire, they naturally attracted everyone’s attention.
Especially with Chloe’s transformed appearance and Alphonse’s changed attitude toward her. Guests whispered in every corner of the ballroom about the noticeable shift between the couple.
Alphonse, the very subject of those hushed discussions, kept one arm wrapped around his wife’s waist and never took his tender gaze off her. People around them were astonished by how drastically his usually intimidating gaze had softened.
And then…
“Pardon me, Your Grace.”
Alphonse finally tore his gaze from Chloe. Though inwardly annoyed at the interruption of his time with her (he had fulfilled his social obligations, after all), he understood. He had already anticipated what was coming.
At the end of his gaze stood Kiel, the butler.
“She has been apprehended.”
Kiel’s face, usually bright with a smile, was now serious, but that didn’t matter to Alphonse. Without much thought, he turned his eyes back to Chloe and spoke.
“Put her in solitary confinement. Make sure not even a rat can come near until I arrive.”
“Understood.”
Kiel swiftly disappeared.
***
Lady Coleen was locked away in a solitary cell at a remote part of the estate. Compared to other rooms, it was tiny, with no windows or furniture, only a dim light casting a pale glow.
There, she trembled in fear. Waiting was far more terrifying than facing her downfall outright. She didn’t know when Alphonse would come, whether in one hour or five, and she had no sense of how much time had passed. In the dark silence, her imagination ran wild with all the possible punishments she might face. She slowly spiraled into madness, consumed by her own thoughts.
Eventually—hours, maybe even days later—time had lost all meaning.
Chloe’s birthday banquet concluded, and most of the guests had departed. Alphonse noted the time: well past midnight.
‘I won’t let a vermin like her ruin my wife’s birthday.’
He summoned two servants to accompany him and made his way to the solitary cell. It had been six hours since he had ordered her imprisonment.
He inserted the key and opened the door. Light flooded into the dim room. Lady Coleen flinched and shielded her eyes, but Alphonse showed no regard for her.
Seeing him, she began to tremble as if in seizure, and cried out,
“Your Grace, Your Grace! I-I’ve committed a grave sin. Please, have mercy on me!”
“…”
Alphonse didn’t respond. He only looked down at her with his characteristic red eyes, cold and reptilian.
“I—I was foolish! I committed an unforgivable act toward the gracious Lady. Please, take pity on my stupidity!”
She crawled toward him, clutching at the hem of his trousers. The elegant formal attire she still wore from the banquet, far beyond what she could ever afford, was stained and dirty.
The servants accompanying Alphonse pried her off him. Even as they held her back, she shrieked with wild eyes,
“You will… show mercy, won’t you?”
Alphonse knew instantly: not a shred of remorse or guilt showed on her desperate face. Just a repulsive desire to escape her situation.
“You will show me mercy, like you did with Lisa, won’t you? Her Grace is so compassionate, surely she will spare me too—won’t she, Your Grace?!”
*How disgracefully shameless.
Finally, Alphonse spoke.
“My wife has entrusted full authority for your punishment to me.”
Lady Coleen’s face froze.
She fully understood what that meant: Chloe would not intervene. There would be no hope for mercy. Not even a sliver.
In the frigid cell, only Alphonse’s cold voice lingered.
“She said she couldn’t forgive you either.”
***
Meanwhile, Chloe wasn’t idle. She took testimony from the maids.
“…So it was Lady Coleen who told Marie about the frozen pond.”
That was the moment suspicion became certainty. Chloe, in a rare tone of iciness, spoke. She was deeply furious.
The maids, pale with fear as if under interrogation, were terrified of where her wrath might fall.
Chloe bit her lip. Despite her anger, she was not someone who took it out on the innocent.
Lady Coleen’s action was clearly rooted in malice. If Chloe hadn’t luckily encountered the knights, someone, either herself or another maid, might have been seriously harmed.
It had crossed well beyond the boundary of forgiveness.
***
Just then, a knock sounded at the door, and Alphonse gave the command.
“Open it.”
One servant opened the locked cell door. Standing there was a terrified maid.
“Y-Your Grace. I bring a message… from Her Grace.”
“From my wife?”
The maid relayed what Chloe had discovered about the frozen pond incident. Once done, she quickly bowed and fled, as if afraid even staying still would get her caught in crossfire.
Alphonse turned his gaze back to Lady Coleen. But now his eyes were different, not ice, but flame. For the first time.
***
To conclude, Lady Coleen paid the price for her persistent and vicious sins toward the Duchess—with her life.
While her recent misdeeds were grave, her cruelties during the time of the ‘former’ Chloe were even worse. Over the past 13 months, she had tormented Chloe in every possible way: mentally, emotionally, and socially, delighting in her suffering. She pushed Chloe to believe she was worthless, urging others to treat her the same.
Chloe remembered every single one of those actions. All of them.
That’s why she couldn’t forgive her. Regardless of social status or employment relationship, what Lady Coleen had done was inhuman.
Chloe offered no mercy.
Alphonse, now fully in charge of punishment, was not a merciful man.
He ordered 300 lashes for Lady Coleen and, once she barely clung to life, handed her over to the Imperial Court. The charges: defamation of a noble and attempted murder. The trial proceeded with incredible speed, and she was sentenced to hanging. It was an open secret that Alphonse’s influence had sped up the process.
Now, Lady Coleen waits in a cold underground prison for her execution.
Of course, if Alphonse Battenberg had truly wished, silencing a single maid would have been easy. So why go through the trouble?
His answer was simple:
“I will not stain my hands with such filthy blood.”
He murmured this quietly in his office during lunch, after receiving Kiel’s report of her sentencing.
***
News of Lady Coleen’s crimes and trial spread throughout the mansion, striking fear into many servants, especially those who had wronged Chloe in the past 13 months, even in small ways.
Surprisingly, it was the kitchen maids who played the greatest role in shifting the internal atmosphere.
They, deeply loyal to Chloe since early on, spoke out about her transformation, kindness, and grace and how wrongdoers should sincerely apologize and atone.
In the servant hierarchy, kitchen maids held considerable influence. After all, no one could live without food.
Their fervent words deeply swayed servants already gripped by fear and guilt. A wave of repentance swept through the household. Many servants personally apologized to Chloe or offered to accept punishment. Some, whose wrongs were too grave to forgive, were dismissed or heavily penalized.
At this point, it made no sense for the head maid and chief steward to retain hiring authority. The estate’s allegiance had fully shifted to Chloe. They voluntarily transferred personnel authority to her.
At last, Chloe regained full control over hiring, budgeting, and management—rights previously taken from her.
She personally selected new maids and attendants based on loyalty and diligence.
This unprecedented incident brought sweeping reform to the household. Not a single servant dared look down on or defy Chloe again.
