Fine, she said.

Christine knew better than anyone that Daphne was anything but fine.

Starved for love because of her indifferent family, Daphne adored her fiancé desperately. So of course she couldn’t be fine.

Christine felt sorry.

But breaking off the engagement? Such shocking words immediately extinguished the faint guilt that had begun to rise within her.

She had to stop this somehow.

As Christine was deeply contemplating how to appease her daughter, Daphne emphasized once more.

“As you said, Mother, lovers can happen. But how ridiculous must my careful pandering and accommodation have seemed for him to flaunt it so openly?”

“P-pandering and accommodating? You were head over heels for Leonhardt.”

“I was pretending. I know my place well enough.”

The skin under Christine’s eyes trembled, and she couldn’t look directly at Daphne, averting her gaze.

“Mother, I know too.”

“Wh-what?”

“The rumors that follow us, mother and daughter.”

“Who dared say such things!”

For the first time since becoming a Marchioness, Christine raised her voice. It was almost a shriek.

⁕⁕⁕

Both Werner and Christine were in their second marriages.

His first wife had given birth to two sons before dying. It wasn’t a marriage born of love. It was merely the expected process to secure heirs. While her death was regrettable, Werner simply didn’t have strong enough emotions to truly mourn her.

After that, despite numerous recommendations to remarry, he consistently refused. He already had two heirs, after all.

Then that same Werner fell in love at first sight with Princess Christine of the Kingdom of Gael.

At first, people thought it was just a baseless rumor.

This was understandable since Werner had shown no interest in women and wasn’t particularly affectionate even toward his two remaining sons. In short, he was a wooden man who lived solely to fulfill his duties as a Marquis.

Christine’s situation wasn’t favorable either.

A year earlier, she had married an admiral on her father’s orders. However, she couldn’t grow attached to a husband who would come home only to leave for the sea again within a week, never staying longer than that. They had only shared a bed twice, so there was no heir.

After her husband died in battle against pirates, she returned to the royal palace, and on her very first day back, she met Werner.

The King of Gael refused Werner’s proposal. But he absolutely refused to give up. He offered to defeat the pirates who had killed Christine’s former husband in exchange for her hand.

When the late emperor heard of his actions, he was understandably furious. Nevertheless, Werner sailed out to sea for another country’s sake without so much as blinking. The marauding pirates were driven beyond territorial waters without even putting up a proper fight.

Gossips called it the love story of the century.

Christine became a Marchioness amid both envy and jealousy.

But then Daphne was born just seven months after the wedding. For a seven-month baby, she was too healthy and robust. The midwife even remarked that the child looked like she had completed a full ten months in the womb.

‘Could she be the child of her deceased former husband?’

It was a situation that naturally invited suspicion.

However, the very next day, Werner personally named the child Daphne and registered her in the family registry. When the Marquis declared her as his own daughter, the rumors seemed to subside.

Two years later, Christine gave birth to another child. The healthy boy was born after a full ten months. All three sons looked almost exactly like Werner. In contrast, Daphne only somewhat resembled Christine.

Afterward, Christine was labeled as someone who had seduced the Marquis into marriage while carrying her former husband’s child. And rumors that Daphne wasn’t his biological daughter followed her constantly.

⁕⁕⁕

Daphne looked at Christine’s wavering eyes and said, 

“That’s why Father treats me like I don’t exist.”

“No. Your father is just naturally cold, but it’s absolutely not like that.”

Christine strongly denied it, but Daphne didn’t stop.

“Then you should have stopped my two brothers from tormenting me. ‘Family disgrace,’ ‘fake’…… Do you know how much I’ve suffered? There’s no place for me in this house.”

Christine couldn’t say anything.

“You’re the same, Mother.”

“Daphne, that’s……”

“You regret giving birth to me, don’t you? That’s why you devote yourself to my two brothers and still struggle pitifully to be an excellent Marchioness and an elegant member of high society.”

“That’s my duty.”

“No, it’s not. Your priority should be taking over the household management from Anton. Rather than obsessing over others’ opinions, you should have focused on strengthening the family’s internal affairs.”

Hit at her core, Christine couldn’t counter.

“I was just like you, Mother. The kind and sweet Daphne to everyone. The obedient daughter…… That’s why I was nice to Leonhardt while watching both families’ reactions. You saw that as being head over heels? What a convenient perspective.”

Silence fell between them.

But isn’t it more convenient to have one person endure rather than resolve the conflict? A relationship that had been solidified over many years couldn’t be reversed in an instant.

Christine’s perspective was the same. She desperately hoped Daphne would endure just once more and tried to coax her gently.

“Still, isn’t breaking the engagement too extreme? If you just understand a little more and embrace this, everyone will be grateful.”

“Stop it!”

Daphne looked at Christine with a complex expression. Disappointment, disillusionment, pity, and sadness…… Many emotions were mixed together.

“Mother, can’t you take my side just once?”

If you don’t want to regret after losing everything and falling ill……

In her past life, Christine had lived that way after Werner died. Daphne could still hear her crying that she was only a burden to her children.

“I’m not asking for your love. Not all children can be precious to their parents.”

“Daphne, that’s absolutely not true!”

“Don’t deny it. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have to live so cautiously. But you’re still the Marchioness, aren’t you?”

“…What do you mean by that?”

“What if Father meets a foreign woman during this voyage and demands a divorce?”

“Daphne!”

“Foreign women might be his type.”

Daphne said quietly.

Since Christine was also from the Kingdom of Gael, she couldn’t argue further.

“Take my side at least while you still have such an impressive status. Don’t cling to other family members who might turn their backs on you at any moment. There’s a good example right here.”

Daphne pointed to herself. Christine’s face flushed with guilt.

She carefully observed Christine’s greatly wavering eyes. It seemed she had succeeded in making her feel guilty.

She wasn’t a good mother, but she wasn’t a bad person either. She lived apologizing to everyone, so Daphne just needed to include herself in that group. At least she wouldn’t interfere when it came time to break the engagement.

Since things had come to this, she decided to push a bit further.

“Mother, fortunately, Leonhardt is the one who did wrong. So we can definitely get proper compensation. Above all, isn’t it a great achievement that we no longer have to bow and scrape before Barbara?”

“B-bow and scrape? It wasn’t that bad.”

“The other side won’t think so.”

At Daphne’s retort, the corners of Christine’s mouth hardened. Even without her observation, she had accumulated too many grievances to deny it.

But there was still one more practical barrier.

“Even if we break off the engagement… your father is at sea now. It’s such a large-scale trade that he’ll be gone for over a year.”

“He might return early. Breaking an engagement isn’t a trivial matter for Father either.”

“But there are so many entangled interests that returning immediately is almost impossible.”

“I suppose so. Unless Her Majesty the Emperor commands it.”

Daphne smiled meaningfully.

“But even Her Majesty would find it difficult to intervene easily……”

Christine trailed off.

The Emperor was still young and lacked a strong background like a powerful maternal family. Moreover, the noble faction growled in opposition to her every decision.

The imperial faction, on the other hand, was numerically inferior. It was only because the imperial faction’s leader, Werner, was so exceptional that the Emperor hadn’t become a mere figurehead.

Such an Emperor couldn’t order a ship to return just for an engagement issue.

Daphne understood these circumstances better than anyone.

“Mother, if you desperately want something, a way will always appear.”

“I hope so.”

Seeing her much more positive response, it seemed Daphne’s strategy to win Christine over had somewhat succeeded.

Daphne carefully observed her mother’s reaction before asking what she had been holding back all this time.

“Have you met His Highness the Grand Duke?”

Her tone was so dry that it sounded like a mere courtesy question to a mother who had just returned from an outing.

But inside, she was extremely tense as she waited for Christine’s answer.