“My goodness. Which family’s daughter was it?”

“I only caught it in passing before boarding, so I’m not entirely sure, but I think it was some lady from the Clair-something family.”

“Is there even a family by that name?”

Liz, who had been overhearing all of this against her will, quietly swallowed a sigh at the blank reactions. Unlike the old established houses, the Clairmont title had come through her grandfather’s wartime merit, so it was no surprise that most nobles had never heard of them.

“If it’s a family no one’s ever heard of, maybe the bride wasn’t switched at all. Maybe they put up a stand-in. It does happen, when the real bride is unwell, they quietly use a maid.”

The suggestion, offered as if it made more sense, sent a dull ache through her chest.

Ugh. I’m not a maid.

She wanted to say exactly that, but in truth, she had grown up far from any noble lifestyle. She had done housework herself and mingled with tenant farmers since she was small, living no differently from a commoner. She supposed she had no grounds to object to being called a maid.

She was trying to slip away without drawing attention when one woman sighed aloud.

“I suppose that must be it. What was I even thinking. The Ashworth retainers would never accept a nobody like that. Even the duke himself took ten years to earn their recognition. They’re not the sort to welcome a duchess no one has ever heard of.”

Liz had been about to hurry past, but she stopped.

The duke earned their recognition.

She turned back at that, and the women whose eyes met hers startled, covered their mouths with their fans, and drifted away in the other direction.

“What does that mean? Why would he need to earn recognition?”

Surely, as the direct heir, it was only natural that he would inherit the title and lead the family.

No matter how formidable the retainers might be, the idea that Johann needed to earn recognition at all seemed strange. She told herself there must be circumstances she wasn’t aware of and headed for the staircase to avoid the stares.

At the bottom of the winding stairs, she walked along the second-class deck corridor and spotted a cluster of sailors talking further down.

“Ugh. Making us fix all the lifeboats below the second-class deck. That’s twice the work.”

“What can you do. They said it looked bad and got in the way of the view for the upper-class passengers. We have to oblige. Oh, you confirmed the ropes and pulleys are all properly secured, right?”

Liz’s eyes went wide at the mention of emergency lifeboats being fixed in place.

“Wait. I don’t have to wait for the ship to stop. If there’s a small boat, couldn’t I take it back to Bergen?”

She leaned out over the railing. Bergen was considerably farther now, but the outline of the city was still faintly visible.

The thought that there might be a way off this ship and back home sent her moving in the direction the sailors had come from. A short walk brought her to the stern of the Eternelle, and sure enough, just as the sailors had said, a row of small yellow lifeboats was secured along the outside of the railing.

“They really are small. Four or five people at most.”

She craned her head out past the railing to get a better look, but realistically, rowing back alone was out of the question.

She would need at least two sailors to manage it. Liz was brooding over this, looking deflated, when a sharp voice rang out from around the corner.

“This isn’t what you promised!”

A woman’s cry cut through the air. Liz moved quietly toward it and found, on a stretch of deck she had thought empty, a woman and a man.

They appeared to be a couple, and they were fighting fiercely, voices raised.

“How could you do this. You said you loved me, and all along it was my family’s money you wanted?”

“Ugh, let go! You should be grateful a noble like me married you when all you have is money. What are you blubbering and making a scene for!”

The man struck the woman’s hand away and unleashed a torrent of ab*se.

Liz’s brow furrowed.

The situation was growing more volatile by the second. She had been about to step in instinctively, but she caught herself, remembering her promise not to get involved in other people’s affairs anymore. She was forcing herself to turn away when the woman’s next words seized her by the ankle.

“This marriage is a fraud!”

Smack.

A sharp crack rang out, followed by the dull thud of someone going down.

“How dare you, you common little—”

The man had slapped her and now grabbed her by the hair as she crumpled. Liz couldn’t hold back any longer and ran forward.

“Stop that! Raising your hand against your wife. Have you no self-respect as a gentleman?”

“Wh…… what.”

The man was caught off guard by Liz’s sudden appearance and released his grip, affecting innocence.

Liz stepped in front of the woman, drew out her handkerchief, and pressed it to the woman’s reddening cheek. Then she caught sight of a bruise on the woman’s neck and felt her throat tighten. She looked up.

“How can you strike your own wife? I witnessed this, and I intend to report it to the captain.”

“Hmph. Mind your own business and……”

Caught in the act, the man looked away and scanned for other witnesses, then suddenly fixed his eyes on Liz’s face and his expression curdled.

“Liz…… Clairemont?”

“……!”

Liz blinked at hearing her name from a stranger.

“That’s right. The villainess who ruined my wedding.”

Color drained from Liz’s face as she finally recognized him.

She remembered.

A year ago. He was one of the men whose weddings she had put an end to, at a classmate’s request.

“What a convenient coincidence. I never thought I’d lay eyes on the villainess who destroyed my life again.”

“Ph…… Philip? Marquis Philip Elliot?”

“That’s right. Your little stunt ruined that marriage and left my life so thoroughly derailed that I ended up with some common nouveau riche nobody.”

Recognition fully restored, the man raised his cane and brought it down against the railing with a threatening crack.

Clang! The metallic ring echoed, and through it flashed the image of a man in her memory, one who had reduced a bridal waiting room to rubble in a blind rage.

‘Please, Liz. I beg you. They say he has terrible hands. More than one maid has been beaten to death in that household. If I marry into that family, I’ll be beaten to death too.’

Her heart dropped. The memory of her friend’s words came back to her, and she began to back away slowly. Philip muttered in a low, menacing voice.

“Starting to remember now, are you? You rotten, devil-faced little wretch.”

The eyes that met hers had gone past anger into something unhinged. She broke out in goosebumps all over. The woman beside her was just as terrified and shoved Liz, urging her to run, but Liz’s body refused to move.

“Today’s the day I make sure you never walk around with that brazen face of yours again.”

Philip muttered the words like a curse and raised the cane he had been swinging as a threat. Liz saw it coming down toward her face, spun around, pulled the woman into her arms, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She braced for the sharp impact, but strangely, instead of pain, a strained groan reached her ears.

She opened her eyes just a crack. What she saw was the man’s contorted face, his hand trembling violently where it gripped the cane. Her gaze followed the cane to its other end, and there was a man holding it.

Soft blond hair caught the sunlight, and below it, a cool, sharp expression. Liz’s eyes flew wide.

“……Your Grace?”

“I wondered where you’d gone, only to find you tangled up with something this low. Did you change your specialty from wedding saboteur to honeymoon saboteur?”

Johann fixed his eyes on Liz long enough to deliver the reproach, then flung the cane aside. The force of it knocked a sharp gasp out of Philip, who went tumbling backward. Philip clutched his stomach, glared up at Johann for barging in, and bared his teeth.

“Do you have any idea who I am!”

“Show some respect. This is His Grace, Duke Johann von Ashworth.”

“……Ashworth?”

Philip’s eyes darted from the man in front of him, unmistakably refined at a glance, to the attendants visible behind him. Something clicked, and his eyes went wide. The vicious energy that had looked ready to lunge drained away into something meek and pathetic.

“Y…… Your Grace. To meet you in a place like this. What an honor. I am……”

“Marquis Philip Elliot. Known for gambling away his family’s fortune and targeting women from wealthy families to cover his debts.”

Johann cut off the introduction and finished the sentence himself, then glanced briefly at the woman standing alone.

“It looks like you succeeded, but that comes to an end today.”

Philip went pale as his own name and reputation were recited back to him without pause, and he scrambled to make excuses.

“Th…… that’s not how it looks, Your Grace. We are on our honeymoon, and there was simply a small…… misunderstanding.”

“Whether or not you are on a honeymoon is of no interest to me, but threatening my wife is a crime.”

“Your wife?”

Philip blinked and looked at Liz’s face. His expression twisted into something close to horror.

“Th…… that’s absurd. That…… that villainess Liz Clairemont is your wife……”