Vincent was determined to take part in the trial, convinced that it was his duty to expose his father’s crimes. However, Logan refused to let him get involved.

He could empathize with the urge to atone for one’s family’s sins. Nevertheless, he felt that the case was far too serious to burden Vincent with. Logan knew that confronting the truth demanded more strength than most people could muster. By handing over the documents his father had hidden, Vincent had already done everything that could reasonably be asked of him.

The trial began once the wound on the Count of Everett’s neck had started to heal. Even before the proceedings opened, public interest surged. A noble tribunal assembled from ten high-ranking aristocrats was bound to attract attention.

After a series of upheavals, the Count of Everett ultimately confessed to all the charges brought against him. He no longer attempted to deny the accusations.

Standing in the courtroom, he appeared gaunt and hollowed out by defeat. His eyes were sunken, and his lips were dry and cracked. A bandage encircled his neck, and he seemed to have surrendered everything. Dressed in a prison uniform, all trace of nobility had left him.

“Everything… is my fault.”

He delivered his statement without showing any emotion. The truth he had kept hidden for so long was gradually revealed.

He was the real culprit behind the fire at Fraser Manor.

What had once been dismissed as an accident or a cruel twist of fate was neither. It had been an impulsive crime, committed by the Count of Everett to conceal the murder of the Duke of Fraser.

When it was revealed that he had orchestrated a disaster that had claimed dozens of lives, a wave of shock swept through the courtroom. The instant he finished his confession, the sound of cameras clicking erupted in rapid succession.

But the revelations did not end there.

The Fraser family presented evidence of the Count of Everett’s numerous corrupt dealings, along with orphanage records operating under Laura Everett’s name.

The Rosedale Orphanage, long believed to have been founded on charitable principles, was in truth a front for illegal adoptions and human trafficking. Money laundering was carried out openly alongside crimes too vile to recount in full.

A collective gasp rose from the courtroom. Some stared ahead in stunned disbelief. Others lowered their heads, unable to bear hearing any more.

“We request Jack Hunter as a witness.”

At that moment, the Frasers’ lawyer called a witness to the stand.

When Jack Hunter stepped forward in prison attire, facing separate charges himself, the courtroom watched him with puzzled, uneasy eyes.

Lifting his head, he surveyed the ten nobles and jurors seated before him, meeting each gaze in turn before beginning to speak. Having once been a suspect in the kidnapping and arson case, he was now a key witness. He spoke with steady boldness, undeterred by the shock and open contempt directed at him.

“I heard it clearly. The woman Amelia Everett hired to carry out the kidnapping used to work as a servant in the Fraser household. She said that she had wished for her death every day.”

He recounted the conversation between Amelia Everett and the maid, which had taken place while the abduction was being arranged, word for word. Blinded by jealousy, Amelia had plotted to kill the woman the Duke of Fraser had never been able to forget.

“She said the Count set fire to the manor himself and then pretended to rescue the Duke amid the ensuing chaos, to avoid arousing suspicion. To bury the truth, they staged the death of a young girl and concealed her within the Everett household.”

It was Amelia’s own words that cemented the Count’s guilt. Spoken in bitterness and wounded pride, they returned to haunt her and became the decisive testimony that sealed his fate.

“With testimony like this, how much will my sentence be reduced?”

After finishing his statement, Jack Hunter added, with a faint smile on his lips.

Although his testimony had originated from ignoble motives, it had nevertheless become the decisive clue that revealed the truth.

The deeds of the Everett family left everyone in the courtroom speechless. No one could easily accept the cruelty inflicted on a child who had done nothing but witness a crime.

***

Jack Hunter’s testimony exposed the Everett family’s additional crimes, sending shockwaves throughout the Empire.

Despite Logan’s attempts to shield Isabella from the press, what had been openly discussed in court could not be hidden. By the time the trial ended, jurors and reporters alike were already whispering about Isabella.

The revelation that a noble family had treated a child of common birth with such cruelty ignited public outrage. Emotions that had long been suppressed erupted all at once. Demands to abolish the noble system spread rapidly, and even university scholars stepped forward to engage in fierce and impassioned debates.

When it was finally revealed that the maid hidden away in the Everett household was Isabella Wins, the girl believed to have perished in the fire, one woman immediately sprang to Scarlett’s mind: Maria Wins.

The wife of Henry Wins and mother of Isabella.

Maria had been on extended leave, visiting her hometown. By the time she received news of the fire and hurried back to the capital, her husband and daughter had already been buried. She was unable to touch their remains and had to say goodbye without doing so.

Kneeling before the gravestone engraved with their names, Maria stared at it in silence. There was no life in her eyes. She had wept endlessly on her journey back, but by the time she arrived, she had no more tears left to cry. She did not scream. She did not curse.

She simply knelt there, her face as empty as her soul.

After that day, Maria never returned to the manor, even though it was swiftly rebuilt. Instead, she remained by her family’s graves. Like the flowers laid before the headstone, she, too, began to wither.

It was impossible to tell whether her body had fallen ill or her heart had broken beyond repair. Scarlet did everything she could to help Maria recover. She continued to pay Maria’s wages despite her absence from work and arranged for a small house near the gravesite where Maria could live close to her family.

But despite Scarlett’s efforts, Maria did not survive for long. Within a few years, she joined her husband and daughter in death. People said that her illness, born of unbearable grief, had become too severe to cure.

Scarlett knew the truth.

Maria had not died from an illness.

On that night, Scarlett witnessed the last trace she left behind. Concerned that Maria had not returned to the villa they were using as temporary accommodation while the manor was being rebuilt, Scarlett went to check on her.

Instead of finding Maria, however, she found an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a glass of water on the table.

Recognizing the medication prescribed for insomnia, Scarlett rushed to find her.

She found her collapsed at her daughter’s grave, her arms wrapped around the headstone.

It was the act of someone who had lost every reason to live.

Scarlett understood Maria.

If Logan had been taken from her, too, she would have felt no different.

“…Your daughter was alive.”

Scarlett murmured softly as she raised her whisky glass. An untouched glass sat across from her, Maria’s place. Maria, the woman who had grown up alongside Scarlett, used to sit there.

Whenever Scarlett had a secret she couldn’t share with anyone else or the weight of being a noblewoman became too much, she would call Maria to join her for a drink. Maria was a maid who quietly shared her glass and listened to her grievances without judgement. Maria was the only friend before whom she could truly lay her heart bare.

Now, ten years after losing that friend, every hidden truth had come to light.

Scarlett emptied her glass in a single swallow. There was no one left to confide in about her husband’s infidelity, which had now been exposed along with all the long-buried secrets. The amber liquid burned as it slid down her throat, the heat spreading painfully through her chest.

‘What meaning does it hold now?’

The departed never return. No one knew that better than Scarlett.

She set the glass down and gazed out of the window. Beyond the vast grounds of the Fraser estate, the distant lights of the city shimmered faintly, appearing smaller than ever.

That night, Scarlett lay awake for a long time.