Despite Winter’s intimidation, Vieta merely stood firmly on tiptoe, barely maintaining her balance at the edge of the stairs.

“Amy resembles that knight. I wonder if Father knows what I’ve noticed?”

“Stop! Shut that mouth!”

Watching Winter panic and spray saliva, Vieta raised the corner of her mouth.

“So, don’t touch me from now on. And don’t punish my mother under the pretext of disciplining me.”

“……!”

“Just stay quietly locked in your room. Wouldn’t it help you maintain your position to please Father right now?”

Even as Winter felt like she couldn’t breathe, Vieta paid no attention and pushed her back with one finger.

After climbing completely to the top of the stairs, she spoke.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep it a secret from Amy. I should protect Amy, who has nothing to boast about except being a lady.”

After finishing her words, Vieta turned her head and looked at the tray and water bottle scattered miserably at the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh, and abandon any thoughts of getting rid of me and my mother. You shouldn’t forget that unwelcome dependents are Father’s only weakness.”

“Vieta!”

Winter called out Vieta’s name loudly but covered her own mouth in case someone might hear.

“If my mother and I disappear, Father would become even more free. Free enough to sell his fake daughter as a match for an old Count.”

Winter had no choice but to close her mouth.

She had been considering Vieta as a marriage partner for a Count who would benefit the family, and her husband had agreed with this.

Without her, it was clear that Amy, his own daughter, would become the match for that old Count Dillent.

Winter held back her anger and caught her breath.

She belatedly realized that Vieta exposing her affair hadn’t been mere coincidence.

“What exactly do you want!”

“Water, madam. Have a maid bring water.”

Winter had a maid bring water, which was then placed in Vieta’s hands.

Vieta climbed the stairs, leaving Winter behind as she pressed her forehead.

In the past, she had discovered that she was to be Count Dillent’s marriage partner just three days before the wedding.

The marriage, which was no different from being sold off, made her feel a humiliation and helplessness so severe she wanted to die, and she realized she was essentially livestock to the ducal family.

But fortunately, the marriage was called off, and the person responsible was Leytan.

He had proposed to Vieta, and they promised to marry, holding a simple private engagement ceremony.

Vieta gripped the tray tightly as she approached the stairs leading to the attic.

‘They won’t treat my mother and me carelessly anymore. At least not if she loves Amy.’

Vieta wasn’t worried about marrying the old count.

She could simply run away with her mother before that happened.

The wedding was to take place when she turned eighteen, so she still had eight years left.

※※※

Upon returning to her room, Winter recalled the fearless look in Vieta’s eyes as she confronted her.

She felt a suffocating fear because that look resembled the Duke’s so much.

As she calmed her rapid breathing and stroked her chest, Winter experienced an unprecedented anxiety and even shame.

‘How did that cowed child become so cunning?’

Winter couldn’t understand the suddenly changed Vieta.

‘Did she have a dark side, hiding her claws all this time?’

Winter wiped her face with her pale hand and slumped against the door.

If only her affair hadn’t been discovered, Susan would have been a life she could end at any time, but Vieta was different.

There was a reason she had always punished only Susan.

It was obvious that even the slightest flaw in the merchandise would be found fault with.

Though it wasn’t publicly known, Duke Lukbiche had once received a significant investment from Count Dillent for developing a diamond mine.

Despite nobles generally despising commerce, their annual income had reached a level where they could easily buy a noble title, and they were no longer entities that could be ignored.

It could be said that the Lukbiche ducal family’s accumulation of wealth that other nobles couldn’t ignore was largely due to the help of Count Dillent, who was originally a merchant.

Although they now possessed enough wealth to repay the invested money and more, the ducal family couldn’t turn their back on Count Dillent.

They maintained deep ties with the count in the distribution of mined diamonds, and Vieta was clearly a child who needed to be kept alive, if only to receive investment for the new gold mining business they were starting.

Winter recalled Count Dillent, who visited the Lukbiche family but always left without seeing Vieta’s face.

No matter how much of a rough laborer-turned-noble he was, his yellow golden eyes were more noble than those of foolish aristocrats immersed in pleasure.

There was an unspoken power in his gaze.

‘Did he feel some kinship with Vieta?’

She recalled the Count visiting the Lukbiche family on the day she took Susan’s tongue.

Unfortunately, the Count had witnessed Jonathan carrying away the struggling Vieta.

‘No, he couldn’t have taken a liking to Vieta just because of that. He must simply have unusual tastes despite his dignified appearance.’

Winter mocked him for pretending to be dignified, then hardened her expression again.

Count Dillent, a middle-aged man, was still unmarried, and the nobles making names for themselves in society coveted his wealth. Everyone was desperate to offer their daughters as his match.

But Count Dillent didn’t join hands with them.

This wasn’t the behavior of someone born into the working class who harbored great dissatisfaction with his origins.

Yet he had chosen Vieta as the match to fill his deficiencies.

Although she was an illegitimate child, she clearly had the Duke’s bloodline, and above all, he preferred Vieta, who resembled the Duke more than Amy did.

This was an opportunity for the Lukbiche family.

Knowing that satisfying Count Dillent’s desires would bring them more benefits, the Duke and Winter had already agreed to his marriage with Vieta.

If the Count had proposed marriage to Amy, they would have rejected such an absurd proposal, but because it was Vieta, they made the contract without questioning anything.

But what if Vieta disappeared?

Not only would their relationship with the count grow distant, but the gold mining business they were planning to receive investment for could also fall through.

Yet they couldn’t send Amy as Count Dillent’s match instead.

That would clearly be the most unbearable event for Winter.

She swallowed her deep-seated anger for Amy’s sake.

The thought that her daughter might have to take the missing Vieta’s place weighed heavily on her, even more than the discovery that her daughter had a knight’s bloodline.

At the same time, she couldn’t understand how Vieta knew about the private conversations between husband and wife.

‘She must have eavesdropped like a little rat. But why didn’t she run away?’

Winter thought about Vieta, who hadn’t fled despite knowing she would have to marry the old Count, and recalled Susan who was holding her daughter back.

‘She couldn’t leave because of her mother. Besides, even if she ran away with that withered body, she’d freeze to death in this weather.’

She stared at the dry branches swaying in the wind.

Then she recalled a situation she hadn’t considered at all.

She had thought that if Count Dillent married Vieta and fell for her tricks, the ducal family’s business would suffer.

Vieta was certainly different from before.

‘It would be troublesome if that girl somehow seduces Count Dillent.’

Winter admitted her thinking had been shortsighted.

After all, Vieta’s child would eventually succeed Count Dillent, and it would be truly problematic if she sought revenge for her mother by shaking the Lukbiche family.

‘Vilter.’

She painfully repeated her son’s name inwardly, the one who would become the next Duke.

After much contemplation, Winter’s thoughts finally reached one conclusion.

Stop bothering Vieta any further.

More precisely, it would be correct to say: endure until Count Dillent and Vieta get married.

After marriage, she could simply make Vieta infertile.

She was certain that Vieta, unable to bear Count Dillent’s children, would live imprisoned like his trophy until death.

Now all she had to do was keep her children from associating with Vieta.