A low curse slipped out of Fiona’s mouth.

Did Viscountess Roman have a single thought in her head? How could she be so venomous toward the daughter-in-law carrying her own son’s child?

Fiona stood before the mirror. As ever, she sparkled and shone. She’d venture to say that the most beautiful woman in Sandem right now was none other than herself.

Charlotte aside, that is.

Fiona’s face crumpled horribly.

Ha. No—not anymore! Now I’m clearly the prettier one.

A woman who’d been shut up at home in seclusion for months on end couldn’t possibly be beautiful. She was surely getting by in an utterly wretched state.

Anyway, just how long does she intend to carry on like that?

Fiona recalled the night before, when she’d gone to Charles’s study.

Why is it so hard to so much as see his face?

Wasn’t he even curious how his pregnant wife was doing! Just as she, huffing and snorting, was about to knock on the study door—

[And Charlotte? She still hasn’t gone out?]

Charles’s voice came low and sunken—whether from drink or fatigue, she couldn’t tell.

[No. The maid called Marge comes outside often and tends the garden, but there’s been no sign of the young lady.]

[Just how is she getting on…]

At the sound of Charles’s long sigh, Fiona could understand why his voice had come so low and sunken. He was terribly worried about Charlotte right now. And missing her terribly, too.

[Young master. It’s a presumptuous request, but might you give your attention to Lady Fiona rather than to Lady Charlotte? Of late, Lady Fiona has been discontent, saying the young master pays her no mind.]

[Are you asking me to live walking on eggshells around my wife?]

[I didn’t mean it in that sense. I only hoped you might think of the baby.]

[The doctor will surely see to her care well enough. And besides, that one’s content if you just buy her a few clothes and trinkets, so there’s no great need to fuss over her.]

[That… since you bring it up, I’ll say it—of late the Viscountess has been quite put out, saying Lady Fiona indulges her extravagance not with her own private funds but with the viscount’s house’s assets.]

[And so? Is she telling me to send the receipts that one’s run up back to her family home?]

[It appears the Viscountess has half a mind to do just that.]

Fiona’s shoulders flinched.

What kind of b*llshit is that!

Go ahead and diligently send the receipts. See if the reply you’re hoping for ever comes. There was no successful businessman father to begin with. Fiona’s father, who had boasted he’d build a new life in Grasian, hadn’t so much as trodden on the shadow of success before going to ruin.

[D*mn it. Viscount Prairie was right. He warned us, again and again, that Grasian wasn’t a land of opportunity but a barren land that gives foreigners no opportunity at all in the first place…!]

Her father, who’d done nothing but guzzle drink day in and day out, one day vanished without a trace. Far from worrying, Fiona felt as relieved as if an aching tooth had been pulled. Nor was she the least bit anxious about money. She’d been getting by on her own since long ago anyway.

[There really are few girls as pretty as you.]

Fiona made her pretty, innocent face her weapon and consorted with wealthy men. The men treated Fiona—who had no background, nothing but a face to her name—as a casual fling. And Fiona, too, preferred this arrangement of just keeping suitable company and gaining financial help over getting serious with some ugly man.

A luxurious life without the slightest hardship. She’d been certain she could live this way forever. And then, somehow, she met Tom. Tom was a beauty beyond all comparison with the men she’d been seeing. A possessor of pure, lovely good looks—rather resembling, you might say, the Charles she’d fallen head over heels for as a child.

[I feel like you, of all people, could understand my loneliness.]

Unlike the men Fiona had been seeing, who simply wanted nothing but pleasure, he was someone she could connect with emotionally. If he had a flaw, it was that she always ended up being the one spending money, but that didn’t become a great problem. She’d met Tom while seeing men who gave her living expenses, after all.

To Fiona, Tom was a man like a sweet dessert. The kind of incredible dessert that lavishly garnishes an utterly ordinary meal.

And he doesn’t even get tiresome. Good looks really are the best thing.

Fiona wanted to savor Tom forever. But there was a problem. This dessert had another owner.

[Fiona! What in the world were you thinking, getting involved with the kept lover of Marchioness Heben?]

She was a woman of renowned wealth in Grasian, and notorious for her eccentric temper. Loathing above all things to have what was hers taken from her, she came down on Fiona with ferocious pressure.

[D*mn it! If I keep seeing you, even I’m going to end up starving to death!]

The men who hadn’t been able to tear themselves from Fiona’s skirts left her, every last one. Even knowing that Fiona was helpless without a man, Marchioness Heben did not let up the pressure.

That woman wants to kill me! Even now she’s surely just lying in wait for an opening!

Terrified, Fiona scraped together every bit of her remaining fortune and fled to Sandem. Because she’d reckoned that if she fled to Sandem—a foreign country, and a damnably small, insular one at that—even Marchioness Heben would be able to do nothing more.

To think that, in the very place she’d fled to, she’d be reunited with Charles in one stroke. Charles was handsome beyond all comparison with that mere Tom, and a noble on top of it.

Wanting to be by his side no matter what, Fiona spent every bit of money she had to act the part of a successful businessman’s beloved only daughter. Yes—Fiona had put on that whole act entirely because she wanted Charles. As if anyone would have given the time of day to some woman who’d come crawling back utterly ruined!

Just as Fiona was clacking her teeth together, Charles’s voice came.

[I couldn’t do something that shameful.]

Fiona’s face brightened in a flash. That was Charles, all right. How could such a splendid son have come from under a mother so short on sense…

[I spoke with Father, and we’ve decided to sort out the jewelry Mother doesn’t use from among the pieces Fiona brought as her wedding trousseau and sell them. That money we’ll give to Mother as an allowance to maintain her dignity. It’ll be more than enough to cover what that one’s spent and leave plenty over, so Mother’s mood should ease, too.]

Fiona’s face went pale in an instant.

Those jewels are every last one of them fake…!

Grasian was a country whose jewelry industry was developed beyond all comparison with Belpatsha—and along with it, the techniques of swindlers had developed too. Top-grade fake jewels showed no sign of it at a glance. But they weren’t quite enough to fool an expert.

D*mn it, what do I do?

Just as Fiona was chewing and gnawing at her lip, someone knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

Hoping for a moment it might be Charles—Fiona, her face screwing up, said,

“Come in.”

At that, the doctor… no, the woman Fiona had hired as a “doctor” came carefully into the room, watching for Fiona’s reaction.

“Do you have something to say?”

“I’ve just come from seeing the Viscount.”

Fiona’s eyes narrowed.

“What did you meet Father-in-law about?”

“Well—he was worried that Lady Fiona’s belly is far too small for how many months along she is.”

Fiona narrowed her eyes and looked down at her own belly.

“As I thought, you really ought to wrap a bit more padding around—”

“It’s hideous enough as it is. What more do you want me to do?”

“But at this rate you’ll come under suspicion.”

Fiona scowled, her whole face contorting.

D*mn it. What on earth am I supposed to do.

Wrapping cloth to make the belly look swollen was no small nuisance, either. How nice it would have been to simply be pregnant. But she’d recklessly taken contraceptive pills with severe side effects, and her monthly courses had stopped coming long ago…

“Or how about you put an end to it now? It seems it’d be better than ’miscarrying’ at full term.”

“Ugh, would you be quiet for a second!”

Fiona felt as though her head would split. Charles’s losing interest in her and worrying over Charlotte gnawed at her; she had to think of a way to stop the fake jewels from being disposed of; and she had to figure out when and how to bring this maddening act to an end.

…Wait a moment.

In that instant, a glittering idea surfaced in Fiona’s mind. Did she really have to solve these three things separately?

What if I were to miscarry because of Charlotte?

Charles would come to loathe Charlotte, and he’d be beside himself wrapping the grieving, child-bereft Fiona in his arms. And for the poor thing’s sake, he’d grant her any request at all. Using a Charles like that to block the disposal of the jewels would be no difficult matter.

A wicked smirk spreading across her face, Fiona drafted the scenario for how Charlotte would supposedly cause her miscarriage.

* * *

At the same time, Charlotte was busy blinking her eyes without pause.

“What did you just say?”

Raymond crossed his legs languidly and said in an easy, unhurried voice,

“I said I’ll buy your time for fifty gold.”