RAMHM Chapter 151

The Marriage Register

Rhodness let the newspaper headlines wash over him as Neil and Vincento read them aloud.

"Was It the Blue-Eyed Imperial Family That Spread the Ominous Red-Eyed Curse?"

"The Will of the Gods Was Not the Western Daughter, But the Eastern One!"

"The Lies and Truths of Doris Castagna."

"Did Doris Castagna Really Kill Crown Prince Bardenaldo? The Truth and Testimony of That Night."

"The papers have seen a miracle and gone mad with it."

"Shall I send a formal correction?"

"Leave it. Whatever they babble now, every word will be in my favor."

Rhodness answered Vincento's anxious question with serene indifference.

"And the woman?"

He was asking about Doris, locked in the dungeon.

Neil answered promptly.

"Don't get me started. The warden says he's never seen a creature so stubborn in his life. Apparently she hasn't eaten a single meal—just sits there insisting she'll see Your Highness, as if our—well—our future Crown Prince wouldn't blink at a threat like that."

"Have her fed. By force if necessary."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm going to have her walk to the guillotine herself."

The two aides who had been moving alongside him down the corridor to his office stopped short—then quickened their pace again.

"A t-trial—you'll still hold a trial, Your Highness?"

"A public execution?"

Rhodness reached the office door, ignored the questions that followed him in, and pushed it open.

The desk was buried under documents piled high as a small mountain.

"A trial will be held. Preparations are already done." He settled into his chair. "Verdict: death. Her. Her father. Every western head removed and replaced with new ones."

He smiled—not pleasantly—and tapped two fingers against his temple, tak-tak. Neil felt the goosebumps crawl up his skin and swept a hand along his arm.

Rhodness with his teeth showing was frightening in how fast he moved.

"Then riding this momentum—the levirate law, we could push for its abolition—"

"No. Leave it."

Neil blinked his large eyes. Rhodness sprawled back in his chair and fixed his gaze on a document, staring through it.

"That man I had held separately—where is he?"

"The butler from the Grand Ducal Estate?"

"Bring him here. Half-dead is fine, as long as he's in a cooperative state."

"My specialty."

"Don't waste my time saying so."

Neil burst out the office door at a run. Vincento approached with an uneasy look. His gaze drifted toward the document Rhodness was turning over in his hands.

"Your Highness—?"

"People are endlessly interesting, aren't they."

The thick-knuckled, long fingers moved slowly along his jaw—once, deliberate. The corner of that full, sensual mouth curved with something faint and unreadable.

What Rhodness held was the marriage register that members of the imperial family were required to submit to the palace upon their wedding.

"Bardenaldo never signed the marriage register for his union with Doris Castagna."

While Adrienne had been in the Grand Temple, Rhodness had torn through the Crown Prince's palace and his villa.

On a hunch, he had gone to the underground secret chamber—and found a vault, which he had broken open to retrieve what he now held in his hand.

"The more interesting thing—"

He lifted the back page and let it flutter. Vincento narrowed his eyes and leaned in. An involuntary sound escaped him.

"Good heavens."

"He'd been keeping the marriage register between the Grand Duke and Adrienne as well. Also unsigned. Also never submitted."

The moment Rhodness found those registers, a sharp thrill had run straight through his spine.

It had started from a simple question: could merely refraining from fathering a child with Doris have been enough to earn Duke Pirreta's trust? A simple question—and what a haul it had turned out to be.

"If that's the case—"

"I think I can put the levirate law to rather different use."

Vincento understood immediately.

"If I act on my own again, you or my grandmother will be in an uproar—so I'm asking."

Rhodness, who had been smiling like a well-fed predator, turned suddenly to fix Vincento with a sharp look. It was the look of someone testing him.

"I'll hand the butler Bardenaldo's marriage register and have him copy it exactly. Only the name—the woman who was to become Crown Princess—that slot gets Adrienne Pirreta's name."

"Your Highness."

"The marriage register between the Grand Duke and Adrienne I'll sell to the press. I'll announce that Bardenaldo had already, in his own mind, chosen Adrienne as Crown Princess—and use that to move against Duke Pirreta, who was in on the scheme."

"What answer are you looking for from me?"

"If the eastern faction falters because of this, Marchioness Winster's house will need to support Adrienne."

"—!"

"Bardenaldo's unauthorized possession of Adrienne's marriage register will be exposed by my hand. I'll announce that I accept responsibility for his crimes and will make amends. Under the levirate law—as the surviving brother of the man whose wife Adrienne was, on paper—I intend to seat her as Crown Princess."

Vincento's legs nearly buckled. He caught himself by an act of will. The voice coming from Rhodness's mouth was not seeking consent. It was not asking for opinion.

It was an order: I have decided. Fall in line.

"I ask you plainly. I'm going to use the Grand Ducal butler to forge the handwriting. Dress up Bardenaldo's marriage register anew. Do all of this. And I'm asking whether you will still support me when I do."

Vincento let out something that sounded like a man ill in his chest.

What was there to do? It was all decided already.

It had only been a short while since the absurd truth—that Adrienne and Bliea had exchanged bodies—had been conveyed to him. He still needed time to absorb it.

"Compared to what Bardenaldo did, this is nothing. In exchange, I'll keep my tongue about Bardenaldo from here on—he won't be allowed to soil my mother's name any further."

Simply announcing these facts would shatter the image of Bardenaldo the saint.

But Vincento could not stop Rhodness from acting for the benefit of the person Bardenaldo had wronged most deeply.

And that wicked, beautiful master of his knew it perfectly well.

"…What a terrifying and torturous way to say you want to marry the Lady Pirreta."

Vincento answered with a long exhale.

The thought of how he was going to explain this tangle to Canulla made his head ache before he'd even begun.

Rhodness, who had been smiling his victory smile at Vincento's resigned head-shake, went abruptly rigid at what came next.

"But Your Highness—does the Lady know of this decision?"

"…"

Vincento seized that tiny hesitation like a lifeline.

He needed time. Time to persuade Canulla, manage public sentiment, and rally the confused nobility behind Rhodness for a solid investiture as Crown Prince.

That meant preventing, above all else, the name of a Crown Princess candidate from leaving Rhodness's mouth before he had even become Crown Prince.

"Surely you ought to say something of this to the Lady before you say it to me, Your Highness."

He watched Rhodness's face go, very gradually, pale.

Vincento was certain he had bought himself some time.

I opened my eyes and there was Grand Prelate Telrn.

Burdensome questions followed in a stream—how was Abadhelia, had I glimpsed the face of the gods, and so on.

Bliea, who appeared to have spent my entire period of sleep being tormented by Telrn, looked more haggard than she had before and was now fixing me with an expression that said plainly: your turn, deal with him.

I turned to face Telrn and smiled pleasantly.

"I'm so sorry. I don't remember a thing, I'm afraid."

"Ah—ah, is that so? Well, why don't you take some medicine first, and then slowly try to—"

"Perhaps not remembering is also the gods' will."

Telrn stared at my lips for a long moment. Then he abruptly produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket and blew his nose with considerable force.

His shoulders heaved. He began to weep—violently, in earnest. One of his assistant clerics hustled him out the door.

"You are nothing but a little fox, Adrienne. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to keep my footsteps light and dainty like some blessed saint—you have no idea how much I—"

Bliea's voice didn't stop for a moment on the carriage ride back to the estate. Not even while Yona, who had joined us mid-journey, clung to her and wept until Bliea had to soothe her.

When the carriage door opened, Neil and Vincento were waiting for us.

Bliea, forced to keep her mouth shut for the sake of her saintly image, shot me one pointed look—and stepped out. Vincento moved obligingly to escort her.

I took Neil's hand and climbed down from the carriage, glancing around me.

"His Highness is in the office."

"Oh. I see."

I felt my face warm slightly—caught looking for Rhodness—and stepped through the front entrance.

Most of the household staff had lost their positions and been turned out. The space felt strangely hollow for it. Marge, who had not quit, and Yona, who had come with us, began bustling about the drawing room to bring hot tea.

"Oh—my lady. Gaspar came by today."

"Gaspar?"

It was Bliea who caught the name before I could.

At the same moment, the drawing room door opened slightly.

A familiar face walked in.

His clothing was as neat as ever, but his face was marked with bruises and wore a haggard pallor. Gaspar.

The moment Gaspar's eyes moved toward us, Bliea shot to her feet.

"That thing is still alive? Those greasy eyes of his. Soaked in oil and dragged back out. How dare you look anywhere, you little—"

"Bliea."

At the sound of her name, said quietly, Bliea swallowed her heat and sat back down.

"You were confined to a private residence by His Highness the Second Prince, as I understand it. What brings you to the Grand Ducal Estate?"

Gaspar looked back and forth between me—who had asked the question calmly—and Bliea, his eyes slowly widening, until Neil cuffed him across the back of the head. He dropped his gaze.

"On H-His Highness the Second Prince's orders—"

"Look at him, dragging it out like that. What kind of man-thing talks like that? Get on with it."

At Bliea's bark, Gaspar's shoulders flinched hard before he finally managed to raise his head.

"I have been summoned for an important matter."

"Disgusting."

"Bliea."

Gaspar, wearing the face of a man who had received a significant shock, was eventually hauled out somewhere by Neil. Yona, looking deeply satisfied, began kneading Bliea's shoulders.

Then Marge came flying in through the half-open door.

"My lady!"

She wavered between me and Bliea, uncertain who to address, and finally turned to me.

"Your family has arrived, my lady. What shall I do?"

The hand Bliea had been fanning herself with—still irritated over Gaspar—stopped.

"Has Father also come?"

"Yes, my lady."

I looked at Bliea.

Bliea's eyes shook. Rotsy, who had been sitting quietly beside her, reached over and took her hand.

At that, Bliea breathed out—long and slowly—and nodded.

"Please show them to the drawing room," I said calmly.