What Isabella’s eyes captured in the darkness was another gleaming object.

On the spot where all the protagonists had left, a fleurdelis bracelet of sparkling red ruby and green topaz was dropped.

Isabella looked around and dashed out to pick up the bracelet. Then she hid herself again in the garden.

It was something she desperately wanted, but she didn’t expect it to fall into her hands like this. She put off the thought that she might be questioned later as to why she had this bracelet.

What was wrong with seeing a gem she wanted right in front of her eyes? Isabella was not the kind of person to leave it behind just because she didn’t have any avarice.

“What strange luck.”

Isabella tried to stroke the bracelet with her hand.

As expected, the thing she found was not intact. Six legs that should hold the red ruby in the center tightly were shaking loosely, probably damaged when it fell.

Instinctively, Isabella raised her thumb to gently press the red ruby. Then, the ruby popped out of its socket due to the pressure of her finger.

“Oh my!”

Isabella was startled, quickly picked up the ruby that had fallen to the ground, and carefully put it with the bracelet in her handbag.

“……How annoying.”

Her mood suddenly soured when the bracelet broke.

Isabella was indeed thinking that it was good luck to find the bracelet and was on her way back to the ballroom, but as she left the secluded royal palace and walked alone in the garden, anger surged up.

‘Thinking that finding a broken bracelet is good luck! Since when did this Isabella de Mare become so pathetic?’

The prince’s attention was what Isabella dreamed of. Isabella’s biggest wish in life was to become the crown princess.

It wasn’t that she didn’t try. She even always carried a handkerchief of Prince Alfonso that she had obtained through Ariadne, trying somehow to be connected with him.

But her stepsister, who was no better than Isabella, a country bumpkin and not even pretty, took it all.

The prince, and even the attention of Count Cesare, which was originally supposed to be hers, she grabbed it all! It should have been at least that much to say that she was lucky!

‘That proposal from Count Cesare was originally mine!’

Count Cesare had never officially sent a letter to Isabella, but he kept passing on words to her father, Cardinal de Mare, suggesting a marriage with Isabella.

The proposal was not just a mental victory for Isabella. The talk became more specific and tough, so the de Mare family rushed to bring Ariadne from the Bergamo farm.

The cessation of Count Cesare’s courtship was clearly around the end of Ariadne’s debutante ball.

Upon realizing that, Isabella felt a strong anger rising from deep within her heart.

When she first realized at the debutante ball that the prince was interested in Ariadne, she was first stunned and then felt bad.

But she didn’t feel the burning anger from the realm of instinct as she does now.

‘Did I…… really like Count Cesare that much?’

After a moment of contemplation, Isabella shook her head.

It was more a sense of loss from a privileged person who had been robbed of what they had than a liking for Count Cesare. The prince was good to have and not a problem if not, but it was a completely different story to have Cesare, who had been there, taken away.

An uncontrollable anger boiled up like a flame.

‘Damn Ariadne, that girl……!’

If someone else acquires something I originally didn’t have, I just feel a little disappointed. From there, one might go further to admire or envy that other person.

But if someone takes away something of mine, it’s a declaration of war. Humans tend to forget the death of their father longer than the loss of their possessions. (Gli uomini dimenticano piuttosto la morte del padre che la perdita del patrimonio.)

‘It was all okay when she wasn’t around! What is she that she’s making such a fuss?’

Isabella had made up her mind. She would win back Count Cesare. She pledged to recapture his gaze.

She enjoyed the power that could control others. That’s why she wanted Prince Alfonso, who had a higher status than Cesare.

But suddenly, Cesare’s handsome face, his deep blue eyes, his light attitude, and his ability to manipulate the surrounding atmosphere made her feel insatiable.

‘Well, Count Cesare doesn’t really have a chance to succeed to the throne, but there’s nothing else he lacks, is there?’

Half of his lineage was undoubtedly noble, he was financially affluent, and he had more than enough indirect influence, like an impact in the social circle, to move others.

Isabella didn’t particularly want military power, the power of levy. She just wanted not to be ignored by others, to have no one better than her in the room, and to be able to ignore others when she vented her feelings.

‘Count Cesare would be… just right for me?’

She could. All she had to do was attract the attention of the man who had once been hers again. And her ignorant halfsister deserved to be punished.

‘Ariadne, I won’t let you be!’