Isabella De Mare will pay for her insolence!

Nobody who had painted Ariadne as the illicit lover of Duke Compa had apologized. It was natural considering human nature. However, the masses balanced the scales in a different way.

“Did you hear that story? About the second daughter of the De Mare family?”

“Count Cesare is said to be on the brink of hanging himself!”

“Oh my, how romantic!”

“They do have a point, the men. She does have a certain charm.”

“But, they said that the prince defended the honor of the woman his halfbrother was proposing to. Why then did he take her away alone?”

“So, they were alone in the garden? That’s an affair, what else can it be?”

“Prince Alfonso and Count Cesare aren’t in such a relationship to help each other, are they?”

“Right, true. He seems interested himself.”

In the blink of an eye, Ariadne became the most famous woman in San Carlo, who received proposals from the king’s two illegitimate sons at once.

“Isn’t it the first time Count Cesare is so attached?”

“Yes, he never refused any woman coming to him, but this is the first time he is clinging himself. It’s a first!”

“Well, I heard that Count Cesare is so desperate that he is spending his days in drinking and gambling since Lady De Mare is not accepting his proposal!”

The usual drinking and gambling of Cesare were used as ingredients to emphasize Ariadne’s charm.

“But isn’t Prince Alfonso supposed to have a political marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Valois?”

“Tsk tsk, his mother was a Gallic woman, and now his wife too? Their child would be threefourths Gallic and onefourth Etruscan. He should be the king of Gaul, not Etruscan.”

“It would be nice if there was a queen of Etruscan origin…”

Then another rumor spread in San Carlo. The rumor that the mistress of Duke Compa was actually the daughter of Cardinal De Mare, but it was not the second daughter Ariadne, but the eldest daughter Isabella.

“Well, I saw it. Isabella De Mare had a red ruby that fell from Duke Compa’s bracelet!”

The one spreading this story fervently was Camellia De Castiglione.

“Really? Why would the elder Lady De Mare have that?”

“Duke Compa gave that bracelet to Lady De Mare, but fearing discovery, she threw it away! There was supposedly a woman who fled, but nobody saw who she was, right? Isabella came from the direction of the fleeing woman?”

As people speculated collectively, some extremely plausible theories began to pour out. They were far from the actual truth, but nobody cared about such minor details.

“Well… Isabella De Mare was in that empty lot all along.”

“What kind of noblewoman can run away so quickly? She didn’t run away, she just stood there pretending not to be there, didn’t she?”

As shocking as the rumor was, it spread like wildfire, and it was clear that Camellia de Castellione was the most passionate disseminator of it.

She, who always took care to guard her reputation, this time did not care whether Isabella herself heard the gossip she had been spreading about her.

Camellia told this story to everyone she met, and made bold claims whenever anyone showed doubt.

“I saw the Duke of Campa’s ruby with my own two eyes in Isabella’s handbag!”

In the process of this becoming a fait accompli, Isabella’s usual behavior became a spear against her.

“Isabella de Mare’s behavior has always been a bit questionable…”

“You put it quite elegantly. More accurately, she has been stringing along all the men in the city.”

Not only Camellia had been slighted by Isabella. A dozen people who had their fiancés’ attention stolen were also affected.

And those who had been previously smitten by Isabella joined the fray like a swarm of bees. While the last case would have been unfair to Isabella, karma did not take precise measurements.

The karma that she had built up over time flared up like a fire and became a weapon against Isabella.

“Weren’t the dresses she wore too vulgar?”

“We cannot disregard her birth. After all, her mother was a mistress, wasn’t she?”

“It’s the limit of a bastard child. They imitate what they see. Her mother also wore a dress with an impossibly deep neckline.”

“Blood doesn’t lie.”

The women’s attacks on Isabella, born of jealousy, power struggle, and victim mentality, were more interested in the men’s attacks and were more base.

“Why on earth did Isabella de Mare mess with the Duke of Campa? Money? Attention?”

“She doesn’t care who she’s with, as long as they wear trousers, right?”

“Hey, if she did it with the Duke of Campa, would she do it with me?”

The rumor spread wildly throughout the capital. But as always, such rumors were the last to reach the person in question.

And unfortunately for Isabella, the person who heard this rumor first was not Isabella, but Cardinal de Mare. He returned home from a meeting at the palace, his goatlike beard trembling with rage.

“ISABELLA!”

“Your Eminence Cardinal de Mare.”

Cardinal de Mare turned his head at the sound of his name after the meeting. It was the Duke of Baldassare, one of the Curia Regis, who serve the king and act as the cabinet, responsible for general administration and strategic materials.

“Duke Baldassare, there were so many people at the meeting that I couldn’t greet you. Have you been well?”

Cardinal de Mare and Duke Baldassare were powerful men in the capital and often had afternoon tea together. Their teatime conversations often served as a place for useful information exchange.

Duke Baldassare, who stopped Cardinal de Mare in the corridor, looked around and lowered his voice.

“Your Eminence Cardinal de Mare. There is something you need to hear.”

“Really? What is it… is it about the Asereto sect?”

The Holy Church has declared the Apostle of Asereto a heretic and dispatched inquisitors everywhere to wipe out his followers. Both innocent and guilty people were being caught.

Most of the inquisitors were focused on Asereto, and San Carlo was still quiet. But when Pope Ludovico’s hunters showed up in San Carlo to catch the Asereto sect, there was a high chance that the target would be Cardinal de Mare himself.

So Cardinal de Mare always kept his ears open. If there were any requests from Pope Ludovico to the Etruscan administration, Duke Baldassare would be the one to give him a heads up.

But Duke Baldassare shook his head.

“It’s a story circulating among the ladies in the social circle…”

He chuckled awkwardly as if he was embarrassed to relay such information.

“Usually the chatter of high society can simply be ignored, but as a cardinal, I presume you have no other channel to hear these stories, so I poked my nose in.”

The talk was about Lucrezia, the legitimate wife of Cardinal de Mare, not being able to secure a position in high society.

Cardinal de Mare had no idea what gossip among the nobility, where mergers between noble families or someone’s adultery were the main topics of conversation, he should be listening to.

Cardinal de Mare was a devoted family man and had no particular scandals to speak of, and as far as he knew, there were no significant marriage proposals or major proposals coming into the de Mare family.

But Duke Baldesar was not a man to discuss trivialities. Cardinal de Mare, with a slightly uneasy feeling, asked Duke Baldesar.

“Then what on earth is it……”

Duke Baldesar lowered his voice and began to whisper into Cardinal de Mare’s ear.

Cardinal de Mare’s eyes widened.

“…What, what is this!”