“His Grace, the Duke has arrived.”

“Your Grace.”

I turned away from Kaitlyn and greeted my fiancé, now my husband, with a bright smile.

“It’s time to leave, Annette. It might be difficult to come back here. Have you left anything behind?”

His voice, once rough, now expressed concern in a low and graceful tone. Despite the formal manner, it was filled with worry.

“Since Your Grace has mentioned it, I should check once more.”

I glanced at Kaitlyn. She looked resentful and angry, her fists clenched and trembling.

‘The Duke Inkheart was never said to be so handsome!’ She seemed to say.

The expression on the faces of the Porshe family when Darius first attended breakfast without his silver mask.

The Duke’s mouth was agape, and my younger brother made a bizarre face. The Duchess and Kaitlyn were so flushed and speechless.

〈Who are you?〉

〈Darius Inkheart.〉

Kaitlyn’s expression when she realized the young, handsome man, previously ignored, was her step-sister’s fiancé. Just recalling that expression could wake me from sleep. It was too delightful.

I called a maid to check my belongings one last time. I had little to take: a few new dresses, Annette’s diary, jewels I got from Kaitlyn…

“Uh?”

My hand, rifling through the red rubies and sparkling diamond rings, quickened.

My face turned cold as I examined the jewelry box.

“My mother’s heirloom is missing!”

A maid suddenly screamed in shock.

“Miss Annette’s necklace is gone!”

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. Overwhelmed with grief, I shouted.

“How could they! My deceased mother’s heirloom!”

Panic ensued in the mansion. On the day the eldest daughter was to marry, the heirloom of the late Duchess was stolen. The wedding ceremony was immediately halted.

The mansion was in turmoil. After a thorough search, the culprit was caught.

It was the nanny.

“Nanny, how could you do this to me?”

I cried out, furiously and heartbroken. Anyone would think my mother had passed away again.

“What are you talking about?”

The nanny, dragged out by the servants, looked terrified. She had been absent while I was leaving. On the day I was leaving, the nanny was also packing her bags.

〈With Miss Annette gone, I too should leave the mansion.〉

It seemed a plausible reason.

“Do you have nothing to say after seeing this necklace?”

I held up a blue sapphire necklace before the nanny, filled with indignation.

“That’s!”

The nanny’s eyes widened, her arms held by the servants.

“You stole my mother’s necklace!”

“What are you saying? You gave it to me, Miss Annette!”

“I gave you the necklace?”

I shook my head in disbelief.

Caught. I barely restrained a smile, pretending to cry.

“Why would I give my mother’s heirloom to you? Was I that easygoing? To steal valuables and use me as an excuse?”

Everyone in the mansion knew the servants didn’t treat Annette well. Therefore, the excuse I fabricated to frame the nanny was convincing to everyone.

“To think we were feeding and sheltering a thief in our mansion.”

Kaitlyn was the first to coldly turn away from the nanny. She had been in cahoots with the nanny when mistreating Annette, but in a moment of crisis, Kaitlyn didn’t utter a word in defense.
“Miss Annette!”

The nanny cried out, sensing something was going terribly wrong.

“Miss, you gave it to me because I had served you for so long. You gave me the necklace and money to live comfortably in my old age! But why are you doing this now!”

“I wanted to leave with only good memories on the day I leave my family home, but since it has come to this, I must speak. Do you think you’ve treated me well enough to receive anything from me?”

At this, even the nanny, who was asserting her innocence, lost her words. In truth, she had never treated Annette well.

“My father wanted to send you with me as I was leaving for a far place, but you flatly refused, not wanting to go to the cold North.”

I wept endlessly, resenting the nanny.

“You said you didn’t want to go because of your age, and I tried to understand… but it turns out you were planning to steal my things and money when I left! Including that!”

“Miss Annette! Why are you lying! No, I didn’t steal your necklace! You gave me the money!”

The nanny, her face turning yellow, pleaded with the Duke, the Duchess, and Kaitlyn. However, the Duchess and Kaitlyn looked at her coldly.

“Take this woman to prison. Make her confess until she tells the truth!”

The Duke soon coldly passed judgment.

Due to the sapphire necklace theft, the Duke and I had to stay at the mansion for another day.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your nanny, Your Grace.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace. I need to rest a bit. It’s been a shock.”

Darius comforted me, but I spent the day with a sad face, shocked by the betrayal of the nanny I trusted.

That night, I quietly left my room.

My destination was the Porshe family’s underground prison.

“Miss Annette.”

“I want to talk about why you did it.”

At my request to be left alone with her, the guard moved aside with a sympathetic look.

“Uh…”

Male lead is a Divorced Husband

She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”

Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.

After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.

She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.

But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…

Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!

――

This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!

The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.

That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”

Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”

The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”

That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”

Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”

The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.

Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.

“She was originally a ‘she’!”

At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.

The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”

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