“His Highness the Grand Duke has arrived.”

“Your Highness.”

I turned away from Caitlin and smiled brightly at my fiancé, no, the man who had now become my husband.

“We will be leaving now, Anette. It might be difficult to return here, is there anything you’re leaving behind?”

The rough voice had disappeared, replaced by a low, handsome voice showing concern for me. Though the tone was stiff, it was filled with worry.

“Since Your Highness mentions it, I should check once more.”

I glanced at Caitlin. She was clenching her fists and trembling, with an aggrieved and indignant expression.

Her face seemed to say, ‘No one said the Inkhart Grand Duke was this handsome!’

The expressions of the Porche Viscount’s household when Darius first removed his silver mask and attended breakfast.

The Viscount’s mouth fell open, and his younger brother made a strange face. The Viscountess and Caitlin’s faces turned red, unable to even speak properly.

“W-who is this?”

“Darius Inkhart.”

Caitlin’s expression when she learned that the suddenly appeared young handsome man was her despised half-sister’s fiancé. Just recalling that expression could make me bolt upright even in my sleep. It was too delightful.

I called a maid to check my luggage one last time. There wasn’t much for me to take. A few newly prepared dresses, Anette’s diary, jewels I had wrested from Caitlin…

“Huh?”

My hand, rummaging between the sparkling red rubies and diamond rings, moved faster and faster.

My face hardened as I examined the jewelry box.

“My mother’s keepsake is missing!”

Soon after, a maid cried out in shock.

“Miss Anette’s necklace is gone!”

* * *

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I cried out in grief.

“How could they! Not just anything, but my late mother’s keepsake!”

The mansion was thrown into a state of emergency. To have the late Viscountess’s keepsake stolen on the day the eldest daughter was to be married. The wedding ceremony was immediately halted.

The entire mansion was in an uproar as they searched the house, and after the search, the culprit was caught.

The culprit was none other than the nanny.

“Nanny, how could you do this to me?”

I cried out vehemently, overcome with sorrow. So intensely that anyone watching might think my deceased mother had just passed away again.

“W-why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

The nanny, dragged out with her arms held by servants, looked around at people, terrified. She was the nanny who hadn’t shown her face at all while her young lady was about to leave for a distant place. On the day I was leaving home, the nanny too was packing her bags.

“With Miss Anette no longer in the house, I should leave the mansion too.”

It was a plausible reason.

“You have nothing to say even after seeing this necklace?”

Hup, filled with indignation, I held up the blue sapphire necklace in front of the nanny’s eyes.

“That’s!”

The nanny, her arms restrained, widened her eyes.

“To think that you would steal my mother’s necklace of all things!”

“What are you saying? That’s the one Miss Anette gave to me!”

“I gave the necklace to you?”

I shook my head as if in disbelief.

She had fallen for it. I barely managed to suppress the corners of my mouth from rising, forcing myself to speak in a crying voice.

“What have you ever done for me that I would give you my mother’s keepsake? Did you think I was that easy? To steal valuables and use me as an excuse?”

Everyone in the mansion knew that the servants had not treated Anette well. That’s why the excuse I conveniently fabricated using Anette sounded convincing to everyone.

“To think we’ve been feeding and clothing a thief in our mansion.”

Caitlin was the first to coldly turn away from the nanny. Though she and the nanny had gotten along well when mistreating Anette, when the critical moment came, Caitlin didn’t offer a single word of excuse for the nanny.

“Miss Anette!”

The nanny, sensing things were going wrong, cried out.

“You gave them to me saying I had worked hard taking care of you all this time. The necklace and money too. You said to live comfortably for the rest of my life with these! Why are you doing this now?”

“I wanted to leave only good memories on the day I leave my family home, but since it’s come to this, I have to say it. What do you think you’ve done for me to deserve anything from me?”

Even the nanny, who had been asserting her innocence, was at a loss for words at that. The truth was, she had never once been kind to Anette.

“Father wanted to send you with me out of concern as I leave for a distant place, but you flatly refused. Saying you didn’t want to go to the cold north.”

I reproached the nanny, shedding tears incessantly.

“I tried to understand that you might not want to go because of your age… But to think that was actually you sneaking away my belongings, thinking I wouldn’t be able to find them once I left! And money too!”

“Miss Anette! Why are you telling such lies! No, I didn’t steal Miss Anette’s necklace! The money was given to me by you too!”

The nanny, her face turned yellow, pleaded to the Viscount, the Viscountess, and Caitlin. But the Viscountess and Caitlin only looked at her with cold faces.

“Take that woman to prison. Give her a good thrashing until she tells the truth!”

Soon after, the Viscount coldly passed judgment.

* * *

Due to the incident of the stolen sapphire necklace, the Grand Duke and I ended up staying one more day at the mansion.

“I regret the incident with your nanny.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Let me rest a little. The shock was too great.”

Although Darius comforted me, I kept a sad face all day, shocked by the betrayal of the nanny I had trusted.

After curling up like that, when night fell, I quietly left the room.

The place I headed to was the underground prison of the Viscount’s mansion.

“Miss Anette.”

“I want to talk about why the nanny did that.”

At my request to be left alone quietly, the guard left his post with a sympathetic expression.

“Ugh…”

“Nanny.”

In just half a day, the nanny had been severely interrogated and was now lying on the prison floor, groaning.

“You! How dare you come here!”

“Where else would I be? This is the underground prison, and you’re locked up now. For clearly committing a crime.”

As soon as she saw my face, the nanny screamed.

“You! You gave them to me! I said I didn’t need them, but you, Anette, you pushed them into my hands!”

“That’s right. I gave them to you.”

I cheerfully admitted.

Rustling. I pulled out Anette’s diary from my bosom. Poor Anette. With no one to talk to, you always wrote your innermost thoughts here. Thanks to that, I was able to know in detail what had happened to Anette all this time.

“You wicked thing, you evil thing! How could I have raised you like this!”

“‘It rained today. Rosalyn was severely scolded and sent home. The nanny said Rosalyn had stolen something. But I know.'”

The nanny’s face contorted at the sudden recitation of the diary.

“Rosalyn?”

“‘Rosalyn didn’t steal anything. It was clearly someone else who stole. Rosalyn worried about me even as she was being driven out. She said she could find another job, but I had to stay in this house.'”

Rosalyn was a young maid who had newly entered the Viscount’s household around that time.

This maid, only a year or two older than Anette, treated Anette like a younger sister and took care of her. The servants of the Viscount’s household, who all joined forces to bully Anette, must have found Rosalyn irritating.

“Don’t you remember? The nanny herself grabbed Rosalyn’s wrist and said these hands had stolen the Viscount’s valuables like a little rat.”

“I don’t remember! Such a thieving girl! She must have been punished for doing wrong!”

“You must not remember because you’ve committed too many sins.”

I clicked my tongue.

People who think they’re the only ones who can set traps end up falling into their own tricks.

The Viscount had wanted the nanny to accompany Anette when she got married and went to the north. Of course, it wasn’t out of beautiful concern for his daughter going far away, but because he wanted to send someone along to gather information about the north.

I didn’t want the nanny to come along.

“Father seemed to want the nanny to go to the north with you. What do you think, nanny?”

The nanny, with a not-so-pleased look, said she would go to the north if I increased her salary.

“There’s no need for that. How could someone who’s lived in the south all her life survive in the north? Your health isn’t good either, nanny.”

So I took out the blue sapphire necklace that the nanny couldn’t take her eyes off from the jewelry box and placed it in her hand.

“You’ve raised me all my life, nanny. This is my thanks.”

And I emptied my purse to give money to the nanny, telling her to tell the Viscount that she was leaving the mansion due to poor health. Saying that with this money and that sapphire necklace, she could live the rest of her life in plenty.

“Guard! Miss Anette has told the truth! Is anyone there? Miss Anette has admitted to lying!”

“Oh nanny, who do you think would come here?”

I laughed softly and reached through the prison bars. I lifted the nanny’s head, which had become a mess in just half a day.

“There’s no one here to listen to you, nanny.”

Just as no one had paid attention to Anette’s plight when she was shivering in that old room.

In the end, life has a way of paying back.

“If you had even a minimum of conscience, you wouldn’t be there right now. Did you really think you deserved to receive such precious things?”

Hahaha. My laughter echoed in the prison. If she had known her place, she wouldn’t have accepted it. If she had known what she had done to Anette, she would have been too scared to accept that necklace.

The nanny being in prison was ultimately her own doing.

“Is anyone there? Anyone will do! Please, come here and listen to what Miss Anette is saying!”

The nanny’s desperate voice reverberated throughout the prison, but it was futile.

If Anette were here, I’d like to tell her.

‘You’re not here, but I’ve taken revenge for you.’