No, wait. Lady Dowager.

Why is the conversation suddenly going in that direction?

Stunned by the unexpected turn of the conversation topic, I couldn’t even deny it.

“You poor thing.”

But the Dowager Duchess, taking Dalia’s silence as affirmation, began to tear up.

She turned her head to wipe away her tears, like someone who didn’t want to be seen crying.

“I once had thoughts like yours too.”

The Dowager Duchess murmured in a choked voice.

About her past when she was sold into marriage as the third wife of the Sayer ducal family.

“Though I entered as a subsequent wife, I truly loved my husband. So I desperately wished to bear a child who resembled him, even if it was a daughter. And soon I thought that dream would come true.”

The Dowager Duchess’s eyes, which had been on Dalia, moved downward. Then, with a very bitter look, she caressed her flat stomach.

“But I valued myself more than a child not yet born. If I had known that secret earlier, I would have eaten aconite myself. But you, even though you already know… To love Clayton that much.”

Hm?

The Dowager Duchess’s line of thinking seems a bit off.

“Yes, I’ve decided, Dalia.”

“…Decided what?”

Dalia anxiously gazed at the Dowager Duchess, who suddenly grasped her hands with a resolute look.

“That I won’t leave the mansion.”

“What?”

“I was originally planning to leave for the southern villa under the pretext of recuperation. But I’ll stay here and be on your side.”

Um… well.

Listen, mother-in-law.

I’m fine even if you leave.

After meeting the Dowager Duchess and returning to her room, Dalia flopped onto the sofa with a sigh.

“Looks like I’m in for an unexpected life of serving my in-laws.”

How is it that the people in this mansion make assumptions and judgments on their own…

I’m so exhausted I could die.

“Today I’ll just rest in my room without moving an inch.”

Dalia was already mentally and physically drained, though all she had done since waking up in the morning was visit the Dowager Duchess in the annex.

Just as she closed her eyes to relieve her physical and mental fatigue, the butler came to her room.

After Dalia gave permission, the butler entered, bowed politely and said:

“My lady. I’m told the dress alterations you ordered are finished. If it’s alright with you now, would you like to try it on?”

“Dress?”

“Yes. The dress you left for the garden party.”

“Garden party…?”

Ah!

Dalia’s eyes sparkled as if remembering something important.

‘Right! The garden party!’

The garden party held every spring in Cadwell Park was the first event for nobles returning to the capital after spending winter in their territories.

On the surface, it was for enjoying boating while viewing the fully bloomed flowers, but it was also a forum for discussing domestic and foreign affairs that had changed during the winter.

The noble ladies also shared anecdotes from their territories. Though most stories were trivial, they occasionally provided inspiration for new business ventures.

For this reason, no noble missed Cadwell’s garden party.

And the garden party episode was quite an important one in the original story.

Because it was the episode where the male lead, Clayton, first shows interest in the female lead.

‘Clayton hated being active during the day.’

He was uncomfortable in sunlight.

Well, didn’t he say that under the sun he felt an unbearable thirst and all his nerves became sensitive?

Because of that, Clayton spent most of his days in the mansion unless it was a schedule he absolutely had to attend for political reasons.

But the spring garden party was one event that even Clayton could not miss, so he would attend as a couple with Dalia.

And there, Clayton realizes that when he’s with the female lead, he doesn’t feel thirsty or sensitive, so he starts taking her along whenever he has to go out.

When bodies are close, hearts grow closer too. The interest that began with the garden party gradually changed to affection for the female lead.

Dalia, recalling the original story’s content, raised her head.

“When exactly is the garden party?”

“It’s in four days, my lady.”

“Four days…”

Dalia’s eyes sparkled as she secretly clenched her fist so the butler wouldn’t notice.

‘That day, I’ll definitely seduce the male lead!’

Four days later.

The rattling carriage gradually slowed its movement before coming to a stop.

“We’ve arrived.”

Along with a man’s voice, the carriage door opened. Dalia carefully stepped out, escorted by Clayton who had alighted first.

Dalia lifted her head to look around, greeted by a refreshing breeze welcoming her.

As if proving it was spring, the park where the garden party was being held was beautifully adorned with yellow forsythias and white cherry blossom trees.

After being momentarily captivated by the spring atmosphere she hadn’t felt in a while, Dalia glanced at Clayton standing a step ahead of her.

‘He still looks fine for now.’

The time when the two arrived at Cadwell Park where the garden party was being held was 10:30 AM.

It wasn’t yet the time when the sun would be scorching.

Though it was spring, it was still early spring, so the weather was rather cool. Perhaps because of that, Clayton’s condition seemed no different than usual.

‘There’s no use sticking close to him now.’

Since he wasn’t uncomfortable, he wouldn’t notice any change even if she was beside him.

He would start feeling strain on his body around noon.

‘Then I should stay apart for a while and quietly move to his side at noon.’

Her plan was to gently approach the male lead’s side when the sun was at its hottest and his patience and discomfort had reached their limit.

In the original story, it was described that the moment their skin touched, all the unpleasantness subsided as if a cool breeze had come on a midsummer day.

So he would welcome her presence like an oasis found in a desert.

Having decided thus, Dalia naturally moved away from his side and said:

“I’ll go where the other ladies are. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Since the main event started with the royal family members making an appearance anyway, Clayton didn’t try to hold Dalia back.

Or rather, she thought he wouldn’t hold her back. But.

“If you have something to say…”

Dalia trailed off, seeing the man’s eyes as if he had something to tell her.

Then Clayton averted his gaze as if nothing had happened.

“…It’s nothing.”

And he left without lingering.

“What was that about, so anticlimactic.”

Dalia shrugged her shoulders, having been needlessly tense wondering what the man might say to her.

As Dalia headed towards where the noble ladies were gathered.

The noblewomen chatting in small groups began to glance at Dalia upon her appearance.

But while they sent indecipherable looks while fanning themselves, not a single one approached her with friendly words.

‘Yes! Alone.’

And the female lead was simply glad of that fact.

Her reputation in high society was already in tatters, and if she engaged in half-hearted conversation, her already bad reputation would surely dig a tunnel and sink underground.

‘I’ll just quietly spend time in a corner and move when the male lead’s condition worsens.’

Just as Dalia thought this and was about to move to a shaded spot under a tree.

“Oh my, who do we have here?”

The sharp voice of a young woman caught her ankle.

“It’s the first time since the wedding, sister.”

The woman with ordinary brown hair and green eyes was calling her “sister” familiarly, but her condescending gaze and sneering lips were far from friendly.

“That’s right. How could you not send even one letter after getting married?”

And a middle-aged woman who had naturally approached her side added to the conversation.

The two people with the same brown hair as the woman who called her sister were so alike that even a stranger could tell they were mother and daughter.

Dalia, finally realizing who they were, let out a short breath.

‘It’s the original female lead’s stepmother and stepsister.’

Orly, Dalia’s stepmother, became Morden Baron’s second wife, bringing 5-year-old Sophie with her.

Outwardly, she pretended to cherish her predecessor’s child like her own daughter, but the reality was different.

‘She hated that Dalia was doing better than her own daughter Sophie.’

Unlike Sophie with her ordinary hair color, Orly disliked Dalia with her mysterious silver hair.

She tried to tear down Dalia, who grew more beautiful like her birth mother day by day, and couldn’t stand Dalia doing anything better than Sophie.

It would have been better if her birth father, Baron Morden, had shown interest in Dalia.

Unfortunately, due to her birth father’s indifference and the harassment from the mother-daughter pair, Dalia could only spend an unhappy childhood.

“Even though I didn’t give birth to you, how can you be so indifferent?”

Orly spoke deliberately loudly to draw attention.

It was something she often did to lower Dalia’s reputation.

It was a shallow tactic to make herself look like a loving stepmother and Dalia look like the predecessor’s ill-mannered daughter who disrespected such a stepmother.

Dalia looked at Orly with indifferent eyes.

‘Come to think of it, was it because of that woman that I became rumored to be barren?’

There was no reason for an unmarried virgin to be rumored barren unless someone deliberately spread rumors.

‘There was even less reason for the fact of being barren to be revealed.’

The reason Dalia thought herself barren was because her periods had stopped long ago.

Of course, it was the result of stress from the two, but Orly didn’t think so.

Because she thought she had made it that way.

‘But what exactly did Orly do?’

She did something to the female lead.

While she was deep in thought, the mother and daughter, thinking Dalia had shrunk back, continued speaking more excitedly.

“That’s right, sister. Our mother worried about you so much.”

“Yes, Dalia. Do you know how much I’ve been worrying about you lately? I’ve been losing sleep thinking you might be mistreated at the Duke’s mansion for being barren.”

‘Orly definitely fed her something…’

But Dalia, ignoring what the two were saying, traced back the contents of the original story.

‘Ah, that’s right!’

Dalia clapped her hands together, finally remembering the reason.

Orly, unaware of Dalia’s inner thoughts, added:

“What on earth did you do when you were young to become unable to bear children…”

Though she didn’t finish her sentence.

“That woman fed me aconite, didn’t she?”

What was meant to be just a thought ended up bursting out of Dalia’s mouth.

And that bombshell announcement was enough to silence the noisy surroundings.