Quite a few people around began to murmur at the remarkable performance.

Lucas, who had been holding back a triumphant smile, frowned the next moment.

“Delusional disorder and paranoid disorder.”

It was because he discovered that not even a crack had appeared on Ariana’s calm face.

“Is this the counterattack that the Marquis thought of?”

Ariana, who had been smiling all along, let out a small chuckle.

With that flawless smile alone, Lucas felt his composure shaken.

Gritting his teeth, Lucas opened his mouth.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Ariana said with a bright smile.

“It’s because it’s much more pathetic than I thought.”

“What… What did you say?”

Lucas muttered, furrowing his brow.

“You were so confident, so I thought. That you might have come up with some clever trick in the meantime.”

Tilting her head slightly, Ariana put on a thoughtful expression.

“It was quite a confident face for something so pathetic… Ah, I see. Did you forge my mental illness diagnosis?”

“…Ha.”

Caught off guard, Lucas reflexively let out a hollow laugh.

“Forge? That’s what you want to claim. This is a diagnosis directly from your family doctor.”

“That doctor who is struggling with chronic gambling debts.”

At the cold reply, Lucas’ eyes widened.

“A guy who would easily sell his honor as a doctor for a few pennies. How much did you give him? A hundred thousand cadena? Three hundred thousand cadena? More than that would have been difficult.”

A blatant sneer formed on the corners of Ariana’s lips.

“Marquis, your financial situation isn’t that great. You’ve invested almost all of your remaining assets into the Lopez House.”

“…You insolent thing, how dare you!”

Unable to endure the insult, Lucas raised his hand.

But at the same time, he felt the gazes pouring in from all around.

‘Damn it, there are too many people…!’

Until he brought up the delusional disorder, Lucas thought the momentum had shifted to his side.

However, as Ariana’s calm rebuttal continued, suspicion gradually began to fill people’s eyes.

‘Did he really bribe the doctor?’

‘Trying to label his fiancée as delusional and fabricating a mental illness history… Surely he wouldn’t have done that.’

‘Right, the honor of the Marquis of Fedegrin is at stake.’

‘But look at the eyes of that lady. Those aren’t the eyes of a crazy person, are they?’

Feeling the atmosphere turning unfavorable to him, Lucas gritted his teeth.

But nothing was certain yet. Ariana’s claim that he had bribed the doctor was just speculation, wasn’t it?

Lucas glared at Ariana with wide eyes.

“Even if you deny the illness… It’s true that you had an inappropriate relationship with the Duke. You, who ran out of the wedding hall hand in hand with the Duke, cannot deny this.”

However, the smile on the corners of Ariana’s lips only deepened.

“It seems Elena hasn’t told you yet.”

“…What?”

“Well, she must have been quite distressed. The last time I saw her, she looked quite devastated.”

“You made her that way!”

Lucas shouted.

“You framed that poor girl with the dirty accusation of sleeping with her sister’s husband! It turns out that taking away the entire orchestra and ruining the stage was also your doing.”

Glaring at the remaining members still on stage, Lucas growled.

Ariana said with a light laugh.

“Elena’s despair wasn’t because the orchestra ran away. You still don’t know her. She’s not a child weak enough to crumble over something like that.”

“What more nonsense are you trying to−.”

“What I showed Elena, I’ll show it to you too, Marquis.”

Taking something out from inside her dress, Ariana threw it at Lucas’ chest with a thud.

Confirming the identity of the ‘something’ that hit his chest, Lucas’ eyes widened.

“This is…?”

A photo of him embracing Elena and kissing her.

It was captured so blatantly that there was no room for excuses, and Lucas slowly opened his mouth.

The same confusion that had struck Elena an hour ago similarly hit Lucas’ mind.

“This, why… Since when did you…”

Muttering in a dazed voice, Lucas was met with Ariana’s gentle recitation.

“When an act that constitutes grounds for marital breakdown occurs, the victimized party is given the right to claim unilateral divorce. Subsequent acts are not held accountable for the breakdown of the marriage.”

It was a long-forgotten law.

In the Empire, a divorced woman would face a bleak future in making a living.

Therefore, even if the wife experienced grounds for marital breakdown, she would not claim divorce.

Among the husbands who wanted a divorce, only an extremely small number of particularly wicked men would falsely accuse their wives of infidelity and freely cheat on them using that law.

“In other words, the moment you slept with my little sister…”

Ariana smiled brightly as she cited the archaic law.

“It means I’m free to love any man I want.”

“…You.”

Lucas slowly opened his trembling lips.

“You’re really a scary woman.”

With a hollow laugh, Lucas shook his head.

“You were a woman scary enough to make one lose their mind.”

Ariana remained still, her smile unwavering.

Lucas growled in a low voice, consumed by anger.

“No wonder I got sick of you. Pretending to be all innocent and ignorant on your own… When were you secretly plotting this kind of thing?”

Crumpling the photo, Lucas pointed accusingly.

“Your only charm was your purity. You know that?”

“…”

“But to think even that was a false image, ha. I had terribly poor judgment in women. Do you know that, Ariana?”

A cruel smile hung on Lucas’ lips.

“That Duke fellow will soon get sick of you too. You’re a woman with no charm or fun, not worthy of being loved. Did you spread those expensive legs of yours to seduce the Duke? Even so, he will surely soon− Ugh.”

Lucas couldn’t continue.

A large hand grabbed his collar and lifted him up.

“Ugh, guh, what is this…”

As his body was pulled up and dangled in the air, Lucas’ face flushed with humiliation.

Turning to look at the perpetrator of this outrageous act, Lucas opened his mouth.

“Du-Duke…!”

“I thought we agreed to drop the formalities? It seems I’ve unexpectedly gained a close friend.”

“Duke, plea−.”

Dante tightened his grip on Lucas’ collar as he tried to add an honorific belatedly.

“By the way, I tend to treat those close to me more roughly.”

“Guh!”

“Since we’ve become close enough to drop formalities, let me give you a piece of advice.”

Dante grinned fiercely at the reddened face lacking oxygen.

“There’s nothing more repulsive than a man clinging to a woman who left because she didn’t like him.”

“Guh, guh, let go, right now…”

Even as he flailed his legs, Lucas’ eyes widened.

‘I am the Marquis of Fedegrin!’

The head of a renowned family of meritorious subjects who contributed to the founding of the nation. Even if the other party was the murderous Duke, he couldn’t treat him like a bug like this.

However…

“So stop pestering my fiancée.”

The moment the Duke glared at Lucas with those blood-red eyes, Lucas’ limbs turned to stone.

His brain, overwhelmed by the killing intent, spewed out such irrational fear that this man could slit his throat on the spot.

Surveying the stiffened Lucas, the Duke twisted his lips.

Faced with the blatant mockery, blood rushed to his head, but there was nothing Lucas could do while suspended in midair.

“Get lost now.”

As soon as he spat out the words, Dante released his grip.

“Cough, cough!”

Lucas collapsed to the ground and let out violent coughs.

Ariana watched the scene with cold, sunken eyes.

‘What an unsightly sight.’

The man who had spat curses at her with flying saliva was now wagging his tail in front of a larger male…

It was so unsightly that she didn’t want to believe she had once respected him as her husband.

“Let’s go, Ariana.”

Dante grabbed Ariana’s hand and led her away without hesitation.

The bold skinship and escort made the observing ladies cover their mouths.

‘Oh my, oh my.’

‘Look at that forcefulness…’

‘The current fiancé smashed the ex-fiancé into the ground… Why watch a melodrama? Reality is more entertaining.’

Feeling her skin tingle from the gazes pouring in from all directions, Ariana looked back.

She saw Lucas glaring at her with eyes stained with anger and humiliation.

A resentful, furious expression.

It was the first time she had seen the face that was always filled with pride and arrogance as the head of the Marquis family tainted with such an expression.

Ariana swallowed a smile.

‘Don’t make that face over just this.’

Your downfall is only just beginning.

As she followed Dante’s footsteps, a thin voice was heard.

“Ah, Lady Ariana.”

It was Rosalyn. The expression of happiness from the audience’s cheers was gone, replaced by a pitiful face like a puppy drenched in rain.

Ariana smiled slightly.

She knew that Rosalyn had tried to intervene between her and Lucas several times.

Ariana gave a brief greeting to Rosalyn, whose face had turned into a crying expression.

“I’ll contact you by the end of the day. Please let the members know as well.”

“Yes, yes!”

Leaving behind Rosalyn, who was nodding her head quickly, and the countless gazes directed at her, Ariana continued on her way.