LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 86
The couple, Marquis Stefan and his wife, were a typical noble pair. They weren’t particularly affectionate with each other either in public or private.
However, because they had many children together, they had reached a level of mutual trust and cooperation.
“Ahem, ahem. You’re here?”
Marquis Stefan let out a cough as he faced his wife’s stern expression.
There was never any good news when she looked at him with such a grumpy face.
“You look happy?”
“Of course, why would I frown when things are going so well?”
And, as expected, his bad feeling proved to be right.
“Things are going well, you say?”
Her perfectly maintained forehead furrowed deeply.
“Is there a problem? Has the Empress caught on…?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what? Is it the social circles?”
“No! You haven’t read the latest issue of “Safety rules for duke’s haunted manor”, have you?”
“Why wouldn’t I read that?”
As his voice rose, Marquis Stefan became just as irritated and raised his tone.
He had spent money to read that cursed comic thoroughly just to confirm the overlapping storylines.
Yet, he couldn’t understand why his wife was acting like this.
“Then at least check the last page! That’s what’s causing all the trouble now!”
Feeling like his excitement was crashing down into a muddy pit, the marquis picked up the magazine on the nearby table and flipped it open.
Naturally, the content was the same as he had read several times before.
However, as he flipped through the comic pages, the last page contained a notice he hadn’t seen before…
“U-uhh…?”
As he slowly read the words aloud, a strange groan escaped from his mouth.
He had just rented storage space from Count Rolaks for their fake business…
“Is this… the authentic version?!”
Thud.
The magazine fell from his hands.
Audrey, observing her husband’s distorted face, let out a sigh.
“Haa…”
Having recently tried to stay close to the Empress, Audrey had learned that her husband had recently met the Crown Prince. She also had a keen sense of where their newfound wealth had come from, and she could easily figure out what had happened.
This only made her worry even more.
In the noble society she knew, survival of the fittest was the rule of nature.
If you offend the higher-ups, you could quickly fall out of their favor and be thrown out of the circle they control.
She, as the wife of the marquis, understood this very well, having once not been within the Empress’s circle.
“Dear, think about everything we’ve built up until now. If it all crumbles now, it will be incredibly hard to recover.”
Audrey recalled the past.
When she had first married Stefan, his family hadn’t yet gained the kind of fame it had now.
While people now praised the House of Stefan as an ancient and wealthy family, it hadn’t always been like that.
The previous marquis and his wife had died young in a landslide, and when Stefan inherited the title, others merely treated them as mere merchants.
They were treated like beggars, constantly pleading for money from other nobles!
Thinking about how humiliating that was, Audrey still felt her hands tremble with shame.
Nobles might boast about handling rare and valuable goods, but to put it bluntly, they were no different from authorized door-to-door salesmen.
Before Audrey took the Empress’s side, people had subtly mocked and avoided her, thinking she was beneath them, especially when she was close friends with the late Empress Dowager.
But when she couldn’t endure any longer, a sweet offer came from the Empress that she couldn’t refuse.
“You’re a friend of the Empress Dowager, aren’t you? You must know at least one of her embarrassing secrets.”
“I would never do such a thing…”
“Don’t you know that you must hold my hand, not your friends’, when you look at your children?”
As the Empress suggested, Audrey couldn’t refuse, and so she betrayed her friend publicly and became the Empress’s right-hand woman.
From then on, no matter how much others criticized her, she and her husband stood firm, leading the House of Stefan together.
She didn’t care who cried blood in their wake. Her ambition to climb up the social ladder had been achieved, and she had no intention of going back to the past.
“Dear, you haven’t forgotten who you’ve been relying on, have you?”
Audrey made it clear that she didn’t want to offend the royal family.
But now, with her husband’s business in ruins and on the brink of losing the Crown Prince’s money, this was a clear crisis.
“What will we do now?”
Her sharp reproach made Stefan’s face stiffen. Despite his wife’s talents, he had also worked hard to secure their future, and naturally, he was worried.
“First… we need to stop distributing those fake thermoses quickly. The longer the tail, the easier it is to step on.”
“And after that?”
“Can we do anything? As long as we make it clear that the items aren’t from the House of Stefan, they should have no further recourse…”
“No, we need to make sure we have a solid plan.”
Realizing what his wife was suggesting, Stefan shook his head.
“We can’t attack the Mage Tower.”
Turning the Mage Tower into an enemy now would only fan unnecessary flames.
But Audrey wasn’t ready to back down.
“Then, at least we should drive a wedge between the Mage Tower and the House of Blaire. I don’t understand why the Mage Tower is doing such troublesome work for the House of Blaire in the first place.”
“Hmm…”
“Ugh…”
It might sound overly aggressive at first, but there was nothing wrong with the Marchioness’s words.
And in that moment, a thought crossed Marquis Stefan’s mind.
‘The wizards of the Magic Tower are known for their strong pride and high egos.’
Perhaps the Blaire Duke’s family had offered a generous amount to cover up this issue, but breaking the shallow bonds formed over money was easier than it seemed.
“It would be best to spread a rumor.”
“…A rumor?”
“That the wizards threw away their pride and everything else, working for the Blaire Duke’s family just for the money.”
Marquis Stefan, lounging comfortably against the back of the sofa, smiled with a smirk.
“If that gets out, the proud scholars will be furious, and whether it’s their goodwill toward the Duke or their dealings with him, they’ll want to cut ties. They’d want to protect their pride.”
Having frequently communicated with wizards for the trade of luxury goods and valuables, Marquis Stefan knew them well.
Their trading style, their psychology.
‘This time, I’ll break their pride.’
The fools at the Blaire Duke’s estate, who were probably busy cleaning up the mess, didn’t know yet, but…
Marquis Stefan still had one last move left.