Lucrezia, having hurried to Ariadne De Mare’s study, had no idea why her husband had summoned her to the room of his illegitimate daughter. She knew only that it portended nothing good. She knocked cautiously on the door and, upon hearing her husband’s voice from within, stepped inside.
“Lucrezia. Look at this.”
Cardinal Del Mare waved a ledger in front of her face. It was organized by double-entry bookkeeping, with debits and credits clearly distinguished. Lucrezia peered at the paper, baffled. Why on earth would someone record the same figures twice—once on the left and once on the right?
“This child organized the debutante ball for a mere 138 ducats.”
“Pardon?”
Only then did Lucrezia startle.
“Is that even possible?”
“It is possible, given that there are 12 ducats remaining in my hand right now!”
Cardinal Del Mare shook a pouch of twelve gold coins before her eyes, fuming.
“How much did you spend when you hosted Ippolito’s farewell party? Even though the guest list was half the size of this one, you squandered 536 ducats!”
Under his interrogation, Lucrezia felt a sharp prick of guilt. She lowered her head, eyes fixed on the floor.
“This time, it cost Ariadne 138 ducats to organize the entire ball. That sum even includes 20 ducats for her own adornment. But what about Isabella? Isabella spent 50 ducats on her dress alone!”
Cardinal Del Mare looked ready to tear Lucrezia to pieces with the account book if he could.
“On top of that, between shoes, ornaments, cosmetics, and perfumes, the total amount Isabella spent just to dress herself was 68 ducats! Do you think this makes any sense?”
Lucrezia had no defense; she couldn’t have argued even with ten tongues. She was the one who had authorized Isabella’s extravagant dress. While finalizing Isabella’s accessories, she had even slipped in a piece of gold jewelry for herself. Since they had shared in the spoils, she couldn’t exactly point the finger at her daughter.
“From now on, I will provide the funds for Ariadne’s expenses directly! And see to it that Isabella does not spend a single ducat more than what Ariadne spends!”
“What?! Your Eminence!”
Lucrezia’s face drained of color at the news that control over household finances—however partial—was being handed to the illegitimate daughter.
Lucrezia had her own family members to support. She knew that to yield once was to lose her grip entirely; she could not back down. Summoning the boiling anger from the pit of her stomach, she lashed out at Cardinal Del Mare.
“What becomes of me if Your Eminence does this! As her legal mother, how am I to maintain my authority over that child?”
“If you wanted to be a legal mother, you should have acted like one!”
But Cardinal Del Mare seemed to have no intention of yielding today.
“Do you remember what I said on the day the ‘Heart of the Blue Deep’ was brought in? I told you I would take measures sooner or later!”
He was referring to the scandals exposed in the San Carlo social circle—the times it was revealed that she had bullied Ariadne and failed to provide her with proper food or clothing. Lucrezia had foolishly assumed he had forgotten, given his silence since then. Now, as he picked her apart with meticulous precision, citing every last ducat, she felt only a bitter, stinging sense of injustice.
“I have served you for over twenty years! How could you do this to me?!”
“Exactly twenty-two years. If you had managed these account books with even a shred of care during those twenty-two years, I would not say a word. I may be a man of many faults, but I have never let you want for money. If anything, you should have repaid that trust! I will accept no rebuttal. Take it as it is! Get out!”
Her husband, cold yet once deferential to Lucrezia, was nowhere to be found. Driven by his obsession with gold—a point of friction even with Cardinal Del Mare—and the lingering resentment toward Lucrezia’s family, he had cast her out, leaving her humiliated before Ariadne.
After dismissing Lucrezia, Cardinal Del Mare wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, his irritation still simmering.
“Hmm. Ahem. Regardless. The ledger for this ball was managed quite well. Come to think of it, I heard there was an incident at the gala?”
He was referring to the tearing of Ariadne’s gown.
“Yes, Father. It was nothing of consequence.”
Ariadne bowed her head politely. Cardinal Del Mare nodded.
“Quite so. I made inquiries within social circles, and they assured me it passed without harming your reputation.”
In truth, some of what the Cardinal had uncovered was unfit for his young daughter’s ears. Rumors were circulating among the gentlemen that the younger daughter held a certain… appeal that surpassed the elder.
A conventional father would have been enraged, but Cardinal Del Mare was a man of peculiar pragmatism. He merely thought, *Well, being popular in any regard is a virtue,* and let it rest. Her standing among the gentlemen had climbed, and thanks to Countess Marquez, the influential ladies viewed Ariadne with nothing more than pity. His second ‘product’ had suffered no loss. The Cardinal was satisfied.
Still, while she had escaped disaster this once, a recurrence was not to be tolerated.
“Do you know how it happened? Was it a fault of the tailor?”
Ariadne shook her head.
“No, Father. Upon investigation, the damage occurred after the dress was brought into this house. I will look into it further and report back to you.”
“Indeed. Managing your household is a vital skill. See that it does not happen again.”
“Yes, Father.”
Cardinal Del Mare informed her that he would grant her an allowance of 10 ducats per month directly, then exited the study. As he left, Sancha—who had been eavesdropping from the outer drawing room—rushed in, her face streaked with tears.
“My lady, why didn’t you reveal that it was Isabella’s doing!”
“I lack concrete evidence.”
In a conflict devoid of physical proof, it would come down to Isabella’s word against hers. Despite everything Ariadne had rebuilt since her regression, she knew better than to believe her father would favor her over Isabella—not yet.
Furthermore, a true ‘victory’ would not be secured by her father’s fleeting trust; it would only be realized if she could maneuver him into casting Isabella aside entirely. Ariadne shook her head.
It was not yet time to force a showdown.
After the ball concluded, Ariadne and Sancha carefully examined the ruined gown.
The ‘hooks’ Maria had provided were common enough in design. However, the difference lay in the material: while standard hooks were forged from iron, these were a mixture of lead and silver, rendering them abnormally soft. It was bizarre to mix them with luxury silver when, typically, lead would be combined with iron. By tempering the silver with lead—making it far softer than the sturdiest iron—the hooks were destined to fail under the slightest pressure.
Furthermore, she discovered that the front hem of the dress had been sliced with a knife at precise, twenty-stitch intervals. Ragione Tailoring had delivered the garment with firm, masterful hand-stitching; these were cold, artificial gaps where a blade had severed the thread. It was a trap, meticulously set to unravel.
Sancha fumed, insisting it was undeniably Isabella’s doing. Ariadne agreed, but without a shred of proof, they were at a stalemate.
The hook used to trigger the damage was common enough that its origin was impossible to trace. While the fact that Maria—who handled the clothing—was close with Maletta offered a trail of breadcrumbs, it was hardly enough to haul the house’s elder daughter before an inquiry for tampering with her own sister’s gown.
“Ugh, it’s so frustrating!”
Ariadne calmed Sancha with a gentle gesture.
“Let’s wait. Everything will eventually unfold as it should.”
“Are you trying to become a nun, my lady?!”
To the exasperated Sancha, Ariadne merely offered a faint smile.
“This isn’t even worth the haste. We shall collect our evidence piece by piece. Proof is like a bomb; you must detonate it all at once when your opponent is vulnerable to deal a fatal blow. If you trigger it in small bursts, you only scratch their skin—never wounding the vital parts.”
Still, Ariadne agreed that Maria had to be neutralized. She seized the opportunity to slip 50 florins to Niccolo, a butler she had recently brought into her confidence, and quietly orchestrated a change in staff. Maria, who had enjoyed the comfort of serving as a young lady’s personal maid, found herself instantly reassigned to the scullery.
“Maria must have been paid enough by Maletta to risk being relegated to a kitchen drudge. If she did it for free, then she’s a fool.”
“She does seem to lack sense.”
“Well, we’ve cleared out a fool and brought in someone sharp. Isn’t that for the best?”
The replacement was Vicenta, whom Sancha had been watching since her days as a third-floor maid. Sancha had praised her keen wit, and Ariadne had been right to trust her; Vicenta was a quick study.
Sancha’s grumbling, however, remained relentless.
“It’s such a waste that you handed those 12 ducats to the Cardinal so honestly! You could have tucked them away for a slush fund.”
“But I receive 10 ducats every month now. That’s a debt recouped in under two months.” Ariadne smiled brightly. “Besides, I didn’t give all the remaining money to Father, you know.”
“Pardon?!”
“Don’t you think the clothing expenses came out a bit higher than initially planned?”
Ariadne had originally projected a cost of 5 ducats for her wardrobe, but the final ledger had ballooned to 20.
“I struck a deal with Madame Marini. Instead of limiting my patronage to Ragione Tailoring for the next two seasons, we agreed to inflate the bills slightly.”
Sancha’s jaw dropped.
“Those 15 ducats are our emergency fund. Keep that in mind.”
Sancha could only stare, stunned by her mistress’s ghostly cleverness. Cardinal Del Mare was being fleeced right under his own roof. It seemed, in this case, his ignorance was his own undoing.
* * *
When alone with Ariadne, Cardinal Del Mare had kept his inquiry brief, asking only for the sequence of events at the debutante ball. But that evening, with Isabella and Ariadne both present, his frustration boiled over, and he scolded them severely.
“Family business does not leave these walls! You may tear at each other like dogs inside this house, but once you step outside, you are on the same side!”
Because their father rarely raised his voice, the roar left Isabella trembling with tears. Cardinal Del Mare seldom shouted—even with Lucrezia—and his uncharacteristic rage hit Isabella hardest of all.
“Ariadne. Even if your sister was in the wrong, you shouldn’t have pointed it out in front of others. You should have let it slide and settled the dispute within the house!”
Ariadne reset the favor points she had built up for her father back to zero. How did my past life go, living by the firm belief in those very words? A fair judge, you say? I think not!
But on the outside, she donned her usual mask—polite, respectful, and reliable—and bowed her head to her father.
“I was thoughtless. I will be mindful to ensure it does not happen again.”
Satisfied with Ariadne’s flawless apology, Cardinal Del Mare shifted his glare toward Isabella.
“And you, commenting on your sister’s figure? Do you have any sense at all? A grown young woman, unable to distinguish between what should and shouldn’t be said? To your own sister, of all people? Do you even have a concept of sisterly love?”
From her earliest childhood to this very day, this was the first time Isabella had ever seen her father single her out with such anger. Before, she could have engaged in mental gymnastics, claiming the Cardinal’s reprimand was directed at Ariadne and not her. But now, with the target and the content clearly specified, there was no denying his words were meant for her.
“Waaaah!”
As his flower-like eldest daughter burst into tears, Cardinal Del Mare looked flustered. Isabella didn’t care; she sobbed like a child.
“……I, I didn’t do it!”
Isabella truly believed she was innocent. She *had* to believe it. With everyone speaking in one voice that she was in the wrong, she felt that if she were to acknowledge it, the person called ‘Isabella’ would become a worthless, useless piece of trash forever. Faced with such emotional immaturity, the facts bleached out of her mind and were replaced by a garden of delusions.
“It was Camellia who first said you did it on purpose to show off your chest! I’m only guilty of not stopping her!”
“You didn’t do it?”