SMR | Chapter 157

~Chapter 157~

The laughter that had started low grew louder and sharper, becoming so eerie that even her son Jayden froze in fear.

In that tense atmosphere, Joseph finally finished grinding the medicine. Trembling with anxiety, he handed Lauren a cup of water mixed with the powdered drug.

“Now you just need to make her drink this.”

At those words, Lauren’s laughter stopped instantly. She accepted the cup more elegantly and gracefully than ever and asked,

“How long after drinking it will it take for her to die?”

“Well… if she’s lost a lot of blood, it probably won’t take even thirty minutes.”

“Good.”

Lauren lightly shook the pale yellow liquid inside the cup, then sat down gently at the head of the bed.

“Come now, Roxana. Drink the medicine your dear aunt prepared for you. All your pain will disappear.”

The moment Lauren reached under Roxana’s neck and roughly pulled her upright—

Roxana’s eyelids, which hadn’t moved at all until then as if she were dead, flew open. Her bright blue eyes stared directly at Lauren without wavering.

“As I expected. It was you.”

“Kyaa! Wh-what!”

Startled out of her mind, Lauren instinctively shoved Roxana away. But her animal instincts screamed that this was her last chance.

Lauren grabbed Roxana’s hair again and pressed the cup to her mouth.

“Drink it! Drink!”

At that exact moment, the screen next to the bed collapsed over, and imperial investigators burst out from behind it. They seized Joseph, Jayden, Lauren’s hired guards—and finally Lauren herself.

“Lauren Marshal! You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Roxana Pellon and for plotting the murder of Trisha Pellon!”

As someone shouted her crimes, the cup in Lauren’s hand slipped and fell to the floor, shattering with a sharp crash.

It was the sound of her dreams breaking apart.

***

“A few things about Madam Marshal’s recent behavior seem strange.”

That was what the informant said a month ago—the moment when Roxana and Trisha had simply exchanged looks that meant, Of course. We knew it.

“She rarely leaves her home lately, but strangely enough, she’s been filling the house with large amounts of cash. And this is only a guess, but it seems that money has been flowing toward… less respectable places.”

“How did you know she was filling the house with cash?” Roxana asked.

“The bank’s cash wagon passed in front of the Marshal residence several times. A wagon full of money makes a heavy rolling sound, and one that has unloaded everything sounds light. You can tell the difference.”

Roxana frowned.

“You can really tell that clearly?”

“Normal people can’t. But we’re trained to notice things like that. If we charge double what other spies charge, we need to be worth it, don’t we?”

He spoke as though it were obvious, and Roxana nodded in satisfaction.

But Trisha still wasn’t convinced.

“And why do you think the money went to somewhere shady?”

“A number of people who were very poorly dressed for entering a noble household were seen going in and out of that home. And always during the same time the cash wagon visited.”

Trisha fiddled with the gem on her ring.

The informant truly was worth the price. Things others might dismiss as coincidence, he analyzed with sharp intuition and turned into useful information.

He didn’t stop there and added:

“It’s not good news, but from my experience… they looked like thugs or hired killers.”

“Hired killers…”

“I don’t know what job they were hired for, though.”

With that, his work was done.

After he left, Trisha watched Roxana quietly sipping her tea before she spoke heavily.

“It seems your prediction was right.”

“…”

“Do you really have to use such a dangerous method?”

Roxana set down her teacup.

“Yes. I need to finish this in one attempt.”

Trisha let out a long sigh.

Roxana knew her mother was worried—but that was exactly why she needed the trap to succeed.

If she escapes now, Lauren will destroy the entire Pellon family eventually. Since she’s targeting me this time, I have to end it here.

On the day of the Duke’s party, Lauren had been pushed to the edge.

Everything that happened was Lauren’s own doing, but after watching her for years beside Trisha, Roxana knew—Lauren would never admit that. She would blame someone else. And once she felt trapped, she would always resort to something extreme.

That was why Roxana had warned Harriet not to respond too harshly, although she had to admit—seeing Harriet crush Lauren had felt satisfying.

And now I have to handle the aftermath.

They leaked the information—through a double agent—that Roxana would be traveling alone to Genoa.

Then they watched Lauren’s reaction. The report from the informant confirmed it.

Lauren intended to kill her.

“I’ll go,” Roxana said. “I caused this problem, so I need to resolve it.”

Trisha suggested alternatives, clearly out of concern—concern like a mother protecting her child.

But unfortunately, Trisha had almost no role in this matter.

“Madam Marshal isn’t after you, Mother. She’s after me. To her, you’re a threat that will disappear in a few years even if she leaves you alone. She will try to kill me again.”

It was true.

Trisha couldn’t argue back.

“Don’t worry too much, Mother.”

“You’re telling me not to worry when your life is at risk? Does that make sense to you?”

“If I hadn’t prepared well, it would be something to worry about. But I have never handled anything involving the future of the Pellon family carelessly.”

Hearing her daughter’s confident reply, Trisha sighed again.

“This isn’t why I had you study so much…”

Roxana smiled.

“I hired only the best guards. Everything is kept so secret that even Miss Harriet doesn’t know the details. When the horses run wild, parts of the carriage will collapse and flip it over. Those hired killers won’t be able to check my actual condition.”

“And what if you get hurt when the carriage overturns?”

“I installed plenty of cushioning. Even if I get hurt a little, it’s better than losing my life.”

Trisha pressed her temples, exhausted.

She desperately wanted to stop Roxana. But she also knew: Lauren would seek revenge and attempt to take the Pellon estate eventually.

Choose a planned risk now—or live forever with a ticking bomb behind her back.

The answer was obvious, even if she disliked it.

“…Fine. It’s better to take a bit of risk and settle this while I’m still alive.”

Trisha finally approved Roxana’s plan.

***

Harriet, who had gone to Ainsfora, had to return to Genoa with Trisha only a week later. Lauren’s attempt to kill Roxana had drawn huge attention, so the trial moved unusually quickly.

“I heard the Imperial Court was involved,” Roxana said as she greeted them.

“The Imperial Court? Was there anything in this matter that would anger them?” Harriet asked.

“I don’t know the exact details, but His Majesty was furious. He said that if crimes committed by a branch family to steal the position of head of house are punished lightly, it would disrupt the entire inheritance law.”

“Hmm… He has a point. The former emperor was threatened by his brothers for the throne many times.”

Which is why he created strict succession rules and raised his children emphasizing loyalty and harmony above all else.

Harriet murmured quietly,

“It feels strange to say this, but Madam Marshal is really unlucky.”

To anger an emperor who despises this kind of crime.

Trisha snorted.

“Don’t be absurd. There’s no one luckier than her. She became a great noble’s mistress, bore another man’s child, and still wasn’t thrown out.”

But Lauren never appreciated her luck. She blamed everyone else for her misfortune.

And even at the first trial—after fifteen days of preparation—she said ridiculous things and accused Roxana and Trisha instead.

“This was an extremely elaborate trap! They lured me step by step so I couldn’t escape! Anyone in that situation would have made the same choice I did!”

Her claims—as the perpetrator of attempted murder—only showed how selfish and self-centered she was.

But the witnesses quickly cornered her.

“I only did what Madam Marshal told me to. The medicine given to the Countess Pellon was from Madam Marshal, and everything about Miss Roxana Pellon was planned by her.”

Under interrogation, Joseph Alden confessed that Lauren planned the crime.

Some of “Butcher Harry’s” men, who had attacked Roxana’s carriage, were also captured. They testified that Lauren had given them a detailed script and they simply followed it.

Even her own son, Jayden, blamed everything on his mother.