After Being Reborn, My Wife Sapped Away the Game's Female Lead - Chapter 7

After returning from the royal palace, Cynthia paced back and forth in her room endlessly.

Ella felt dizzy watching her: “Milady, what is wrong? Do you have something else on your mind?”

“No, this time it is not about me,” Cynthia stopped pacing and said to Ella, “but I do not want certain things to happen, yet these things seem bound to happen anyway.”

Ella looked at Cynthia in bewilderment: “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“The girl you mentioned earlier who became pregnant before marriage, supposing, and I mean supposing, the child she is carrying belongs to the fiancé of a girl you care deeply about.”

Before Cynthia could finish speaking, Ella said decisively: “Then I will help the gods eliminate that life which should not exist in this world! Along with the stinking man’s instrument that made her pregnant!”

Cynthia fell into deep thought: “Well, what if it has not reached the point of pregnancy?”

“Then I will advise Sanny to break off the engagement.”

Presumably, Sanny was the girl Ella had placed into the hypothetical scenario.

Cynthia added once more: “What if Sanny loves this man very, very, very much?”

Ella wore an expression of disgust: “I cannot imagine Sanny loving something like a maggot.”

“Assuming she loves him enough to be willing to die for this man,” Cynthia said, adding another condition, “and you still want to maintain your friendship with Sanny.”

“That is truly putting someone in a difficult spot,” Ella sighed. “Then I suppose I can only make Sanny stay with him more often, and then I will drive that woman away.”

Cynthia felt that Ella made a reasonable point.

She sat at her desk, writing letters three times in a row, yet she always felt she had not fully expressed her thoughts. In the end, she simply had someone send a brief visit letter to Count Doyle, stating that she would depart from the royal capital tomorrow to visit the Doyle family’s country estate.

The messenger departed immediately, pressing forward without a single pause all the way, and finally arrived at the Doyle estate at dawn the next day.

Holding the visit letter from Gauss, Count Doyle was utterly baffled, unable to figure out why Cynthia, whose family’s influence was at its peak and who was the royal fiancée of the prince, would come to visit a down-and-out noble like him who possessed only a hereditary title and some land.

During breakfast, he shared his confusion with his beloved wife, beloved son, and rebellious daughter.

The rebellious daughter Lilica spat her milk right across the table: “You said who is coming?!”

The Doyle family’s youngest son, Lilica’s younger brother Ivor, let out a sharp cry: “Sister! How vulgar you are!”

“Cynthia from the Coton family,” Lady Doyle first answered her daughter’s question, and then gently scolded, “Do not waste food, Lily.”

Lilica no longer had any appetite left for food: “Big Sister Cynthia is coming? Why was I not informed?!”

“The news arrived just this morning,” Count Doyle said with a stern face. “She probably thinks you are too unruly, so the gods sent the epitome of noble ladyhood here to let you learn a proper lesson.”

Under normal circumstances, Lilica would definitely have argued back and forth a few times with her old man, but today she easily conceded defeat: “Around what time will Big Sister Cynthia arrive?”

“She departed in the morning, so she should arrive around three or four in the afternoon.”

Lilica let out a sigh of relief: “Thank goodness she is not arriving immediately.”

With that, she tossed her bread onto her plate, stood up, and bolted out of the dining room in a mad dash.

“Lilica Swift Doyle! Where are your manners?!”

“Darling, I told you not to waste food.”

Ivor sighed sorrowfully: “Never mind, I am already used to it.”

Count Doyle finished his meal in a leisurely manner, handled various miscellaneous affairs in his study for a while, and finally decided to head to the fencing yard to spar with his guards, stretch his muscles, and incidentally scold Lilica, that rebellious daughter, for her vulgar habit of using a greatsword solely to smack people.

However, upon arriving at the fencing yard, he found that only young Ivor was practicing basic swordsmanship there. Lilica, who practically lived here almost every day, was nowhere to be seen.

His butler informed Count Doyle with a very gratified expression: “My lord, Miss is currently in the changing room with her female attendant.”

“The changing room? That is truly rare,” Count Doyle said, unbothered. “It seems that girl Tina is finally making an effort to help her master return to the righteous path.”

“No, this time it was Miss who initiated it herself,” the butler said with a very excited tone. “It is said she dug out all the dresses you previously had custom-made for her and is currently trying them on.”

Count Doyle thought he must have misheard: “She is trying on what? Those dresses?”

“Yes!”

Count Doyle retrieved his walking stick from a servant and turned to walk outside, taking exceptionally large strides: “Then I must go and take a good look.”

Inside the changing room, the female attendant Tina had once again been dragged onto a pirate ship against her will. Lilica demanded that before Cynthia arrived, Tina had to piece together an outfit fit for a noble young lady that would not betray any flaws.

Tina was simultaneously moved to tears that she could finally put her lifelong learning into practice and weeping internally at why she was always helping her young lady deceive people. Her face looked neither happy nor sad, casting serious doubt on her physical condition.

“What sort of murderous contraption is this?!” Lilica squeezed the words out through clenched teeth. “My ribs are about to be crushed!”

With one foot pressed against a small stool, Tina pulled the corset laces backward with all her might: “Milady! Hang in there! Only by wearing this will your dress look good!”

“But right now I feel like I am going to die!” Lilica finally could not take it anymore, straightened her body, and snatched the laces right out of Tina’s hands. “Good heavens, do you people have to wear this kind of thing every day? How do you even manage to work?”

“Only nobles are qualified to wear such things,” Tina tried to persuade her. “You are simply wearing it for the first time, so you are not accustomed to it.”

“I could never get accustomed to this,” Lilica loosened the laces that had previously been pulled to their absolute limit. Only after feeling that her ribs were no longer in pain did she continue, “Seriously, I cannot imagine how anyone wearing this could still have the energy to hold up such a heavy long skirt.”

“Looking gorgeous always comes at a price,” Tina earnestly advised. “If you do not wear this, then please forgive my bluntness, but even if you put on the most lavish gown, you will still look worlds apart from the noble lady you wish to portray.”

Lilica had originally intended to rip apart what she viewed strictly as a torture device, but hearing Tina put it that way made her hesitate.

She herself did not particularly care about looking pretty or not, otherwise she would not have grown up completely ignorant of what clothes other girls her age wore.

However, she figured Cynthia must care about such things, seeing as she was the universally acknowledged epitome of nobility.

“Heavens,” Lilica murmured, “is this truly the kind of life Big Sister Cynthia lives every single day?”

Fortunately, Tina was not the rigid, inflexible type. After a brief moment of thought, she offered a solution: “Milady, if your only goal is to avoid losing face in front of Lady Cynthia, there is actually another way.”

When Cynthia was about to step down from the carriage, she felt a slight wave of dizziness. After all, the midday sun outside was blazing, and while the carriage provided shade, it was certainly not cool inside. She had sat cooped up within it for nearly an entire day while still trying to squeeze in time to read along the way.

Using a magic tool, Ella cooled down the water she was carrying: “Milady, would you like to drink some more water?”

“No need,” Cynthia shook her head, then asked, “Do I look all right?”

“To be frank, a bit haggard and fatigued,” Ella answered truthfully, “but your posture and decorum remain impeccable.”

“A detestable perfection,” Cynthia muttered to herself. She half-wanted to roll her eyes like Carlo used to do, but managed to restrain herself in the end. “Very well, I see Lady Doyle.”

Unlike her casual visit to Carlo, her family and the Count Doyle household were not particularly close, and compounded by the fact that this was a formal visit preceded by a visit letter, Count Doyle, Lady Doyle, and their youngest son had proactively come outside the doors to welcome their guest.

Following the polite greetings and mutual expressions of concern, before they had even stepped inside the estate, Cynthia asked: “Where is Lilica? I heard from Carlo that she has already returned home. How is her health?”

Count Doyle did not even know how to respond to that.

Good grief, did she say Lilica was sick?

With that physical frame of hers that could easily swing a greatsword around, would she get sick?

Lady Doyle answered quite naturally instead: “That child’s health is fine right now. You must know, she was quite sickly when she was young, and it gave me quite a scare.”

Ivor chimed in with curiosity: “Was Lilica’s health really that poor when she was little?”

“Oh, yes, darling. There were several times when the healers said she was at death’s door.”

Ivor blinked: “I cannot imagine it.”

“Well, that was all from a long time ago after all.”

“Is her health any better now?” Cynthia asked. “When I saw her previously, she was still running a high fever.”

“Heavens! Why didn’t she tell me?” Lady Doyle exclaimed with tear-filled eyes, “Does Lily no longer love her mother?”

Count Doyle truly could not listen to any more of this: “No, I think there must be some sort of misunderstanding here. Based on my understanding of Lilica, she definitely could not possibly have run a fever from a minor ailment, since she practically drove me out of my mind with rage this very morning.”

However, before Count Doyle could expose the lie, a rather tall figure appeared at the main entrance of the manor.

This person looked frighteningly pale and wore an expensive long wig, but was dressed in a simple, plain long dress with no decorative ornaments whatsoever.

She stood there clutching the doorframe with her hands, bending her knees slightly beneath her skirt to lower her stature, while making sure to fake a couple of coughs: “Ahem, Big Sister Cynthia, you have arrived.”

The Doyle father and son halted in their tracks simultaneously, their facial expressions vividly portraying the exact meaning of seeing a ghost in broad daylight.

Only Lady Doyle greeted her with great excitement, stepping forward to pull her into an embrace: “Darling, you have fallen ill again. Why would you refuse to tell your mother?”

Cynthia was reluctant to interrupt the mother and daughter’s tender moment, but she overheard the whispers passing between the father and son.

“Father, if my memory serves me correctly, that is the wig you wear when presiding over trials.”

“Yes, and it is more expensive than you are,” Count Doyle said through clenched teeth. “I distinctly remember locking it away!”