No One Ever Loved Me - Chapter 99

The debutante ball had failed entirely to serve its intended purpose. So what had been the point of rushing the divorce trial date?

I absentmindedly took the scone handed to me and chewed it slowly, staring in frustration at Ricardo’s annoyingly handsome face.

“Is it dry? There’s water, or wine if you’d like. We also have fruit juice,” he offered.

Ricardo lounged around the Queen’s drawing room like a man with too much time and nothing to do.

Not long ago, when I had first come to the palace, his visits to the Queen’s quarters had been strictly forbidden. But now that the Queen seemed to have secured a useful ‘weapon,’ her attitude had shifted dramatically.

Thanks to that, every noblewoman and unmarried lady who visited the Queen’s palace after the debutante ball found their standards raised by the day.

“I’m fine, Sir Ricardo.”

One of the young ladies, whose name I couldn’t remember, shot me a resentful glance.

At this point, it was hard to tell whether they were trying to impress the Queen or Ricardo.

The Queen wore a contented smile, like a well-fed lion surveying her domain. Everything was going just the way she wanted. Ricardo, on the other hand, was acting as if I were the only person in the room, desperate to wait on me hand and foot.

Well, the Queen had gotten her way. After the debutante ball, the main topic of gossip hadn’t been my divorce.

Instead, it was Ricardo—once considered the shame of Duke Bastian, now a rising star who had earned the King’s favor through his own efforts, received a knighthood, and boldly declared lifelong devotion to a lady just days after. He had become the center of attention.

And me? I had somehow become a mysterious, femme fatale figure—someone captivating enough to enchant the promising young Ricardo Bastian.

The Queen insisted on having Ricardo present whenever she received visitors.

She even joked that she didn’t need to open the curtains with him around—he lit up the room enough on his own.

Lately, she had taken to treating Ricardo like a decorative lamp or a fresh bouquet in a vase—her new favorite pastime.

Now that the Queen had confirmed the King was nothing more than a dull, predictable man, she no longer bothered to hide her power plays.

Of course, it wasn’t as if she had any real tyrannical ambitions. She simply spent her days receiving guests, enjoying how her once-faint presence in the social scene was solidifying thanks to their constant gossip.

I had no idea what her end goal was.

Ricardo, just by standing beside her, certainly added visual appeal—but surely she didn’t intend to use him as nothing more than ornamentation.

Sometimes, Ricardo spent long stretches alone with the Queen. Afterward, he would come find me and tell me she’d given him some kind of instruction, but that he couldn’t share it because he’d accepted a “secrecy fee”—he always said it with mock apology, though not without pride.

Still, he did tell me what he had asked for in return:

“I asked to be allowed into the Queen’s palace whenever I wanted, so I could see you.”

That delighted look on his face made me sigh. I felt crushed by the weight of being placed on the broken scale of this religious fanatic, and I even ended up throwing him out.

Ricardo left for a while—but not even thirty minutes had passed before he knocked on my door again.

I was beginning to realize that his earlier promises of unconditional devotion were starting to shift in strange new ways.

Even the Queen had nearly swayed me. If someone like me—born defective, with no replacement parts—could be moved by her words, then someone like Ricardo, flawed but still capable of being “fixed,” would be even more vulnerable to that kind of persuasion.

And Ricardo? He was exactly the kind of man who would step into a trap—even while fully aware that it was a trap—if it involved me.

“You’re very considerate, Sir,” came a sudden voice.

It was a young woman who had been sitting quietly beside her mother. I hesitated, trying to remember her name.

“Lady Chloe?”

She was the daughter of the Viscount of Chiave. She must have just come of age—perhaps seventeen?

“Sir Ricardo is so thoughtful toward Lady Cecilia.”

“Chloe,” her mother, the Viscountess, quickly tried to hush her.

But the girl’s tender crush had already outrun her mother’s caution.

“Even though Lady Cecilia barely looks at him, he’s still so kind. I just had to say it—I admire him.”

I turned my attention toward the true cause of all this trouble.

If Ricardo hadn’t smiled like that during the debutante ball—if he hadn’t reserved that foolish grin just for me—none of these rumors would’ve spiraled the way they had.

The gossip would have gone differently. They’d be saying things like, The Duke’s illegitimate son has finally stepped into the light, or it wasn’t the elegant young ladies who stole the show at the debutante ball—it was Sir Ricardo.

But Ricardo had danced with me, ignored the trembling young lady who had mustered all her courage to ask him for the next dance, and calmly said—

“I don’t enjoy dancing.”

Margaret had danced twice in a row with Viscount Damier and, on her return, deliberately provoked Ricardo—prompting him once again to beg me for a dance.

The more Viscount Damier led Margaret to the floor, the darker Ricardo’s expression became. Unfazed, he kept kneeling and pleading for a dance as though it were the first time.

Turning him down every time would’ve drawn more attention, so I gave in—about every other time—repeating the image of a cicada clinging to an old tree.

“Sir Ricardo is such a promising young man, and Lady Cecilia is now free again. What a perfect pair they make.”

Chloe certainly showed signs of having been raised with proper manners.

If it had been Isla, she would’ve blurted out something like, who do you think you are to try and snag the heir to the Bastian Dukedom?

But Chloe’s admiration came wrapped in delicate, roundabout phrasing.

I couldn’t help but think—this was exactly the kind of tact Lady Rosette should’ve taught Isla.

Isla, spoiled with love and praise, had never learned to watch her words, not even in court.

“Well, someone knows how to recognize quality,” said a voice, brimming with arrogance.

But it wasn’t me who said it—it was Ricardo. He crossed one leg over the other and smugly pushed the scone plate toward Chloe.

There was nothing left on it but the crumbs I had left behind, yet Chloe received the gesture with both hands as if it were the greatest honor.

She even stood up and stepped closer to the table just to reach the plate Ricardo had barely nudged toward her.

“Lady Cecilia is the very definition of a flawless noblewoman,” Ricardo added smoothly.

Strictly speaking, I was once married. While “lady” was a title still applicable to an unmarried noblewoman like me—now that I had returned to the Rosette name—it was really only a formality.

Ricardo’s use of the term was a deliberate dismissal of my previous marriage, and his sharp smile toward Chloe, who was now trying to eat scone crumbs with grace, made that clear.

“How shameful for someone like me—just the illegitimate son of the Bastian Duke—to even risk tainting her honor.”

The compliment was genuine, but the jab was intentional. He was warning Chloe not to get too clever with her passive-aggressive comments.

Viscountess Chiave, noticing the tension, quickly stepped in to smooth things over in her daughter’s place.

“Of course. Lady Cecilia is the only heir to the Rosette family. I heard the late Count Rosette worried only about her, even in his final moments. Honestly, I believe the reason he remarried was because Lady Cecilia was still so young and needed a mother’s care. That awful woman took advantage of his kindness.”

She had clearly figured out that flattering me was the fastest way to appease Ricardo.

The Viscountess was surprisingly sharp.

“As a mother myself, I was furious about what that woman did. If I had been in her shoes, I couldn’t have closed my eyes in peace either.”

Her hands, clasping mine, were cold—a clear sign she was nervous.

Not wanting to strengthen Ricardo’s position in this little spat, I used my free hand to gently cover hers and replied,

“Your kind words bring a sense of healing to my wounded heart. I do hope Baron Estas takes his daughter back soon, but my stepmother’s stubbornness is proving… difficult. My uncle won’t complain openly, of course, but he did apologize to me, saying he’s sorry I can’t move back in yet.”

The Viscountess played her part perfectly, acting as though she was hearing the gossip for the very first time.

“Oh, my. Even Baron Estas couldn’t resolve the situation? Well, I suppose it’s not hard to guess how that woman raised her daughter. I mean no offense, of course, since Lady Isla is your sister, but she’s hardly someone you’d be proud to introduce in polite society.”

Just as I’d hoped, the subject shifted to Lady Rosette and Isla.

Ricardo still looked like he wanted to glare a hole through Chloe, who was too busy staring at the scone plate like it held the secrets of the universe. But he didn’t ruin my attempt to redirect the conversation.

“I haven’t heard much about Baroness Estas, but I assume she raised her daughter as she was raised herself. If a mother can’t teach her daughter well and only ends up standing in the way… then the best she can do is disappear.”

Viscountess Chiave took that as a cue to subtly promote herself and her own daughter by comparison.

“Well, just look at Chloe. Not to praise my own child, but she’s a kind girl at heart. Of course, she makes mistakes sometimes—she’s still young—but she has a gentle nature. I remember once, when she was little, she cried for a whole day because the Viscount brought home a bird from hunting. She thought it was too sad.”

She let out a little laugh and added, “I do worry how someone that soft-hearted will make it through this harsh world… but better that than being cruel by nature, wouldn’t you agree?”

I noticed Chloe, upon hearing her name, glance up—only to scowl slightly at her mother’s fawning tone.

She might’ve once wept over a dying bird, but based on that glare, I didn’t doubt she had plenty of fight in her when it came to love rivals.

Even if I wasn’t one.

“Speaking of barons,” the Viscountess added quickly, “wasn’t Lady Margaret of the Artois family recently engaged?”

She’d clearly noticed her daughter’s unfiltered glare and expertly steered the conversation away—dragging Margaret into the spotlight in the process.

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