That night I returned home, garbed in marvelous silks and my hair coiffed into an elegant updo. A string of rare black pearls laid against my collarbone, and several attendants followed behind me and Edmund, each carrying boxes full of brocades and hats. The manor was silent, and no trace of the earlier celebration remained. The folks had been sent home, and the only ones left were my family members, the Moreaus, our servants, and the ones I dreaded the most-- the McCarthys.

Edmund held my hand tightly and led me inside. I was looking down anxiously, afraid of what will happen later, and then I felt his fingers seizing my chin and forcing me to look up.

"Don't let them know that you are afraid, Annie," he hissed, and I could only reluctantly nod and uncomfortably hold my head up high.

We heard some mumblings and murmurs coming from the sitting room, followed by an inhuman wailing. I shuddered in fear, but Edmund squeezed my hand tighter and said, "We must go inside, Annie. Act unbothered."

Inside the room, I saw a distraught Benedict crying on the floor, my aunt and uncle with their faces pale, the McCarthys wailing as if they had gone insane, my mother trying to console her nephew, Lisbeth sniggering with Corinne, and my father and Gilbert sitting calmly on their armchairs, as if this had nothing to do with them.

In the middle of the room where we used to set up a table at, a bloody heap covered in a white cloth laid in replacement, and a stiff, white hand flailed out.

"I handed my daughter to you just months ago, alive and well, Lord Benedict! And look! Look! She's dead in a matter of months!" Baroness McCarthy, Leanne's mother screeched at my cousin. She then crumbled onto the floor and began clawing at the corpse, screaming her head off.

"I loved her!" Benny bellowed. "I lost my heir and my wife today! How dare you blame me?"

Then, he finally noticed me and Edmund, and his face morphed into absolute rage. "You! It was you!"

He charged at me, his hands stretched out as if he wanted to strangle me, but before he could reach me, I heard a loud thud, and I subsequently closed my eyes. When I reopened them, I saw Benny sprawled on the ground with a bruised jaw and bloody lip.

"Your Grace! This woman is a murderer, how could you defend her?" Benny shouted and quickly shot up on his feet.

I quickly put on a confused look, and Edmund did the same. "Excuse me?" I scoffed, pretending not to notice the dead body in the middle of the room.

My mother then frantically stepped forward and said, "Anne, your sister-in-law fell down the stairs this afternoon." Her eyes trailed on me suspiciously as she added, "Benny said that you were the last person who had seen her alive."

I glanced at the corpse for a long time, and my mother awaited my answer with baited breath. "That is very unfortunate," I eventually said. "But what does it have to do with me?"

"Don't act as if you know nothing! You were there with her before she died!" Benedict shouted angrily, and I could feel the little bravery I had slowly melt away.

"That's odd," Edmund retorted. "I went to fetch Anne after I finished talking to you, and your wife was still alive and well. I took Anne to town after that, as I am to leave for the capital tomorrow, and I'd like to spend as much time with by betrothed as I could."

Benedict seemed as if he wanted to protest, but he did not have the courage to counter Edmund's words. He withered away cowardly into his mother's embrace, still sobbing softly. My uncle then stepped forward and tried to mediate by saying, "Then, perhaps she fell down the stairs on her own. We should not implicate Anne for what might have been an accident. These cases are very common nowadays, and late Leanne was very unfortunate."

The old croak talked about Leanne as if she were just a nameless person halfway across the kingdom, not the daughter-in-law that they sacrificed so much wealth for into securing a marriage between her and his son. My uncle's face was calm, but his hands were trembling, completely betraying his unfazed façade. I knew that Edmund was very wealthy and influential, but I had no idea that even a retired general who spent years on the battlefield would also lick his boots like a loyal dog.

For a moment, the room was silent, and the tension slowly dissipated, but not for long. My father then stood up from his armchair, probably wanting to settle the situation and tell them to take the corpse away, but another decided to join the bandwagon.

"But we cannot rule out the possibilities that Leanne might have been murdered!" Baroness McCarthy cried. "My poor daughter had been envied by many throughout her short life. She was so lovely, and she even married into a noble house and was very fertile! There must be so many people who wanted her dead!"

She was already delirious, and in her mind, the world seemed to revolve around that daughter of hers. Perhaps, I too was incredibly envious of Leanne's otherworldly beauty. Oh, she's in another world for sure.

"You are delusional," my father chuckled, and that only fueled Lady McCarthy's grief and anguish even further.

"Then, I shall go home and tell my younger daughters that the sister they look up to and love so dearly is dead, and that her husband did not even bother to properly investigate the cause of death!" she screeched, now becoming even more and more hysterical.

"Certainly, you may," my father said smilingly while helping himself to a glass of ale. "What you plan to tell your children is not an issue to me. However, I do find it bothersome when you invade my house in the middle of the night and accuse my daughter of murder. Have you no shame, Baroness?"

The face of Leanne's mother became red, and she could not retort back, and only produced a string of incoherent words.

"I shall report this to the authorities!" she stammered, and held her chin up proudly after saying it, as if she had won this argument completely. "But if you compensate us, I shall consider dropping this matter."

Ah yes, yet another opportunist. My father however, became more and more amused by her words, as if she were a child who threatened to tell on another kid. "Baroness, I am the authority," he chuckled. "But of course, you may tell us what you want in compensation. House Moreau will greatly compensate you, as Benedict loved late Leanne so dearly!"

Baroness McCarthy let out a huff and slowly wiped away her crocodile tears, and said, "Leanne still has two younger sisters, Edith and Rachel, both unmarried. She promised them that she would arrange marriages for them, but now that this has happened, what will become of their futures?"

"So you want good marriages for them?" my mother asked, and the Baroness nodded urgently.

"Exactly, Countess. We mothers only want the best for our children, don't we?" she answered. "I do not ask for much, but I would like to reinstate the relationship between the McCarthys and House Moreau, and forge a new alliance with House Winterbourne at the same time."

There was a glint of greed in her eyes, and it made my stomach turn. "And how will you do that?" I questioned in a condescending tone, but the Baroness was unfazed, even somewhat cheerful, absolutely unlike a mother who had just lost her child that very same day.

"Edith, the second daughter, shall marry Benedict, and the Rachel, the third one, can marry your brother Gilbert," she explained, and treated them as if they were pawns on her chessboard.

"I'm afraid we cannot comply," my father sighed. "We are Winterbournes, and we carry ourselves with prestige. And listen well, Baroness, who do you think you are to boss us around? My son shall not stoop so low as to marry the daughter of a foul-mouthed, greedy Baroness. Maybe you can just hand off them both to Benedict, like you did with your other daughter, one as a wife, and another as a mistress. Oh, and if you decide to have another daughter, you can give her to Benedict as a mistress too! Benny here loves company."

"Besides," Edmund added, "The king has been talking about marrying one of his princesses to Gilbert, so it seems that your wishes cannot be fulfilled, Baroness."

Lady McCarthy was relentless, and argued some more, but eventually she had to stop, and her thin-skinned husband silently dragged her back to their squalor. The Moreaus huffily left, and Benedict seemed to no longer be grieving, but more like anticipating the two McCarthy sisters that would later be his bed companions.

As soon as they left, Gilbert rushed to me and Edmund. "Did you say that the King wants to give me his daughter's hand in marriage?"

In his mind, he was already imagining about Princess Margaret's beautiful face and adorable stubborn smile, and his cheeks had become faintly red.

"Yes, Gilbert. But I could not remember which," Edmund replied, but my brother seems to only have heard the 'yes' part, and not the rest of the sentence.

"Then I shall marry Margaret, shan't I?" he questioned enthusiastically.

Edmund frowned and answered, "I'm not quite sure. It might Cecily instead of her." However, my brother was so overjoyed that he did not notice these words, and happily celebrated the fact that he and his sweetheart, whom he has never spoken to before, shall soon be wed.

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