RAW:
Author: Unagi
Edited by: Aki
"Marianne-sama is here."
At first, they doubted the person who had been brought in by the soldier.
That this girl who wore muddy clothes with only one shoe intact and messy hair was Marianne.
Although Leticia had partic.i.p.ated in the meeting, Marianne was nowhere to be seen.
Luka had finally remembered the existence of Marianne.
Duke Hydorosa reflexively began to shriek.
"Are- are you Marianne?"
Duke Hydorosa’s voice began to sound timid.
"What?"
Marianne looked at Duke Hydorosa absent-mindedly.
"Why do you look like this? What has the Royal Palace been doing to you?"
Duke Hydorosa barked at the King and the Prince.
"The Royal Palace? Marianne-sama is no longer a Royalty, right? We did not have any responsibility to look after such troublesome things."
Julius was indifferent.
Marianne could not decide whether she wanted to refute or remain silent.
"Y- You should have looked after Marianne in the Royal Palace–"
Duke Hydorosa gazed over Marchioness Hydorosa with an incredulous look on his face.
"I thought that she was here, though–"
Marchioness Hydorosa began to show a sad expression.
However, in her heart, she began to snicker as she managed to exact her revenge on Marianne.
To her, Marianne was nothing but a tool.
——-
"Marchioness Hydorosa, I have something that I want to ask you."
"W- What?"
"Marianne-sama"s hair color is not gold, right?"
Everyone eyes began to gather towards Marianne"s hair.
When they looked at it closely, the part near the root looked like brown-colored hair.
"W-What?"
Marianne"s mother began to look fl.u.s.tered.
She had always reminded Marianne to dye her hair.
However, it seemed that due to the zeal that came from living with the Prince, she had forgotten about it.
"Hair-dying? Is that a magic?"
Duke Hydorosa knew that there was no such magic, so he looked at Julius as if he was a stupid person.
"No, it is probably from sake?"
"Sake?"
"It seemed that Marianne-sama had frequently ordered alcoholic drinks. It was reported that she brought it into the bathroom every single time."
Hearing that, Marianne"s mother clicked her tongue.
Duke Hydorosa, who was beside her, looked at her stupidly.
"So what? Is it a problem if Marianne is not a blonde?"
Marianne’s mother had dyed her hair so that the secret that she had replaced Leticia would not be revealed.
She realized that it was no longer a problem if they knew that Marianne had dyed her hair, since everyone was already aware that Marianne was not the original daughter of Duke Diogenes.
However, all the Royal Family members began to look pale.
"Duke Hydorosa, you did not dye your hair, right?"
"Of course not!"
Duke Hydorosa"s hair was in the color of dull blond.
Even though it was not as brilliant as the Royal Family, it still contained strands of gold.
"That is why I dyed it. This type of discrimination should not happen. It is alright to talk about it."
The King sent a signal to Julius, who had no choice but to a.s.sent to it.
———-
The story brought by Julius shook both Duke Hydorosa and his wife.
This generation of The Royal Family who had blonde-colored hair;
The King, Prince Daniel, and Leticia.
And Marianne had dyed her hair to fit in accordingly.
Since she was the daughter of Duke Hydorosa, it was not weird for her to have similar brown hair to mother.
But the Royal Family knew.
This was not the case.
Blonde hair was not merely an inheritance.
The magical power in one"s body influenced the hair, thus turning it into gold.
According to some families, a blue magical power was handed down within the family instead of a gold one.
Julius"s family was one of those cases.
Both Julius and his father have a bluish hair.
Duke Hydorosa possessed magical power, so it was quite strange if Marianne did not possess any of it.
The brown-colored hair should not have appeared in a family who possessed even a little bit of magical power.
———-
"It- it cannot be."
Blood seemed to drain from Duke Hydorosa"s face.
"L- that is a lie, such thing. Such a thing is a lie!"
"In additional report, several entertainers who had been invited to perform in the Duke Diogenes" residence have testified their relationship with both the Marchioness and Marianne-sama."
When the story of Marianne being selected as the fiancée of Prince Daniel, the investigation of Marianne’s past behavior had also surfaced.
That"s why Julius had changed the direction of his investigation from Leticia towards Marianne, who was now the fiancée of the Prince.
That was how he dug up the information on Marianne"s mother one after another.
The evidence had been confirmed, so no one was able to utter a single word after that.
It was bad not to give up at this point, except for that woman.