Carl put Edgar on his chair, hid the wheelchair, and brought Mrs. Shaynie in.

“Your Grace! I’ve never been treated this way in my life. Her Grace’s actions are clearly problematic.”

Shaynie was determined and spoke before Edgar even asked why she had come. She left out the part about how she had treated the girls and made it look like she was the victim. In her story, Rubica was an arrogant and stupid woman who kicked out her, the strict teacher who truly cared about her pupils’ future, just because she disliked her.

Edgar waited for her to finish talking and asked, “So what do you want me to do?”

“Please talk to your wife and tell her to cancel her decision of firing me. It’s the only way to keep your honor and the Claymore’s reputation.”

Talk to her? Edgar had to hold back his laughter. It would only make him get scolded. Shaynie had come to the wrong person. He really couldn’t find any way to defeat her. It would have been better to plead to Carl or Ann.

“There must have been a good reason for her to do that.”

“Your Grace!”

“It is fully her right to decide which tutors to hire. I will give you enough severance pay and expenses for your journey home. I’ll also write you a good recommendation letter.”

Shaynie should have stopped there, but she didn’t believe what people said. This cold duke was in love with that girl? In her eyes, Rubica wasn’t even that beautiful. Even if he had been in love, all men cared more about their honor. Shaynie decided to use the fact that Rubica was from a baronet family.

“Your Grace, it seems to me you don’t know about your wife yet. I visited her three days in a row, and she is ignorant about the manners of high nobles. She doesn’t walk with elegance and she speaks like a commoner. Most of all, she needs to abandon her habit of speaking rudely to you. When I pointed it out to her, she…”

“What did you say?”

Edgar’s voice was icy cold. Shaynie thought her plan was working and was delighted. She should have come to the duke in the first place. There wasn’t a wife who could disobey her husband.

“If you permit it, I will teach your wife three times a week and transform her into a mild and obedient woman.”

If Edgar’s legs had been fine, he would have jumped up to grab Shaynie’s throat. However, he couldn’t. Instead, he grabbed a book and threw it at her. Shaynie shut her mouth in surprise and realized his cold gaze and words had been toward her, not Rubica.

“I apologize if what I said displeased you. But I spoke only out of my loyalty to…”

“Why aren’t you accusing me of my behavior?”

“Pardon me, Your Grace?”

“I just threw a book at you. Isn’t that rude?”

His blue eyes were as dry as someone who had been trapped in the desert for three days without water. Shaynie flinched.

“You accuse Rubica of everything she does including the way she talks, but to me, you instantly apologize. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“You, you are the duke, but she is…”

“The duchess.”

“Your Grace!”

Edgar didn’t want to hear this anymore and gestured to Carl. He took out the document he had been looking at, dipped his quill in ink, and started to write in it. He was acting as if Shaynie wasn’t there as if she dissolved into the air.

“Please, please listen to me. Tolerating your wife’s behavior will only dishonor this family.”

Carl grabbed her arm and shook his head, but she still wasn’t going to give up. In the end, Carl had no choice but to drag her out. As soon as a servant closed the door, Shaynie burst in tears and stomped her feet.

“Why is he doing that? I did nothing wrong. It would be good for him to have me correct his wife’s attitude!”

Carl shook his head at seeing she still couldn’t understand what was going on. It was his guess that Edgar liked it very much when Rubica rebelled or behaved rudely to him. He did fight with her with his mouth, but a corner of his lips curled up every time it happened, and the tips of his ears would turn red. Carl even had wondered if his master had a liking to being abused. However, when someone other than Rubica did that to him, he was merciless.

“Mrs. Shaynie, you accused Her Grace’s way of speaking in front of him.”

Shaynie couldn’t understand what he was saying as wives were supposed to speak politely to their husbands. Rubica’s behavior couldn’t be that pleasant to Edgar. In fact, he had frowned hard when hearing people murmuring that it looked like Rubica had him within the palm of her hands. Shaynie had tried to fix that as the manners teacher. Yes, she was the duchess, but everything she had was hers only because she had married Edgar. Shaynie thought she could easily cancel Rubica’s order to have her fired if she could gain Edgar’s trust and favor.

“Yes, I did. Even the crown prince cannot speak like that to His Grace, so I said her behavior must be corrected.”

“You were not there when His Grace spoke of it at dinner a while ago, but he said how he and his wife speak to each other is a matter between them, so no one should comment on it.”

“But…”

“Besides, he also had my wage cut for three months for advising Her Grace on her way of talking. She tried to stop him but, in the end, my wage was still cut.”

Carl left out what had happened in the middle, and Mrs. Shaynie vaguely realized what kind of mistakes she had made only then.

“Then…”

“Mrs. Shaynie, as you criticized Her Grace’s way of speaking, His Grace will not write you a favorable letter of recommendation. Or he can refuse to write it at all.”

Failing to get a letter of recommendation would make it very difficult for her to get hired. Nobles didn’t hire even maids without a letter of recommendation, so Shaynie didn’t know what to do.

“What should I do now?”

“Go to the duchess and beg for mercy. She is the only person who can make His Grace change his mind.”

“I…”

Shaynie realized she had misunderstood the situation. She had looked down on Rubica in her heart when she first saw her. The woman was from a baronet family and she was only a bit pretty. She had been able to become the duchess only because of the duke’s love. However, most men cherished their honor more than their wives no matter how big their love was. A woman who had nothing but her husband’s love tended to worry about losing it. Women who ranked high enough and had huge dowry just laughed when Shaynie spoke to them and moved on. Or they ignored what she said.

That was why she had been so sure she would be able to get Rubica in her grasp if she scared her just a little. Most got scared and listened to her when she said it was easy to be looked down in society with such manners. Lowly women were jealous of women who had succeeded in climbing the social ladder through love and dreamt of achieving it themselves, but the reality was harsh. They found a reason for being laughed by society or not being able to gain the household’s respect within themselves. They thought if they tried harder, if they learned the right manners, it would be all fine.

Actually, nobles of high rank didn’t bully them for such reasons. They did that because they thought those women were occupying places that should have rightfully been their daughters’ or sister’s places. No matter how beautiful they were, no matter how polite they were, no matter how nice they were, people found something to criticize them.

However, Shaynie didn’t think what she had done was bad. It was better for their mental health to find reason within yourself than to find it within others’ hostility.

But sadly, Rubica was not like any other woman Shaynie met. She didn’t have that sense of inferiority which women from low families, who had risen to high ranks, had.

That evening, Shaynie eventually apologized to Rubica. She said she would teach using Rubica’s method and begged to be hired again. However, Rubica turned her down flatly.

***

When Edgar came out after taking a shower, he spotted Rubica sitting on an armchair looking somewhat displeased. She had been in a bad mood at dinner. Steven was now enjoying celebrating every day and had made a huge pile of ice cream, saying the eleventh day after the wedding had to be celebrated as the god created the world in eleven days. However, even that couldn’t make Rubica feel better. She said, ‘I want some more’ twice, so no one noticed that, but Edgar did. Rubica had truly been feeling bad.

‘She isn’t looking at me.’

When he went into the bedroom after taking a shower and putting on his nightclothes, Rubica always blushed and glanced at him while pretending not to. Edgar liked that time. He realized her cheeks turned redder than ever when she looked at the waterdrops on his neck run down, so he came out without drying himself.