“Stop lying now! I heard everything…!”
“I hear you’ve heard everything. What are you talking about?”
Duke Bedford asked with a serious expression.
On the other hand, David still wore a brazen face despite being hit. When Ariella hesitated for a moment, he snorted and interjected.
“You don’t need to hear about some girl who isn’t even a real Bedford, Father. I’ll keep explaining—”
“David, how could you say that to me?”
Ariella raised her head again, tears scattering.
David frowned in annoyance as his words were interrupted. Go ahead, keep talking if you want. He communicated with his eyes.
‘No matter what I say, Father will ultimately side with me.’
Claiming that he tried to kill her or whatever would be pointless if he stubbornly denied it until the end. The duke would be angry, but the current anger and the choices he would make in the future were entirely different categories.
No matter how valuable Ariella was, she could not compare to the sole heir of Bedford. If the duke felt that his heir was threatened, he would surely turn his back on Ariella.
David believed this without a doubt, and Ariella, unusually, agreed with his thoughts.
‘If they say David tried to kill me, they’ll try to silence me somehow. So I can’t go around talking about it elsewhere.’
The anger towards his disobedient son would quickly fade into concern for the family. It was something that could not be allowed to happen.
So Ariella decided to approach it in a slightly different way.
“Right, you didn’t order those thugs to kill me.”
The two men of Bedford widened their eyes. The duke felt relieved that his son wouldn’t be arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, while David looked suspicious, unable to grasp her intentions.
What Ariella was curious about was to reassure the duke. She wanted him not to feel threatened by Bedford and its heir, so that he could genuinely be angry at David.
“But you made him do something even worse.”
“What? What did I do…?”
David’s face twisted. He had no idea what she was trying to say.
“You told him to defile my body!”
Seeing him, Ariella shouted as if in a frenzy.
“You told him to tear my clothes, mark my skin, and violate my purity. To make me a woman of ill repute, to completely ruin the value of Elly Bedford in the marriage market!”
A voice that sounded like a desperate scream followed.
“Instead of making me do that, you should have just killed me!”
Her frail body trembled as she gasped for breath, looking like someone who had almost suffered a terrible fate.
Ariella hadn’t heard the thugs talking about their orders. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted at all.
So what she was saying now could be considered a lie. However, it wasn’t entirely false.
If Nobert hadn’t helped her, what would have happened to me today? Ariella thought the answer lay within her claims.
“David Bedford. Is everything Elly said true?”
The duke’s voice was low and grave.
The man who had been spewing anger like a volcano suddenly turned cold. This was a warning sign. A signal that the duke was very angry.
Recognizing this from countless experiences, David hurriedly knelt.
“No, Father! She’s lying! No matter how angry I am, how could I dare to order my sister to be violated! There’s no reason for that!”
He looked genuinely wronged. From his expression, it seemed he hadn’t actually ordered such a thing to the thugs. At least, he hadn’t.
The duke’s eyes also reflected David’s grievance, and he frowned in contemplation.
Ariella decided to ease her father’s worries as a good daughter.
“Right, I want to ask why. Why on earth did you make him do such a thing? David, is it because you were forced to confess to Father that you’ve been frequently visiting gambling dens and ended up owing a large sum to Baron Peterson? Or is it because you forged your academy graduation grades? Is that really why you want to tarnish the noble name of Bedford?!”
David’s face, which had been asserting his innocence, turned pale in an instant. He never imagined that Ariella would know about the things he had hidden, let alone reveal them in such a situation.
“David.”
The duke called out to David in a chilling voice.
Soon, a piercing gaze turned towards David. He met the duke’s eyes with a completely different expression from the one he had just shown, where he had confidently expressed his grievance. He desperately tried to pretend he didn’t know, but unfortunately, unlike Ariella or Lizzy, he wasn’t skilled at acting.
“F-Father, I didn’t do it on purpose, no, that’s all a lie…”
“You little brat!!”
Duke Bedford quickly realized that everything Ariella said was true, and at the same time, he threw a punch.
