SMR | Chapter 166

~Chapter 166~

“So you’re telling me to jump into the mud on my own, when everyone who boarded that ship is being pointed at and condemned? And you don’t see why that’s difficult?”

“You were afraid of that, yet you went around wearing such a small mask?”

“Oh, Bella, Bella! You pretended to be Harriet because you thought you wouldn’t get caught, right? I did too! I never imagined things would blow up like this!”

Because of that incident, Tez was already busy going around silencing people, trying to keep things from leaking any further. And now Bella was even telling him to “turn himself in.” Irritation slowly crept up on him.

But Bella still didn’t seem to notice his mood at all.

“Still, you’re the one who took that girl onto the ship, so you should take responsibility! Are you saying I’m supposed to take all the blame alone?”

“Responsibility? You’re telling me to take responsibility? Who was it that asked me to find Harriet’s weakness in the first place?”

“I never told you to take her onto that ship. So if you came up with that method, then it’s your responsibility.”

“Ha…! Hahaha!”

Tez laughed loudly in disbelief.

He knew Bella was selfish, but he hadn’t realized she could be this shameless.

Was this what it meant to lose all affection for someone? At first, her face had been something he could only admire—but now, it didn’t look all that pretty anymore.

They’d slept together a few times, so the excitement from the beginning was already gone. At this rate, he felt like he’d just end up as a fool being drained dry by Bella. So Tez decided to use this chance to cut ties with her completely.

“I’m refusing, Bella. Go find some penniless idiot who can afford to throw everything away for you. I have too much to lose.”

“Tez!”

“Go to the palace and keep insisting that it wasn’t you until the very end. Then they won’t be able to do much there either. I’ll be going now.”

He pushed her aside and left the room.

Only then did Bella finally realize that the man she thought would always be on her side was actually someone who had been ready to leave at any moment.

* * *

Harriet hadn’t expected things to unfold like this either.

“It looks like Bella is going to refuse the summons to the very end. At first, people thought it was just some misunderstanding, but now they’re saying maybe Bella really did board that ship—and that she blamed you again because getting caught would ruin her engagement with the Cheslow family.”

Viviana, who had rushed over excitedly, clicked her tongue in satisfaction as she shared Bella’s latest situation.

“Isn’t she vicious? If it wasn’t her, then it wasn’t her. How can she lie again and say you impersonated her?”

“Y-yeah…”

Harriet quickly lifted her teacup and pretended to drink, trying to hide her awkward smile.

Viviana didn’t notice at all and continued fuming on Harriet’s behalf.

“She can’t keep using that excuse forever. Every time her name comes up in a scandal, she drags you in. People are finally starting to think something’s off.”

“Really…?”

“Yes! I heard people talking at a bazaar yesterday. They were saying, half-jokingly, that Bella had dumped everything on you in the past too.”

That made Harriet’s mind snap awake.

The reason she had never spoken out about what Bella had done to her was because she believed no one would ever believe her, no matter what she said.

But now—regardless of the details—doubt was beginning to grow around Bella. After all, why had she dressed up like Harriet and boarded that ship in the first place?

‘This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it? Don’t act like a hypocrite, Harriet.’

Harriet imagined slapping herself hard in her mind once, then put on a more natural smile and spoke to Viviana.

“Then I suppose it’s finally time to explain what happened in the past.”

“Oh, Harriet! You’ve finally made up your mind?”

Viviana clasped her hands together, looking even more excited than Harriet herself.

Harriet found her both amusing and deeply grateful. When someone wanted her reputation restored this badly, she couldn’t afford to stay idle.

“Bella’s given me a chance to strike back. It wouldn’t be polite to just let it pass.”

That’s right—she didn’t have the luxury to waste good fortune. She still had a long road ahead, and many things to reclaim.

Thinking of the garden of the Listerwell estate she missed so dearly, and the memories buried there, Harriet decided to make full use of this opportunity.

* * *

The first stage was Annabel Layton’s tea party.

Harriet attended one of Annabel’s regularly held tea gatherings. She had been looking for a chance to bring up Bella, but before she even needed to try, the conversation naturally turned to that ship and the summons.

“A friend of a friend of mine seems to have been a passenger on that ship. The fact that they fled to their territory in the middle of the night makes it pretty convincing.”

“It’s embarrassing to say this, but my cousin’s household is in chaos. Apparently, her husband had been secretly going to that ship. I think they’ll be divorcing soon.”

“I haven’t heard of anyone around me receiving a summons. Isn’t it just a tiny number of people muddying the waters?”

“No. There were many high-ranking passengers too, and I heard those people already struck deals with the imperial family. But the cost of covering it up was enormous.”

The ship Kingdom was causing massive turmoil in high society.

At first, there had been criticism aimed at the Emperor and Cedric for stirring up a hornet’s nest. But as shocking truths about what had happened aboard the ship surfaced one by one, those complaints disappeared.

Instead, people increasingly believed that the two were treating the Empire’s festering wounds—which, in a way, was fortunate.

“Oh! Miss Harriet, are you all right?”

“…Me?”

When someone asked her with curious eyes, Harriet tensed up.

“I heard Bella Listerwell tried to pin the blame on you.”

“That’s right! I heard she received a summons too, but she’s refusing to appear again while using Miss Harriet as an excuse…”

Listening to their concern gave Harriet a strange feeling.

In the past, everyone had believed Bella without question. Now, they were naturally assuming Harriet was being falsely accused.

‘Back then, I thought Bella was an impregnable fortress I could never defeat. But now that I look at it, she was just a sandcastle that would collapse with a single wave.’

The childhood days she had spent crying over it suddenly felt unfair.

But she couldn’t afford to drown in self-pity. Putting on a troubled expression, Harriet spoke.

“Oh, that story? I was so shocked when I heard it too—I really can’t endure it anymore. I thought I’d finally be done being used and tried to bury the past, but…”

She paused deliberately, and everyone leaned in, clearly waiting for something interesting.

It was time to reveal a truth she had buried for a very long time.

“You know those old scandals where people said I impersonated Bella and got involved with men? All of that was actually done by Bella.”

“What?”

As expected, everyone looked shocked—half of them clearly doubting it.

“You’re free to believe me or not. But please, just listen to my story until the end.”

Harriet added the same condition she always did before confessing her past, then began explaining what Bella had done to her.

Starting with the first “Julian Pace” scandal, the incidents at various masquerade balls, rumors that she had seduced married men, and the label of being jealous of Bella—

The acts were so malicious that it was hard to believe they’d been committed by a teenage girl. Someone asked suspiciously,

“If that’s true, why didn’t you say anything back then? Why reveal it only now?”

It was a question she’d heard countless times—enough to almost make her laugh.

“Everyone, at the time my uncle was my only guardian, and I wasn’t even twenty years old.”

Bound by the leash of guardianship, cut off from most social interaction, she had been an ignorant orphan with nowhere to turn. Had people simply not seen that?

“Do you really think I could have made trouble for Bella back then, knowing that if my uncle got angry, I’d be thrown out with nothing?”

Suppressing the anger rising as she revisited the past, Harriet let out a long breath.

“I also went to Saint Clarissa Convent because I believed my uncle when he said that if I stayed there for just one year, he’d find me a good marriage. But you all know how that turned out. He abandoned me there and cut off the guardianship entirely.”

By then, the people sitting there clearly leaned toward pitying Harriet.

She stayed composed until the end.

“I suppose an obedient, dependent cousin who couldn’t talk back must have been a very convenient tool. Looking back, I feel frustrated with myself too—for admitting ‘It was my fault’ every time, just as Bella and my uncle told me to.”

“No, Miss Harriet! You were just a teenage girl back then. Your uncle’s influence must have been absolute.”

Annabel, who had been listening silently, took Harriet’s hand in support. Others hesitated for a moment before adding their voices.

“That’s right. Refusing the demands of your only guardian would have been incredibly difficult.”

“I’m shocked that Bella would do something like that. So she was just pretending to be kind in public?”

“Does the Cheslow family know about this?”

“They’ll find out through this summons issue. Countess Cheslow is known for being very strict.”

The tea party quickly turned into a chorus of overlapping voices.

To Harriet, that noisy crowd sounded like a massive boulder finally beginning to roll.

Bella’s reputation—once seemingly immovable—was slowly starting to tilt.

And this time, Harriet knew it wouldn’t stop.