“Ah, Father...!”
Ignoring Isabella's exclamations, Cardinal de Mare spat out at Cesare in a voice boiling with phlegm.
“You piece of trash...!”
Cesare was so tempted to call him 'Master' there, but he kept his mouth shut for fear of making a fuss.
All Cesare could do was keep his mouth shut and bow his head deeply.
“Come out, Isabella.”
The Cardinal ordered his daughter in a cold voice.
However, when Cardinal de Mare appeared, Isabella, relieved that reinforcements had arrived, pleaded with the Cardinal with tears in her eyes.
“Father, please persuade the Duke. After all, the union between families is so important that it doesn’t matter who the daughter gets married to...”
But what she was faced with was a scolding from her father who didn't understand anything.
“Shut up and come out, Isabella?!”
At the Cardinal's loud voice, Isabella opened her eyes wide and immediately shut her mouth.
It was the first time she had ever been treated like this by her father, especially in front of other people.
The Cardinal left the Duke of Pisano's drawing room with brisk strides, holding his eldest daughter's wrist.
Every second of his stay at Villa Sortone was filled with a bad mood.
“Your Eminence, on your way back, our people will accompany you...”
Cesare, who was reluctant to send Cardinal de Mare away like this, made an empty suggestion.
“No need!”
The Cardinal firmly rejected the offer.
Cesare and Isabella were equally anxious about what he was thinking as they watched his broken back.
***
The silence inside the carriage was terrifying. Isabella thought she might vomit out her entrails.
It might have been less scary if the Cardinal had exploded in anger, shouting, "Isabel-la-!!!"
But inside the de Mare family's silver carriage, the Cardinal simply kept his mouth shut, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.
Isabella didn't dare to open her mouth and just watched her father's expression.
Hehehee!
The carriage gave a long whistle to indicate that it had arrived at the de Mare mansion.
The Cardinal finally opened his mouth after hearing that sound and spoke in a low voice.
“Isabella de Mare.”
“...Yes, Dad.”
“Follow me up to my study.”
Isabella was too overwhelmed to answer, but the Cardinal, without waiting for an answer, strode up to his study on the second floor.
Isabella also followed her father, feeling intimidated.
The road to her father's study was truly luxurious.
With marble sculptures placed throughout and even a fresco of baby angels painted on the ceiling, it was the most impressive room in the house.
At the same time, it was a place that was not permitted for Isabella.
After Lucrezia's death, Isabella was never allowed to enter her father's study.
'Mom...'
She suddenly missed her deceased mother. If Lucrezia had been there, Lucrezia would have thrown herself at her to protect Isabella from her father's wrath.
Isabella felt tears welling up in her eyes again.
Whether he knew his daughter's sentiments or not, Cardinal de Mare went into his study, sat down at his desk, and silently gestured to the backless chair opposite his desk.
Isabella carefully took her place on the velvet.
As she was preparing to sit down on her chair, she belatedly noticed that her corpique was buttoned up incorrectly.
Her face burned for a moment. What had I done?
Cardinal de Mare spoke in a subdued tone, either not noticing Isabella's disheveled appearance or ignoring it.
“Do you understand the situation right now?”
“...”
When Isabella couldn't answer, he blurted out in a decisive tone:
“You have been sentenced to social death.”
The Cardinal's eyes were piercingly cold.
It was not a gaze towards his own daughter, but a gaze like that of a valuable item stored away in a warehouse that had passed its trend and was no longer available for sale.
“I had high expectations for you.”
The greatest talent in San Carlo, a heavenly beauty, with angelic eyes. These were all words that once described Isabella.
“How did I raise you, only to have it all thrown away like this?”
At this point, Isabella shook her head desperately.
“No, no, Dad!”
Your reputation may have been ruined, but isn't that all that matters once you get married?
“It’s not over yet. Dad, please persuade him. If Duke Cesare changes his mind and marries me...”
But Isabella's sentence was not finished.
Ouch!
The cracking sound of skin on skin filled the Cardinal's study. Isabella's head jerked to the right.
Her voluminous flaxen hair was disheveled, obscuring her expression.
“You still don’t understand the situation even at this point?”
The angry Cardinal finally raised his voice.
“If a man says he doesn’t want to be married, how can I force him into that position?”
In fact, it would not have been impossible for Cardinal de Mare to have gone to Leo III and demanded that his son, whom he had made a royal, take responsibility for his daughter.
But Cardinal de Mare had no intention of doing so.
Isabella looked at her father with a shocked expression, but it was not because she could clearly understand his intentions.
'Where did you hear that?'
Isabella frantically recounted what had happened in Cesare's drawing room. Did you only hear the end?
If Cesare had thought that Isabella was really the mistress of the Marquis of Campa and that this was why he had rejected her, he might have found it difficult to include her as the Duchess of Pisano.
Isabella believed that if only her father could correct his delusions, he would still be on her side.
After all, Isabella had been her father's pretty treasure chest—for most of her life.
“Father, it seems like you only heard the last part of the conversation, but it can all be fixed. Duke Cesare is just acting like that because he’s hurt, and I haven’t done anything that would make me unfit to be a Duchess! I really didn’t have anything to do with the Marquis of Campa, and Duke Cesare knows that...”
“I heard it all from the beginning!”
Isabella's eyes shook with confusion.
If you've been listening from the beginning, you'll know that the innocent eldest daughter was unfortunately betrayed by the debaucherous Duke Cesare. Why won't my father take my side...?
Cardinal de Mare snorted in anger as he looked at his eldest daughter, frozen like a broken wind-up doll.
Isabella came today to ruin everything the Cardinal had done so far.
A happy family, a well-educated eldest son, a beautiful eldest daughter, and a second daughter who is well-known in high society. A marriage to a collateral branch of the royal family has been confirmed.
After Ariadne married the Duke of Pisano, the Countess of de Mare would become a title owned by the House of Pisano, and although Cardinal Dlde Mare was dissatisfied with the fact that his family would once again lose the title, he had decided to resolve this issue by marrying Ippolito to the only daughter of a noble family.
A Cardinal with royal blood and the most arrogant authority in the capital could have achieved that.
Unbeknownst to Ippolito and Isabella, he had already narrowed down several families and was investigating the candidates' collateral relatives.
So, from the Cardinal's point of view, everything was going pretty well. Then Isabella threw a wrench into the mix.
“What? All your problems will be solved if you just marry Duke Cesare? If you just get married, everything will be over. What are you going to do about the shame that will befall your family?”
Her marriage to Cesare, Duke of Pisano, was something that had already been promised to the de Mare family.
From the family's perspective, there was absolutely no need to force Isabella into becoming the laughingstock of the capital.
“If you commit an act like this, what will happen to your older brother who is still single! And your younger sister who has had her marriage robbed!”
What decent family would want to send their daughter to a house with a sister-in-law like this?
Keeping Ariadne in the family forever without marrying her off was also an option, but that was a decision the Cardinal had to make based on his rational judgment.
It's not something a girl who acts like a brat would do on her own.
Cardinal de Mare was going through a series of emotions: shame at having a daughter who threw herself at a man in public, anger at having his authority trampled, and resentment that he would have to clean up the mess from now on.
He vented his anger on Isabella, the culprit right in front of him.
“Did you think that I gave you all the education, friendships, and luxuries just because you were so good?”
Isabella looked up at her father blankly.
“You only know yourself!”
The Cardinal today had a fundamental question about Isabella's usefulness.
His second daughter, Ariadne, grew up with thick hair and often made her own plans without her father's knowledge, something he did not like very much.
But before long, Ariadne's schemes had grown beyond the size that the Cardinal could easily stop.
So the Cardinal decided to ignore his second daughter's antics.
The reason he decided so was simple: Ariadne was a predictable, rational opponent who could basically understand what was being said.
But Isabella was quite the opposite. He had always thought of his eldest daughter as nothing more than a pretty chess piece.
If there was something she didn't like, she would nitpick without thinking about the consequences and cause minor incidents and accidents, but Ilhe thought it was just the kind of frustration that girls of that age would have.
But looking at what happened today, it was a total time bomb.
'If we put this child in the position of Duchess of Pisano, it will be detrimental to her and her husband's family, but will she really follow along obediently when asked to do something that will help her family?'
It was okay to be incompetent. It was even okay to be ugly. As long as my father and my family put me in it, that was fine.
But what if you have no loyalty to your family? That is a disqualification. That is unacceptable.
The Cardinal snapped.
“You have to find a marriage partner who will benefit your family with that pretty face to make your family immortal! No, you have to remain loyal to your family even after getting married to help your family!”
Family. The immortal de Mare family.
Cardinal de Mare's only obsession is his family.
Isabella tried to quietly mutter the empty words that had been ringing in her ears.
The rough texture, like unpolished wheat, stuck in her mouth.
Cardinal de Mare was constantly angry.
“Do you think I invested that much so that you could eat well and live well on your own?!”
She thought her father loved her because she was pretty and was intoxicated by her beauty.
“Do you think all that you enjoyed was within your means? You walked around with your nose up and your lungs full of air?!”
Cardinal de Mare was absorbed in his own calculations, completely oblivious to what Isabella was thinking at the moment.
“You’re a loser who can’t even keep up with the second one!”
It hurt. The words hurt. It hurt not only because she was being directly compared to Ariadne. It hurt because she had a strange realization.
The 'de Mare House' was not Isabella's. It was the Cardinal's house, promised to Ippolito, but usurped by Ariadne.
When the title was given to Ariadne, Ippolito was genuinely angry, but Isabella felt no emotion other than the foolish jealousy one might feel when a beloved child is doing well.
Because the family was not Isabella's, to begin with.
Ever since she was little, she's always wondered: Does my dad love me?
The doubts that had raised their heads like that were lost in the abundance of material.
Because the best, the prettiest, and the most expensive things always belonged to Isabella, not Arabella, not even Ippolito.
That was given conditionally.
Cardinal de Mare rewarded Isabella even more abundantly when she began to stand out among her peers, when she became known for her natural beauty, and when her manners and behavior were praiseworthy.
So Isabella thought that what had come to her until now was conditional love. Conditional love that loved her because she was pretty.
But suddenly a strange realization came to her.
What she had been receiving so far was not 'conditional love', but perhaps feed to the livestock that brought in the fish.
The slap Isabella received today wasn't just a physical slap.
Isabella, still holding her cheek, muttered quietly.
“You said...”
"What?"
“Father, you told me to be the most noble woman in San Carlo!”
Isabella, who had been trembling with her mouth shut, suddenly stood up as if determined and faced Cardinal de Mare with a stern look.
“Father told me to become Prince Alfonso’s Princess! You told me that! But what did you do for me!”
“You have to find a marriage partner who will benefit your family with that pretty face to make your family immortal! No, you have to remain loyal to your family even after getting married to help your family!”
Family. The immortal de Mare family.
Cardinal de Mare's only obsession is his family.
Isabella tried to quietly mutter the empty words that had been ringing in her ears.
The rough texture, like unpolished wheat, stuck in her mouth.
Cardinal de Mare was constantly angry.
“Do you think I invested that much so that you could eat well and live well on your own?!”
She thought her father loved her because she was pretty and was intoxicated by her beauty.
“Do you think all that you enjoyed was within your means? You walked around with your nose up and your lungs full of air?!”
Cardinal de Mare was absorbed in his own calculations, completely oblivious to what Isabella was thinking at the moment.
“You’re a loser who can’t even keep up with the second one!”
It hurt. The words hurt. It hurt not only because she was being directly compared to Ariadne. It hurt because she had a strange realization.
The 'de Mare House' was not Isabella's. It was the Cardinal's house, promised to Ippolito, but usurped by Ariadne.
When the title was given to Ariadne, Ippolito was genuinely angry, but Isabella felt no emotion other than the foolish jealousy one might feel when a beloved child is doing well.
Because the family was not Isabella's, to begin with.
Ever since she was little, she's always wondered: Does my dad love me?
The doubts that had raised their heads like that were lost in the abundance of material.
Because the best, the prettiest, and the most expensive things always belonged to Isabella, not Arabella, not even Ippolito.
That was given conditionally.
Cardinal de Mare rewarded Isabella even more abundantly when she began to stand out among her peers, when she became known for her natural beauty, and when her manners and behavior were praiseworthy.
So Isabella thought that what had come to her until now was conditional love. Conditional love that loved her because she was pretty.
But suddenly a strange realization came to her.
What she had been receiving so far was not 'conditional love', but perhaps feed to the livestock that brought in the fish.
The slap Isabella received today wasn't just a physical slap.
Isabella, still holding her cheek, muttered quietly.
“You said...”
"What?"
“Father, you told me to be the most noble woman in San Carlo!”
Isabella, who had been trembling with her mouth shut, suddenly stood up as if determined and faced Cardinal de Mare with a stern look.
“Father told me to become Prince Alfonso’s Princess! You told me that! But what did you do for me!”
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