Guidelines for the Perfect Goodbye - Chapter 119
‘Yeah, there’s no way it would be there.’
Evelyn Lasphilla would not have left her belongings to a naive child like Cecilia.
Just look at yesterday. That girl watched her search her birth mother’s room and still kept her mouth shut and left.
Afterwards, Louise was anxious that Cecilia might report her.
But nothing has happened yet.
Cecilia was that kind of girl.
A timid girl who wouldn’t dare to step forward even after witnessing an incident.
More ghostly than the ghost of Lasphilla, Evelyn.
She was practically invisible.
That’s why Louise honestly couldn’t fully understand Caroline’s anxieties.
She herself had once mistaken that Cecilia had changed… but in the end, Cecilia was still Cecilia.
Why would Caroline suddenly be jealous of her?
‘She has everything she could need.’
Unlike Louise, who had nothing but her lineage.
‘She knows nothing of hardship…’
Louise found Caroline ridiculous. She felt pity when she looked at her, but at the same time, she felt a faint pleasure in manipulating her to her liking.
* * *
At that moment, as the party was in full swing—
Bernarda and Adam slipped away for a private conversation.
“What do you think?”
Adam asked, to which Bernarda shook her head sadly.
“It’s not good.”
She held her fan to her mouth and lowered her eyebrows.
“Logan Harper is lukewarm, but more importantly, Cecilia herself is the problem. She doesn’t make the first move towards her fiancé.”
“Hmm…”
Adam grunted.
He had considered that Logan might not like Cecilia, but not that Cecilia might not like him.
It was honestly unexpected.
When he had unilaterally informed her of the engagement and handed her a portrait of Logan, he had clearly seen her face light up with a smile.
A radiant smile, eyes full of anticipation, a blush of infatuation.
The face of a girl smitten at first sight.
But these days, Cecilia continued to be indifferent. Even upon meeting Logan, whom she had eagerly awaited, she barely engaged in conversation with him.
Despite the fact that the real person was several times more handsome than his portrait.
“What do we do? If Cecilia doesn’t charm Logan Harper soon, everything will be exposed…”
The marriage between the Harper and Lasphilla families had explicit trade conditions.
The commoner nouveau riche Harper family wanted a noble-blooded daughter-in-law, and the Lasphilla family wanted access to the trade networks in the west owned by the Harper company.
As the marriage was arranged with mutual benefits in mind, the deal had to be precise.
But the marriage partner Adam proposed to the Harper family was Cecilia, the illegitimate child of Lasphilla.
It was a decision of necessity at the time.
At that time, Caroline was engaged to Ulysses, and Margaret was too young. There was no other suitable match as age-appropriate as Cecilia.
Moreover, since the Harper family was not directly connected to the central noble social circles, it was highly likely they did not know Cecilia’s origins.
“Let’s formalize the verbal engagement before they notice anything.”
This was an idea from Bernarda’s mind. Adam thought it was too risky, but he didn’t have a better solution.
“They’re just commoners, what can they possibly do even if they find out later?”
Adam underestimated the head of the Harper family, thinking only of the man’s lower social origins.
He listened to Bernarda’s words, and eventually, Cecilia and Logan’s verbal engagement was established.
While there were concerns as the engagement proceeded, confidence grew over time.
Even if they were discovered midway, it wouldn’t matter. Objectively, Cecilia was the most beautiful among his daughters.
Men are naturally drawn to beautiful women. He recalled his own past desire for Lilith and believed Logan would feel the same.
However, both Logan and Cecilia defied his expectations.
Both were too indifferent to each other.
“This won’t do. If the Harper family learns about Cecilia’s origins, they might demand to break off the engagement. You know how easily verbal engagements can be broken.”
“Then what else can we do? We must keep it a secret until we can…”
“There is a way.”
At Bernarda’s words, Adam raised his eyebrows.
“Let’s hear it.”
“We could create a situation where they must marry before the engagement can be broken.”
“What do you mean by that…”
“My lord, what do you think happens when a man and a woman share a room?”
