I Give Up on the BL Novel's Male Leads - Chapter 31
“Illein!”
The alarmed voice belonged to Illein’s mother.
Hot tea had been splashed on her face. Illein, feeling the intense heat, instinctively grabbed her face.
“Just sitting there, ungrateful, and now you’re spouting off! I thought I might let it slide if you apologized, but this won’t do! Dear, strip Baron Thierry of his aide position!”
“Viscountess! What are you doing!”
Illein tried to apply her healing powers to the burning sensation on her face.
However, overwhelmed by injustice, sadness, and pain, she couldn’t focus properly.
Her vision was blurred from the hot water that had entered her eyes, and her mother’s frantic attempts to wipe her face only added to the confusion.
“You said you came to apologize, just to be like this?”
“My child doesn’t know any better. Please forgive her, Viscountess.”
“Forgive? After insulting our Willai like that?”
“Illein doesn’t understand. Please forgive her.”
Illein felt like her lips were sealed, even though she had the urge to speak.
Amidst this pain, she feared that speaking out might indeed jeopardize her father’s job.
The Thierry family was deeply in debt. Her father’s ventures had consistently failed, and their mansion was mortgaged, with no prospect of income for 10 years.
Her father’s role as an aide in the Duke’s household and her mother’s job as a maid were desperate measures to pay off the interest on their debts.
If she caused any trouble here, her family might truly face unemployment.
And if that happened, she wouldn’t be able to stop the marriage to Melias.
Just one more year of enduring, and she could become an imperial official, escaping this dreadful situation.
With this in mind, she tried her best to endure.
“Everyone, quiet down.”
Viscount Macintosh finally spoke, and the room fell silent.
“Now, tell us, did you really ask Prince Edwin to expel our Willai?”
“…No.”
Illein managed to heal her face a bit, but her vision remained cloudy, as if particles were still in her eyes.
“And you don’t know why the principal agreed to consider Willai’s withdrawal?”
“Yes, I have never met the principal except at the time of my admission.”
Illein held back tears despite feeling unjustly treated.
Showing tears to those who looked down on her seemed pointless; it would only invite further mockery.
“Then you will take responsibility and ask the Prince to revoke the order concerning our Willai.”
“…”
“If Willai is expelled from Bellaine Academy, your father will also be dismissed from the Duke’s household. I know of a grave mistake your father has committed. If I tell the duke, your family will never set foot in the Candelaria Ducal household again.”
Illein considered asking Damon for help, but he was only the Young Duke, not yet the Duke. Moreover, he was not on good terms with his father.
It would be problematic if her actions worsened their relationship.
Illein chose to remain silent, not wanting to cause trouble for anyone else.
“Let’s leave. We’ve only wasted our time here.”
“Mother.”
“Let’s go, Willai.”
With that, the Macintosh couple left, leaving the Thierry family behind as if the courtesies of nobility were not needed.
“Marry Marquis Wignum. You won’t have to go through this again.”
The ride back home in the carriage was even more dreadful.
Illein had no energy left to respond. Baron Thierry waited after calling her softly.
When her name was called, Illein looked at her father as if she had no choice.
“If you want to graduate from the academy, do so. But you’ll have to speak well to His Highness about the resignation issue of Viscount Macintosh’s son. And if you are to get engaged, that’s fine too.”
“What if I say I won’t get engaged?”
For the first time, Illein felt like she was truly seeing her father.
Reading the indescribable emotion in his eyes, she inadvertently bowed her head.
“Let’s stop this, dear.”
“Ahem.”
Baron Thierry, seemingly frustrated, looked out the window as his wife spoke.
“Illein. We were going to wait a bit longer to tell you this, but it seems we need to do it now.”
“….What do you mean?”
“Actually, Mother is pregnant.”
“What?”
Illein felt as though she had been struck hard on the head.
How could her parents, who were barely managing as it was, be expecting another child?
“Ah…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say congratulations but felt she couldn’t say anything negative in such a situation either.
“Congra…tulations.”
“Thank you, I knew you’d say that.”
At that moment, it felt like all the pieces of the puzzle had come together for her.
“Is it a boy?”
“Yes, that’s what they say.”
Seers, who specialize in astrology, often predict details about unborn children. And everything they said had come to pass.
“So that’s why you’ve been pushing for me to marry as Illenas.”
“Yes. Our family will have another successor, so it won’t have to be you.”
“….”
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