The Wicked Wife's Dark History Keeps Coming Back To Haunt Her - Chapter 89
“…What are you going to do about this! My dress is completely ruined!”
The noble lady with brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in a bright pink gown, yelled at a commoner woman who was sitting on the ground.
‘Here we go.’
Miss Catherine of the Barrington family, daughter of Baron Barrington. The future owner of the Barrington Gazette, who, one year from now, would spread rumors of the Taylor family’s downfall and turn them into a laughingstock.
On this day in the past, Nina was already in a foul mood due to her husband’s choice to stay elsewhere overnight, and Catherine’s shrill hysteria grated on her nerves to no end.
“Is one little dress worth all this fuss?”
“D-Duchess!”
“Making a scene in the streets over the price of a single dress? If you’re so hard-pressed, why don’t you go stand in line and get a meal here like everyone else?”
While novels are full of nobles who change dresses with every occasion, in reality, dresses are extremely expensive.
Nobles often treasure their dresses for years, repair or alter them when out of style, and even resell them. Many even wear hand-me-downs from their great-grandmothers.
I heard later that Catherine had been humiliated by rumors that she’d stained her dress, gaining a reputation for poor character in the process.
“…You should take a rest here.”
Nina took out a cape she had ‘prepared for just this moment’ and approached Catherine.
“Our family motto is ‘Double the kindness and repay grudges tenfold,’ Duchess. Soon enough, your name will be synonymous with infamy.”
That was what Baron Barrington said to me when Nina had ended up in the streets.
And he’d been right.
Her name became so notorious that nobles couldn’t even say, ‘You’re a Nina’ without sparking fights.
‘We’ll see if I get back tenfold from this.’
Even so, it was my duty to smooth over this incident, so Nina couldn’t just stand by.
“I-I’m so sorry! I just got dizzy and…”
“Do you think an apology will fix this?! Tell me what you’re going to—!”
Nina calmly stepped between the two women.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“W-Well…”
Catherine stammered, visibly caught off guard.
Of course, anyone would be thrown off meeting Nina Bayern, the social outlaw, right up close.
“Your Ladyship, please calm down. If we cover it like this, no one will even notice the stain on your dress.”
With a gentle smile, Nina draped the cape over Catherine’s shoulders. Embarrassment seemed to replace her anger as the girl’s face gradually softened.
After all, she was only seventeen—barely a child to someone with lifetimes of experience.
Though she was acting hysterically now, she was at that delicate adolescent age, and an expensive pink dress stained with stew could certainly provoke such a reaction.
“I was just walking, and she bumped into me. The stew… it got all over my dress. I… I was worried people would think…”
The young lady, on the verge of tears, bit her lip.
‘So you’re saying you were worried people would think you… well, you know.’
Nina gently patted her shoulder, smiling warmly.
“It’s alright. If anyone makes any rude comments, feel free to tell them my name. I’ll handle it. And are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, Duchess…”
“That’s a relief. Above all, it’s most important that you’re unharmed.”
After soothing the baron’s daughter, Nina then turned to the commoner woman, who was sitting on the ground, pale and shaken.
“And you? Are you alright? No injuries?”
The woman, shocked to be receiving such concern from a noble, stood up, blinking in disbelief.
Samara
Good!
Erica
Well this one action she took put both her jerk of a husband AND the villainess Duchess Nord, in their place! Ash was saying that the crown Prince calling Nina kind and beautiful was a lie, which she just proved the CPs assessment of her to be true. And Duchess Nord was saying that Nina saw commoners as less than human, which she also just proved was incorrect. This one action not only lifted her reputatuon, turned an enemy into a friend, but also got back at them at the same time! You go girl! I truly hope that both Ash and Rebecca were witness to the scene.