And it didn’t end there.
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Eva’s family then brought out the memorial tablets of her deceased parents and demanded that Julian kneel and kowtow. “You are
marrying a daughter of the Ye family, so you are a son of the Ye family! is it not your duty to pay respects to your late parents–in-
law
Julian, a man who considered himself a prince among men, had never imagined he would have to kneel before commoners. He
refused. In his fury, he accidentally knocked the tablets to the ground, shattering them.
That was the last straw. Eva’s family erupted, accusing the House of Blackwood of bullying the poor and threatening to sue them at the capital court. Eva’s brother pointed a finger at Julian and yelled, “You’re motherless just like our Eva! What makes you so much
better than us? Let’s go! Let’s see what the magistrate has to say about this!”
Eva just stood there, paralyzed, capable only of weeping. Years of her family’s abuse had been ingrained in her; even as a marchio-
ness–to–be, she didn’t dare defy them.
The old Marquis, so enraged by the scene, had a relapse of his old wounds and began coughing up blood.
The honor of the House of Blackwood was trampled into the dust, becoming the talk of the entire capital. People began to compa-
re the debacle to my own coming–of–age ceremony, sighing with regret.
“If only he had married the young lady from the de Valois house, none of this would have happened.”
The
e traditional rites had been observed, so Eva was officially married into the House of Blackwood. Julian’s wish had been granted.
But soon after, Eva’s brother and sister–in–law, backed by their connection to the Marquis, began to bully and swindle their way through the city, showing no regard for anyone. In that first year of their marriage, Julian was constantly cleaning up their messes. Eva’s brother was lured into a gambling den and lost so much in one night that he used his own wife and children as collateral. Eva‘ s sister–in–law, greedy for money, used Julian’s name to engage in predatory lending, leaving many families destitute. Their distant relatives ran up debts all over the city, and at the end of the year, the bills sent to the estate were several times larger than the
estate’s own expenses.
If it had only been her family, perhaps Julian, still clinging to his feelings for Eva, would have gritted his teeth and endured it.
But Eva herself was a disappointment.
She knew nothing of managing a household, yet she demanded control of the estate the moment she arrived. She used the same tactics on the late Marchioness’s trusted head housekeeper, a woman named Beatrice, as she had on me: playing the victim, fabri-
cating stories, feigning innocence…
Beatrice was no fool; she saw through the petty tricks. But Julian’s blind defense of his wife, his refusal to see reason, broke the old.
woman’s heart. To protect herself, she claimed illness and retired.
My mother sighed. “Eva accused Beatrice of stealing one of her hairpins and had the guards hold her down and slap her a hundred times. Beatrice has been with the Blackwood family for decades. After the late Marchioness passed, she managed the estate with
utmost devotion. She had never been treated with such disrespect.”
“When she went to Julian for justice, he ordered her to be given another hundred slaps.”
With the Marquis living at the military barracks and Beatrice gone, Eva, with Julian’s backing, became the mistress of the house. But she had no idea how to run it. No one dared to cross the new lady of the house, which meant no one dared to teach her how to
interact with the noblewomen of the capital or how to manage the estate’s affairs.
“At the Queen’s birthday banquet last year, she made a complete fool of herself. First, she mistook the fifth princess for a palace maid and scolded her for dressing too seductively to attract men.”
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Chapter
“Then, she mixed up the gifts and presented the Queen with a brocade meant for an elderly matriarch’s funeral rites. If not for the Marquis’s esteemed military record, Eva might not have left the palace alive that day.”
The Emperor had laughed and declared that the young Lord of Blackwood had married a “fine wife.” Anyone could hear the sarca- sm, but Eva took it as a genuine compliment. She beamed and thanked the Emperor for his good taste. The Emperor was so amu- sed he couldn’t stop laughing. Julian knelt on the floor, sweat pouring down his back
Before they even returned to their estate, Julian struck Eva for the first time. He raged at her for being vulgar, uncivilized, and utter- ly without grace, for making a mockery of his house in front of the entire court.
