Chapter 282 "Just accept my proposal..."
Aurora was extremely embarrassed, and her face turned pale.
"It's a misunderstanding, it's a misunderstanding," I quickly said. "Mia may have gone into the wrong room."
Duke Avana laughed heartily, “She called me by my name, and you say it’s a misunderstanding? She said, ‘Your Excellency, what do you think of me?’”
“But I heard you’re asking for 100,000 gold coins for reputational damages, that’s too much,” I said.
“Not much, not at all. The reputation I’ve built up over half my life is worth far more than 100,000 gold pieces.”
“We can’t afford it,” I said bluntly.
“If you can’t pay upfront, just write an IOU and show it to others. At least it will show that I’m the victim.” The Duke of Avanna smiled meaningfully. “I’m not greedy. I’ll charge eight percent interest.”
Aurora's expression immediately changed, and I also frowned. "Around six, I guess."
Duke Avanna smiled at me and said, "I'm not bad. Back then, when you borrowed money from Princess Yani to repair the straight road to the Western Kingdom, the interest rate was over ten percent, but I only charged eight percent. You should be thanking me."
His smile shone brightly, concealing a deeper purpose.
"What exactly is your purpose?!" I asked earnestly. "Do you really want to put yourself in a difficult position with two women?!"
“I just want to see you in trouble.” He looked directly at me, not Aurora.
Aurora suddenly stood up, lifted the hem of her long skirt, and slowly walked out, closing the door to the living room behind her.
“Your daughter is sometimes smarter than you,” the Duke of Avana chuckled, leaning back in his chair.
"..."
"If you give me the divorce settlement from King Bernard, wouldn't that solve the problem?" the Duke of Avanna said lazily.
"You're spying on me?!" I laughed angrily. "Going to all this trouble to spy on me just so I'll come up with enough money to last me a while, agree to your deal, and publish King Bernard's breakup letter?!"
The second letter to me was sent in great secrecy; the Duke of Avanna must have gone to great lengths to find out what was inside.
“Yes,” he actually replied, “I want you to break up with him completely.”
"Our relationship is none of your business."
The Duke of Avanna looked at me with a grin. "Do you really want me to spell it out?"
How would you like my answer?
"Just say yes to my proposal."
"It's impossible for us to be together."
"Why? Because you're single now."
"But that doesn't mean I have to marry you."
“You must marry him.” The Duke of Avana suddenly leaned close to me. I was startled and moved my chair back. His iron-like arms encircled me and the chair.
"I will not marry," I said.
"How long do you think your 100,000 gold taels breakup fee will last? Your daughter's royal city is about to go bankrupt, your newspaper will have to go out of business, and you will have nothing left."
"So what if I have nothing?" I said defiantly.
The Duke of Avanna laughed loudly, extremely audaciously, "Fine, let's see how long you can last."
The following afternoon, I sat in the sun-drenched, spacious living room, flipping through the financial ledgers.
“Mother, I told you he was interested in you.” Aurora gathered the ledgers she had just finished reading. “I just didn’t expect him to propose to you. I thought he just wanted to play around and make you his mistress.”
I rubbed my temples and said, "The capital's finances are indeed severely depleted. How exactly are you managing it?"
“It was a poor royal city to begin with,” Aurora said. “King Bernot has been busy fighting for power for so long that he has no time to manage this royal city.”
“But you’ve been in charge for almost ten years now, and the deficit still hasn’t been covered.”
Aurora cried, "It's not that easy, Mother. If this royal city were so easy to turn a profit, it would have been seized long ago, instead of waiting for me to grow up and take it back."
That seems to make sense. This royal city is located in a remote area outside the western border. The land is infertile, the vegetation is sparse, and farmland is scarce. Although there are large orchards, the harvests are not plentiful every year, leaving the royal city, which relies mainly on agricultural production, impoverished. I've considered focusing on industrial production, but the productivity of this continent is low, making it difficult to mass-produce industrial products. Alas, this is worrying.
My cultural products haven't taken off yet. Only after more than ten years of dedicated work can I talk about making a lot of money.
“Go and tell Duke Avana that I agree to his deal, but only to the deal,” I said.
At dinner, the Duke of Avanna appeared at the table. He didn't usually dine with us. He was rarely seen during the day, returning late at night to occasionally attend our social dinners.
“I’m not short of money, and I don’t need your 100,000 gold coins,” he said to me with a smile. “You just need to agree to cooperate with me.”
Our collaboration was simple: I published Bernard's breakup letter, and he gave me inside information about the civil unrest in Spain. I needed traffic, I needed money—it was that simple.
Of course, the inside information he gave me was definitely inside information that he thought was safe to share.
"Your Grace, how wealthy are you? Can you support our royal city?" Mia couldn't help but ask. Mia was a rather absent-minded girl. Last night, a sword was held to her neck, yet tonight she could still talk to the person holding the sword, completely oblivious to the fear and embarrassment.
“Okay.” Like a magician, he took out a stack of contracts from his pocket and placed them on the table in front of him. Mia got up from her chair and rushed over to look, Aurora and Jacob also went over curiously, but I remained unmoved.
"Wow, so many land deeds! There are ones for the East, West, South, and even the North! Are they all yours? And there are contracts for the royal cities, one, two, three, four... ten in total, owners of ten royal cities?!" Mia exclaimed repeatedly. "Your Grace, are they all yours? And these mercenary purchase contracts, you have several private armies, my goodness!"
Aurora's eyes gleamed, and Jacob was speechless with astonishment.
“There are some assets that I can’t conveniently access.” Duke Avanna leaned slightly toward me. “I could support ten more royal cities like yours.”
I had this illusion that he was like a male peacock displaying his charm—a behavior typical of courtship.
"Why weren't you married before?!" Aurora covered her mouth and laughed. "With your wealth, you should be able to attract quite a few powerful families, right?"
"I've been on blind dates a hundred or two hundred times, ever since I was sixteen, at least ten a year. I've seen almost every noble lady from all over the country waiting to be married, some older noblewomen, and even some daughters of super-rich merchants, but I haven't liked any of them." He smiled almost imperceptibly, with a hint of ambiguity and rebellion in his eyes.
“You have excellent taste,” Aurora said with a smile.
"It's not that it's high, it's just that I don't feel it."
Aurora smiled and said nothing more. She suddenly recalled the night she introduced Mia to the Duke's son; the Duke's eyes lit up the moment he saw his mother.
He took a liking to his mother almost at first sight.
Aurora just had that intuition.
Perhaps the Duke came for the legendary woman with supernatural abilities, and arranging a marriage for his son was just an excuse. How could a powerful duke in the north introduce his son to a noblewoman from a poor royal city, not even the queen's daughter, let alone an illegitimate one?
She remembered when she heard that the Grand Duke of the North was visiting the capital with his unmarried son, she immediately wrote to him, saying that she had a daughter who had just come of age, about the same age as his son, and wondered if there would be an opportunity to meet her. The Grand Duke replied very quickly, accepting the invitation and saying he would be visiting the capital soon. She was surprised at the time; how could she be so lucky?
She subtly led her son and daughter away from the dining room; the Grand Duke surely had more to say to his mother.
As I watched Aurora and the others leave, I prepared to leave as well, but Duke Avana spoke up: "If you like, I will give you half of the ten royal cities and several mercenary units, as long as you marry me."
"What exactly do you see in me?!" I asked.
"I don't know." He shrugged helplessly. "I really don't know. What do I see in you? You're not beautiful, you're not young, and you're not rich. If I marry you, I'll have to fill the financial gap in the capital. It'll be a complete loss."
“You can avoid losing money,” I said.
“I’m going to lose money.” He suddenly sat down next to me and said stubbornly like a child, “I’ve never really lost money in my life, and I’m going to lose it this time.”
I was both amused and exasperated. "You really can avoid losing money."
"But what if I want to lose money?" He nuzzled my shoulder, and I stepped back, but his strong arm gripped my soft waist. "Give me a chance to lose money, preferably lose everything, lose so much that I don't even have pants to wear."
His hot breath enveloped my neck, "I'll have a baby with you while I'm naked, and that child will make me lose everything."
I couldn't help but laugh out loud. How could this man be so funny?
"Mine is quite large, every woman likes it, and I think you will like it too."
I ran away, and when he wasn't looking, I shoved him off the chair with all my might. He let out an exaggerated "ouch!" I slammed the door shut and burst into laughter, unable to contain myself any longer.
————
That night I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I married the Duke of Avana. I don't know how we got married, but we were married anyway, and I even went north with him.
After we got married, he doted on me. I was in charge of all the internal affairs of the capital, and even the most powerful officials had to defer to me. A year later, I gave birth to a son, and he doted on me even more, bringing my power to its peak. But afterwards, it began to slowly decline.
I don't know when it started, but his interest in me gradually waned, and he rekindled his affair with his mistress. He used to have a very doting mistress, but he broke up with her after marrying me. One night at a ball, the two of them were passionately kissing in a secluded corner, and later, unable to resist, they kicked open a door to a room in the banquet hall and made love. They were making such a racket that the maids and servants hurriedly closed the door, afraid that I, who was attending the ball, would hear them.
They became even more reckless from then on. Studies, meeting rooms, hot spring pools, terraces, windowsills, under beds—any secluded corner big enough for a person to fit became their playground for indulgence.
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