THE LATE DUKE’S WILL
I gave a signal, and Voss — the family’s elderly lawyer, who had been standing quietly in the corner since the start of the evening — stepped forward and laid beside my papers a stack of original receipts from wine merchants in Bonn and Cologne — signatures, seals, dates, every one of them matching the figure of four hundred thousand florins.
This time, Friedrich couldn’t laugh.
His throat moved, as if trying to swallow something down.
His hand, still resting on the back of his chair, tightened until his knuckles went white.
“These receipts…” his voice cracked mid-sentence, something that had never happened in the thirteen years Isabelle had known him.
“They could be forged. Someone is trying to frame me—”
“The seal of the Cologne merchants’ guild, my lord,” Voss said, his voice calm but unyielding, “only exists in three official copies for each transaction — one at the guild, one with the buyer, one with the seller. You’re welcome to send someone to Cologne to verify it yourself, but I doubt the result will differ from what’s on this table.”
One of the older council members — the very one who had nodded along with Friedrich just minutes before — now picked up the stack of receipts, leafing through them, his face slowly changing color.
He set the papers down and did not look at Friedrich again.
A very long silence followed.
Then, abruptly, Friedrich laughed — a dry, bitter laugh, utterly unlike the gentle one from minutes earlier.
“You think you’re so clever, Isabelle? For thirteen years you never once bothered to ask a single question about your own domain, sitting quietly with your embroidery, leaving every decision to me — and now you think that after one night of sudden enlightenment, you’re qualified to stand there and judge me? I kept this domain from collapsing for eight years, while you couldn’t even tell a real invoice from a fake one until tonight!”
The room froze at that outburst — the voice of a man who had just let slip, in a single sentence, all the contempt he had kept hidden for thirteen years behind a mask of kindness.
“You’re right, Uncle — for thirteen years I never once asked,” I answered, looking straight at him, not flinching from the words even as they pierced through my chest like a needle.
“Because you taught me to believe I never needed to. But tonight, I asked. And the answer you just gave the entire council is, in itself, all the answer anyone needs.”
Friedrich opened his mouth, but there was nothing left to say.
He looked around the room, searching for one supportive face — and found none.
Slowly, he sank back into his chair, and said nothing more.