Divorcing the Duke to Buy the World Chapter 59: Was She Really Heartless?

Evelina watched as a wagon-load of harvested flax was hauled through the doors, the golden stalks shimring in the afternoon light.

"Your Grace," The man stamred, his earlier mockery forgotten in the face of the current situation, "You... you have the only major textile crop in the entire kingdom. If we process this now, we could—"

"You intend to use a bored woman’s hobby for your benefits?" Evelina interrupted, finally turning to face him.

She walked past him calmly. "By next month, every Duke, Minister, and pampered Lady in Aurelia will be begging to wear my useless flax. And I think," she paused before adding, "anwhile, the likes of you can sit still and learn how to do business.’’

The man’s face was ashened.

...

Outside, the first cold winds of autumn began to howl, but inside the warehouse, Evelina felt a different kind of warmth. The House of Snow was bankrupt, the silk trade was dead, and nobody was going to stop her from climbing to her peak, step by step.

The heavy doors of the Duke’s private study creaked as they swung shut.

Evelina did not look up from the report she was reviewing. The room was illuminated only by the flickering glow of a low-burning lamp on the desk, casting shadows that danced across the shelves.

Ace was standing by the window, his back to her.

The moonlight caught the silver embroidery of his tunic, making him look like a statue carved from the ice that defined the North.

Since the night in the conservatory, the heat of his anger had been replaced by a chilling distance.

"I received word from the Capital this morning," Ace said, "The bank has frozen the Snow family’s accounts on your direct authority. Your father has been evicted from his primary residence. His creditors are circling him like wolves."

Evelina finally set her pen down when she heard that, "Oh? Good."

Ace turned around slowly and his aura turned icy when he heard those ’nonchalant’ words. They reminded him of the way she had responded to his confession that night.

"Good?" he repeated, his voice dripping with a hint of disdain, "You are publicly humiliating the man who gave you life, Evelina. You have stripped him of his dignity and his roof. I know he has acted out of line in the past and he might be a man of many vices, but have you truly grown so heartless that you do not care for your own blood?"

Evelina felt a sharp ping from the System, but she ignored it. She refused to let the ache in her heart resurface, "My so-called blood would have let freeze in the North without a second thought. Dignity is sothing one earns. It is not a gift to be subsidized by the Alvarez treasury."

"Is that all people are to you now?" Ace stepped closer, looming over the desk. "Assets and liabilities?"

In reality, Ace did not care a whit for Baron Snow. He detested the man’s cowardice and scheming nature for as long as he had known him. But the Evelina in his mories worshipped her father.

The only reason he had sent money to them was because there was a person in that family his heart had reluctantly cared about over the years, no matter how much he had fought against the feeling.

He hated that he cared for Evelina even in the slightest; it made him resent the Snow family even more for the way they had tied him to a responsibility he had once viewed as a burden.

Now, he watched Evelina with a fear he couldn’t voice.

He didn’t care about the Baron’s fate, but Evelina’s ruthlessness terrified him. If she could detach herself so completely from her own father, what was to stop her from detaching herself from everything else? From the North? From him?

Evelina did not see the internal conflict raging behind his eyes. In her mind, she assud Ace was simply questioning her morals and whatnot in the current situation.

She thought he was judging her from his high pedestal of noble duty, filial piety, while being clearly unaware of what she went through.

Evelina blinked slowly, "You think I am heartless? Then let show you the actions of the man you have been funding."

She reached into the side drawer of the desk and pulled out leather-bound folder. With a decisive motion, she slid the theft bill across the mahogany surface. It landed in front of him with a heavy thud.

"Read it," she commanded.

Ace frowned, his gaze dropping to the papers. He picked up the top sheet, his eyes scanning the columns.

"This is a list of disbursents to the Southern Mines," he said.

"Turn the page," Evelina replied, leaning back and crossing her arms.

As Ace flipped through the docunts, his expressions turned grim. The money he had sent had never touched a mine shaft.

"Twenty thousand gold to the gambling halls," Evelina narrated, her voice a flat, "Fifteen thousand for a sumr villa in the na of a mistress. Seven thousand for a set of rubies for a cousin I’ve never t. And here," she tapped a specific page, "are the letters."

She had intercepted the correspondence between her father and his associates in the Capital. Ace’s eyes widened as he read the Baron’s own handwriting.

"The Northern Barbarian continues to pay the tax of his own guilt," one letter read, "As long as I keep the girl in his hair, he will keep the wine in my glass. Don’t worry, I got the situation under control.’

Ace’s grip on the papers tightened until the parchnt began to tear.

Over the years, he had secretly sent money to the Snow Family because of Evelina. He hated the thought of any burden in his life but the thought of her had haunted him in battlefields, in all highs and lows of life.

He knew she had beco of tool of the Snow Family but his mind would often think of the little girl he had known since childhood.

The thought of her suffering... made him uncomrfortable. So, he did what he knew was the best. He threw his money and shut the discomfort in his heart.

But from the look of it, not a penny had reached at her.