The Beloved One!

Chapter 27

As Anzor stepped into their bedroom chambers, Ellen said, "I already placed Ash to bed. She really loves hearing about the legends of Emphraim -" But then she stopped, noting the expression on the silver head Archduke's face and asked. "The retired Duke and Duchess again?"

Vincent and Emma Morley may had appeared to be silent on the surface but had been acting behind closed doors.

One of their acts being, sending an old aged low ranking widowed Baron who had lusted after Ellen since her days as the 74th Miss. Emphraim with a contract of the two them promising to wed, both the Baron's and Ellen's signatures on it. And that had been indeed her signature, signed by her. This had been magically proved. But she had never signed to be wed to the Baron. She did not even know him.

The contract had been seemingly signed by them, when she had just turned sixteen years of age. The Baron had argued that Ellen was his fiancé before she and Anzor had even married, that he had wished for them to immediately divorce and for Viscountess Smith to marry him.

The Baron lawfully had the right to ask for their divorce because one could not marry another when one was legally engaged.

Of course, not willing to be trapped, they had, especially Anzor demolished the lustful Baron's scheme. It had been revealed that Ellen's signature on the contract had been indeed hers, had been signed by her but not on that contract. It had been her signature from a check she had been given as a monetary award from winning a beauty pageant.

Anzor had the Baron arrested, charged and sentenced, but the two had made sure that this incident would not be the hot topic of the capital, keeping it under lock and key.

After being jailed for three days, the Baron had mysteriously died.

Another one would be of the retired Duke and Duchess trying to spread the rumor that Ellen was cursed. The allegedly curse that they had wanted to spread had been that Ellen Smith would bring untimely death to her family, an example being of how her parents and siblings had perished that woeful night.

If this curse had been spread, a large percentage would most likely believe it. Then when everyone would be buzzing about this allegedly curse, the King and Queen of Emphraim would have no choice but to take notice of it.

Ellen's daughter was a child blessed by Brahma, meaning that she was liked by god, and her carrying noble blood and being a citizen meant that Emphraim Kingdom was currently in god's good books as believed by many. It increased the people's moral, especially after a cursed child having been born to a Duke in the kingdom.

Then there was the Archduke, Ellen's husband. Everyone within the Kingdom knew how much King Cyril favoured Anzor and him being a very important noble, he could not allow for Ashnah or Anzor to die such an untimely death. Or for his people to believe that he would allow such a thing.

The King would have no choice but to ask for the divorce of Anzor and Ellen, for Ellen to sever her mother ties to Ashnah and for Ellen to be sent to the church, not being allowed to have contact with them.

This curse had never reached the public. It had been nipped before it could have even become a bud.

There also was the time when assassins had been hazardously sent to kill Ellen and Ashnah, but Iduna Bell who had just been passing by annihilated all of them without mercy. She had of course found out who sent them prior to such an act to report to her elder cousin. Anzor had deduced that it had been most likely the retired Duchess, Emma Morley who had done that in her hysterical state without talking to her husband first.

The recent one had been when she had went to the royal grounds from the summons of Queen Elizabeth Cromwell. It had not been a surprise, her being currently the only woman in Emphraim Kingdom who held the title of Archduchess. After her summons, a maid had tried to direct Ellen to the palace where the former now deceased King Eric and Queen Sarah Cromwell had lived, saying that Anzor had been waiting for her there.

The residence where the previous King and Queen had lived was off limits. Anyone who entered except for the Cromwell Family would be considered as acting against the royal family and would be executed without trial. The Grand Queen Regnant Milcah Cromwell had set this in her depressed state because of her son and his wife having such an early death.

Ellen had averted this scheme. The maid and the one in charge of her who had told her to do such a thing had been privately executed by the guillotine. This had been ordered by Milcah Cromwell.

Word of this had not barely spread within the palace in fear of the Grand Queen Regnant Milcah's fiery turning on them so it did not reach the public.

Anzor nodded at Ellen's interrogative sentence, handing a vial filled with an ominously pink liquid.

Even without it being opened, Ellen immediately detected that it was poison, a deadly one. Her side magic analyze had subconsciously activated within milliseconds of her sensing poison.

After she had almost lost Ashnah due to poison, Ellen had learned all she could about herbs, how to make medicines and how to make poisons. Shortly within this pursuit she had unlocked her side magic: Analyze.

In a dark voice she had said. "This is a product of the Grand Potion Master."

The Archduke divulged, "my dear uncle had ordered a butler who I had taken with me to add even the tiniest of drop into your and Ash's food or drink. His entire family even had been threatened if he did not do so. He came to me immediately after. I relocated his family to a safer location."

Too bad the retired Duke and Duchess did not know about her possessing analyze. Before anything even went near Ashnah far less likely entering her body, she had carefully checked everything at least six times. This habit had been born from her trauma of almost having miscarried Ashnah.

She said. "Yes even one drop will stay in one's system, deteriorating the organs of the one who has consumed it until death without even being detected. It would seem like a natural death. One would die within three to nine months of consuming."