NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 29 : The Sterling plan
Clap Clap Clap. After their rushed brunch, the Sterlings continued their journey to the capital.
"Could you tell me now that we have started rushing back to the capital?" Countess Genevieve asked her husband worried about the contents of the letter.
Count Bartholomew on the other hand was sweating. The contents of the letter sent shockwaves through his spine. Not only did the princess know about his plans for the future but also the effort he put towards the plan in the past. Where did she get the information that he had put quite an effort to hide? No, that was not it what was even more ridiculous was that the princess wanted to aid him in his plans. Ridiculous. No matter how absurd it sounded there was no doubt about it. It was written by the princess herself. The handwriting, the signature, and the seal were all proof of the same. Calming his nerves, he started explaining to Genevive, " Do you remember my plan to make sure Vivienne gets us an heir as well so that we can effectively force the empire to promote us into a marquis?".
"Yes" replied the countess. "Not only does the princess know of our plan but she has even decided to help us with our plans but on the conditions that we do as she tells us in this matter" added the count. "Preposterous. Why would the princess want to help us? Isn't it in her best interest to make sure that we don't use a backdoor like this to ensure that there is no bad precedent set when she becomes empress?" questioned Genevieve, to which the count replied, " I don't know but looks like she wants to do it on her terms so there is a good chance that a bad precedent might not be set." Of course, the count conveniently left out the part where the princess intended to control Vivienne like a puppet till she helped him achieve his goal.
Yes, that was right. Despite being the most wealthy family in the empire second only to the royal family, the sterlings still held only the title of the count. They should have long been promoted to a Duchy but they were stuck at the stage of count as they couldn't force any of the duchies or the marquis families' young ladies to marry into their family. Count Bartholomew decided that he should succeed where his father failed and promote their house to Marquis even if it meant twisting the arms of the other duchies or Marquis families.
Enter his daughter Vivienne. By ensuring her marriage to Luke, he had laid the foundations for ties with the Ducal family and had raised his second daughter Hailey strictly as the heir to the family, at least on paper. As luck would have it, Adrian had taken note of how they brutally forced Hailey to study and practice long hours to become the heir.
Plan A if they could get Vivienne to give the Ducal family multiple heirs, they could eventually name one of Vivienne and Luke's children as the heir of Sterling thereby forcing the empire to recognize them as marquis. Plan B was in case Adrian fell for Hailey, try to get closer to the Demontforts, and try to get Adrian married into their family. The plan was going flawlessly.
To ensure Luke cared for Vivienne, the Count had her spoiled rotten to the extent that it was unheard of for a daughter of such a high-ranking official to be so ignorant which had forced Luke to have a soft side for her. And to top it off and make sure that Vivienne was capable of having multiple children, he took the extra effort to keep her at an arm's distance from any cores and made sure that Luke didn't gift her anything with one.
The reason for this was simple. Long-term usage of cores, especially in women reduced their fertility. It is for the same reason that the nobility had only a handful of heirs while the common folk had well over a dozen. Of course, not every one of them lived to reach adulthood. But with the medical knowledge being quite backward and the possibility of treatment with cores blocked away by the nobility to ensure that the power resided with them, it was the best the common folk could do. By ensuring that Vivienne never came into contact with a core, the count thought his plan was foolproof. Little did he know that the entire reason what transpired in the academy happened was because Vivienne had never once felt what it feels like to touch a core nor have any energy from the core forcefully injected into her.
Forcefully injecting energy from the core to another person can have several effects depending on how much energy is induced. Injecting large amounts quickly can cause pain while injecting very small amounts would feel ticklish. If someone were skilled enough with cores as a knight, they could induce a feeling of warmth in the recipient of the energy every time they inject it. Countless common folk fell victim to such scenarios by knights and Barons which made them mistake it to be love or affection. Maids who usually work with cores every day are quite aware of the trickery and so it generally doesn't work on someone unless they are completely ignorant of how cores work.
"Then what about Adrian and Hailey?" questioned Genevieve after pondering for some time after his reply.
"Adrian and Hailey will be engaged in secret. But on the outside she wants us to pretend to be in a feud with the Demontforts. There is no denying that what happened is Vivienne's fault and if not for the princess' direct involvement this might have caused a huge feud between both our families. The princess wants to utilize this chance to weed out any Barony or Viscount who is pretending to be on the Princess' side but secretly plotting to switch sides." replied Bartholomew to her question which seemed to have calmed down the Countess.
"Looks like it is as you said. Choosing to side with the princess was the right call after all. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly from hereon out." she added only to be immediately shot down by her husband with "I really don't think that it is going to be that easy. From what the princess said it looks like the Empress has set her eyes on Vivienne. Not to mention the country bumpkin son of a Baron whom Vivienne seems to be enticed with belongs to the crown prince's faction. What happens from now on is no longer an issue between some miserable frontier Barony, the Demontforts and us but a full on battle of wits and moves between the empress and the princess. Hopefully the princess comes out on top yet again." With that the two continued to rush to the capital without the slightest idea of the empress's plan and their mistake that led to this whole catastrophe.