Chapter 199: Chapter-199

Heena looked at her, then turned to Kieran’s mother.

Kieran’s mother just shrugged elegantly. “For my family, I’m already dead. It doesn’t matter.”

Then Lucian’s mother said, “My family, when they heard, immediately cut contact with me. My brother came to lecture me about propriety—saying I’d gone crazy, that at my age I’m still thinking about divorce, blah blah blah. But they can’t actually do much to stop me.”

Then Heena turned to Adrian’s mother.

She said quietly, “My father held my funeral.”

Everyone around her—even the other duchesses—looked shocked.

“What?!”

Adrian’s mother nodded calmly. “Yes. He said that if my sister were alive, this day would never have come. That I’m not his daughter anymore. He literally held a mourning ceremony saying I had died. So in my relatives’ eyes, I am dead.”

Heena was genuinely surprised. ’That’s… extreme.’

She looked at all four of them. “So, how is the divorce proceeding? Did your husbands agree?”

All four faces showed identical expressions of disgust.

“They refused.”

“Well,” Heena said, “I expected that. So what are you going to do?”

They looked at Heena and said, “Force the divorce, of course.”

Kieran’s mother, Lucian’s mother, and Damien’s stepmother took out thick stacks of documents and placed them on the table.

“These are evidence of their affairs. We’re filing cases against them, Your Majesty. We’re filing the petitions with you as the presiding authority, so we request that you review these documents and grant us divorces.”

Heena was genuinely surprised.

Because here’s something interesting about this world: when Heena had first arrived, she’d discovered that Celeste’s parents—the original Celeste’s mother and father—had been deeply in love. And Celeste’s mother had been a formidable woman who’d studied law extensively.

She’d noticed so many problems with marriage law, so she’d literally asked her husband as a ’wedding gift’ to reform the marriage laws.

The result was a law stating: if a woman or man wants to divorce their spouse and can show evidence that the spouse is cheating or having inappropriate relationships with another person—with documents, evidence, witnesses, whatever—they could file for forced divorce.

And the court would ’immediately’ grant it. The wronged party would receive half or even 90% of the property. If there were children, custody would depend on who the children preferred.

It was exactly like modern divorce law.

With these documents, they could literally force the dukes to divorce them.

The difference was: in modern courts, cases drag on for days, months, sometimes years. But here, if the evidence was clear, you could get divorced in ’one day’. It didn’t matter if the other spouse agreed or not.

But because of the long-standing tradition that “the husband is gold, the in-laws are sacred,” and the social stigma against divorced women, most women endured the pain rather than file.

Some did divorce—mostly commoners, or women who didn’t give a damn about society’s judgment. They were called “divorcees” and faced discrimination, but they did it anyway.

And now the Duchesses were using the same law.

Heena looked at the documents, then turned to Adrian’s mother. “And you?”

Adrian’s mother smiled—a cold, determined smile—and said, “Your Majesty, I’m filing for emotional abandonment, emotional torture, and domestic violence.”

Heena literally grabbed her chest and coughed.

’Domestic violence?!’

She knew Adrian’s father was a bastard, but she was fairly certain he hadn’t ’hit’ his wife. If he had, her guards would have reported it.

Heena looked at her carefully. “May I ask what constitutes this ’violence’?”

Adrian’s mother—this meek, quiet woman—suddenly started ’unleashing’.

“Your Majesty, for seven to eight years, he went to war and didn’t contact me at all, making me think he was dead or alive—I had no idea. He abandoned me constantly. One time, he literally threw me out of a moving carriage in winter because I said my sister wasn’t the perfect person he claimed she was. Just for that, he threw me out into the snow.”

She continued, her voice gaining strength:

“Another time, I was wearing a white gown that I loved. He saw me, literally ’pushed’ me into the frozen pool water, and said I didn’t deserve to wear white. I stayed in that water for three hours, which gave me pneumonia. There are many incidents like that.”

“And as for domestic violence, Your Majesty—I’m classifying emotional negligence and abuse under that category. Also, the servants who tortured me? I believe a servant’s behavior reflects their master’s attitude. So yes, I want to file all of this against him.”

Heena nodded slowly, looking at her with new respect.

“You know, right, that your case might take longer than the others?”

She nodded. “It’s okay, Your Majesty. I’m ready to fight as long as it takes.”

“Your sister’s name will be dragged into this publicly.”

This time, Adrian’s mother smiled—genuinely smiled. “That would be good, Your Majesty.”

Heena nodded. “Fine.”

Then she shouted, “SECRETARY CHEN!”

She felt like living with this secretary had turned her into some kind of loud, shouting person. But whatever.

Suddenly, from underneath Heena’s massive desk, Secretary Chen emerged—huffing and puffing, his clothes completely disheveled, his hair messed up, his face flushed red from exertion, his collar askew.

Yes from under the desk not from door or even window but under a desk where Heena was just sitting before them coming.

The four Duchesses’ eyes went ’wide’.

They immediately covered their mouths with their hands, but their eyes were practically ’gleaming’ with shocked interest as they looked between Heena and Secretary Chen.

“Your Majesty,” Kieran’s mother said carefully, her voice slightly strangled, “it seems we’ve come at a… ’very’ wrong time.”

“No, wait—” Heena started to say, but then turned to glare at Secretary Chen. “Did you find your damn pen or not?!”

Secretary Chen looked at her indignantly, still trying to catch his breath. “Your Majesty, it’s not my fault! Who told you to buy a desk with such narrow gaps?! My hand couldn’t fit inside properly! I’ve been squeezed under there for half an hour trying to retrieve it!”

The Duchesses’ eyes got even wider. Their expressions clearly said: ’THAT’S what they were doing for half an hour?!’

“You’ve been looking for that pen for HALF AN HOUR?!” Heena said incredulously. “What’s even so special about it?!”

He looked at her seriously, still disheveled. “It has about one centimeter of ink left! I can write about eight more pages with it!”

Heena stared at him. “With one centimeter of ink, you will NOT write eight pages. It’ll finish in half a page!”

He looked indignant. “That’s not the point, Your Majesty! The point is it HAS ink! Why waste it?!”

The Duchesses were now desperately trying not to laugh—or scream—or both. This conversation was becoming more suspicious by the second.

Heena facepalmed. “Whatever. Come here. You heard everything these ladies discussed?”

He nodded, finally straightening his clothes. “Yes, I did.”

“Fine. Take these documents and submit them to the court tomorrow morning.”

He looked at her with a disgusted expression. “Your Majesty, I’ll need to organize these documents overnight, won’t I?”

Then he muttered under his breath, “Can’t you do it yourself?”

Heena’s head snapped up. “HUH? What did you just say?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep