beta
To force a child into this that she can't differentiate between sacrifice and genuine happiness is killing me. Fuck her family for putting her up to this, I pity no one. Glad Lui is a good one here and is actually shy. He saw the overall problem after going through what she grew up to be to and will have a hard time convincing her she isn't a sacrifice but a bride.
She has so many marble out of the bag that you can't call her a dumb fl... She literally grew up and taught She is not anymore more or less than a sacrifice. You can't blame her for not understanding things due to the lack of education and actually books for her to learn, much less how to feel correctly and process emotions.
I had three suspects - Lance, The Uncle and the Emperor. I am now leaning towards the Emperor because of his heavy disdain for Richard. He can't go after his father due to being dead, to which I believe he murdered the previous Duke when he tried to kill off the Carté family but Richard survived. The only way to torment him is by killing any wife that marries into the family regardless if they were close or not. If the Emperor is the one behind all this, then he is a coward. Punishing a man, for a long time before adulthood, for being born and killing his cousin for the mental distress she was going through.