Renouncing the Emperor's Heart

I want her dead

*Author's Note* 

Thank you everyone for waiting! I had an episode written and ready to upload yesterday afternoon, but the scene didn't feel good enough. In that regard, we are now picking up the pace in this story again! I know there are so many unanswered questions as to what in the world is going on, but it'll be revealed in the right time ;) 

As always, thank you so much for reading, commenting, voting, and adding RTEH to your Reading Lists! I love you all! ❤️

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The incessant pattering of anxious footsteps was on the verge of driving everyone to leap across the room to strangle the source.

"Your Highness," Lady Abigail sighed, barely wincing when another very expensive porcelain vase of red petunias exploded on the floor.

Still pacing with careless movements, Emilia Syrene disregarded any notion of sense and continued her theatrics. Arms crossed, biting her nails, her red hair a wild mess under a ridiculous black headpiece as she rambled through the cluttered room — Lady Abigail scoffed internally. The Royal Concubine was hardly the picture of refinement.

Abigail flicked a knowing look towards Lord Harrison, prepared to share her exasperation with the man, but he didn't even spare the scene a glance. He simply sipped on the tea set she had brought, his legs languidly crossed and eyes steadily roaming across the morning's paper. She withheld another sigh of irritation. She would never know how he could be so unaffected every time Emilia Syrene was in another one of her fits. She could scarcely stomach it.

Another frustrated snarl gritted out of Emilia as she whipped the heavy piles of twined scrolls and papers taking up the space on her unused desk. "That little SWINE," Emilia shrieked, stomping all over the fallen files that the Empress had sent over. Her bejeweled slippers stained dirty prints on the important agendas.

The fear-stricken maids scurried over with wide eyes, attempting to clear away the mess, but alas, Emilia shoved them all away in a bout of fury, raging until they scattered out the room.

"Calm yourself," Lord Harrison blandly voiced, still refusing to look up from what had to be the most interesting periodical in the Empire.

"Calm myself?" Emilia spat, her crazed eyes pinpointing on his indifferent posture. She stumbled over like a drunk and tore the newspaper from his hands. "That maddening whore of an Empress thinks she can slight me like this and you're asking me to calm myself!?"

Peering at her through his wire-rimmed glasses, Lord Harrison's face looked positively scathing. Lady Abigail relaxed into the divan cushions with a hidden smirk, anticipating the splendid show she had been waiting for all morning.

"What exactly is so maddening to you?" he asked in a low voice.

"She —"

"What could possibly be more maddening than this ceaseless tantrum of yours?" he continued, his voice rising with every word.

Emilia barked out a humorless laugh. "Tantrum... Don't act like this is unaccounted for when everything has stemmed from your failure. One month of her and her silver-haired lap dog that you allowed into the Court you've claimed is under your palm. One month and look what they've undone. Do you know how many noble wives have come to the Palace, looking for the Empress instead of me? Do you understand that every single appeal you made me take to Richard is now in the works of being overturned? People are rallying to the Grand Duke. People are starting to favor her again. Richard is starting to YEARN FOR HER AGAIN."