The court gasped.

A collective, jagged gasp ripped through the gallery of onlookers. To confess such a scandal in the presence of the Crown was not merely social suicidal— it was a scorched-earth defiance of every law that governed a noble woman’s life.

Even William, who had been sweating beneath his collar for fear that she might expose his perjury, was momentarily stunned by his own fortune. To his mind, the conclusion was singular: Penelope remained the same pliable, besotted girl he had always manipulated. She was giving away her crown to be with him.

She was still his "foolish Penelope."

Vincent’s jaw tightened until the bone threatened to snap. The physical agony he felt was eclipsed by the cold, hollow ache expanding in his chest. A flicker of raw, unravished betrayal flashed in his eyes, but he masked it behind a wall of flint.

Was this it?

"Do you see, Marquis?" the King turned his gaze toward Vincent, his tone dripping a mocking, silken pity. "You chose to endure the lash for her, but she herself has confessed to her sin. She is no longer your concern; she is Sir William’s responsibility now."

"I did not say that, Your Majesty."

Penelope’s voice cut through the King’s decree like a whetted blade. It was low, but possessed a sudden, sharp clarity that commanded the silence. She kept her eyes averted from the throne, her focus shifting with lethal intent.

"I did indeed lose my purity," she continued, her words echoing against the vaulted stone. "But I never once said it was Sir William who took it."

A thick, confused silence descended. The gears of the court’s collective mind ground to a halt.

Finally, Penelope turned to face William. She approached him with the measured, predatory grace of a high-born cat, her footsteps striking the marble like clockwork.

William, blinded by his own ego, had begun to bloom. A triumphant, greasy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he reached out a hand to claim his prize, his breath hitching as he prepared to speak of his victory.

He never got the chance.

The crack of Penelope’s hand meeting his face was louder than any strike of the whip.

William’s head snapped to the side, and the room’s gravity shifted. A stinging, crimson handprint bloomed across his cheek, marking him with a brand of shame that no title could mask. The king, usually so insulated by his own boredom, suddenly leaned forward at the scene, his brows arching as a flicker of astonishment crossed his face.

"You pathetic, delusional coward," Penelope hissed. The words were a low, concentrated venom that seemed to wither the air between them. She did not look like a woman pining for a lost love; she looked like an executioner who had finally unsheathed her blade.

Vincent could only watch in a daze of disbelief, ignoring Elias who was frantically wondering how to stop his master’s bleeding. The world, which had been spinning into darkness, suddenly found its axis again.

William stumbled back, clutching his face, his eyes wide and watering like a struck hound."P-Penelope? What madness is this? I am trying to save you! I told them about the mark... of...of the night we shared because—"

"Silence," she cut him down, her dark-brown eyes fuming with a hatred so pure it made the surrounding guards quietly shift their pikes. "The only thing you have achieved today is to prove how little you know me. I was indeed foolish to think someone like you would ever respect me from the very beginning. Clearly, you’ve never deserved me."

She turned back to the throne, her posture more regal than the King’s own. "Your Majesty, this man builds a house of cards upon a lie. He gambled on the modesty of my sex, believing that a lady would sooner let her heart be broken than allow her body to be discussed in a hall of men. He wanted me to cower in silence while his nonsense fabrication became my history."

She stole a glance at Vincent. For a fleeting heartbeat, her expression softened– a ghost of a tender, aching smile–before it vanished, replaced by the cold steel she presented to the Crown. She would not cry before the court.

"I surrendered my purity to the Marquis of Aelgard, my legal husband, as was his right and is my honor," she declared, her voice ringing with the clarity of a cathedral bell. "If Sir William truly knew my body as he so brazenly claims, he would know that the mark he declared I possessed exists only in his own perverted imaginations. It is a desperate guess made by a clueless man who has never seen more of me than the hem of my traveling cloak. And that rag he displays?"

Penelope gestured to the token kerchief with a look of profound disgust. "It is as much mine as his honor is his own—which is to say, not at all."

The air rushed back into Vincent’s lungs, sharp and cold. The crushing weight that had threatened to break his spirit vanished, replaced by a surge of fierce, protective pride. She wasn’t here to stand by William, but by him.

"William," the King said, his voice now dropping to a dangerously soft register that carried further than a shout. "The Marchioness has named you a perjurer. If I were to summon a physician to examine her—with all due modesty and behind closed doors—and no such mark is found... do you grasp the gravity of your position? Do you realize the penalty for slandering a Peer of the Realm and offering a false oath to the Crown?"

William’s knees gave way, his boots scraping harshly against the floor. He cast a frantic, pleading look toward Baron James, but his patron was already a statue of cold indifference. The Baron’s gaze was fixed on a distant tapestry, his mind already severing ties to a man who had become a political liability.

"I... I might have been mistaken," William stammered, his bravado instantly dissolving into a pathetic, watery tremor. "The chambers were dim... perhaps it was a trick of the light... a shadow..."

"A shadow?" Penelope’s scoff was a venomous sound that made William flinch. "You dragged the honor of a Great House through the mire and stood by while my husband was scourged—all for a shadow?"

"Why must you be so cruel?" William cried out, panic finally shattering his composure. "We are bound by love, Penelope! The whole of the court knows our history! Why are you doing this? Why bring me such disgrace?"

"What we were is nothing, and what you are is a memory I have long since buried," she retorted, her voice like grinding ice. "I commanded you to cease your pursuit. But what did you do? You responded by attempting to abduct me on the very morn of my nuptials. Had my husband not arrived to deliver me from your hands, I would still be your prisoner."

With a fluid, dramatic grace, Penelope sank to her knees before the dais, her violet skirts billowing around her like a bruised cloud.

"Your Majesties," she pleaded, her voice echoing with the weight of a formal petition. "I have been slandered before my peers, and my Lord husband has been broken unjustly upon the word of a liar. I implore the Crown to recognize Sir William’s treachery and demand he face the full severity of the law for his malice."