Chapter Text
The chandelier blazed like a fallen star, scattering light across a sea of nobles. A quartet sawed through a waltz while couples spun across the dance floor. Servers wove through the crowd, their trays heavy with flutes of bubbling champagne. Men clustered like vultures, their laughter too loud, their gazes too calculating. Ladies whispered behind their fans, their giggles sharp as knives. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the lavish ball hosted by Count Harlowe.
Yet one man stood apart, his distress a discordant note in the symphony of merriment. Baron Voss clutched his champagne flute like a lifeline, his head swiveling left and right as if expecting a specter to materialize from the crowd. He moved like a hunted thing, desperate to vanish.
"Oh, isn't that Baron Voss?"
A lady's voice, sugar-coated and cruel, sliced through the murmur of the ballroom. Her companion leaned in, fan fluttering. "You've read the recent Lady Whispershade's column, haven't you?"
"Oh, that scandal?" The second lady's lips curled. "Poor darling girl—to have a father like that."
The baron's steps faltered. He couldn't outrun the whispers.
"Must be the baron's depraved urges after the baroness passed. Grief does terrible things to a man's morals."
"But a twelve-year-old daughter? Even the French wouldn't stoop so low!"
Baron Voss's breath came in ragged bursts. He needed to leave—now.
But a gentleman blocked his path, smirking. "Ah, what do we have here? A father who laid with his own blood."
Laughter rippled around him. The baron hurled his champagne flute at the man and fled.
He crashed into a server, sending them both sprawling. "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE WALKING!" the baron roared, scrambling up without aid.
He staggered toward the terrace, desperate for air. The ballroom's heat clung to him like the whispers— incest, monster, twelve-year-old.
But fate was a cruel jester.
The terrace doors swung open to reveal a couple entangled in the shadows, their moans louder than the waltz. The baron recoiled as if struck. Even here, he thought wildly, the world flaunts its obscenities while condemning mine!
He spun back—straight into the steely grip of the head butler.
"Let me GO!" The baron thrashed, his cravat strangling him.
The butler's voice dripped polished venom: "Milord, you're unwell. The game room—"
"LIARS! ALL OF YOU!" Spittle flew.
Count Harlowe appeared, oozing faux concern. "Please, Baron Voss. Allow my servant to help you. I know you are distressed about the gossip column. But it was just gossip. What harm would it do to you?"
The baron's mind unraveled. He clapped his hands over his ears, but the voices slithered in anyway. He stumbled backward, his heel catching on the Persian rug. The world tilted—
THUD!
His shoulder slammed into the pedestal, sending the enormous Ming dynasty vase wobbling. For one suspended second, the vase teetered—once, twice—its cobalt glaze catching the chandelier light like a mocking wink.
Then—it fell.
The baron had just enough time to register the shadow looming above him before the porcelain shattered across his skull. The sound was unholy—a wet crunch of bone, a crystalline rain of shards.
Silence. Then— screams erupted.
In the shadows, two women observed the chaos.
Lady Beatrice Evangeline Lockwood sipped her wine, unimpressed. "What a mess."
Her maid, Marilyn, sighed. "An unprecedented tragedy. I do hope he's alive."
Beatrice's smile was venomous. "I hope he dies."
"Milady!" Marilyn chided—though her own lips twitched. "...But I can't disagree."
As they turned away, Marilyn glanced back at the carnage. And smiled. "This is turning out far better than I hoped~"
...
The next morning, at the Moriarty Manor.
The morning sun gilded the study, its light catching the steam rising from the teapot—precisely 82°C, steeped for 3 minutes. Louis hovered, pocket watch in hand. Perfection timed to the second.
He poured a cup and set it gently on the table in front of his brother. William accepted it with practiced grace, his eyes never straying from the newspaper splayed open before him. The headline:
'BARON VOSS DIES IN BALLROOM TRAGEDY— ACCIDENT OR DIVINE JUSTICE?'
A flicker of something—not surprise, not pity—crosses his face. Then, a smirk.
Louis leaned in. "What's piqued your interest, Brother?"
He glanced at the newspaper. A beat passed—then something seemed to click. His eyebrows lifted.
"Baron Voss? Wasn't he on our list, brother? But we haven't even finalised our plans for him. Did someone beat us to it... or was it truly an accident?"
William turned a page without looking up. "Do you really think so, Louis? It says here the baron appeared distraught before the 'accident' occurred."
"Distraught?" Louis echoed, then paused. "Ah, must be the gossip. Lady Whispershade exposed his dirty little secret in her last issue. Her words were like daggers. No wonder the baron was shaken."
William tilted his head. "Words so sharp, they killed. How... efficient."
He had read the gossip column—and yes, her words were venomous enough to shatter a noble's pride. This wasn't the first time she stirred unrest among the upper circles. But to drive someone to their death? That was new.
William had never imagined a gossip column could derail his plans. If anything, it usually worked in his favor—priming the audience with scandal before he unveiled the full extent of their victims' misdeeds.
Louis, who had been watching his brother in silence, finally spoke.
"Brother... you knew this would happen."
William sets down his cup. "Knew? No. Calculated the probability? Certainly."
A lie. The probability had been 0.3%. And yet—
William flipped through the pages until he reached this week's issue of Lady Whispershade.
"Let's see who her next target is," he murmured, eyes scanning the column.
"Dear Readers,
Karma—that self-righteous arbiter of divine justice—reeks like week-old fish left in the sun. For I am sure those who attended Count Harlowe's ball witnessed Baron Voss's tragic demise firsthand. My condolences to his only daughter, now orphaned at twelve years young. Though, dare I say, this may be a blessing? Her paternal grandmother—a woman of notable integrity—will surely raise her far better than the baron's other relatives."
"But! Behind the carnage, a scandal unfolded unnoticed: the heir of Count Harlowe and a certain butler were quite... occupied in the terrace roses. Oh, how scandalous— "
William closed the paper with a soft rustle. Just a tawdry account of a noble caught mid-tryst with a servant at last night's ball. Nothing of consequence— at least, not to him. His lip curled. "How disappointing."
Louis blinked. "You were... expecting something else?"
William's glove creaked as he crumpled the paper. "A rival, perhaps. Instead? A gossipmonger with one lucky strike."
Of course. Lady Whispershade didn't always unveil dark secrets—this was more her usual fare.
"What was I expecting..." he muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching with something between amusement and disappointment.