My Cruel Stepmother Framed Me for Theft — She Didn’t Realize I Was the Empire’s Top Spymaster
Part 1
My Cruel Stepmother Framed Me for Theft — She Didn’t Realize I Was the Empire’s Top Spymaster
The winter of 1814 descended upon the imperial capital of Valoria with a brutal and unforgiving freeze.
Frost clung to the wrought iron gates of the Robinson Manor like a second skin.
Inside, the grand hearths roared with imported timber, casting a golden and suffocating warmth over the silk-draped parlor.
But I felt none of that warmth as I knelt on the freezing floorboards.
I was pinning the hem of my stepsister Heather’s magnificent emerald silk ball gown.
My fingers were completely numb from the draft sweeping under the heavy mahogany doors.
“He is a beast of a man,” Heather sneered, admiring her reflection in the towering parlor mirror.
“But a beast with a dukedom and a treasury that rivals the emperor’s.”
She kicked her foot out impatiently.
The sharp heel of her satin slipper caught me directly under the chin.
I fell backward, biting down hard on my lip to suppress a cry of pain.
I tasted the sharp metallic tang of copper in my mouth.
“Do not speak unless spoken to, you clumsy wretch.” Heather crossed her arms tightly over her chest.
Lady Brenda, my stepmother, took a slow, deliberate sip of her spiced wine and stared at me over the rim of her glass.
“Leave her be, Heather.” Brenda set her crystal goblet down onto the mantelpiece.
“Do not agitate yourself over a creature of the dirt.”
She adjusted her diamond necklace with perfectly manicured fingers.
“By the end of the week, when Duke Anderson proposes to you, we shall throw her out onto the streets where she belongs.”
I kept my head bowed, hiding the fierce and burning fire in my eyes.
I was born to the late Lord Miller and a French governess he had loved in secret.
When my father perished of a sudden fever three years prior, my life of quiet comfort was shattered instantly.
Lady Brenda wasted absolutely no time stripping me of my inheritance and my dignity.
For three years, I had become the invisible hands that polished the ancestral silver and mended their lavish gowns.
They truly believed I was nothing but an uneducated scullery maid.
They did not know about the brilliant mind my father had recognized and nurtured in secret.
He had privately tutored me in history, mathematics, and the complex art of cryptography.
In the dead of night, while the Robinson family slept off their opulent banquets, I huddled in the drafty attic by a single dripping candle.
Operating in secret, I deciphered intercepted rebel missives for the Imperial Magistrate.
It was a highly illegal and incredibly dangerous game.
But the meager coins slipped to me by a trusted baker in the market were the only things keeping my starvation at bay.
I mapped out complex Vigenère ciphers and broke codes that baffled the empire’s highest-paid military intelligence.
As the night of the Archduke’s Solstice Gala finally arrived, the city of Valoria was blanketed in a heavy blinding snowstorm.
I was obviously not permitted to attend the Gala as a guest.
Instead, I was dragged along in the freezing boot of the carriage.
My only task was to carry Heather’s velvet cloak and an emergency sewing kit.
When we arrived at the Grand Palace, the air was thick with the scent of roasted meats and burning beeswax.
I was immediately ordered to wait in the servants’ corridors.
I hid away in the shadows while the glittering elite of the empire danced under a thousand crystal chandeliers.
The freezing stone walls of the servants’ quarters offered absolutely no warmth.
An hour into the gala, the biting cold and my own relentless curiosity drove me to quietly slip away.
I navigated the labyrinthine halls until I found the palace’s grand library.
It was strictly off-limits, but I knew the aristocrats would be too busy drinking champagne to notice a maid in the dusty archives.
I slipped through the heavy mahogany doors, breathing in the comforting scent of aged leather and parchment.
The massive room was dark, illuminated only by the pale moonlight spilling through the towering frost-covered windows.
I approached a massive oak desk in the center of the room, intending to sit by the dying embers of the fireplace.
As my eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, I realized I was not alone.
A massive figure stood by the window.
His broad shoulders were silhouetted against the silver light of the moon.
He was dressed in the stark, uncompromising black uniform of the Imperial High Command.
A heavy wool cape rested over his broad shoulders.
I froze completely, my breath catching painfully in my throat.
I took a cautious step back, my worn leather shoes scraping against the polished floorboards.
The man turned around slowly.
Even in the dim light, I could feel the sheer and suffocating weight of his presence.
His face was all sharp angles and unforgiving lines.
A faint silver scar cut through his left eyebrow like a permanent warning.
His piercing, icy blue eyes locked onto mine with the intensity of a predator spotting prey in the brush.
It was him.
It was Duke Tyler Anderson, the terrifying Wolf of Blackwood.
I immediately dropped into a deep, trembling curtsy.
“Forgive me, your grace,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the distant strains of the string quartet playing in the ballroom.
“I did not mean to intrude, and I will leave at once.”
“Stay,” his voice commanded.
It was a deep, gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through the floorboards.
It was an absolute order from a man who had never been denied in his entire life.
I hesitated, keeping my eyes glued firmly to the floor.
Tyler turned away from the window and walked deliberately toward the desk.
In his gloved hand, he held a crumpled piece of parchment.
He threw it down onto the oak surface in sheer frustration.
“The finest military minds in the empire,” he muttered, his tone dripping with venomous disdain.
“And not one of these powdered fools can crack a simple shifting cipher from the southern separatists.”
My gaze involuntarily flicked to the parchment, illuminated by a single candelabra on the desk.
From ten feet away, my trained eyes caught the familiar jagged syntax of a Polybius square cipher.
It was heavily modified with a rotating Caesar shift.
Without thinking, the intellect that my father had nurtured within me overrode my basic survival instincts.
“It is not a simple shift, your grace,” I said softly.
The Duke stopped dead in his tracks.
The silence in the library became heavy and electric.
He slowly turned his head to look at me, his icy blue eyes narrowing.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.
I swallowed hard, realizing my monumental mistake.
A servant did not speak to a duke.
“I said it is not a simple shift, your grace,” I stammered, stepping slightly closer to the desk.
“The Southern separatists use a keyword derived from the lunar calendar.”
“If you attempt a standard alphabetic shift, the vowels will read as complete gibberish.”
“You must use the date of the new moon as the numerical key.”
Tyler stared at me for a long, agonizing moment in absolute silence.
He snatched a quill from the inkwell and scratched out a few calculations on the margin of the paper.
His hand suddenly stopped.
The gibberish had formed clear, concise, and treasonous coordinates.
He looked up at me, his expression entirely unreadable.
“Who are you?” he demanded, taking a slow, predatory step toward me.
Before I could even formulate a lie, the heavy mahogany doors of the library flew open and crashed against the walls.
“There she is!” a shrill voice shrieked into the quiet room.
Lady Brenda and Heather stormed into the library.
They were followed closely by two armed palace guards and Lord Craig Davis.
Heather’s face was twisted in a dramatic mask of crocodile tears.
“You vile, thieving little rat!”
Heather screamed, pointing a heavily ringed finger directly at me.
Brenda gasped loudly, feigning shock as she noticed the duke standing in the shadows.
“Your grace, oh a thousand apologies for this intrusion,” Brenda lied smoothly.
“A few moments ago, Lord Craig discovered that his priceless family heirloom was stolen from his coat pocket in the cloakroom.”
“One of the footmen saw this wretched girl loitering near the coats.”
“Search her,” Heather demanded, stepping forward with a vicious gleam in her eye.
The two palace guards stepped toward me and grabbed me roughly by the arms.
I struggled frantically, panic rising like a tidal wave in my chest.
“No, I swear to you I took nothing,” I cried out.
“Silence, you nothing,” Brenda snapped viciously.
The guard plunged his hand into the deep pocket of my worn apron, and the dim candlelight caught the undeniable glittering facets of Lord Craig’s massive blue sapphire ring.
