someone remind me: was the queen forced by her family to break up the engagement with the duke, or did she chose to do so herself?
I need to know how much I need to hate her.
Did you forget that the Duke is SUPER loyal to the royals which is why he's taking care of Clarise for the king as a show of loyalty even though he knows she'll be killed? Also the queen is like his childhood friend or something, IIRC. Plus he's fairly oblivious in general. This all seems pretty in character for him.
She was already past the point of no return the second the maternity test was taken. Normally I wouldn’t put as much stock on the line about her family being finished if her position is usurped, but with how vindictive and genocidal her husband is I don’t think that’s hyperbole. There is no shot at divorce or annulment for her without her and her family’s death and the deadline was already approaching. I actually feel a bit sorry for her since she’s screwed six ways to Sunday and she knows it.
I’m a bit curious about her connection to the kidnapping though. She clearly preferred the male lead (and she’s too young to reasonably be in those schemes although I guess that’s a coin flip in manhua) so she probably wasn’t actually behind the original kidnapping itself. Maybe her family was which is why things are going to unravel if she doesn’t stop things?