“Me neither. Could she be Mrs. Stone’s daughter-in-law?”
“We’ve all seen her daughter-in-law before. Oh, could she be her second daughter-in-law?”
The people speculated about Serena’s identity and exchanged whispers.
Just then, two women came out of the house. Someone went over and asked the older woman, “Mrs. Newman, do you know who that woman beside Mrs.
Stone is? Did you hear Mrs. Dowling introduce the identity of that woman when you were inside the house?”
Everyone knew everyone else in this circle, so they all wanted to know who
Serena was since she was a new face.
Mrs. Newman said indifferently, “She’s just a country bumpkin. Does she really think she can climb the social ladder and join the elites?”
The crowd was silent.
Mrs. Newman’s youngest daughter answered in a disdainful tone, “She’s
Serena Hunt.”
The others exclaimed, ‘The missus of the York family!”
Mrs. Newman still looked indifferent, but there was a hint of disdain in her tone.
“Like I said, she’s just a country bumpkin who somehow got lucky enough to marry into the York family. Mr. York married her without even hosting a wedding banquet. Who knows what tricks she played to get her way?”
The people around only felt that Mrs. Newman was being jealous.
Mrs. Newman did not care what people thought of her and continued to say,
“Mrs. Stone and Ms. Stone are really magnanimous. Their ideal son-in- law was stolen away by some niece, but Mrs. Stone is still able to bring Serena out and introduce her to everyone.”
If it were Mrs. Newman, she would not be able to do it.
No matter how close a niece was, how could a niece compare to a daughter?
Someone rebuked Mrs. Newman and said, “You should be careful with your words, Mrs. Newman. Mr. York never accepted Ms. Stone’s feelings or promised her anything. It was all Ms. Stone’s wishful thinking. However, it’s true that Ms.
Stone is magnanimous. She was in love with Mr. York, but she could let go of him when she found out that he was married. Furthermore, she generously sent her blessings to the couple. It really changed my perception of her.
“You can say all that in front of us, but don’t talk about Mrs. York’s identity elsewhere. Mr. York isn’t someone your family can afford to offend.”
Mrs. Newman opened her mouth to say something, but in the end, she choked on her words and did not continue to argue with the other ladies.
She was a laughingstock in this circle because she married her brother-in- law.
Her late husband was the younger brother of her current husband. They had a daughter together, but he committed suicide by jumping off a building due to depression when their daughter was two years old. Later, she remarried, to her brother-in-law.
After marrying her brother-in-law, she went from being the second missus to the eldest missus of the Newman family. When her in-laws passed away, her husband became the head of the family. However, she became a joke that many people talked about because she married her late husband’s brother.
After her remarriage, she gave birth to another daughter and son. The daughter she had with her late husband, Camryn, lived like a nobody in the Newman family. It was said that Camryn was treated worse than a servant.
Furthermore, she became blind because of an illness when she was sixteen, which made her even more annoying. Even her biological mother treated her as invisible and left her to fend for herself. She never brought Camryn out to social events.
Everyone knew of the second daughter of the Newmans, but no one knew about Camryn.
It was said that Camryn opened a flower shop in order to survive while being blind. She earned a small income every month to sustain herself, but her halfsister often caused trouble for her.
There was a saying that if a child followed their father after a divorce, the father would gradually neglect the child after he had more children with the new wife.
For Camryn, it was the other way around.
Her uncle and stepfather never treated her well in the first place, and her mother treated her increasingly worse in order to appease her stepfather.
Serena did not know that Mrs. Newman was prejudiced against her. She followed her aunt to meet many ladies.
Compared to the younger ladies, the women who had husbands and children of their own were friendlier to her.
There were also many people who looked down on her, but no one dared say anything in front of her because of Audrey. At most, they would ignore her.
After staying in the house for half an hour, Elisa got tired of dealing with those people and pulled Serena out of the house to walk around the yard.
It was still the most crowded area here.
In this circle, Elisa was recognized for being arrogant and condescending. No one dared come forward when they saw Elisa come out.
Elisa pulled Serena to the edge of the lawn to sit down on two chairs. They were away from the crowd but could still take in everyone’s movements.
“How do you feel, Seren?”
Elisa swirled the glass of wine in her hand and asked Serena with a tilt of her head.
Serena leaned back in her chair lazily and said with a light smile, “It’s fine. I exchanged a few more words with those who are friendly to me, and I didn’t bother with those who disdain me and look down on me.
“Although I haven’t been active in this social class for long, it’s not my first time experiencing this. I know many ladies here, but they don’t know me. I’ve seen how they act in the past, so I know clearly what kind of people they are.”
“After spending half an hour in the house, the most I gained was a name card.”
Elisa laughed. “That sounds about right. Everyone is in it for profit. Who would want to care about you if there was nothing to gain? What do you want to eat?
I’ll go get you some food.”
“I saw some delicate pastries earlier. They look delicious. Bring some for me. I ate a little at the store, so I’m not that hungry.”
Serena had a sweet tooth and wanted to try some of the exquisite snacks.
In the past, when she accompanied Jasmine and Aunt Rachel to parties,
Jasmine and she would just hide in the corner to eat and drink. She liked the pastries the most. They were always much better than the ones she got from stores.
“Sure.”
Elisa placed her glass of red wine on the small table in front of her and got up to help Serena get food.
A while later, she returned empty-handed, but she was followed by two maids working for the Dowlings. The maids held trays with the food that Elisa had picked out for Serena and herself.
“Leave them here for me, thanks.”
The two maids put down the trays, excused themselves, and turned around to serve the others.
The two cousins hid in the corner, eating and drinking. No one dared come over to disturb them either, mainly because Elisa had a bad temper. She would not show any respect if a person she did not look favorably upon approached her, and no one could afford to be humiliated on an occasion like this.
“Seren.”
Elisa suddenly nudged Serena and gestured for her to look at a girl who was standing in another corner. The girl fetched a packet of something from her delicate purse and poured it into her glass of wine. Then, she turned around and walked back into the crowd as if nothing had happened.
She did not notice Elisa and Serena the entire time, so she did not know that her movements were being watched.
“What did she add to the drink?”
Elisa said, “Probably some kind of drug. It’ll dissolve in the wine, and the taste of wine will cover it up, so the person drinking it won’t be able to tell that it was spiked. I wonder who her target is. She must be trying to incur the Dowlings’
wrath by doing something like this at Ms. Dowling’s birthday party.”
“I think we bumped into her when we first arrived. Her last name is Newman, right?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.