IRGS 21

Chapter 21

“No!!”

“Pardon?”

Crap. I shouted way too loudly and awkwardly. Bessie stared at me with wide eyes. Luckily, I immediately came up with an excuse.

“I-it’s a little cold right now. Could you bring me something to wrap around myself?”

“My goodness, really? You must be coming down with a cold. What should we do? You haven’t even eaten anything…”

Bessie hurried over and draped a shawl over my shoulders.

Then Bessie and Lizzie exchanged glances before lowering their voices and asking quietly,

“Did you finish all the jerky from yesterday?”

So it really was Bessie who brought that emergency food. But I deliberately hardened my expression.

“Don’t do that again, Bessie. If you get caught one more time, who knows what’ll happen. You too, Lizzie.”

“Miss… But if this keeps up, something terrible will happen to you!”

Lizzie chimed in from beside her.

“She’s right. I’ll sneak in some bread later. If I hide it in the laundry pile, it should be fine.”

“No, both of you. I’m going to sleep all day today anyway. Just bring me some water later.”

At least Father didn’t control whether I drank water or not. If he denied me even that, he might really end up having to dispose of a corpse.

More than anything, I was extremely conscious of the man hiding inside the wardrobe overhearing something.

I couldn’t exactly say I was treated like a precious daughter, but I still didn’t want him to know I’d been forbidden from eating and leaving my room. It was a matter of pride and dignity.

But there was someone else listening to our conversation.

“What exactly is all this about?”

“!”

Bessie trembled and turned around.

“H-head maid…”

A middle-aged woman with an imposing build stood at the doorway wearing a vicious expression. It was Gemma, the head maid.

Gemma strode confidently into the room.

“I asked what all this means.”

This was bad. Very bad.

Gemma was an expert at beating people with those toad-like thick palms of hers gripping a club. She and Father got along perfectly when it came to slapping my cheeks until they burned. Thanks to that, she had earned praise for maintaining discipline within the household and risen all the way to head maid.

In other words, she was difficult to deal with.

Lizzie also started trembling in fear. There wasn’t a servant in this house who hadn’t suffered from Gemma’s harsh hand.

Still, what she was doing was clearly overstepping her authority. I spoke in the most dignified voice I could muster.

“Gemma, what is the meaning of this? Entering my room without permission?”

The head maid flinched at my words. Come to think of it, before I regressed, I had never once looked her directly in the eye while speaking. Embarrassingly enough, I had always been afraid of her because she backed Father’s authority.

But Gemma quickly regained her composure and addressed me with an insolent attitude.

“My apologies, Miss. But as the head maid, I overheard something I simply could not ignore.”

“What exactly?”

I brazenly asked back.

“Are you confessing that you were spying outside my room without permission, Gemma?”

“What nonsense—”

“Oh? Now that I think about it, I believe I once saw you pressing your ear against Father’s study door as well. If you spied once, who’s to say you wouldn’t do it twice? Perhaps I should mention this to Father.”

It was a complete bluff, but Gemma’s face immediately turned pale.

Though she was Father’s loyal servant, the trust between them was hardly solid. Father trusted no one, after all.

And if he heard that Gemma had been eavesdropping outside his study? He’d cast her out without hesitation.

“That is slander! How could you doubt my loyalty and try to drive a wedge between master and servant?”

“Have you ever shown loyalty to me, Gemma? You’ve never treated me as your mistress.”

Unable to deny it, Gemma’s face flushed red with anger.

She glared around the room, then fixed her gaze on one spot.

The tea table.

Gemma grinned triumphantly and strode over.

Oh no. What now? I had a bad feeling about this. From my angle, I couldn’t even see what was there!

“Well, Miss. I was under the impression that the master had forbidden you from eating or leaving your room.”

Like an investigator discovering crucial evidence, Gemma dramatically held up a piece of jerky from the table.

“Then what exactly is this jerky I’m looking at?”

Damn it. I was screwed. But I couldn’t admit defeat so easily.

“That was already in my room.”

“No. It was in the kitchen pantry. In fact, I just came from checking. One piece is missing from the amount I stored there.”

Gemma smiled in the most irritating way possible. I changed tactics.

“Well of course it was! What, did you think I slaughtered a cow in my room, sliced it up, and dried it into jerky? It was brought here before Father gave his order at dawn the other day. When exactly did you count them, Gemma? Are you accusing me without evidence and trying to drive a wedge between Father and daughter?”

It was half a gamble, but I trusted Bessie. She definitely would have stolen the jerky the moment Father forbade me from eating. And Gemma had probably only counted the supply this morning.

Judging from the way Gemma changed the subject, my guess was correct.

“Even so, Miss, the master clearly forbade you from eating. Regardless of when it was brought here, you should not have eaten it.”

Try doing it yourself, damn it! Let’s see if you can starve all day worshipping Father’s words like the voice of God while ignoring jerky sitting right in front of you!

And I’d only taken one bite!

I, Sophia, refused to back down out of sheer injustice alone.

“Gemma, do you know what happens when a person goes a week without eating anything?”

“That…”

“They die. And the only reason Father hasn’t become known as a heartless man who starved his own daughter to death is because I disobeyed his orders and ate in order to survive.”

“What ridiculous sophistry…”

“Then answer me this, Gemma. As the eldest daughter of House Bartoli, should I truly have obeyed Father’s orders and starved for an entire week?”

Gemma simply stood there glaring at me before answering coldly.

“That is not for me to decide. It is the master’s judgment to make. For the eldest daughter of the marquis household to be this immature and incapable of reflection… No wonder Lady Leoni is always so worried about you. In any case, I will report this matter to the master.”

Y-you…

Grinding my teeth, I watched Gemma leave. She was undoubtedly running straight to Father to tattle on me.

This person, that person—everyone with their endless “Leoni this, Leoni that.” I was sick of hearing it.

I quickly pushed Bessie and Lizzie toward the door.

“You two go back now. Father will be here soon. Don’t get caught up in this for no reason.”

“Miss…”

Bessie’s eyes welled with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Miss. This all happened because of me…”

“What are you talking about, Bessie? I should have hidden it better.”

“Sniff… How could anyone have expected Lady Gemma to suddenly barge in?”

“It’s fine. Just go.”

I never expected that absurd argument to actually work anyway. My only goal had been to get Bessie and Lizzie out of the head maid’s reach.

Even as they left the room, they kept looking back at me.

After finally sending them away, I let out a long sigh. Then I turned around—

Something was strange.

The wardrobe door stood wide open.

The very wardrobe where I had hidden Grand Duke Glentino—no, Owen!

‘What? Did he quietly slip out while watching the timing?’

I hadn’t noticed at all.

Still, maybe it was for the best. I didn’t want him witnessing Father throwing a fit at me.

Relieved, I walked over to close the wardrobe door.

“Have they all gone?”

“Eek!”

Owen suddenly popped out from behind the door.

This time, the man quickly covered my mouth, so thankfully my scream didn’t echo through the room.

Once he released me, I spoke rapidly.

“Why are you out here? Didn’t you hear me earlier? My father’s coming soon.”

“I know. I heard, which is exactly why I’m here.”

“What? What do you—”

Before I could finish speaking, footsteps approached.

Two people. Obviously Father and the head maid.

I hurriedly shoved the man back behind the door.

Before my regression, I had spent my entire life anxiously watching Father’s moods.

Because of that, I had now reached the level where I could tell how angry he was just from the sound of his footsteps.

If 0 was his usual contempt and 10 was enough rage to expel someone from the family, then his current state was…

Seven.

Lucky seven. A state of great fury, perhaps.

I didn’t know what kind of nonsense Gemma had fed him, but the marquis was far angrier than I expected.

I braced myself and waited.

Bang!

The door flew open without so much as a knock, nearly breaking off its hinges.

Naturally, I had already anticipated it and stepped back beforehand, so I avoided the disaster of getting smacked in the forehead by the door.

The one who got hit in the forehead instead was Owen, hiding behind the door.

Yet rather than letting out a groan, the man swiftly grabbed the doorknob and held the door firmly in place, perfectly concealing himself behind it.