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~Chapter 57~
Seraphina held back the boiling anger inside her.
If she lost her temper here, everything would fall apart.
Everyone would call her overly sensitive.
They would laugh at her for losing her composure and push her down even further.
So even though she felt like she was standing on fire, she had to force a calm face and attitude.
“By the way, isn’t Lady Ansi recently attending the Watkins Reading Club with the princess?”
‘Watkins? That boring bookworm group?’
Seraphina raised an eyebrow.
She and the members of Peony had always quietly looked down on that club.
But now that the Claudius princess’s name was attached to it—
“Oh my, I want to go too!”
“A reading club? That makes you look so intellectual!”
The reading club had suddenly become a must-join group.
And that fact turned into another sharp arrow aimed at Seraphina.
“Were you… not invited this time either, Lady Lopez?”
‘Why are they bringing that up now?’
Seraphina felt a bad premonition—
And she was right.
“Actually, I’ll be attending the next meeting.”
Lady Sanchez, who had always been second to Seraphina in the Peony circle, proudly raised an invitation to the Watkins Reading Club.
“I wasn’t really interested before, but the princess is very active in society these days, you know?”
Lady Sanchez smiled with a hint of triumph.
“I wanted to meet the princess at least once, and my mother is close friends with Countess Sherwood. So I received an invitation through my mother.”
“Wow, I’m so jealous!”
“I really want to go too! Can you help me get invited next time?”
The other ladies looked at Lady Sanchez with envy.
Lady Sanchez shrugged her shoulders lightly and looked straight at Seraphina with victorious eyes.
“Oh, and I should tell you in advance… it might be a little hard for Lady Lopez to get invited.”
Seraphina’s gaze turned ice cold.
Lady Sanchez pretended to be cautious as she twisted the knife further.
“We have to be careful of the princess’s feelings, you understand, right?”
Seraphina smiled beautifully like a lily.
“Don’t worry. I never planned on asking for an invitation in the first place. That would be… childish, wouldn’t it?”
In truth, she had once asked Larit (Lady Ansi) to get her invited to the Duke’s salon. But Seraphina buried that memory deep down and put on airs.
“But I am curious about your intention, Lady Sanchez.”
“My intention?”
“Yes. I wasn’t going to ask for anything, so why are you bringing me up at all?”
Actually, the best response would have been to stop at “That’s childish, isn’t it?”
But Seraphina was too irritated and added one more line—
“Oh dear, did I upset you?”
Lady Sanchez seized the opportunity and widened her eyes dramatically, making Seraphina look petty.
“I was only trying to be considerate, so you wouldn’t misunderstand. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“Lady Sanchez, that’s not what I—”
“I just didn’t want you to feel left out.”
Lady Sanchez smiled sweetly, her voice soft but her words full of thorns.
“I forgot how proud you are, Lady Lopez. Of course you wouldn’t need a silly invitation like this… I assumed wrongly.”
“You’ve been so quiet today. I was worried I upset you, but I guess I was mistaken.”
Seraphina clenched her teeth behind her smiling face.
‘That was a mistake.’
She should never have given Lady Sanchez a chance to attack her.
‘…She’s really annoying.’
Normally, Lady Sanchez would have been too scared of Seraphina to talk this freely.
But today, she was leading the conversation instead of Seraphina—proof that Seraphina had lost control of the group.
That realization made her feel even worse.
“By the way, doesn’t the princess seem softer these days?”
“Yes, she smiles more compared to before.”
“She used to be so hard to approach, but now she’s not like that.”
“I actually ran into the princess recently, and she even greeted me first!”
The same ladies who once gossiped about the princess behind her back were now openly supporting her.
And worse—
“Lady Lopez, you used to say the princess was cold, but maybe that was just our prejudice.”
They were now shifting all the blame for their old gossip onto Seraphina.
‘Just endure it.’
Seraphina closed her eyes tightly to calm herself.
She still had some influence in this group, so she had to stay connected.
The Peony group was one of her strongest social foundations.
For now, she had to keep attending and wait for a chance to push Lady Sanchez out.
She no longer had Larit to use, the Lopez family was too low-ranked to be helpful, and even Gregory had grown cold to her lately…
‘Gregory.’
Seraphina felt a painful lump in her throat when his name came to mind.
‘Recently, it feels like Gregory is avoiding me.’
Ever since the incident in the south, Gregory seemed to have completely lost interest in her.
Before, he used to visit her so often it wore out the doorstep, but now he never came.
Even when Seraphina took the rare step of visiting him herself—
“Sera, what are you doing here?”
He made it clear he wasn’t happy to see her.
“Didn’t Larit come with you?”
Hearing that to her face was crushing.
That wasn’t the only thing.
He would sit next to her, lost in thought, clearly not thinking about her.
Or he would leave her alone to go off somewhere else.
If not that—
“Sera, have you heard anything about Larit lately?”
He would only ask endless questions about Larit.
‘No… it has to be my imagination.’
Seraphina clenched her fists.
Just the fact that Larit had aligned herself with the princess was already a huge blow.
If she lost Gregory too…
‘I can’t let that happen. Never.’
She didn’t even want to imagine it.
The sun was setting when the meeting finally ended.
“Today was so much fun, Lady Sanchez!”
“See you next time!”
The ladies cheerfully said goodbye to each other.
Seraphina, who had stayed until the very end, finally relaxed a little.
‘I just need to go home and rest.’
After sitting under the ladies’ sharp gazes all day, her whole body was stiff.
Even her lips twitched from forcing a smile for so long.
But then—
“Oh my.”
Lady Sanchez covered her mouth with her fan and smiled sweetly.
“Young Master Gusto isn’t here today?”
Seraphina flinched, caught off guard.
Lady Sanchez twirled her fan lightly as she continued.
“He always comes to pick you up, doesn’t he, Lady Lopez?”
“Well…”
“Didn’t he even prioritize you over his fiancée, Lady Ansi?”
Lady Sanchez’s smile deepened.
“Every time I saw that, I thought, ‘Lady Lopez must be so loved.’ I was honestly jealous.”
She looked Seraphina up and down with mocking eyes.
Seraphina felt her face burn with humiliation.
Lady Sanchez snapped her fan shut with a loud sound and shrugged smugly.
“Well then, have a safe trip home, Lady Lopez.”
One by one, the ladies left in their carriages.
Seraphina hurried into her own carriage, as if running away.
