At the cheerful farewell, Ines smiled softly and gave a small wave. Even in something this small, she could feel how much closer she and Cecile had grown from the conversation just now.

Click. Ines turned her head after watching the door close.

Marisa was also looking at where Cecile had gone, and her face appeared cold at first glance, but Ines already knew that she had taken in Cecile and her younger brother and looked after them with care. That beneath the upright, unyielding manner was a person of deep warmth.

Their eyes met, and Marisa spoke.

“That child Cecile seems to have taken quite a liking to Your Highness. She was truly overjoyed when you woke.”

“I’m grateful for it.”

Ines answered with a small smile. It was sincere, so there was no need to add anything more.

Marisa seemed to think for a moment, then opened her mouth again without delay.

“I heard the girls came by a little while ago. Was there anything that caused you discomfort?”

Ah, so that was what she had come about.

It was not hard to understand. Marisa oversaw all the internal affairs of Rupert Castle. It was only natural that she would be attentive to the woman who would soon be its mistress.

Ines easily read the faint concern beneath the measured question and smiled lightly to put her at ease.

“Nothing at all. They were lively and charming girls.”

“……Is that so.”

Marisa’s eyebrows gave a small twitch of surprise, and she slowly lowered her steady gaze.

That lasted only a moment before a faint hesitation crossed Marisa’s composed face. It seemed the reason she had come was not entirely about the girls.

Marisa opened her mouth.

“The reason I came to see you…… is that I have something to say regarding the maids you brought from the imperial palace.”

She was referring to Lena Orso and the other one. A cold light flickered briefly in Ines’s grey-green eyes. It was unexpected, but given that Marisa was the one responsible for managing the maids, it was not a strange subject.

“Is there some problem with the two of them?”

Ines asked, composing her emotions with practiced ease.

She had some idea of what it might be, in truth. She had kept the two of them away from her side from the very first day at Rupert and had not called for them since, so they had probably expressed their dissatisfaction. Of course, she had not the slightest intention of bringing them back into her inner circle.

But what Marisa raised went in a slightly different direction.

“I was wondering whether the two maids you brought might be sent back to the capital with the imperial soldiers after the wedding.”

The words carried a sense of déjà vu, and Ines absently turned the handle of her teacup. Then her calm grey-green eyes settled on Marisa.

“Can you tell me the reason?”

“……There is a girl named Sana who has apparently been spreading disrespectful talk about Your Highness.”

“Disrespectful talk?”

“It is not something you need to hear. However…… I thought it would not be good for Your Highness to keep someone who speaks carelessly about her mistress in her service, and so I have taken the liberty of coming to you.”

From Marisa’s firm answer, it seemed she would not be sharing what Sana had been saying.

It was not hard to guess. In her past life, Sana had been dismissed from Rupert Castle for a similar reason.

The difference from then was that it had been Killian who heard it directly.

‘……Come to think of it, Killian was furiously angry that time too.’

It had been less than a year into the marriage, when things were still awkward between them, and yet Killian had not taken the insult to Ines lightly.

That was the kind of person Killian was. When Ines had waved her hands saying she was fine, embarrassed that a commotion had arisen on her account, he had told her there was no reason she should have to hear words like that.

“I am aware that it may seem presumptuous of me, as head maid of Rupert, to bring this to you. If I have caused offense, I apologize. I only wish you to know there is no ill intent behind it……”

Marisa bowed her head in apology. She had apparently taken the brief silence, during which Ines had been lost in memory, as something else.

Ines quickly shook her hand.

“No, it’s all right. I don’t think it’s presumptuous, and I’m not offended.”

She knew well that Marisa had no ill intent. She had lived through this once before.

In her past life, Ines and Marisa had never been what anyone would call close.

It was not that Ines disliked Marisa, nor that Marisa had overstepped her authority or behaved insolently. If anything, Ines had respected Marisa, who had served Rupert for decades, and Marisa had been scrupulously proper toward Ines as the mistress of the household.

The reason the distance between them had never closed was, if one had to name it, Ines’s personal maid, Lena Orso.

Marisa had taken a dim view of Lena Orso, who carried herself with the arrogance of someone who had become the Grand Duchess herself, and had come to Ines to advise her.

‘My lady. I am sorry to say this, but I believe it would be best to dismiss Lena Orso.’

‘What do you mean, all of a sudden……’

‘I know my words may seem presumptuous. But I felt you should know, my lady, and so I have come to say this.’

‘……Can you tell me the reason?’

‘……Lena Orso’s arrogance has gone too far. Using your authority as though it were her own is commonplace, and recently she has been issuing orders in your name without permission.’

‘Ah……’

‘Dealing with it is not particularly difficult. But if her insolence crosses a line and causes harm to you, my lady, that cannot be allowed.’

Ines did not know Marisa well, but she knew at least that she was not someone who would come with false words.

Yet before Ines could make a decision, Lena Orso, who had somehow heard the news and come running, clung to her in tears, gasping. She swore she would never be insolent again, and begged not to be dismissed, tears streaming down her face. Seeing that, Ines had been reminded of her own past, always writhing in loneliness, and in the end could not bring herself to dismiss Lena Orso. It had been a foolish act of misplaced pity.

The consequences of that foolishness were severe. Lena Orso had never truly been on Ines’s side to begin with, so calling it betrayal would have been laughable.

‘……My judgment of people was truly terrible.’

Which was why she had thought of the Emperor, the root of it all, as a father.

If she had dismissed Lena Orso when Marisa first came to advise her, would Rupert have been safe? Ines entertained the pointless hypothetical for a moment, then laughed at herself.

‘……Of course not.’

Whatever she felt toward Lena Orso, her existence was not large enough to change the outcome. Ines would still have been foolish, and would still have been taken in by the Emperor’s honeyed words and called him father.

So this was both an opportunity to correct a past mistake, and a chance to dismiss the two maids without arousing the Emperor’s suspicion.

“Yes. It would be best to send the two of them away, as you suggest.”

At the clean answer, Marisa looked uncharacteristically surprised. Ines did not let it show and smiled gently.

“I’d like you to handle it as you see fit.”

“……Yes, Your Highness. I will handle it according to proper procedure.”

Marisa quickly composed her expression and bowed respectfully.

However half a princess she might be, a princess was still a princess. She would not invoke the crime of insulting the imperial family, but at the very least, the two maids would find it difficult to work in any noble household going forward.

In truth, Ines found the whole situation slightly absurd.

The fact that she, who had been treated as barely half a princess back at the imperial palace, was being treated as such a noble princess here in Rupert, which could arguably be called the place furthest from the imperial palace.

After reporting a few more details about the wedding schedule, Marisa soon took her leave.

Ines watched the spot where she had been, then let her shoulders drop all at once and exhaled a long breath.

“I didn’t expect things to unfold this way……”

Lena Orso and Sana had been a problem with no clear solution.

The two of them were nominally Ines’s maids, but in truth they had been placed there by the Emperor. Which meant that if Ines dismissed them, it would reach the Emperor’s ears immediately.

If Ines had been the sort to do as she pleased, like Leila, dismissing maids would not have raised any eyebrows.

But Ines had spent twenty-two years never once asserting her own opinion.

If a person like that dismissed maids without a compelling reason, that suspicious Emperor would inevitably find it strange.

So now, with a perfectly valid reason to dismiss them, the timing was nothing short of precious.

“……”

Ines looked quietly at her outstretched hand, then slowly curled it into a fist.

In this life, Rupert would not be tainted by sorcery, and Lena Orso would not be allowed to run free within Rupert.

Though she had unexpectedly fallen ill, the situation was beginning to change, and she was deeply glad of it.

Ines lowered her clenched fist, and a quiet smile rested at the corners of her mouth.