Not long after, Eric excused himself to summon those who would help with my preparations.

Left alone, I began circling the sofa placed at the center of the estate’s drawing room. It was my first time in this life going out of my own volition, and the excitement bubbled up uncontrollably.

The outside world that Louis’s mistresses had occasionally spoken of always sounded irresistibly sweet. Most of it had been nothing more than sneering remarks about beggars starving to death on the streets—but I hadn’t cared.

Just being able to hear stories about the world beyond these walls had been enough.

Listening to them speak, imagining it on my own, sketching it out in my mind—I’d loved that. In that way, tenuous as it was, I’d tried to connect myself to the outside world, and it had given me room to breathe within the circumstances that bound me.

Perhaps I’d been nurturing a small hope—that one day, I might be swept into that world myself.

Until Eric returned with the servants, I sat quietly on the sofa. In my mind, I replayed the outside world the mistresses had described, wondering how it might have changed…

I must have been sitting there for quite some time when a loud crash echoed from upstairs.

Moments later, four servants came down the stairs carrying a massive vanity table.

“…Goodness.”

I could have gone upstairs myself.

Yet the servants went to the trouble of carrying the vanity down anyway. And not just any vanity—it was the exceedingly expensive ivory one Louis had prepared for his mistresses.

Behind them, I saw Eric carrying a chair made of the same ivory.

[We were unable to procure new furniture on such short notice, so we brought what was available. I ask for your generous understanding.]

Eric showed me what he’d written in advance, then bowed his head. A moment later, he broke into a bright, open smile.

“It’s fine.”

The instant I saw him smiling so gently, I snapped my head away. My cheeks burned.

It was probably because no servant had ever paid such careful attention to my comfort before.

“Milady, the bath is ready.”

Just as I was pressing the heat in my cheeks with the back of my hand, the petite female servant—the same one who’d earlier asked what to do with the house steward—bowed politely.

“Shall we bring it here?”

“No. I’ll go myself.”

“Yes, milady.”

I started toward the staircase leading upstairs. But the servant gasped and hurriedly stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

“Milady, the bath has been prepared on the first floor.”

“Oh—so not the third floor?”

“I—I’m terribly sorry, milady! I’ll correct it at once!”

When she mentioned the bath being ready, I’d assumed it would be in my private room on the third floor. After all, that was where I’d always bathed—alone, in the room where I’d poured myself into my manuscripts.

It had been habit, more than anything, that guided my steps.

“Please forgive my rudeness.”

The female servant cast a cautious glance my way. She looked as though she feared I might scold her, so I offered a gentle smile instead.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll go to where you’ve prepared it.”

The bathtub in my private room was so grimy with scale that it was unpleasant to look at. At first, I’d hated using it to the point of despair, but going unwashed felt even worse, so I’d forced myself to endure it.

Eventually, I’d grown used to it.

Come to think of it, it’s a miracle I never developed a skin disease from using it all this time.

…No, that’s not true.

In my previous life, I did contract a skin condition. And thanks to that, I was buried alive.

Remembering the past for no reason made my mood sink.

You really were foolish, Mia.

“Please, lead the way.”

Shaking myself free from the memory, I nodded to the female servant.

“Ah! Y-yes, milady!”

She answered at once, bowing deeply before straightening again. With both hands neatly folded at her navel as she greeted me, she looked unexpectedly adorable.

When she’d stepped forward to deal with the house steward earlier, I’d thought her impressively composed—but now I was seeing a slightly flustered side to her as well.

“Milady, this way!”

Watching her stride ahead with such determination, I let out a small smile. Her gait reminded me of a marching band I’d once seen—so stiff it was almost comical.

Was she nervous? Or was that simply how she walked?

“Which fragrance would you like us to prepare?”

“Anything you have is fine.”

“Oh! Then what about the scented oil?”

“That’s fine too—anything will do.”

Chatting back and forth like that, we soon arrived at the bath.

From helping me undress to easing me into the tub, the female servant attended to every detail with meticulous care.

“What’s your name?”
Only after I’d settled comfortably into the bath did I speak again, my voice cautious.

“Ah—I’m Charvielo Leviamur Charlotte Forte Arabesque.”

“Charvielo…”

That was a terribly hard name to pronounce. It was so long—and she’d said it so quickly—that I hadn’t even caught the latter half.

“…Mm.”

Would she be offended if I let on that I hadn’t understood? I glanced sideways at the servant. She was busy pouring pink-scented fragrance into the bath with great enthusiasm.

Do people from the Duchy of Balthazar all have long names, even if they’re not nobility?

The thought crossed my mind, only for me to shake my head. Eric was also from Balthazar, yet he didn’t even have a surname.

“You can call me Shasha, milady.”

“All right, then. Is that your nickname?”

“Yes—only when my siblings call me that.”

Shasha smiled bashfully as she carefully scattered flower petals into the tub, then nodded.

“Others usually call me Ba—”

Her lips parted again, as if she were about to say something more, but she abruptly clapped a hand over her mouth.

“S-so… how’s the water temperature?”

I considered asking why she’d stopped mid-sentence, but decided against it. Seeing how tense she was, it felt like it might turn into an awkward question.

“Thanks to you, it’s lovely.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Phew!” Shasha wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

“You were sent by the Grand Duke too, weren’t you? Like Eric?”

“Eric? Who’s Eric—?”

“The bandaged man.”

“Oh—ah! Th— I mean… yes. That’s right.”

“So you didn’t know each other’s names?”

“Ahaha, no. I suppose not. I was deployed in quite a hurry.”

Shasha darted her eyes to the side and let out an embarrassed laugh.

“I thought Eric was your superior.”

From what I’d observed over the past half month or so, every servant sent from the Duchy of Balthazar deferred to Eric. Or rather, it wasn’t exactly deference—they seemed to be reading his mood.

Almost as if they feared him.

“Ah… well… I suppose that’s… how it is?”

Suddenly, the thought occurred to me that Eric might be something like the Grand Duke’s personal guard. He’d said he was a swordsman in the past, and the way the others clearly kept their distance from him made it seem plausible.

“So you’re not close, then.”

“It’s not that… it’s more like… communication isn’t very smooth.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Eric can’t speak, after all.”

“Ah—he can’t… speak…?”

Shasha froze mid-motion, a single petal slipping from her fingers back into the bath.

“So it’s that he can’t…”

She looked as though she’d just realized something important.

“He communicated with me using a notebook. What about you?”

“We… communicate through eye contact.”

“Just with looks?”

“Well… after serving someone for ten years—no, more than ten years—you start to understand things just by looking.”

“That’s fascinating.”

I let out a small laugh and sank deeper into the bath.

How long had it been since I’d had such a casual conversation with someone who wasn’t one of Louis’s mistresses? We hadn’t even talked about anything in particular, yet my mood lifted for no reason at all.

And perhaps because Shasha was tending to me with such exceptional care, my body felt pleasantly lax.

“I was a strange child when I was young.”

“In what way?”

As she poured water gently over me, Shasha leaned forward slightly. I smiled softly at her.

“For a girl, I wanted to go out into society—just like a man.”

At my words, Shasha’s eyes widened in surprise—then softened into a gentle smile, as if urging me to continue.

“Ever since I was little, I was constantly told to become a virtuous, proper woman. I hated that more than death. So I learned to write, but…”

I trailed off and looked toward the small window set into the bathroom wall.

“In the end, I became an ordinary woman.”

A mother who had always taught me chastity and obedience. A father who kept several young mistresses while doting on me as his only daughter. The family I had believed would never fall.

And my estate—now reduced to Louis’s possession.

“While I was drowning in despair, my parents were overjoyed.”

They had always demanded ‘femininity’ from me, yet it wasn’t as though they’d been indifferent. My father, despite keeping multiple mistresses, cherished me dearly as his only child. And my mother, though she endlessly urged me to become the kind of woman society desired, had done so out of concern for her daughter.

In the empire, a ‘self-directed woman’ was easily branded an eccentric—someone to be mocked and pointed at.

“If things were going to end up like this anyway, I sometimes think I shouldn’t have caused my parents so much trouble when I was young.”

The image of my parents—stripped of their titles, screaming in anguish—rose vividly before me.

“If I’d lived that way, maybe the guilt wouldn’t weigh so heavily on me now.”

Those moments, long since vanished and reduced to fragments of memory, tore painfully at my chest.