“Good heavens…… Your Highness.”

She had deliberately worked hard to put on weight and had even applied a careful layer of powder, but beneath the crimson light of the central hall rather than the dim moonlight outside, she could not fool Mrs. Neumann’s sharp eyes.

Your Highness. Those two words from Mrs. Neumann carried so much within them. Her eye for detail truly was remarkable.

That must be how she managed all those years, navigating every one of mother’s sensitivities. How exhausting it must have been.

More than two hours of careful work since early that morning had gone to waste. The rosy, glowing cheeks and bright eyes she once had were gone. Beneath that single layer of fine powder, there was nothing but skin as pale as a dry leaf scattered by an autumn wind.

“How long do you intend to keep calling me that? What if someone hears?”

“You will always be Your Highness to me, until the day I die.”

It is easy to invite misunderstanding. Please be careful from now on. Adeline curved her eyes gently, but a bitter smile rested on her lips.

“I thought I would die from missing you. I should have come sooner.”

She said she had missed her, asked if she had been well, in the same warm voice as always, and Mrs. Neumann pulled her into a tight embrace. She could not remember the last time she had felt such affectionate warmth, and a lump rose in her throat.

“I’m such a thoughtless person……”

Adeline leaned her forehead against Mrs. Neumann’s shoulder as she patted her back and told her it was all right, and tightened her arms around her in return.

After washing up, Adeline went to bed late alongside Mrs. Neumann. Back when her mother Luise was still alive, she had wanted to lie down side by side with her in the same bed and fall asleep together, but it had been something she had only ever wished for and never dared to do.

〈I don’t want to be alone. I want to sleep together, all right?〉

〈My, my. A married woman turning into a child.〉

Mrs. Neumann, gentle-natured as she was, indulged Adeline’s unexpected bit of childishness. A warm hot water bottle wrapped in a knitted cover was placed on Adeline’s lower belly as she lay in bed in her nightgown.

“Oh, this hot water bottle. It’s been so long. I used to use it all the time…… Ah, it’s so warm.”

The Belliche estate, with its fine cast-iron stoves and fireplaces burning around the clock, was always filled with warm water and warmth even in the dead of winter. But none of it could compare to the comfort this small wrapped bottle gave, thawing the chill in her chest.

Knowing how easily Adeline felt the cold, Mrs. Neumann kept kneading her cold hands between her own, the warm water bottle nestled between them.

“Goodness, why are your hands and feet always so cold? Like blocks of ice, absolute blocks of ice.”

“I was born with a cold constitution. Mother was the same way……”

“The only things you took after her are the ones you shouldn’t have.”

Mrs. Neumann rubbed Adeline’s cold feet with her warm ones, coaxing warmth back into her chilled body. Adeline’s lips, which had hesitated for a moment as though gathering herself, slowly parted.

“Hmm…… now that I’m actually about to say it, I don’t know where to start or how.”

But Mrs. Neumann did not rush her with a single word. Looking into Neumann’s brown eyes, which waited patiently for her to lean on her, Adeline began to speak in broad terms, saying that things between her and her husband had not been easy since losing the child.

“The matter of the baby, and…… he must have been quite troubled by the Leopold situation too. That wasn’t his fault, but honestly it wasn’t mine either. But every time I see him I feel so uncomfortable, and then when we clash we end up fighting again……”

Adeline could not bring herself to tell Mrs. Neumann everything that had passed between them as husband and wife. She did not want to add to her worries. Even now she was keeping her here, clinging to her, when the woman deserved to rest in her later years. She found herself truly pathetic.

“I really want to leave him, but it’s not working out. I keep sending divorce papers and they keep coming back blank. I have no idea what he’s thinking.”

She wanted to leave Krauben now and spend her life looking after the family Leopold had left behind. It was not possible right away, since he would not let her go and leaving the country was difficult, but she wanted to start preparing to leave, one step at a time, and she asked for her help.

Perhaps she had already guessed most of it just from seeing how worn her face had become, because Mrs. Neumann remained perfectly calm even as Adeline spoke of divorce. Mrs. Neumann continued rubbing Adeline’s fidgeting fingers and spoke in a soft, measured voice.

“If the sight of him is more than you can bear, then yes, it’s time to stop. It’s not as though he’s the only worthy man left in this world. From now on, live however you want, do whatever you wish, our princess. As I’ve said time and again, peace of mind is what matters most.”

“Yes, I will. I truly will.”

On the first night in Harden, tucked in a warm bed, a quiet night passed just like that.

* * *

It was the morning of the third day at the Harden estate.

I need to get it done in one go this time, or I’ll only draw unnecessary suspicion.

Adeline had finished a light breakfast and was drinking tea, planning to go out shortly. Mrs. Neumann, who had served tea to the attendants waiting in the hall drawing room, was coming into the inner room.

“Let’s get ready to go now, we have a lot of places to stop by today.”

Adeline told Mrs. Neumann to hurry and was reaching for the silver hand warmer she planned to tuck into her muff when she accidentally knocked it off.

“Oh!”

She had just refilled the hand warmer with fresh charcoal, so the lid had been sitting slightly ajar. The silver box slid down and a small piece of charcoal tumbled out and fell onto the hem of her indoor skirt.

“Oh! What do we do! My lady!”

Hiss, a thin wisp of smoke shot up, and Mrs. Neumann startled out of her chair and quickly shook out the hem of the skirt. But the charcoal, which had burned through the white muslin skirt in an instant, grazed the skin of her inner thigh before falling to the floor.

“Your Highness!”

“Ow, ow, ow……”

Mrs. Neumann, her expression furious, dragged Adeline over and sat her on the sofa, then flung the piece of charcoal that was burning a hole in the carpet into the fireplace.

“What are you doing, Tanya! Get a cold wet cloth, now!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My lady, what happened!”

The attendants who had been waiting in the hall drawing room came rushing in, calling out for her. Tanya, who had gone running at Mrs. Neumann’s shout, pushed past them and came in carrying a basin and a wet cloth.

“Ma’am, here. The cloth!”

“Honestly, where does your mind go? What are we going to do about this? If it scars it’ll be a real problem……”

Mrs. Neumann sat across from her and tried to lift the hem of Adeline’s skirt, which had a hole burned through it the size of three finger joints, up above her calf.

“Ah…… ma’am…… not here, please……”

“Oh.”

Only then, as though suddenly aware of the attendants’ presence, Mrs. Neumann snapped her head toward the door.

“My lady……”

The three attendants, who had been crossing the threshold of the inner room when they heard Adeline cry out, could not bring themselves to look at her directly and stood staring at the floor as they asked if she was all right.

“Um, has my lady suffered a burn? How large is the wound……”

“I’ll go contact the master first.”

One of them turned and left before anyone else could, leaving the other two standing there alone. Mrs. Neumann raised her voice even further, saying it was infuriating that instead of helping in this urgent situation they were just standing there.

“You there! What are you standing around staring at? Once first aid is done, we’ll take her straight to the hospital, so go and have the car ready now.”

“Ah, yes.”

With a brief reply, the sound of the attendants’ footsteps rang out as they crossed the entrance hall and hurried out. Mrs. Neumann’s expression was deliberately stern as she laid the cold wet cloth over Adeline’s thigh, which had turned red and begun to blister.

“Hss……”

“Tanya, bring a few more strips of gauze and some more ice.”

“Yes.”

“Oww…… it really hurts, ma’am. Gently, gently please.”

It had been deliberate. Adeline had knocked the glowing piece of charcoal onto her own thigh on purpose. The arms or hands seemed unsuitable for the plan, being parts of the body that showed openly.

Getting a prescription for contraceptives was the reason she needed to go to the hospital, but burning her leg with charcoal was admittedly a rather reckless way to go about it. And now that she had actually done it, the pain was quite severe and her eyes stung with tears.

Ugh, it hurts……

Mrs. Neumann pressed her face close to Adeline’s ear as she whimpered about the pain and whispered.

“Ha, so it does hurt after all. I was starting to think Your Highness felt no pain whatsoever.”

When Adeline had said she needed to create a reason to go to the hospital, Mrs. Neumann had suggested they just claim she had caught a cold while out. But Adeline had gone and burned her own thigh with charcoal without a word of discussion.

“Have you completely lost your mind? Goodness, it’s going to scar. On this lovely skin of yours…… leaving a scar like this.”

Mrs. Neumann’s sharp eyes, glaring at Adeline for doing something so shocking and beyond all expectation, blazed like the flames roaring inside the fireplace.

“……But if I said I had a cold, at least one of them would definitely follow me right into the examination room. What excuse would I give then to make them leave?”

Look, they ran off the moment they had to lift my skirt. Isn’t that perfectly effective? There was no other way. Adeline muttered her defense as best she could, but Mrs. Neumann’s anger did not cool easily.

“If only you couldn’t speak…… how perfectly effective indeed. Calling this a plan…… I won’t die a natural death, I won’t.”

“Shh, shh! They might come back, shh!”

Her thigh was now weeping fl*id and stinging so badly that her brow had been furrowed the whole time, and yet Adeline cheekily pressed one finger to her lips. Wanting to avoid Mrs. Neumann’s scolding, which once started never stopped, she even let out a small, silly laugh.