“That won’t do, Adel! Cherry is listening. You’re beautiful, aren’t you, Cherry. Won’t you lower yourself so I can sit on you?”

“Violet, I’m not even curious anymore about just how stupid you can get, Cherry!”

Cherry quietly bent her front legs. Violet promptly planted herself behind Adelaide and sat down. She didn’t forget to cradle her large travel bag carefully in her arms.

“Get down, Violet. I’m not taking you anywhere.”

“Oh, come on. I know you came running because you were worried about me. Don’t be like that. I’ll just impose on you at Adel’s house for a few days. Maybe I won’t even need a few days. Romer said he might be able to get a carriage as early as this evening.”

Adelaide was in a foul mood, partly because the corner of the travel bag kept jabbing her in the side, and partly because of Violet’s stupidly blissful face.

“If you come to my house, you won’t be going anywhere with that con man. Is that all right with you?”

“Goodness, Adel!”

She thought Violet had finally gotten scared.

“You like me this much. I’m touched. I’m sorry for leaving this way after saying I’d think it over so you wouldn’t be sad.

If Father hadn’t intercepted the letters, our friendship wouldn’t have had to face this trial. It’s all Father’s fault.”

Violet continued in an overwhelmed tone.

“But I’ll keep sending letters. Once we settle in a new city, I might be able to invite Adel to visit. Romer said a postman is the kind of work every city needs.

Of course, we won’t be able to live the way we do now. Even so, when I think about buying a small, modest little house and being with Romer day and night, I just feel so incredibly full!”

Adelaide said nothing and urged Cherry on.

She had learned from experience that no words got through to Violet when she was in this kind of state.

“Adel!”

“Can you not keep your mouth shut for even a moment?”

“Adel! This is my first time riding a horse instead of a carriage! This is, this is truly incredibly fast, and wonderful!”

Violet’s shouting drew stares from all around.

Adelaide hoped someone from the Armetia estate might send people out to collect this squawking creature even now.

“Riding is a basic accomplishment. What on earth have you been doing that you never learned to ride?”

“Mother said it wasn’t good for a woman to ride horses later in life. She said a proper woman keeps her body free of injury.”

“I shouldn’t speak ill of your mother, but that is truly nonsense.”

Adelaide picked up the pace. Violet let out a delighted shriek. Mud splattered across the trailing hem of her dress. Neither Adelaide nor Violet paid it any mind.

When they arrived at the Berthier estate, Adelaide sprang down from the saddle.

Lionel, who had arrived ahead of them, stretched out his arms to help Violet down.

“No, thank you.”

“Lady Violet?”

“Adel got down by herself. I can do it too.”

Lionel turned to Adelaide with a helpless look, asking for guidance.

Even for someone as skilled a rider as Adelaide, most women accepted help when dismounting. It was so as not to embarrass a man who had come forward to offer his hand.

“Leave her. A broken ankle will keep her from going anywhere.”

“A broken ankle, Lady Adelaide, even so, confining Lady Violet is… well, if that’s what you want, I’m of course more than willing to lend a hand, but it would be better to have a more thorough plan in place.

Lionel lowered his voice and whispered conspiratorially.

For instance, gradually winning her over without Lady Violet realizing it, so that instead of being confined, she decides on her own that she doesn’t want to leave…”

“That’s unsettling, Lionel.”

“It’s absolutely not something I normally think about. It came to me out of nowhere. I swear, Lady Adelaide.”

“Anyone who heard you would think your oath carried the weight of gold. I swear to you in turn, Lionel. Your oath is cheap, just like your knees. Go find Amy.”

Lionel gave his knees a few idle kicks, the ones that had been creaking lately from a growth spurt, and went off to find Amy.

And he resolved that if he ever found himself in a position where he had to beg Adelaide’s forgiveness, he would not spare those cheap knees from the start, but drop to them and ask for pardon without hesitation.

Cheap knees would carry no weight as a last resort, after all.

“I’m jumping, Adel!”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m really jumping!”

“I said go ahead.”

“Here I go!”

“Will you please just get it over with?”

Violet jumped. Adelaide threw herself forward and caught her.

Thanks to the cushion that was Adelaide, Violet did not break her ankle.

“Adel!”

“Ugh, get off my backside!”

“I did it! I did it, Adel!”

The pure white lily was surprisingly heavy. Adelaide wondered if she had put her back out.

“I couldn’t have done it without Adel. Oh, Adel. You really are the best!”

“The best is right here, so why would anyone choose the worst? Is it because Violet is stupid?”

“Romer is not the worst! He’s not as wonderful and perfect as Adel, of course, but they say men are boys at heart their whole lives. If I take good care of Romer, he’ll be grateful.”

“Right. Dreaming of a happy future with a man who’ll still be a boy at heart even when his face is covered in wrinkles. Violet really is stupid.”

Lionel returned with Amy. Amy let out a shriek at the sight of Adelaide and Violet, both thoroughly filthy.

“Goodness, you both need a bath this instant!”

“A bath, Adel!”

“We’re using separate tubs.”

Amy followed after them carrying Violet’s luggage, and exchanged a meaningful look with Lionel.

On the way there, the two of them had shared information. Lionel clicked his tongue when he heard why Violet had come.

Having grown up in an orphanage, Lionel had seen plenty of men like Romer, all talk and no substance.

Girls who had slipped out of the orphanage late at night more often than not came back with serious wounds, both inside and out.

“We need to keep watch over Lady Violet.”

“Since Amy is with Lady Adelaide all day, I’ll take the nights.”

“Viscount Lavota.”

“Oh, right, I’ll take the nights. Sorry. I’m still practicing. It doesn’t come naturally yet.”

“You are now an officially recognized noble, confirmed by His Majesty himself. You don’t want to cause Lady Adelaide any trouble, do you?”

“Right. I would never do anything that could harm Lady Adelaide.”

“Good. That’s the right spirit.”

Amy gave Lionel a friendly poke in the side. Lionel snickered. Despite the difference in rank, Amy was his friend.

Duke Berthier came home late that night and grew excited at the news that Violet was visiting. This had to be Adelaide’s first sleepover.

“Benjamin, I hear that at sleepovers, you stay up all night talking.”

“Then it doesn’t seem to have been a sleepover, Your Grace. Both ladies went to bed the moment the sun went down, like baby birds.”

“You gave them the same room, I assume?”

“Lady Adelaide was firmly against it, so we put Lady Violet in the guest room.”

“Benjamin! Do you really understand Adelaide so little? She must have wanted to share a room with Lady Armetia, and your lack of perception ruined the whole thing!”

“Lady Violet spent a full three hours begging, Your Grace, but Lady Adelaide turned her away.”

Benjamin shuddered at the memory of the begging, which had been noise and chaos in its purest form.

He had thought no child could be as difficult to raise as Adelaide, but Violet was a young lady who would have posed her own kind of challenge on an entirely different level.

“Hmph. The girl takes after me. She gets terribly shy.”

“Speaking as your steward, there has not been a single shy person in the House of Berthier, Your Grace.”

“You just don’t see it. This is a subtle thing only a father can notice.”

Benjamin thought there was no word less suited to Duke Berthier and Adelaide than subtle, but he held his tongue with some effort.

Proof that he had not survived as steward of the Berthier estate for so long by luck alone.

Violet turned the Berthier estate upside down. That is not a figure of speech. She turned it upside down quite literally.

She woke Adelaide, who loved to sleep in, at the crack of dawn, and demanded she join her in a series of strange movements.

“Amy, throw that nuisance out.”

“Adel, your body is so stiff. Come on, stretch all the way down like this.”

“Ow!”

Violet pressed Adelaide’s back down. Adelaide thought her bones were snapping.

“Now let’s try standing up. Raise this leg, bend at the waist, and oh, your back shouldn’t be sticking out like that, Adel, stretch your arms straight out in front…”

“It hurts, I said it hurts!”

“It’s always like that at first. You have no idea how much it hurt me too. But this movement makes your body flexible and keeps you healthy!”

Adelaide forced her stiff body to move.

Not to follow the exercise. Adelaide wanted to grab Violet by the hair and make her feel even a tenth of the pain she was currently experiencing.