The flustered commotion from across the passage jabbed at Renato’s already-taut nerves. The countess seemed equally displeased; the warmly curved corners of her mouth pulled slightly crooked.

The girl’s eyes, hollow as the sockets of a skull, turned toward the main hall.

“I…… Today is the day I’m leaving. I came to say goodbye.”

The large bundle covering most of her torso, was that all her belongings? He might have let it pass without a second thought, but the countess made that impossible. She was visibly flustered, darting glances at Renato.

What is this? His interest sharpened.

“We’ll speak separately later.”

The countess waved her hand, and the stout woman across the passage gave the girl a firm shove from behind. Whatever it was, the countess clearly didn’t want him to see it.

Smila tilted her head with an expression of mild, guileless curiosity.

“Lisa, you’re leaving? Where to?”

So the thin, branch-like girl was named Lisa. Given that Smila seemed to know her, she must be one of the household’s people.

Lisa desperately read the room, glancing between the countess and everyone around her, and mumbled haltingly.

“I heard there was a place at the orphanage……”

The countess’s smile had frozen at a slight angle, and her eyes met Renato’s.

Quite the reputation for charitable work, I hear.

That very reputation was what had brought the engagement back into discussion.

He looked away, extending the courtesy of pretending not to notice the household’s embarrassment. Still, he made sure it was clear he had noticed, in case it proved useful later.

“The orphanage……”

The quiet murmur drew a brief, serious glance from both the count and countess.

What had promised to be a tedious schedule now had a sharp, piquant edge to it.

A faint shimmer of heat rose from the radiator installed beside the curved staircase. The warm air distorted the atmosphere, and through it, the woman’s figure in the far passage wavered and bent.

The cheerful welcome had grown awkward. In the countess’s uncertain smile, one could detect a pride straining to preserve its dignity.

“Smila, see our guest inside first.”

Smila blinked her harmless, simple eyes and obediently followed her mother’s instruction.

Lisa was pushed out to the back courtyard. Once Sheila caught her breath and left to oversee the guest refreshments, the wind blowing through the shaded corner felt particularly biting.

The untidy way things had ended here nagged at her. She seemed to have inadvertently put the countess in an uncomfortable position. But what did it matter. Once she left, she would never see these people again.

Her younger brother Raoul had come out ahead of her and was waiting. He had been crouching on the stone steps and stood up with a limp.

Raoul had suffered from polio and had difficulty walking. The fact that he could walk without a cane was already a tremendous stroke of luck, but the family of the house saw it differently. They disliked even the sight of the boy, and had refused to allow him to say his farewells.

Raoul, his travel bundle strapped to his back, opened and closed his fingers that were stiff with the cold. His hands were deeply cracked and raw, blackened with grime that had worked its way into every crevice. The marks of a life spent doing rough, seated work.

“Are we going now?”

The guilt on his face made her throat tighten. He seemed to have figured out that both of them were being sent away because of him.

If Lisa had been on her own, she probably would have spent a few years doing odd jobs before being taken on as a maid. But she held little resentment toward Raoul. They had both been unwanted burdens equally, and if anything, having each other meant they weren’t completely alone.

Whether staying in a place like this was better or worse than the orphanage was something she couldn’t know without living it. Even if the orphanage had a reputation grim enough to rival hell itself.

Lisa rested her hand lightly on Raoul’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry too much. We’ll manage somehow.”

She forced her voice up into a brighter register, but the expression on her face, twisted as though she might cry at any moment, refused to cooperate. Raoul hung his head like a man guilty of a crime and dragged the toe of his shoe across the dirt.

The distance to the stagecoach stop was no small thing. This was no time to move slowly. She drew a long breath and let go of what she was leaving behind, then turned to go.

Just then, Sheila came out to the courtyard with an urgent look.

“Lisa, the mistress wants to see you.”

Even the glare alone felt like a scolding, and Lisa’s timid head dropped. She followed along like livestock being led to sl*ughter, pulled by an invisible leash she couldn’t see.

Why is she calling for me. Was she about to be thoroughly reprimanded right as she was leaving? She had exchanged words with the family of the house only a handful of times in all the years she had grown up here, so being summoned to the sitting room was nerve-wracking in itself.

Countess Karolina sat perched on the edge of her chair, as though she might rise at any moment. Lisa had just stepped forward and folded her hands respectfully before the countess when light footsteps clicked in and Smila appeared. Seeing Lisa, she let out a soft, sympathetic exclamation.

“Mother, what happened?”

She settled close beside Karolina, who patted her daughter’s wrist with warm familiarity.

“It seems there was some misunderstanding.”

They were as easy with each other as ever. Every small gesture, every word, brimmed with an effortless tenderness. The countess soothed the startled and confused Smila, explaining the situation in a gentle, unhurried voice.

“We decided to review the household expenses overall and cut back on unnecessary spending. It seems Sheila got a little carried away.”

The head maid flinched. But as she noticed the elegantly composed gaze resting on her for a long moment, she slowly bent at the waist.

“……I’m sorry.”

Karolina nodded with an air of magnanimous forgiveness.

“In purely financial terms, keeping Lisa and her brother is certainly an unnecessary expense, but the right thing to do is to help them out of a sense of duty. Sheila, let the children stay here for the time being.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Lisa’s gaze moved back and forth between the two of them as they spoke. The memory of a few days ago, when the world had seemed to collapse, was still vivid. Sheila had issued the order to leave, saying it came from the mistress herself.

There was no room for confusion. The orphanage that had been presented as having a convenient opening was a place the Maldini family donated to every year. This very manor had hosted lavish charity parties in the name of orphaned children.

“I knew it…… I knew Mother would never abandon children in need.”

Karolina smiled with modest grace at Smila’s sincere admiration.

“You remember the strangest things.”

Lisa stood in quiet silence. Her own fate had been decided without a single word from her. She lifted her downcast eyes and looked at Karolina for a moment. The countess’s chin was tilted at a proud angle, as though to make certain the act of charity was fully felt.

But shouldn’t a misunderstanding come with an apology? Lisa had bowed her head a hundred times over even for a minor errand gone wrong, but apparently noble ladies operated differently. Then again, she couldn’t quite imagine the word sorry passing through those lips painted in their refined shade of rouge.

Right. She was the one receiving a kindness.

She was a useless mouth to feed who couldn’t even earn her keep.

“Thank you.”

She gave the answer that was expected of her and withdrew. There was no reason to be newly wounded by it. She simply dreaded the consequences of failing to show the delight her superiors were hoping to see.

Back on the same stone steps, Raoul had been frozen stiff waiting for her. He lifted his head with great effort. His eyes, desperate with curiosity yet unable to bring himself to ask first, looked like those of someone crushed under a thousand-pound weight of guilt.

“There was a misunderstanding, apparently. We can stay.”

“Really?”

Raoul, who had not cried even while packing, pressed the back of his clenched fist to the corner of his eye.

We’re safe……

The small boy murmured it without a sound.

* * *

Life resumed as though nothing had happened.

Before Lisa even had time to unpack, she had to go help in the kitchen. She passed through the entrance where servants were bustling in and out, and the broad-shouldered head cook waved at her urgently.

“Hurry, over here! It’s almost time to serve.”

“Oh, yes.”

Swept up in the warlike atmosphere, Lisa tied on her head cloth and washed her hands. Her job was to plate the finished dishes and arrange them neatly. She had a good eye for it and had more or less taken over the plating entirely.

Rushing to prepare everything including the guest’s portion, the bleak feelings from the courtyard faded, and she focused on arranging the plates with careful, steady breaths.