Chapter 29

Diane, for a moment, unconsciously scanned the faces of those around her.  

As expected!  

It was a mess.  

The Countess glared at her with narrowed, sharp eyes, and Young Lady Lautrec was staring with wide eyes, her brow furrowed in irritation.  

The Earl sat up straight, looking down at her, and strangely, his half-lowered eyes seemed to be sizing her up.  

The various but similar gazes of the Lautrec family made Diane feel as if cold sweat might break out.  

“Leon, put the fork down!”  

Just as Diane was shrinking under the cold, sharp stares of the Lautrec family, the voice of President Wale reached her ears.  

Startled by his rough tone, Diane looked at President Wale.  

His gaze was fixed on Leon—more precisely, on the strawberry cake Leon was holding.  

Diane couldn’t understand why that President always spoke so sternly and harshly, but she wanted to quietly get through this situation, so she quickly whispered in a low voice to Leon.  

“Young Master Leon, strawberries make me feel unwell. They don’t agree with me.”  

She briefly explained her strawberry allergy.  

“Oh! That’s not true! You’re just pretending because you don’t want to eat it, right?”  

Leon didn’t seem to believe Diane’s explanation about her allergy.  

‘You shouldn’t pretend just because you don’t want to eat it.’ This was something the Duke would sometimes say when Leon didn’t want to eat and claimed his stomach hurt.  

She bit her lower lip and sighed.  

In fact, Diane had never met anyone with a strawberry allergy except for children.  

Even though it sometimes appeared in kids, why did she, of all people, still have it as an adult?  

Just as Diane thought she should explain it calmly to Leon again—  

“Really, now. I’ve never heard of a grown adult saying that. Isn’t it just unfamiliar to you?”  

Suddenly, Countess Lautrec interrupted Diane and Leon’s conversation.  

“It’s not that……”  

Diane tried to explain her allergy to the Countess, but oddly, the Countess didn’t meet Diane’s eyes and instead looked at her husband and asked,  

“Why, sometimes we get a chance to eat, what was it called? Jucibel! Yes, that. But since it’s unfamiliar, we don’t really reach for it, do we?”  

Jucibel was a rare fruit found only on another continent, almost never imported, so even with money, it was hard to obtain.  

“Oh! That’s not it.”  

“Isn’t it?”  

Only then did the Countess finally meet Diane’s eyes—though she quickly looked away.  

“Oh! Well, yes! That wouldn’t be it. Strawberries aren’t like Jucibel, which is rare and expensive—they’re an inexpensive fruit anyone can easily eat, right?”  

Diane was left speechless and closed her mouth.  

To call it a fruit anyone could easily eat…  

For her, strawberries were not easily accessible.  

She couldn’t eat them because of her allergy, but even if she could, she rarely had the chance.  

She only discovered her strawberry allergy at around age five.  

Not only in the orphanage, but for most ordinary commoner families, fruits weren’t the cheap food the Countess claimed, unless they were especially well-off.  

Even wealthy nobles knew that, for ordinary people, all fruits—not just strawberries—were expensive.  

It was also common knowledge that most live-in tutors didn’t come from wealthy households.  

Yet, to speak like that was clearly meant to belittle and mock her.  

It was a subtle message: ‘How dare you, who couldn’t even eat strawberries growing up, sit at this formal table?’  

Though she hadn’t wanted to join this dinner, she had to endure this contempt. But since the Countess had phrased it indirectly, Diane found it hard to respond.  

At that moment—  

Tap.  

A dull, rough sound broke the awkward silence hovering over the table.  

Edward had put his fork down on the table.  

The sound was so loud that everyone at the table flinched.  

All eyes focused on Edward.  

“Have I lived my whole life being fooled! If it exists, it exists. I’m hearing all sorts of nonsense. Leon, that! Put the cake down.”  

Edward’s voice, glaring at the fork Leon held, was as sharp and cold as an ice pick breaking through ice.  

He called Leon’s name, but it was obvious his real target was the Countess.  

The Countess’s face turned bright red. The tension in the formal dining room felt like a table set atop a thin sheet of ice, ready to crack.  

If Edward struck this ice just one more time, everyone would surely plunge into freezing water.  

“Pff… Fine!”  

Thankfully, the next moment, the one who broke the precarious tension was not Edward’s ice pick, but Leon’s sulking voice.  

The child didn’t realize how dangerous the silence was, so Leon’s words instantly loosened the taut atmosphere in the dining room.  

“Your teacher doesn’t like strawberries.”  

Leon glanced at his uncle briefly, then nodded and set down his fork.  

Diane let out a long sigh inside.  

She was angry and uncomfortable with the Countess’s words and actions, but the thought of ruining such an important dinner at the Duchy because of herself was even worse.  

Smashing the table with a fork, speaking harshly to the Countess without mercy.  

Goodness…!  

President Wale always behaved this way toward her, but to see him do the same to the Countess was almost shocking.  

But why…?  

Could it be… was he trying to help her?  

At first glance, it seemed as if he had stepped in for her, unable to respond to the Countess’s sneers.  

But why would President Wale do that?  

What reason would he have to help her?  

He was none other than Edward Wale, who had always spoken more contemptuously to her than even the Countess.  

Diane, confused, frowned slightly as she looked at Edward.  

He, the one who had thrown an ice bomb at the table, now wore an unreadable expression as he ate strawberry cake as if nothing had happened.  

He seemed completely indifferent.  

Yes, he probably spoke up for reasons unrelated to her.  

Diane decided that and tried to look away from him.  

But at that very moment, as if he’d noticed her gaze, President Wale turned and looked at her.  

Caught off guard, Diane’s face flushed red even though she hadn’t eaten any strawberries, and goosebumps rose on her arms.  

She wanted to look away, but his sharp eyes held her, and she couldn’t seem to break free.  

“What?”  

He spoke, looking at her.  

“Huh?”  

Diane asked in surprise.  

‘What’—was he asking why she was looking at him?  

Did her gaze seem defiant?  

“It’s because you don’t like strawberries.”  

Diane swallowed and blinked.  

‘Was he saying, “I spoke up for you because you don’t like strawberries”?’  

That seemed to be the meaning, but she wasn’t certain.  

Strangely, his words sounded as if he’d known for a long time that she disliked strawberries.  

If anyone else heard, they might misunderstand.  

Both his earlier harsh words to the Countess and what he said now…  

‘A misunderstanding…?’  

Suddenly, Diane glanced around the table again.  

‘……!’  

Sure enough, the Lautrec family’s eyes were darting between her and Edward.  

When the Countess met Diane’s eyes, she turned away in displeasure, while the Earl wore a knowing expression, curling one side of his mouth and nodding, a gesture that made Diane feel humiliated.  

Once again, it felt as though Edward’s ice pick had carved a painfully cold shard of ice into her body.  

His inscrutable words and actions only fueled the Lautrec family’s hostility toward her, and perhaps even stirred up strange misunderstandings.  

In the end, his reckless behavior hadn’t helped her but had pushed her into even greater trouble.  

Any notion that he’d tried to help her quickly faded, replaced by resentment toward President Wale.  

She hadn’t asked for anyone to take her side.  

He was the one who, more than anyone, constantly threw crude remarks at her.  

No, maybe even the idea that he’d taken her side was just a delusion.  

Perhaps, as always, he’d simply said whatever came to mind, regardless of her, just as he did to the Lautrec family.  

‘Ha! That’s it. He was just doing what he always does.’  

As Diane reached that conclusion, she glared resentfully at Edward, only to meet his eyes again.  

But this time, unlike before, she immediately looked away.