‘I must effectively oversee the tea party! That’s how I’ll flatten the noses of those who laughed at and mocked me.’

And that wasn’t all.

Ireina looked around the reception room and swallowed her exclamation of admiration. The interior design, as well as the furniture and accessories, were all expensive items.

‘Just this table alone must be worth as much as a decent mansion, right?’

She imagined herself standing before everyone as the host of a tea party in a place like this.

Just then, Giselle’s calm voice shattered her imagination.

“Thank you for your offer, but I must decline, mother.”

“What? Decline? What do you mean!”

“I cannot accept outside help for a Taylor family event. Especially since this is the first tea party I’m hosting as the mistress of this house.”

Giselle spoke calmly to her stepmother, who was staring at her with bulging eyes and twitching cheeks. Perhaps more agitated by this calm attitude, the baroness snapped sharply.

“Are you saying I’m an outsider? I am your mother! Your mother wants to help with her daughter’s social activities, and you’re going to block that? Giselle, what do you even know how to do……”

“As you said, mother, I lack experience in this area. But I have capable people around me. Their help is sufficient.”

“You’ll accept help from others but not from your mother?”

The baroness distorted her face with a shocked expression, not having thought that Giselle would refuse.

“Because they are people who belong to the Taylor family.”

Her attitude was absolutely firm, as if she wouldn’t allow the baroness any room to interfere.

Sensing that she couldn’t cross the line Giselle had drawn no matter what she said, Ireina abruptly stood up from her seat.

“Such an ungrateful child! How can you do this to the mother who raised you all these years! Fine, I understand! Now that you’ve become the wife of a wealthy man, poor parents and siblings are no longer of any concern to you!”

“Mother, that’s not……”

Giselle’s face turned pale at her stepmother’s outburst. She hurriedly tried to deny those words. But before she could, the baroness turned around and violently flung open the reception room door.

Bang.

The head maid and nanny who had been waiting outside the door bowed their heads, pale-faced.

They hadn’t deliberately tried to eavesdrop, but the baroness’s voice had been so loud that they had inevitably heard the mother-daughter conversation.

“Ha! You defend people who steal their master’s conversations.”

“M-madam. That’s not true. We were just waiting in case you needed something……”

The nanny, who had worked at the Anticia baron’s residence until recently, hurriedly tried to explain.

She didn’t mind if the baroness’s sarcastic remarks were directed at her, but she couldn’t stand by when they insulted Giselle.

“Who wants to hear such excuses?”

But the baroness violently pushed aside the elderly nanny and walked away. By the time the head maid supported the staggering nanny and turned her head, the baroness had already disappeared.

“……Oh my, our poor miss. Her heart must be breaking again, what should we do.”

The nanny lamented as she barely maintained her balance with the head maid’s support. The elderly woman seemed to have forgotten the proper form of address for her mistress due to shock, as she kept muttering, “Miss, our poor miss.”

‘……Again?’

The head maid frowned as she looked at the nanny.

It meant that this wasn’t the first time her mistress, whom she would serve for life, had heard such verbal abuse from her mother.

* * *

“Welcome home, Master Lucas.”

After getting out of the car, Lucas briefly acknowledged Bushin’s greeting and unconsciously looked around.

His brow furrowed immediately afterward. It was a reaction that occurred without him even being aware of it.

“Madam is resting in the bedroom.”

Bushin noticed who his master was looking for as he scanned the surroundings and immediately spoke up. Lucas was about to nod at his answer but narrowed his brow further and asked:

“The bedroom? Is she ill?”

“She seems to have a headache, so Dr. Fernan prescribed some medicine for her.”

Lucas’s gaze turned to the family doctor as he listened quietly to the butler’s answer. Fernan stepped forward and added more specific details.

“I suspect it’s a nervous headache, so I gave madam medicine to soothe her agitated nerves.”

“A nervous headache? What problem did she have?”

“Ah, well……”

Bushin, who had been answering his questions promptly, hesitated momentarily. As Lucas’s eyes began to narrow at this response, the head maid spoke up in his place.

“Baroness Anticia paid a visit.”

“……Tsk.”

Lucas clicked his tongue involuntarily and shook his head. Now he had a general idea of what had happened.

“I see.”

He replied with a cooled expression and entered the mansion. Just then, the nanny who had been standing quietly to one side followed Lucas and spoke.

“Master.”

“……?”

Lucas turned to look at the elderly nanny who had called him. He could see that the wrinkled corners of her eyes were red as if she had been crying.

“Please take good care of our miss, I mean, the madam.”

Her choked voice was filled with unmistakable affection. Since she was someone who had practically raised Giselle since childhood, Lucas listened quietly to the nanny’s words.

“Madam has always been lonely. She has never felt the warmth of family……”

“Enough.”

But he guessed what she was about to say and cut off the nanny’s words.

“This is not the place for such a conversation.”

Although he knew her words came from concern and worry for Giselle, there was no need to discuss the mistress’s unfortunate past in front of the employees. It was also a matter of Giselle’s dignity as the mistress.

Realizing this point, the nanny firmly closed her mouth.

Lucas resumed walking, leaving her behind.

Not realizing that his steps toward the bedroom had become faster than before.

* * *

Lucas only realized that he had opened the bedroom door without knocking after he had already done so.

But the actual occupant of the bedroom didn’t protest or complain about him entering without knocking. She hadn’t even noticed that Lucas had come in.

“So this part here……”

Giselle was completely absorbed in organizing the ledger entries, unaware that he was standing at the doorway watching her.

After observing her for a moment, Lucas shook his head with a hollow laugh.

“I heard you were resting because of a headache.”

Where in that appearance was there any sign of resting?

‘It would be more fitting to say she’s about to die buried in ledgers.’

He looked at Giselle, who couldn’t even hear his muttering and continued to scan through the ledgers, and belatedly knocked on the door.

Of course, she showed no reaction this time either. He laughed hollowly again and shook his head.

At that moment, Giselle removed her glasses and rubbed her stiff eyes while stretching.

“……Huh? Oh?”

As she raised her gaze while stretching her arms, she saw a man leaning against the doorway. Her husband, who was looking at her with an incredulous smirk.

“Lucas? When did you get home? Goodness, I couldn’t even go out to greet you!”

She hurriedly stood up from her seat. In the process, her glasses, which had been placed on top of the ledger, fell to the carpeted floor.

Just as Giselle was about to bend down to pick up her glasses, Lucas strode over and picked them up first.

After checking if any dust had gotten on the glasses, he placed them on the table and spoke.

“I heard you had a headache.”

“It wasn’t that bad. After taking the medicine Dr. Fernan prescribed, it subsided quickly.”

Thanks for the glasses. She added the gratitude and put her glasses back on, sitting down to look at the ledger again.

However, before she could, Lucas approached her and placed his hand on the open ledger, preventing her from turning to the next page.

“……?”

“I heard your mother came by.”

“Um…… yes.”

Giselle, who had been looking at him with puzzled eyes, gave an awkward response. Then she fidgeted with her innocent glasses frame, avoiding his gaze.

Lucas stared at the green eyes behind the round glasses as they darted around avoiding him, and asked a question.

“What did she come for?”

“……Nothing much. Nothing important. Since we’re married, I think she was curious about how we started our newlywed life.”

She responded to his words and then touched her collar, feeling somewhat dejected.

If they had been a normal mother and daughter, it would certainly have been like that.

Even if they weren’t blood-related, if there had been familial affection between them, perhaps many things would have been different.

She might not have rejected her mother’s offer to help with the tea party.

Perhaps she might have even reached out first, asking for help before her stepmother visited.

But Giselle had firmly rejected her stepmother’s offer. Along with the statement that she would not accept outside help.

‘It might be too harsh of me…… but I hate it.’

She didn’t want to show him that selfish side of herself.

She also didn’t want Lucas to see her stepmother’s greedy nature, which was far from a pure intention to help her daughter.

Giselle made an effort to gather her heavy thoughts and looked at him again. She then noticed that Lucas was still in his outdoor clothes.