“W, what?”

“I never know when you might betray me again. So make sure you prepare well for your move to the villa.”

“B, but…!”

“You’re probably already thinking it right now. That you’ll stay by my side for the time being and find a way to change this situation. You might even try to win me over the way you did with Mother.”

He fumbled for a moment before quickly shaking his head.

“N, no. W, win you over? Absolutely not!”

“I’ve looked into a few things. And I found out. About the nature of your relationship with Mother. I haven’t told Dertosse yet, but… what do you think would happen if he found out? That you used Mother’s backing to siphon quite a bit of money from the marquisate…”

She let her voice trail off and watched him. In case of any unexpected danger, she moved toward the table and rested her hand lightly on the bell.

“N, no! No! S, siphon money? I would never!”

He waved his hands as he protested his innocence, but no amount of that would make her believe him.

“Surely not. Are you saying I came to you without having looked into it properly?”

“N, no. That is not what I meant. I… I… would never do such a thing. I am nothing more than a loyal servant who works solely for the marquisate.”

A laugh rose naturally at the sight of him speaking so firmly.

Not that he would never do such a thing, but rather, ‘there’s no way you could have found those things I hid so carefully.’ That was what he had been trying to say.

“You must have worked hard to appear like a loyal servant. Of course, I have no intention of bringing that up now.”

“Pardon? What do you mean by that…”

“As long as you quietly follow Mother. But if you stir up trouble and disrupt the mood of the household, or if you refuse to go with her… I might change my mind.”

He stepped toward her, as though the very idea were absurd, but she made a show of lifting the bell.

“Be careful. If someone else were to see you like this… it would put you in a very bad position.”

“……”

“I’ve already hit rock bottom. So there’s nothing worse that could happen to me if this gets out. There are already plenty of people in this marquisate trying to spread bad rumors about me. So it doesn’t matter if this gets out. But what about you?”

She met the eyes of the butler, who had gone rigid as a statue.

“A butler who was leeching off Mother until not long ago, now trying to leech off me… if that rumor got out. Would my husband stay quiet? The very man who handed this marquisate over to me for my sake?”

“A, are you saying I was about to do something to you right now?”

“Then step back. You’re giving every reason to be suspected.”

Only then did he take a step back.

“I had absolutely no other intentions. I only… I only wanted to beg you not to cast me out…”

“I have no intention of changing my mind. If you want your future to look different, try putting that head of yours to good use, the way you always have. Though you’ll only exhaust yourself and find no way out, like a frog at the bottom of a well.”

Before he could add anything more, she rang the bell. The door opened at once, and Mary stepped inside.

“Did you call for me, my lady?”

“Yes. The butler was just leaving.”

“Understood.”

Having never been shown the door before, the butler’s face flushed red.

“I will see myself out.”

“Oh, and butler. I haven’t been seeing the head maid Pertra around lately. Would you ask her to come find me?”

“……”

“Are you going to refuse?”

“I will carry out your order. More than that, Mary, was it. Step outside for a moment. I have something to say in private.”

“Yes. My lady, I will have Karla come in.”

She answered with only a nod. She shifted her gaze to the parchment in front of her, as though she had no particular interest in the matter. In the meantime, Karla came inside.

And she noticed it clearly. The difference between Karla and Mary.

From the moment Mary entered a room to the moment she left, she didn’t make a sound, not even her breathing. Karla, on the other hand, breathed with a slight lift to it, like someone brimming with anticipation. A soft, eager little sound.

“Karla.”

“Yes! Do you need something? Shall I bring some tea?”

“I don’t think I got to ask last time. Didn’t the butler call for you?”

“Oh! Yes. Back then… um… he just asked me various things. Starting from whether I had known you before, my lady, all the way to why I came to be with you.”

“And.”

“And…”

“That can’t have been all you talked about.”

She paused, her quill having run out of ink at just that moment.

“Well… um. I thought it would be fine as long as I didn’t do it, so I didn’t mention it… but he asked me to tell him everything about you, my lady.”

“He must have said he’d give you a lot of money if you listened to him. That he could even raise you to the position of head maid.”

“Yes! He did say that! My lady, how did you know that?”

“It’s obvious.”

She looked at Karla quietly.

She was nothing if not a kind and simple-hearted woman.

‘She wouldn’t have had any other intentions.’

The reason Karla hadn’t told her what the butler said was, in all sincerity, simply because she had no intention of doing as he asked. Even now, looking at Karla smiling at her, she couldn’t find any hidden motive.

‘It doesn’t really matter whether she told me or not, but…’

Karla was, at this point, the very person generating rumors for her. Karla herself was trying her best not to cause her any harm, keeping her mouth shut and doing what she was told, but those very actions had only heightened the curiosity of the household staff.

And so rumors formed, and kept forming.

She felt a little sorry for the guileless Karla, who had no way of knowing any of this, but with the eyes of everyone in the marquisate now fixed on her, there was nothing to be done. It was also what she had wanted from the start.

“But my lady. I really didn’t tell the butler anything. Please believe me!”

“Of course I believe you.”

“What a relief. Sometimes the others get curious too.”

“They would be curious. If it makes you uncomfortable, Karla, you’re welcome to tell them about our conversations.”

“Oh! No! I was told to live as though a loyal servant has no ears. I know nothing at all.”

She watched Karla clench her fist with determination and gave only a small smile.

“All right.”

She gave the short reply and moved her pen again. The crackling of burning firewood and the soft scratching of the pen against parchment filled the silence of the room. Some time passed like that.

Knock knock.

“It is Pertra, my lady.”

It seemed the butler had carried out her order properly, as Pertra came to her room.

“Come in.”

Like a passing of the baton, as Pertra stepped inside, Karla slipped out naturally.

“I was told you were looking for me.”

“Of course I was. It seemed like you hadn’t been coming to see me lately. I was worried, wondering if you were unwell or if something was wrong.”

“There is nothing wrong.”

Unlike before, Pertra wore a plainly uncomfortable expression now that she was being addressed with such authority. She didn’t even seem to think about hiding it.

“Then why haven’t you been coming to see me?”

“My role is not to attend closely to someone, but to oversee the maids, so I did not feel any particular need to come.”

“Is that so?”

She certainly had a way with words.

Just listening to her, one could easily get the impression that she herself was being unreasonable. It felt rather like she had dragged in someone who had nothing to do with her and was now scolding them for not paying her attention.

“Yes. If I have caused you any discomfort, I will make sure to come from now on.”

“Oh, no. There’s no need to come.”

“Yes. Then I will follow your order.”

She answered quickly, as though afraid she might change her mind. If only she had been this prompt in her responses all along. It was almost funny.

“Right, you should follow orders. Looking at you and the butler, you both seem to work so hard for the marquisate.”

“…You flatter me.”

“Flatter you? I mean every word. It seems like the marquisate has become what it is today because of people like you.”

‘Rotten to the core, and changed beyond all sense of propriety.’

Leaving that part out made it sound almost like a compliment. But whether she had good instincts or none at all, Pertra glanced at her cautiously, clearly at a loss.

“…Thank you for the kind words.”

“So you took that as a compliment.”

“……”

“Well. You must be wondering why I called you here today.”

“Did you not call me to speak about my failure to visit?”

“Well. That I can chalk up to you trying to stay in your lane, the way you said. Of course… knowing as I do that you used to wear a path to Mother’s door when she was the one holding power in this marquisate, it sounds like complete nonsense to me. But fine.”

She rested her chin in her hand and smiled pleasantly.

Pertra. So many of the things she had done had struck her directly. Mixing sand into her food, hiding a blade inside her bread, things like that, all to earn her mother-in-law’s favor. Her mother-in-law had been quite fond of her for always leading the charge in doing her dirty work.

‘And now, after all that…’

“Pardon?”

“Am I wrong? I know full well that you went to Mother even when you had no business there. And yet you’re telling me you couldn’t come because you were busy overseeing the maids?”

“That was…”

“Of course, there must have been circumstances that made it unavoidable back then… but if you were overseeing the maids, did you not know what the maids were doing to me? Or did you choose not to find out. Or perhaps… you were the one giving the orders.”