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Amy pictured Vieta appearing in that elaborate dress.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror, wearing her plain dress.

She pressed her lips together against the tears threatening to spill.

The dress Lady Rekton had prepared for Vieta should have been hers.

Amy felt a burning sense of injustice, as though Vieta had stolen her dress.

If only she had not gone to the Peckdor family with her mother, the one invited to stay at the Rekton family for a month might have been her.

Her father would have recommended her, the true lady, over Vieta, who was nothing but a bastard.

Amy walked slowly toward the dress hanging on the rack.

She imagined the ladies comparing her dress to Vieta‘s and chattering away.

‘Lady Rekton seems to favor Lady Vieta. I heard she gave Lady Vieta such a lovely dress as a gift.’

‘Lady Amy didn’t receive a dress? They could have ordered one for her at the same time as Lady Vieta‘s.’

‘Isn’t it obvious? Lady Rekton made her choice. She chose Vieta as a match for Young Duke Hesion. Why else would she go to such lengths, giving away an expensive dress like that?’

The moment reason snapped, Amy tore into the dress Vieta was meant to wear.

“First Leytan, then Hesion, and now you want everything that should be mine?”

The dress would not tear easily, so Amy used her teeth, ripping it to shreds.

She stomped on the already ruined dress and, still not satisfied, hurled it into the fireplace.

Watching the dress burn, Amy felt a surge of satisfaction and smiled, dusting off her hands.

“Just stay cooped up in this room, Vieta. Don’t even show your face at the tea party. You’ll probably get scolded by Lady Rekton for not taking care of your dress.”

Clap, clap, clap.

The bright, unhurried applause that followed, as though someone had just watched a fine performance, belonged to Vieta.

Vieta applauded Amy, unchanged and exactly as she had always been.

In the past, Amy had taken scissors to a dress Leytan had given Vieta, and she was showing that same jealousy now without a trace of difference.

Vieta waited for Amy to turn around, but Amy did not have the courage to face the person clapping for her and stood frozen, staring only at the fireplace.

‘There was definitely no one here. Who is it?’

She hoped the person who had witnessed what she had done was at least not Hesion.

If it was a servant, she planned to pin the blame on them.

But a servant would never applaud her.

Amy squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of someone approaching.

No convenient excuse came to mind for what she had just done.

“Why did you do it, Amy?”

Amy had her eyes tightly shut, but at the sound of the voice she recognized it as Vieta‘s and snapped them open, spinning around.

She confirmed there was no one else around Vieta and realized the person who had been clapping was also her.

The fear she had felt for a brief moment vanished, and Amy straightened her back and spoke.

“I didn’t know you were lurking around like a rat.”

Vieta scoffed at Amy‘s words.

“Weren’t you the one who crept in like a rat?”

“A, are you calling me a rat right now?”

“Is there another rat here besides you?”

“Y, you…!”

Amy’s blood boiled at the contemptuous look in Vieta‘s eyes.

‘How dare you look down on me.’

Incensed by Vieta‘s counterattack, Amy raised her hand to strike her, but it was caught in midair.

“Let go of me.”

Amy shook the hand Vieta had grabbed, trying to pull free, but it was no use.

‘She was this strong?’

Caught off guard by the unexpected grip, Amy struggled harder, but she could not dodge Vieta‘s advancing foot either.

Amy lost her balance and was thrown to the floor.

She groaned for a moment, then hurriedly checked her dress with a tearful expression.

She saw the dust on her white dress and scrunched her face.

“What do I do! My dress!”

Vieta looked down coldly at Amy frantically trying to wipe away the dust.

Then she glanced at the dress Amy had thrown into the fireplace and let out a short laugh before she could stop herself.

Amy’s panic over a barely visible smudge of dust lit something in her.

The sight of the burning dress reminded her too much of the annex, and Vieta bit her lip.

‘Even with me standing right in front of her, having lost everything, she still has no remorse.’

Vieta smiled to provoke Amy further.

“Making such a fuss over a little dust you can just brush off?”

“What?”

“It’s nothing compared to the dress you just burned. Isn’t it?”

Amy’s face twisted at Vieta‘s cold expression.

“So what? That dress was mine to begin with! If I hadn’t gone to the Peckdor family, I would have been the one staying at the Rekton family for a month!”

Amy shouted at Vieta with a shameless expression.

Vieta nearly laughed again at Amy’s bottomless confidence, but bit her lip and barely held it back.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course!”

“Is that so? What a shame. Starting today, I think Lady Rekton‘s opinion is going to change.”

Amy clenched her fist and twisted her lips.

“Just try saying I did it! I won’t let you get away with it.”

Vieta finally scoffed at Amy, who was threatening her as though she were the one being wronged.

“Are you afraid? That Lady Rekton will find out what kind of person you are?”

Amy’s face went white.

She shot to her feet and stepped up.

“Who says? Who says I burned that dress? I never even saw a dress in this room.”

Amy pushed back shamelessly and provoked her.

“And do you have any proof that I did it?”

“Proof.”

“Even if you accuse me in front of Lady Rekton, you have no proof.”

There was no evidence that she had burned the dress.

It would be far more natural to say Vieta had burned it herself to hide her own carelessness in not looking after it properly.

Amy lifted her chin with a triumphant air and crossed her arms.

“If you don’t want to be humiliated, stay in your room, Vieta. Lady Rekton will be disappointed in you for ruining the dress.”

Convinced she had won, Amy shoved Vieta‘s shoulder and walked out.

But Vieta watched Amy’s retreating figure, fleeing for all her bold words, and let out a quiet scoff.

Vieta looked coldly at the fully burned dress, then threw the windows open.

She locked the door behind her, pulled out the dress box she had hidden under the bed, and took out the dress.

Thanks to Amy moving exactly as she had expected, Lady Rekton‘s dress was safe.

Vieta checked that there were about twenty minutes left until the tea party, changed into the dress, and slipped the note she had written in advance into her sleeve.

She had not managed to prepare white shoes to match the dress and pulled the hem of her skirt down to cover her leather boots.

It would have been shameless to feel resentful about shoes when she had already been given a dress, so Vieta blamed her own lack of foresight and walked out.

She left her room and headed to the greenhouse, avoiding the drawing room where Vilter and Amy might be waiting.

The tea party preparations looked nearly complete, and spotting the area set aside for the performers in a corner away from the main space, Vieta slipped the note she had prepared under a plate that had been set out in advance.

She tucked the note in loosely so it would be easy to find, then tried to move away quickly, but someone tapped her lightly on the shoulder and she had no choice but to turn around with a startled expression.

She quickly covered the plate with the note behind her back and looked up at the person who had called to her.

“Hello there, little miss.”

The one who had called to her was a woman wearing a tall grey wig.

Her beige silk dress was covered in flowers made of lace.

The overpowering perfume that clouded her senses told Vieta this was one of the performers Dielun had arranged.

‘She looks like a completely different person with that wig on.’

A somewhat heavyset man walked up beside the woman with the black beauty mark above her red lips. He appeared buttoning up a beige coat and looked down at Vieta with curious eyes.

“Did you get lost?”

At his words, the woman closed her eyes and rolled them behind her lids with a sigh.

“Are you being serious right now, Nick?”

“What? I’ve never seen such a large greenhouse before. So it’s perfectly reasonable that this little miss might have gotten lost too. Amelia, I’ve always said it, but you have a tendency to underestimate me.”

“Nick, when have I ever? I’m simply amazed by you. Look at this child’s clothes. It’s a white dress. She’s just a young lady invited to the tea party.”

Vieta stared blankly at the two bickering and could neither slip away in silence nor join their conversation.