Chapter 8
Chapter 8
"They know too. They just pretend not to. Since it isn't spending to be proud of, I'd appreciate it if you pretended not to know as well."
I said indifferently.
"It's the money spent on my engagement five years ago. It was done behind the scenes, so I deliberately didn't record it in detail."
Rangsi nearly toppled off his chair.
Disbelief flashed through his eyes.
"Huh? Your engagement, my lady?"
"That's what I said."
"No, what, how does it make any sense to get engaged at seven years old?"
He added with a groan.
"And spending this kind of fortune on it, good heavens, what kind of lunatic would pull something like this—......"
"My mother led it."
Rangsi, who had said the right thing, slapped his own mouth hard.
"Wendy possessed me for a moment there."
He was clearly in quite a panic.
I told him something even more shocking.
"The engagement was broken off anyway. I handled all of it, so you don't need to worry about it. The day Alpheus became marquess, a request to break the engagement arrived."
Rangsi clutched the back of his head.
"Don't tell me they said to break it off right away because you're no longer the Sears heir? Does that make any sense?"
"When the conditions don't match, staying engaged is what makes less sense."
"No, who in the world goes over every single thing like that and gets married without taking a single loss!"
"My parents."
I explained calmly.
"My mother was a princess of a fallen kingdom with no dowry, so she had no choice but to marry a divorced man ten years her senior. And as you know, my father always openly went around saying he wanted to pass the marquess title to his missing eldest son, so he couldn't marry a proper imperial noble's daughter."
It truly was a political marriage between two people whose prospects were equally poor.
"It was a perfectly matched union between two people who had prestige but little substance. On paper, neither had any advantage over the other."
"B-b-but......."
"Besides, well, my fiancé in the first place......."
I muttered bitterly.
"He was never particularly keen on being engaged to me from the start. The conditions were heavily skewed from the beginning, and I never expected it to go smoothly all the way to marriage."
Rangsi gasped for breath and barely managed to ask.
"M-my lady...... are you...... all right?"
I frowned slightly. The question felt unfamiliar.
Only after a little time passed did I realize that no one had ever asked me, "Are you all right?"
The maids never asked me such a question. They didn't dare say such a thing.
And my parents.......
"Everyone dislikes a whining child, Rangsi."
I answered evenly.
"If a child isn't all right, adults find it bothersome."
In truth, I hadn't been all right on the day of the engagement ceremony either. But I simply hadn't been able to tell anyone.
"Let's stop this topic here. What was the other favor you wanted?"
"I suddenly don't want to ask anymore. I do have some tact, you know."
"Then you must have also noticed that if you don't make that request now, I'll feel so disgusted at being pitied that I won't leave you alone."
"B-but if I ask you now, part of me will feel terribly guilty......."
"Then that means several other parts of you will feel better if you make the request, so hurry up and ask."
When I answered without mercy, Rangsi sighed once and spoke cautiously.
"Th-then, my lady, I'm truly sorry, but...... could I ask you to...... educate the maids a little?"
I could feel him desperately choosing his words, afraid of hurting my feelings.
"The maids at the marquess's residence are treating Alpheus—and those of us who serve him—with far too much contempt."
In fact, the very fact that he brought up such a request could be seen as him acknowledging me.
"We've come to understand that having the person they served pushed out of the heir position overnight can't have been pleasant. But from our side, it's hard to look kindly on maids who keep talking as though they know nothing of the world while the house is buried in debt."
Rangsi said this much and then glanced at me for a moment.
I slowly raised two fingers.
"About what you said, I'll say two things. First, my maids are indeed ignorant of how the world works."
"You already knew? Good heavens!"
Rangsi's eyes flew open.
I said coldly.
"But that's exactly why they're still here. If you checked the budget, you'd know how far behind their wages are, wouldn't you?"
Rangsi wore the expression of someone who had been struck on the head.
"The ones who know how the world works have all already left. Only the maids for whom the pride and honor of serving the last bloodline of the Liente royal family matter more than their wages remain."
The Kingdom of Liente had been destroyed by the Kingdom of Sebon before I was born.
Just before the kingdom's fall, the king had hastily sent his youngest daughter, the Fifth Princess, to the Marquess of Sears, a great noble of the Empire. It was because he hoped that at least his youngest daughter would survive.
Even that mother of mine had passed away. Therefore, officially, I was now the only direct bloodline of the Liente royal family.
"Liente's history is longer than the Empire's. But for a long time, Liente disdained practical learning and valued only extravagance and empty formalities."
"I-is that so? But that's no good, is it?"
"That's why it fell."
I calmly exposed the shame of my maternal family.
"Still, to them, everything I do is part of an honor they feel duty-bound to protect. I know you may find it ridiculous."
I was their pride.
That was worth more than the wages I could give them.
That was why they were no longer young: they were people of Liente who had come with my mother.
"Still, wouldn't it be better not to mock someone's steadfast convictions so easily? So, second."
Gazing at Rangsi, whose mouth hung slightly open, I continued evenly.
"Tell me when you're able to pay all the overdue wages. Then I'll discipline them properly, as you asked."
It meant that if he was going to tell me what to do, he should give me money.
"A single coin placed in your hand is more precious than your master's uncreased skirt hem."
"......That's not true."
The budget manager, who had been silent, answered quickly.
"For now, your uncreased skirt hem is far more precious to all of us, my lady."
And so Rangsi decided his soul belonged with the maids after all.
"Right."
I generously accepted Rangsi's change of heart.
"Then I'll be going now."
Since there seemed to be nothing more to say, I quietly stood up.
* * *
Rangsi had even forgotten his fury.
This clever child knew the price of the fine clothes she wore.
She was not the ringleader of the maids who talked nonsense. She was simply earning her own keep because House Sears's debts left her no choice.
If there were no maids right now, who would do the work of this residence?
"I-I'll escort you."
Rangsi scrambled to his feet and followed behind Brisa.
But the moment he opened the door, he came face-to-face with a maid waiting for her.
The maid, who had been studying Brisa's face, immediately whispered to Rangsi.
"The young lady's expression is bitter. Did you talk about the broken engagement?"
That was uncanny. How did she know?
It was just as Rangsi blinked.
"Don't pity our young lady. She didn't just secretly handle the notice ending the engagement. An anonymous bouquet arrived at the same time."
The maid said haughtily.
"She'll have a proposal from that young lord in no time."
Rangsi's mouth fell open.
"She might even build a marriage alliance with a family of even greater standing!"
Surely she wasn't calling that consolation right now.
Rangsi lamented inwardly.
He could roughly guess what had gone on in this household.
While the tactless maids showered her with misguided affection, the child had grown up early, all alone in the middle of it.
If Alpheus learned of this, he would weep for three days and nights. Because Alpheus, too, was a child who had grown up early.
"Brisa must have missed family too. She gave me this."
Before leaving for the capital, Alpheus had proudly shown him a single dried-out herb.
"She's just like this because she was shocked today. I'm sure she's a kind and gentle child who takes after me. I want to see her again soon and play with her in the garden, blowing up balloons for her. She'd like it if I bought something like soap bubbles as a surprise gift in the capital, wouldn't she?"
What Alpheus had so worried about as he left was Brisa growing up too early.
"At least for my little sister, I don't want her to become an adult too quickly......."
But sadly, one thing was certain.
'My lord, you'll have to blow the soap bubbles by yourself.'
Even if he conceded a hundred times over and the two of them were present at that scene together, it was obvious that it would be closer to Brisa humoring Alpheus.
