10.
“She…”
A bitter smile played on Freya’s lips.
“She… didn’t even give me a chance to meet her. I admit I tried a bit too hard to arrange a meeting, but I swear on my life, I never once sought to do away with her.”
“Madam Rossignol claimed she was nearly kidnapped by thugs you hired.”
Looking closer, the woman with the pince-nez seemed to know Madam Rossignol well. Freya answered calmly.
“I suppose she neglected to mention that I was inside the very carriage those thugs were trying to hijack? Madam Rossignol refused so adamantly that they ended up letting her go. A few days later, the papers painted me as an attempted kidnapper.”
Recalling that moment, a dry laugh escaped her.
“I’m not saying I’m faultless. It’s true that I forced my way into marriage with my husband, that I had him followed, and that I investigated other women. Perhaps, as you all say, I truly am the devil’s own connection to my husband.”
As she admitted it so readily, several people averted their eyes, visibly uncomfortable.
“However, I can no longer stand by and be accused of things I haven’t done. I have never threatened those women, and I let Madam Rossignol go without laying a single finger on her.”
A third silence fell over the room, but it was of a different quality than the previous ones.
Freya looked at her audience one by one, memorizing their faces, until her gaze rested on a single point. Then, she asked in a cold, clear voice.
“I’ve never spoken of this anywhere else before. So, tell me, is this story worth a headline, Madam Soline Tristan?”
At her question, one of the middle-aged ladies—who had been listening to the young women’s chatter with keen interest—turned deathly pale.
Soline Tristan. All eyes turned toward the mother of the current Erle Tristan.
The woman standing next to Mademoiselle Bouchard spoke up hesitantly.
“Now that I think of it… wasn’t the newspaper house owned by the Erle Tristan family, *Le XIXe siecle*? They published quite a few articles about that incident back then, didn’t they?”
“No.”
Confused gazes shifted toward Freya. She corrected the woman.
“*Le XIXe siecle* was the very first newspaper to publish articles based on those women’s testimonies.”
“…Ah.”
“Madam Soline Tristan, am I not right?”
Facing the question turned back upon her, Soline’s face trembled unbecomingly.
“I… ahem, I don’t know much about the family business, so I couldn’t say.”
“Is that so? I suppose that would be the case.”
Freya, who seemed to have expected nothing less, muttered softly.
“Then I’ll have no choice but to ask Erle Tristan himself.”
“W-why would you ask him now, of all times, Madam Russell?”
Soline spoke urgently at Freya’s musing.
“That was half a year ago. If you were going to take action, you should have done it then. Bringing it up now won’t do you any good.”
“I think so too.”
Mademoiselle Bouchard, readily agreeing with Soline’s rebuttal, added coldly.
“Besides, ‘I didn’t threaten her,’ ‘I didn’t try to kidnap her’—those are just words. How can we believe your claims now?”
*Now that she mentions it…* Just as doubt began to bloom in the eyes of the women in the room, Freya countered:
“Those women and Madam Rossignol were using words, too. In the end, they prattled on in the papers and threatened to sue me, but none of them ever stepped foot in a courtroom. Why was there no one back then who harbored the same natural doubt as Mademoiselle Bouchard?”
“It’s quite strange, isn’t it?” Freya added with a smirk. An awkward cough broke out from somewhere, and Mademoiselle Bouchard, having fallen into her own trap, clamped her mouth shut.
Freya surveyed the room with a haughty gaze, as if a judge delivering a final verdict.
“Believe what you will. Those who want to believe me will, and those who don’t, won’t. That is your freedom. It is the same for me. It is my freedom to want to know—even if it is late—who worked to push me into that situation back then.”
Soline’s expression stiffened as if she were being strangled. Having confirmed this, Freya nodded once in farewell.
“Now, please enjoy the rest of your time.”
Leaving the frozen figures behind, Freya approached the lounge door.
“…Huh?”
Milla, who had been standing silently by her side, reached out to open the door but hesitated, turning back to Freya with a troubled look.
“Why is this…”
The door was slightly ajar.
She was certain she had closed it upon entering. As Milla processed this, Freya opened the door and stepped out first.
“M-Madam.”
Freya ignored Milla’s panicked voice and checked the hallway.
Just as she expected. The department store employee who had been there when she arrived was nowhere to be seen.
Milla, glancing around and wondering if their conversation had leaked, looked at Freya.
“Madam, I’m so sorry. It’s all because of me.”
“Why are you apologizing for somewhere I chose to go of my own accord?”
Freya said it bluntly, which only made Milla look more dejected.
“If I had known it was that kind of place, I would have stopped you, even if you insisted on going.”
“Now that I know, I simply won’t go back.”
Answering lightly, Freya led Milla out of the department store.
Since she had met Soline Tristan today, the news would reach Erle Tristan before long: that Freya Russell still held a grudge against *Le XIXe siecle* for last year’s events.
Moreover, thanks to the young lady of the Bouchard family, she had managed to spill out everything she wanted to say; in truth, Freya felt quite satisfied.
She felt a twinge of guilt toward Milla, who believed this was all a result of her own mistake.
But she couldn’t exactly tell her that she had courted the trouble on purpose. Freya decided to cheer Milla up instead and headed toward a restaurant she had already chosen.
✦ ✦ ✦
After Freya Russell left, an uncomfortable silence lingered in the lounge.
“Oh, look at me. I came out to prepare for the summer dinner service, and here I am just standing around. Everyone, have a pleasant afternoon.”
“Oh, as a matter of fact, there was something I needed to buy, too… let’s go together!”
The women, quick to read the room, found excuses one by one and slipped away. Soline Tristan was among them.
Watching the women hurry off, Louise Solnie, who wore the pince-nez, spoke up.
“Still… Madam Russell is quite different from the rumors. Don’t you think, Mademoiselle Bouchard?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mademoiselle Solnie.”
“Actually, I thought the same.”
The three young ladies simultaneously pictured the woman who had swept through the lounge like a storm just moments ago.
The woman in the rumors was always described as dressed tackily, scurrying away in shame whenever fingers were pointed at her.
Freya Russell, known as a pathetic, stupid woman who had abandoned her honor and decency for the sake of a man….
“Seeing her in person, she was actually quite intelligent… and elegant.”
Though she was clearly their age, Freya Russell possessed a poise that the other young ladies lacked. Perhaps that was why they had found themselves listening to her arguments without realizing it.
“Hmph. If she were truly intelligent and elegant, Mr. Max Russell wouldn’t treat her with such cold indifference.”
The two ladies exchanged glances, with the young lady from the Bouchard family—who hadn’t hidden her hostility until the end—standing between them.
Though they had secretly admired Max Russell and had joined in to criticize Freya, it seemed their opinions would be a little different from this day forward.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Don’t you want to see the real palace?”
“…Pardon?”
Milla, who had just finished off the lobster mixed with mayonnaise in a Krakow-style potage and the lamb appetizer, was about to cut a piece of high-quality beef next to her potato purée, but she gaped in surprise.
“Madam Pernel said that the Salon Exhibition being held there now has become quite the talk of the town, and that everyone goes there on their days off.”
“But we have an appointment with Madam Pernel today…”
“It’s fine; we still have plenty of time. Let’s stop by on the way.”
“Yes, Madam!”
After a brief hesitation, Milla nodded vigorously and popped the beef into her mouth.
Finishing their meal of nearly an hour with a cream pie and coffee for dessert, the two walked to the Salon Exhibition to help with their digestion.
The palace, where the king had lived until just thirty or forty years ago, shared the same name as the department store they had visited earlier. To be precise, the department store had taken its name from this palace.
Even with the same name, while the department store focused on being pretty and flashy, the palace exuded an overwhelming aura from its sheer scale.
The building, where grace and grandeur coexisted, stretched so long it was difficult to take in all at once, and beside it lay the gardens where past royalty and aristocrats used to stroll.
As they stepped into the magnificent building, their vision seemed to expand.
The interior, stripped of all traces of daily habitation, was filled with large and small works of art covering the walls and filling the halls.