“Stop pretending to be cultured until the end; it’s disgusting. Hey! Who gave you the right to lecture your master?”
“That wasn’t my intention……”
“Shut up! You keep talking back. Do you think I don’t know what you nobles are like on the inside? You think I don’t know you only invite people over so you can twist your words and insult them?”
Lynnia ground her teeth, as if a sudden thought had just struck her.
“Snobs! Liars! Do you even know who you owe your lives to for never having to get your hands dirty? It’s all thanks to the commoners! My brother manages all those street-trash mercenaries and wins wars for you all……!”
Her words became increasingly incoherent, but Edel listened in silence.
She understood what Lynnia was angry about.
And she also understood that Lynnia was trembling with anxiety and fear.
After venting her anger for a long while, Lynnia looked at Edel, who was listening with a calm expression, and finally raised her hands in defeat.
“Get out! I don’t even want to see your face.”
“……I will take my leave.”
Edel stood up quietly and exited Lynnia’s room, walking backward.
As she closed the door, a name she hadn’t been able to call for a long time escaped her lips like a sigh.
“Lyn……!”
* * *
“Sister, when I turn twelve, will I be as smart as you?”
“What are you talking about, Lyn? You’re already smart enough.”
“……Father told me I was a stupid girl.”
At that moment, Edel was rendered speechless.
Her younger sister and the youngest in the family, Lyn, was only ten years old at the time.
The verbal abuse inflicted upon her young sister made Edel suffer, too. But since she couldn’t speak ill of their father, Edel comforted her sister with the softest voice she could muster.
“Ah, Father’s… words are always a bit harsh. He must have said that to encourage you to work harder. He didn’t mean it.”
“Do you think so?”
Lyn’s gaze turned desolate.
Edel was only twelve at the time, but she knew instinctively that a ten-year-old girl shouldn’t have a look like that in her eyes.
“Lyn! Shall we go downstairs and have some cookies? It’s almost snack time.”
She tried to lighten the mood, but Lyn shook her head.
“He said I don’t deserve a snack. My snacks are banned for a while.”
“What?”
“You go ahead and eat, Sister. I’ll stay here and read for a bit.”
Lyn forced a smile, picked up a book, and went to sit in a chair in the corner.
The emotions Edel felt then were so complex that her twelve-year-old self couldn’t identify them clearly, but she knew now.
She had been furious.
She was enraged by a father who spewed curses every day at the lovely and intelligent Lyn, and by the situation they were in—being ‘raised’ like this.
Yet, she hated and felt sad for herself, knowing she couldn’t change a single thing.
“Lyn! Can you even sleep after handing in such a pathetic test paper? Do you think I spend all that money hiring a tutor just to see this?”
“I, I’m sorry, Father.”
“If you’re sorry, write out the answers to this test paper ten times and bring them to my desk by tomorrow morning. Not a single character can be wrong.”
“Yes…….”
“Keep your answers short and clear!”
“Yes, Father.”
Their father had burst into the daughters’ room, where they were dressed in their pajamas and ready for bed, only to unleash a barrage of criticism before leaving.
And Lyn, who had sat before the desk in silence, draping a shawl over her shoulders as she rummaged through her books.
Even in that situation, Edel could offer no strength to Lyn. Her own situation was not much different.
“Sister, I… I can’t take it anymore.”
“Lyn, just hold on a little longer. It’ll get better once you get married.”
“You can endure it because you’re not in my position. I’ve endured as much as I possibly can. My life isn’t worth living anymore anyway.”
“Lyn! What are you saying? You mustn’t say things like that!”
“Don’t talk to me like Father does! I have a mouth, I have thoughts, and I have a heart too! Why can’t I even say what I want?”
At sixteen, Lyn, who seemed unstable in every way, became increasingly sensitive.
The terrible, unexpected news arrived a few days later.
Edel felt a sense of doom the moment she saw the disheveled hair of the maid who had come rushing in, distraught.
“M-My Lady! Lady Lyn has……!”
“Why? What about Lyn?”
“*Sob*……. She fell from the third-floor balcony.”
“What……?”
Her mind went blank.
Thinking only of how badly she might be hurt, she ran to Lyn’s room where people were gathering.
But their father sent her away, telling her not to cause a scene.
Edel had no choice but to wait anxiously in her room for further news.
‘Phara, please, let Lyn get better soon. She is too young to be a cripple. Please…….’
However, God had prepared a much crueler ending.
“Lyn is dead.”
Their father’s announcement was so concise and dry that it was impossible to believe.
“What… what are you saying?”
“What do you mean ‘what’, have you become an idiot too? She’s dead; what more explanation do you need?”
Edel trembled, then collapsed to the floor.
But their father offered her no comfort.
“Lyn tripped and died while looking outside from the third-floor balcony. Know that, and be careful not to let any useless rumors leak out.”
Only then did she realize.
‘Lyn… she committed suicide.’
It felt as though the whole world were being dyed black with despair.
Amidst that, what was even more unbelievable was the one thought that filled her mind.
‘Lyn found her freedom.’
That was when she realized. She, too, had always been thinking of the same exit as Lyn.
* * *
Walking down the dark hallway, Edel recalled the anxious and sharp-edged sixteen-year-old Lyn.
Lyn and Lynnia.
Even their names were somewhat similar; they were alike.
‘Both were forced into things they didn’t want.’
Lyn was a child who was free-spirited and lively by nature. Trying to fit such a child into the mold of a ‘ladylike lady’ that their father envisioned—she couldn’t have held on.
Lynnia was the same.
She was clearly a cheerful and lovely person, but because her brother became a Count, she suddenly became a noblewoman overnight.
There was no way she could properly handle the position suddenly thrust upon her when she knew nothing of noble etiquette, demeanor, speech, or common sense.
The nobles were likely inviting her over just to make her the target of their mockery. Either because she was easier to handle than her brother, or because they were looking for a pretext to attack Laslo by using Lynnia.
‘So, anger toward the nobility itself must have formed. But at the same time, she must have wanted to be recognized there.’
Edel knew all too well how cold and cruel the noble society could be. Her life hadn’t been that long, but in that time, she had seen many times how the social circles would hoist people up and trample them down.
Edel, too, had heard cringeworthy praises about being the Empire’s best bride-to-be, but hadn’t she suffered from all sorts of rumors as soon as her marriage to the Duke of Lancaster was announced?
‘People’s attitudes change faster than flipping a hand.’
Still, thanks to her years of training, she knew how to overcome such situations. To smile with a composed expression until the attention died down. To act meaningfully, as if there was something deeper going on that others didn’t know.
‘But it would be difficult for Lynnia to do that.’
It was a guess, but she probably couldn’t say a single word outside. And she must be taking that anger out on the defenseless maids inside the house.
‘Taking out anger toward the powerful by becoming powerful yourself is clearly wrong. But there isn’t even anyone by her side to teach her that.’
Laslo seemed too busy with his work at the Imperial Palace and was such a stoic person that he didn’t seem to be looking after Lynnia properly.
Or even if he could, he didn’t know much about noble society himself, so it would be difficult for him to give her proper advice.
‘If Count Krissus had hired a tutor for his sister, it might have been a bit better……. Should I give them a hint?’
But who was she to offer such advice?
Perhaps there was a reason they hadn’t been able to find a tutor.
‘Maybe tutors were reluctant to come because of Count Krissus’s background…….’
Especially for a woman about to debut in society, the teacher who would teach her everything from A to Z would need to be a lady from a decent house, not just some impoverished noblewoman.
Leaving the hiring fee aside, who would willingly send their wife to the Krissus Count Family, a house viewed with wariness by the nobility?
Even though it wasn’t her business, a sigh escaped her.
‘This isn’t a matter for me to worry about. I shouldn’t needlessly involve myself.’
Edel braced herself with that thought and returned to her room, yet a lingering sense of unease and restlessness fluttered in her chest for reasons she couldn’t explain.
***
That day, as on every other, Laslo returned home only when the twilight was deep.
He left his horse with the groom and opened the doors to the mansion, but no one came out to greet him.
Since the mansion was primarily used to deceive the eyes of other nobles and serve as a meeting point for members of the mercenary guild, he didn’t pay much attention to the manners of the servants.
Yet, even so, he sometimes felt irritated by the gap between his title and his daily life.