The central staircase was dizzyingly high.
Arabella did not care about the height; she did not slow her pace, driven only by the singular desire to shove Ariadne.
However, the physical disparity between a fifteen-year-old and a ten-year-old was insurmountable. No matter how hard Arabella lunged, she could not overpower Ariadne.
Ariadne stepped aside with effortless grace.
As fate would have it, Isabella was standing diagonally behind her. With Ariadne having cleared the path, Arabella’s momentum carried her in a straight, unstoppable line toward her eldest sister.
“Uh, ugh?!”
“Hmm?!”
Unable to dodge the charging girl, Isabella collided head-on with her younger sister. They tumbled together toward the edge.
*Thump, crash!*
“Aah!”
“Ugh!”
Carried forward by her own momentum, Arabella managed to lunge for the railing, gripping it just in time to halt her fall.
Isabella, however, had been standing with her back to the drop. With nothing to catch her weight, she plummeted down the flight of stairs, landing in a heap on the narrow mid-level terrace.
*Thud!*
She had fallen with such force that she couldn’t even stand.
“Ouch……”
The central staircase of the De Mare Mansion was notoriously tall and narrow, its steepness and constricted width making it treacherous.
The high ceilings amplified the scream, sending it echoing through the hall. At the sound of Isabella’s cry, the door to the parlor swung open.
“What is the meaning of this!”
Drawn by the commotion, Cardinal De Mare burst from his private study.
He scanned the scene, his gaze passing over a terrified Arabella and a calm, composed Ariadne, before locking onto Isabella, who lay collapsed on the landing below. He let out a furious roar.
“What happened here!”
He signaled for the servants. Maids rushed from every direction, lifting Isabella into a sitting position and applying an ice pack fetched from the kitchen.
As Isabella slumped on the landing, unable to put weight on her injured ankle, Cardinal De Mare bellowed once more.
“Who did this!”
Isabella kept her head bowed, remaining silent. To complain would be to bruise her own dignity.
With Isabella silent, the Cardinal glared between Ariadne and Arabella, demanding an answer.
“Which one of you did this?”
Arabella, pale as a sheet, stammered out a defense.
Ariadne found it quite impressive that the ten-year-old could articulate anything at all, considering she should have been weeping before such an imposing father.
“Father, it wasn’t me, it was…… Ariadne! It was Ariadne……!”
Of course, being impressive and having an impressive child say what one wants to hear were two different things.
Arabella’s attempt to shift the blame was immediately received by the Cardinal.
“Ariadne! It has been only days since you returned from the Bergamo estate, and already you are causing such trouble!”
Arabella let out a breath of relief that a scapegoat had been found. The maids gathered on the landing looked at Ariadne as if she were a dangerous outsider.
She had been back at the San Carlo estate for only one day, yet she had already injured Lucrezia’s precious eldest daughter and incurred the Cardinal’s wrath. The young lady’s future appeared bleak indeed.
But Ariadne spoke without a hint of fear, her tone demure and perfectly composed, as if she were merely clearing up a misunderstanding.
“Father, I apologize for causing such a commotion so soon after my return from the estate. Besides, Isabella-unni was only injured because she was trying to help me……”
*‘Help me?’*
Isabella, who had been keeping her head down, looked up at Ariadne with suspicious, narrow eyes.
‘What is she planning?’
Arabella frowned, her eyes fixed on Ariadne with palpable hostility. Ignoring her sister’s silent assault, Ariadne continued, her voice steady.
“I heard much about it while I was at the estate, but Isabella is truly kind. As expected, she is the most renowned young lady in San Carlo. I have only just arrived, and I am grateful that she reached out to help me. However….”
Ariadne cast a brief, pointed glance at Arabella.
“Arabella should be more careful with her conduct. She was playing a prank and shoved me, and Isabella fell down the stairs while trying to intervene. At ten years old, you are no longer a toddler, Arabella. It is time to conduct yourself with the decorum of a lady.”
Arabella’s face flared crimson, the heat spreading to the very tips of her ears. With the terrifying Cardinal De Mare standing nearby, she had felt secure, assuming that a naive girl fresh from the countryside couldn’t possibly speak with such poise. Yet, Ariadne was unspooling the story before the Cardinal as if her tongue had been oiled, showing not a shred of fear.
“No! That’s not it!”
Arabella screamed desperately. She knew exactly what her father was capable of when his temper flared. She could not risk being branded the child who harmed the eldest daughter—her father’s favorite.
“Isabella wasn’t trying to help her! She was just standing there, and *she* pushed me toward the sister! *She* is the one who hurt Isabella!”
Ariadne did not blink at the brazen lie, instead lowering her head with a wounded expression. In this conflict, there was no objective evidence, only the word of a witness.
“Though I have arrived from a countryside estate, I do not tell lies.”
Ariadne pointed to Isabella, who remained collapsed on the floor.
“If you cannot trust me because I am unlearned and unfamiliar to you, please ask Isabella herself.”
Arabella stood frozen, paralyzed by confusion.
‘What kind of trick is this?’
Across the room, Isabella—the villainess who would one day shake the court of the Etruscan Kingdom—was a promising seedling even at this young age. In the time it took to draw a single breath, she regained her composure, dropping her head to affect a look of fragile, pitiable grace.
“Father….”
Isabella’s strategy was immediate.
“I was only trying to help Ariadne, and I just….”
She did not miss the opportunity to play the martyr. She would not let a chance for performative kindness slip by.
“Arabella was just playing a prank, Father. Please, don’t be too hard on her.”
Arabella, who had been instantly painted as the wicked child tormenting her saintly stepsister, stared at Isabella with her mouth agape. As Isabella shyly bowed her head, Ariadne swallowed a sigh of relief.
‘Nothing has changed. You would do exactly that, wouldn’t you, Isabella.’
Whether it was her own sister or not, Isabella was never the type to let her own interests falter.
* * *
“Arabella! You are to be confined to your room for two weeks, eating nothing but dry bread and water, and you will spend your time in prayer!”
“Father! I really didn’t do it!”
“Call me Your Eminence! What is this ‘Father’ talk, you ill-mannered child? If you’ve been caught in a lie, you should at least reflect! What? You really didn’t do it? That’s another week for backtalk! Pray for three weeks!”
Arabella bowed her head, trembling. Isabella kept rubbing her ankle, pointedly avoiding her sister’s gaze.
“Call a doctor for Isabella. And where is that woman, Lucrezia! How on earth has she been raising these children?”
The household was thrown into complete disarray. Having effectively sown the seeds of discord at the De Mare mansion on her very first day, Ariadne permitted herself a small, internal smile.
‘So… it actually works?’
The loud noise echoed through the landing, leaving everyone in the house, save for Ariadne, frozen in silence, their eyes fixed firmly on the floor. Cardinal De Mare, seemingly dissatisfied even by their submission, stomped his feet.
“What is there to stare at, standing in a line watching me? I don’t like any of it—bah!”
He shook the hem of his white robe and slammed the door to the drawing room shut behind him.
Isabella, satisfied with the opportunity to appear virtuous despite trading it for a twisted ankle, entered her second-floor room with a serene expression, supported by her maids.
Just before being dragged away by the head maid, Arabella glared at Ariadne with venomous eyes and gnashed her teeth.
“Don’t think this is the end!”
Ariadne merely offered a faint smile.
“You poor thing.”
“What?”
“Father and Mother only like Isabella.”
Arabella’s face flushed a deep crimson, and she trembled uncontrollably.
“What would someone like you know! You don’t know anything!”
“Young Miss, let’s go. If you keep making such a scene, you’ll be scolded by His Eminence the Cardinal again.”
At the urging of the head maid, Giada, Arabella could not resist and was hauled away. The string of insults she shouted as she vanished—calling Ariadne lowly, ugly, and tacky—rang sharply through the corridor.
Ariadne smoothed her dress and composed herself. The space, now deserted, was left only to the nameless maids busily cleaning up and Maletta, the red-haired maid who had been standing guard outside the drawing room.
Ariadne looked at Maletta, whose demeanor was markedly more respectful than before, and smiled brightly.
“Now, shall we go?”
* * *
Cardinal De Mare had ordered that Ariadne receive the same education as his other two daughters, but with Isabella bedridden and Arabella confined for three weeks, Ariadne was the only one left to study.
Perhaps finding the expense of a tutor for Ariadne a waste, Lucrezia had dismissed the regular tutor for a month’s leave and brought in a replacement.
This had not happened in her previous life. The causality had clearly shifted because of Isabella’s injury and Arabella’s house arrest. In that past, Ariadne had simply sat dazed in lessons that were far too advanced, forced to struggle through coursework she wasn’t prepared for.
“This is Master Giovanni. He will teach you Latin and arithmetic. Behave yourself.”
Master Giovanni was a man in his thirties who appeared to be in poor health. His nose was bulbous and strawberry-red, his pores prominent, as if he spent his life soaked in wine. The scent of a drunkard stung her nose.
Ariadne looked at him with suspicion. He did not look like a proper teacher. Furthermore, why was he being introduced by his given name instead of his surname?
“Mother, how could I dare call the teacher by his given name? What is Master Giovanni’s surname?”
Lucrezia flew into a rage.
“Stop your idle chatter and just study! If he is Giovanni, then he is Giovanni—why must you have so much to say!”
Lucrezia reacted to the trivial question with a sensitivity that suggested it had struck a nerve. The man called Master Giovanni looked even more suspicious, grinning at her with a leering glint in his eyes.
Even when told not to use formal titles and to address him by name, he didn’t show a shred of offense, merely nodding his head.
*There’s something suspicious about this.*