“Search properly. He must have given you something!”
The impatient coachman grabbed Lionel by the shoulders and shook him roughly. Adelaide let go of the iron gate she had been holding firm and pushed the coachman back herself.
“My, my lady?”
Again. Here it was again. Adelaide had placed herself in front of Lionel with both arms spread wide, striking a pose that looked for all the world like she was shielding him. Not a single gram of her own will had gone into it.
“How dare you make a scene like this in front of me.”
She had no interest in being misunderstood as trying to protect Lionel. Adelaide seized on the grievance that the coachman had rudely subjected her to an unpleasant sight without so much as asking permission.
“I’m so sorry! I don’t know any better, please have mercy, my lady. Please, mercy…!”
D*mn it, blast it all, now what? Adelaide was confident in a war of words, but she was not particularly sharp. In a war of words, you could just bulldoze through without logic until the other side wore out and gave up, but this was a different situation.
On one side, someone was begging for mercy, and if Adelaide granted it, she would have to let them into the Berthier estate. If she didn’t, she would have to admit that she had thrown herself forward for Lionel’s sake.
No matter which way she chose, there was nothing to gain and everything to lose.
“My lady.”
A low voice came from behind her. Adelaide turned around on reflex. She met the eyes of Lionel, dressed in a patched-together shirt and trousers riddled with holes.
“Oh, for crying out loud! Why on earth did you show up at my house looking like that? Don’t you know who Duke Berthier is? If Duke Berthier summoned you, you should have at least worn something decent, or, well, decent might be too much to ask, but at least something without holes in it!”
Her mouth kept shouting without pause, but Adelaide’s hand gently smoothed the boy’s dirty hair back.
‘Ugh, it’s sticky. How long has it been since he washed?’
“You’re filthy! You came to the Berthier estate without even washing? Have you lost your mind?”
Her thoughts and words lined up, but her actions did not. Lionel scrunched up his face in displeasure, deeply thrown by the contradiction of someone hurling insults at him while the hand wiping his cheek remained gentle.
“Um, I, well…”
“You smell! Stop talking!”
Her mouth said he smelled, but Adelaide’s hand fished out the peppermint candy she always kept in her pocket. It even brought the candy up to Lionel’s lips herself. Lionel took it without thinking.
“Oh, please, I’m fine, my lady…”
“I’m not doing this because I want to, all right? Just keep your mouth shut and stay still!”
Adelaide grabbed her skirt and tore a long strip from her petticoat.
“Ah… I really hate this…”
Her pale hand pulled Lionel’s shirt off without hesitation. Whether Lionel was horrified or not, the hand wrapped the torn fabric tightly around his wounds with practiced ease. Only then did Adelaide regain control of her body.
“My hand is dirty now.”
“I’m, sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, go back. This is no place for you.”
“I didn’t come here because I wanted to…”
Lionel gathered his courage and lifted his head. The first thing that caught his eye was hair the color of ripe strawberries.
“Strawberry…”
“What?”
“My lady, your hair looks like a strawberry. It’s pretty.”
The word pretty was too small to reach Adelaide’s ears. Adelaide was too busy being outraged at being compared to a strawberry of all things, and she planted a hand on her hip. She was just about to give him a piece of her mind.
“Adelaide Charlotte Berthier!”
“Oh, the old man finished his meal early today.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
“You just said old man… no, I mean, yes, I didn’t hear anything.”
The coachman, who had been cowering and prostrating himself, looked up with wide eyes. Duke Berthier appeared with his steward in tow, his fury so complete that he looked ready to collapse from the strain of it at any moment.
“You meet a guest without my permission? Have you completely lost your mind!”
“You told me I had to receive the guest too. I came out to do exactly that, so what’s wrong?”
“Together! Together is what I said, and you conveniently left that part out and twisted it to suit yourself. Where did you pick up that wretched habit!”
“I’m not sure. Not from a tutor, so it must have come from you, Your Grace. You’re the only one in this house who shouts and does as he pleases. So I suppose all my wretched habits came from you.”
While Duke Berthier raged and shouted, Lionel had been hunching his shoulders and hiding behind Adelaide, and it was then that he noticed one part of the lilac dress had gone darker than the rest.
“My lady!”
Lionel cried out before he had time to think.
“Blood, there’s blood, on your back, my lady…!”
“Blood?”
Adelaide realized only then that the persistent stinging in her back had not been her body heating up from anger. The wretched basting pins had done their work.
“Adelaide!”
For some reason, Duke Berthier was rising at a diagonal.
‘Ah. I’m falling.’
The frail seventeen-year-old body Adelaide now occupied had apparently already reached its limit. Adelaide felt the hand supporting her back make the pain worse, and she closed her eyes.
A voice rang out inside her head.
‘You’re the only variable left.’
An unfamiliar voice. The world around her was thick with heavy fog.
‘Let this become a life of regrets.’
A life of regrets? The voice, neither clearly a man’s nor a woman’s, was without a doubt the one responsible for all of this. Adelaide swung her arms wildly, searching for whoever it was.
‘Adelaide Charlotte Berthier, live with regret.’
“Who is it! Who dares curse me, Adelaide Charlotte Berthier?”
‘I’ll give you your past life back. Try living differently.’
The fog thickened. Adelaide stumbled through it like a madwoman. There was no sign of another person anywhere, in front of her, behind her, or to either side.
“My life was perfect!”
“My lady!”
She woke with her fists clenched. Her chest felt suffocated, and she found herself lying face down. Amy stopped Adelaide when she tried to roll over.
“Don’t! My lady, your back is injured!”
“Is it? I’m the one who’s hurt, so why are you the one crying?”
“I was the one who put in the basting pins, I shouldn’t have done it even if it was your order, it’s my fault…!”
Amy broke into full, heaving sobs. The throbbing in her back was nothing compared to the pounding in her head from the wailing. Adelaide’s hand moved on its own and wiped the tears from Amy’s cheeks.
“Sob, my lady…!”
“I’m not comforting you. You’re just loud, so stop it.”
“Yes, hic, yes, my lady, huu…”
“I told you to stop, so why are you crying more? Is that defiance?”
“No, hic, it’s not! My lady, you’re just, so, kind…”
Adelaide had not said a single kind word. Her hand might have, but her mouth had been as sharp as ever.
“If you’re going to talk nonsense, you might as well just cry.”
“It’s not, hic, nonsense, it’s, huu, the truth, huuu…!”
Adelaide had no energy left to drive away Amy, who had buried her face in her apron and was now crying in earnest. She gave up and settled for glaring at the hand that was stroking Amy’s hair.
“Are you done?”
“Yes…”
“Don’t cry over me getting hurt from now on. I can’t stand watching you cry.”
“My lady…!”
“God, I’m losing my mind.”
She had no idea what Amy was finding so moving. When Adelaide recoiled, Amy swallowed her sobs with a wet sniff.
‘Our lady just has a sharp tongue, but she’s truly a good person. Everyone else has no idea how good she is. I have to look after her.’
Unaware of any of that, Adelaide was busy wondering how to get rid of the noisy maid.
“Oh, my lady. The guest who arrived earlier has been waiting and asking to see you.”
“A guest? Lionel? You actually let him into the house?”
“Lionel? I haven’t heard the guest’s name yet… But he’s the only one who came today, so it’s probably him. Would you like to see him?”
“Even if my back were a bloody mess from a whipping instead of basting pins, I still wouldn’t see him.”
“Please don’t say such dreadful things, my lady! Do you have any idea how frightened I was? You’ll need to sleep face down for a while too. They said it might scar, and when I think about a scar forming on your beautiful skin, my heart just sinks.”
It wasn’t even her face, just a scar on her back. Adelaide adjusted her position despite Amy’s horror. It stung a little, but it was far better than having her chest pressed flat.
“My lady!”
“You get more presumptuous by the day.”
“If worrying about you is presumptuous, then I’ll be as presumptuous as I please!”
It was a feeble argument, unconvincing for someone who claimed to be nineteen. Adelaide considered throwing her out of the estate entirely.
‘No. Then she’d cry and I’d have to deal with that.’
Her mind was the solid twenty-seven-year-old’s, but her body was the frail seventeen-year-old’s. Adelaide tired easily.
All she had done was walk briskly through the garden, get pricked by basting pins, and endure a crying maid, and already her arms and legs felt heavy and limp.
“I’m hungry.”
