“Tom the gardener said he saw it with his own two eyes. I told him I couldn’t believe it either, and he got so worked up he said he’d stake his weekly wages on it.”
“Our lady must have finally grown up a little…”
Adelaide’s standing within the Berthier estate grew higher with each passing day. It was a standing Adelaide had absolutely no desire for.
Amy strutted around as though the praise were directed at her and redoubled her efforts to spread word of Adelaide’s reputation as a kind and gentle mistress.
After a week of countless experiments, Adelaide had reached the conclusion that until she broke the curse, it was better to keep her encounters with Lionel to a minimum.
Lionel was every bit as clumsy as Amy, just as careless, and had no instinct for protecting himself. Adelaide’s curse leaped at every chance to cover for Lionel’s mishaps, so her true feelings were easily misread.
“Thank you, my lady.”
“Why can’t you even walk in a straight line? Is something wrong with your legs as well as your ears?”
“The physician said it’s because I didn’t eat properly for so long, and my body is having trouble keeping its balance while it catches up on growing.”
“Quite the collection of excuses.”
Adelaide dropped the candies from her pocket into Lionel’s mouth one by one.
Lionel accepted each one with a shy smile. Only after his cheeks had puffed out like a hamster hoarding sunflower seeds did Adelaide stop giving him candy.
“Look at you, a freeloader who can’t even get enough at mealtimes and still expects snacks on top of it.”
“Yes. I really have no shame.”
“If you know you have no shame, you ought to conduct yourself accordingly.”
“I do try, but my lady keeps looking after me, so I suppose I’ve picked up a bad habit.”
Adelaide found the situation utterly exasperating.
She would have felt much better giving him a smack, but the last time she had tried that, she had ended up not hitting him at all and instead spending a good while rubbing her head against his, the way you would with a stray cat someone had abandoned.
“Wha, what?”
“Nothing. It just felt like that kind of moment…”
Lionel must have sensed it too, because he promptly bent down and brought his head in front of Adelaide.
“I’m not patting your head!”
“I see…”
“What are you disappointed about? You’re a grown boy. Do you actually enjoy being treated like a child?”
“I wouldn’t like it from anyone else, but it’s you, my lady.”
Adelaide decided to end the pointless argument that brought nothing but losses. She walked past Lionel without a word, but for some reason a pair of heavy footsteps padded along behind her.
‘Is he following me? Surely not. I must be imagining it. My room is on the second floor and his is on the first, but he must have business up here. The old man might have called for him separately. That crafty old man is exactly the type to summon the boy behind my back, no question about it.’
Having thought all that, Adelaide stopped.
“Oof.”
Lionel stopped too, a beat late, and bumped his nose into Adelaide’s back. There was nothing hard about Adelaide’s body, so there was absolutely no reason for the other person to be hurt by a slight collision, and yet Lionel grabbed his nose.
“You’re bleeding! Your nose!”
Adelaide tilted Lionel’s head back and pressed her handkerchief under his nose. It was precisely the wrong way to treat a nosebleed.
Lionel swallowed the blood trickling down the back of his throat and glanced sideways at Adelaide.
“How can you be this fragile? You’ve been here a week. No matter how severe the malnutrition, you get a nosebleed from bumping into me? Is that normal?”
Lionel needed to get healthy.
Adelaide was exhausted from helping maids who twisted their ankles in passing and servants who strained under heavy loads. Adding Lionel on top of that was wearing her down in body and spirit.
“My lady…”
“Don’t look at me like that! I’m worried about myself, not you! You keep making me uncomfortable, and I can’t live like this!”
“…hic…”
Had he lost his senses from losing too much blood? Adelaide was caught off guard when Lionel suddenly started crying. She had snapped at him the same way she always did, but his reaction was different from usual.
“Why are you crying!”
“Because my lady is, so, truly so, so kind to me…”
To correct herself: Lionel had not lost his senses from blood loss. He had simply been out of his senses as usual. Adelaide deflated and shoved the handkerchief haphazardly against Lionel’s nose.
“My wady…”
“Don’t call my name while you’re honking like that.”
Once the bleeding had mostly stopped, Adelaide warned Lionel that the handkerchief was thrown away and he was not to think about returning it, and only then did she make it back to her room.
She paced in circles around the large room like an angry lion.
“I can’t break the curse right away.”
Black magic was strictly forbidden in the empire. If word spread that the Berthier lady had been cursed, the situation would spiral out of control.
Duke Berthier was called the old man at home by Adelaide, but outside he held a reputation as an upright and incorruptible nobleman.
“I need to make him healthy.”
No matter how she thought about it, that was the only option.
Make Lionel healthy so he would stop looking pitiful in front of Adelaide.
For reasons she couldn’t understand, Duke Berthier had not yet formally adopted Lionel.
As Adelaide recalled, in her previous life the adoption papers had been drawn up almost the moment Lionel set foot in the Berthier estate.
“The old man is being strangely quiet too.”
Adelaide was someone who preferred to speak before thinking.
The reason her body did not lash out first was not that she intended to win through noble refinement, but that she had calculated a smack would do no real damage to the other party.
“This is maddening. The curse has made everything a mess.”
Lionel followed Adelaide around like a fledgling that had lost its mother, and Amy fussed over Adelaide from morning to night, unable to rest unless she had seen to her every need.
“The other maids have changed too.”
Adelaide swore she had never once harbored the wish to be a warm and approachable mistress.
It was Adelaide’s belief that a mistress ought to command respect, and if respect was not forthcoming, she ought to inspire fear instead.
With a sliver of conscience, Adelaide acknowledged that she had nothing particularly worthy of respect, and so she had aimed to rule through fear.
“When did it come to this? Was it after I told that maid who broke a plate to clear off before she hurt herself? Or was it when I pushed that servant out of the way and got pinned under the furniture he was moving?”
The servants working in the Berthier estate now smiled every time they saw Adelaide. Some even ran over from a distance just to greet her.
One maid had presented Adelaide with a cheap ribbon, saying she had saved up her wages to buy it.
Amy had seen it and sulked, so Adelaide had promised to accept a scarf Amy would make herself that winter, and had even gone ahead and bought the yarn Amy would need for knitting.
“My lady, it’s Amy.”
“If you’re announcing your name before coming in because you think there might be another presumptuous maid who barges into my room like this, that’s a pointless waste of breath.”
“Our lady is so witty.”
“That wasn’t wit. I meant it.”
“Yes, yes. His Grace asked me to tell you to come to the study for a moment.”
“The old man?”
Amy stifled a laugh. Adelaide always called him His Grace in front of others, at least making a show of propriety, but dropping her guard like this in front of Amy alone was endlessly endearing to her.
“Yes. It’s a shame he had to call for you right in the middle of your nap time. Our lady is still growing, so she needs to eat well and sleep well.”
“Amy. I’m fully grown.”
“What do you mean? My lady still has more growing to do. And there should be no more collapsing on walks either.”
“That was a whole week ago. Have I collapsed since then?”
“The fact that it happened even once is what matters. I worry because my lady is so delicate.”
Amy carried on as though Adelaide would topple over at the slightest nudge.
Adelaide’s health was not exactly robust, but it was not below average either. The person who was below average in health was standing right nearby.
“Right. I need to feed him something nutritious.”
“Something nutritious?”
“What would work? Should I have him drink a bear tail broth?”
“Bear tail is popular as a health supplement. Though I imagine my lady would find it too unpleasant to stomach.”
“Not me. Lionel.”
“Lionel, the guest?”
“The boy is far too frail. It grates on my nerves. Amy, order a supplement made with bear tail and whatever other good herbs you can find, in my name.”
It was the conclusion she had reached: if Lionel got healthy, she could torment him to her heart’s content. Amy sniffled, moved with a touch of jealousy mixed in.
“Don’t cry!”
“My lady keeps making me cry…!”
“I said don’t cry, don’t cry in front of me, please!”
Adelaide pulled Amy into her arms and patted her on the back. The inevitable fate of someone who had already thrown away her handkerchief on Lionel.
“My ladyyy…!”
The steward Benjamin witnessed the peculiar scene of the maid sniffling and the mistress comforting her. He had come on Duke Berthier’s orders, sent because Adelaide had been summoned to the study and, unsurprisingly, had not come no matter how long he waited, driving Duke Berthier to the end of his patience.
“Ahem.”
“Who is it? The steward?”
“I apologize for interrupting this tender moment, but as my lady knows, His Grace has little patience. I am sorry to have to say this, but I find myself with no choice.”
