After the bazaar, summer slowly approached.
‘It would be like dying in the summer without an air conditioner.’
She was leisurely thinking about that, but suddenly, a very frightening fact popped into her head.
‘However… How long did Edith appear in the original work?’
She didn’t know why the thought came to her mind now.
<I refuse obsession> was a 5-volume romantic edition, and Edith appeared at the end of volume 3 and disappeared before volume 5 began. And at the beginning of Volume 5, Lise receives Cliff’s love confession along with a proposal.
‘How old was Lise at the time?’
Right now, Lise and she were 22 years old, the same age. And Cliff proposed to her when she was twenty-three.
‘I am sure. I remember thinking that at that age she wouldn’t have even graduated from college.’
Alright, here’s the quiz. Until the episode where her throat gets blown off, how many months would it be? As she thought about it, her back suddenly became wet with a cold sweat. Then, suddenly, Anna knocked on her door.
“Miss! Now, you should come out for a while!”
“Huh? What’s the matter?”
A feeling of foreboding ran down her spine. As she went out into the hallway, she heard a woman wailing from the front door on the first floor.
“I beg you! Please let me meet my lady! Even before marriage, she couldn’t even leave my mind without me worrying about her, so I don’t know how she is doing there alone…!”
Wondering what kind of commotion this was, she followed Anna downstairs and found that the Duchess and the butler Philip, as well as Cliff, Killian, and Lise, were already down on the first floor.
“Uh…?”
She dared to see a woman sitting on the porch of Duke Ludwig’s mansion, weeping, and chills ran down my spine. She, too, found her and called her name before she could escape.
“Ah, lady! Miss Edith!”
“Oh… Sophia…”
“Ah, my God, my lady… Why are you looking so bad?”
“Yes? What? What?”
Sophia, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, clung to Edith with a face that said she would die because she was worried about her, unlike in Rigelhof. She wondered how the maid had managed to get Duchess and her heir down, but Shane stood firm behind Sofia.
“Brother…?”
She blankly called out to Shane, but he continued speaking with a sad expression as he stood facing the Duchess instead of her.
“I feel very sorry for causing a commotion. However, Sophia, who was Edith’s exclusive maid, missed Edith so much, and we, too… I was anxious because I couldn’t know Edith’s safety at all.”
“You could have visited anytime and met Edith.”
“Thank you for your words, but you probably know very well that it is not as easy as it sounds. So, at least let Sophia stay by Edith’s side. Isn’t it just a maid?”
It was then that she felt like she knew what Shane was talking about, “how to tighten a dog leash.”
“Oh, brother! I’m really fine!”
“Miss! Please, please don’t abandon me, yes? Hehe… You can hit me and punish me. Just so that I can be my lady’s side…”
Sophia clung to her even more. Then Shane joined her as well.
“Edith. Isn’t Sophia who has been by your side since you were little? How much Sofia was worried about you…”
“There are rumors that the young lady is being persecuted by the Ducal family! They say she can’t even go to her best friend’s tea party…!”
She quacked as if Sophia couldn’t stand it any longer. She thought that if she didn’t go to the party, she wouldn’t be accused of spreading gossip about Lise, but Edith never thought that would provide an excuse like this. Unknowingly, she looked at the Duchess and Killian.
“Nu, who says she is being persecuted!”
“You’re still looking at other people’s eyes! I heard that even at the bazaar, she sat like a loner by herself. Everyone said that Miss Sinclair, a guest at this house, was the only one that cared about the young lady…”
Oh, that’s a bit irrefutable. And the Duchess and the others also twitched their shoulders, as if they had been stabbed. After all, this time, the Ludwig family had no justification for rejecting Sophia.
“If you are that concerned, leave this maid behind. I will use her as Edith’s exclusive maid.”
“Thank you. Sofia’s salary will be taken care of by our family.”
“No, there is no need for that.”
“No. If even Sophia takes notice of this house, who will protect our Edith?”
Ha… Anyone who saw it would think it’s a sister complex. The human who slapped her hard…! But she couldn’t expose Shane. She tried to tell them that he did hit her at the bazaar, but again her tongue hardened and her tinnitus came out.
‘Jegiraaaaar!!’
Several more times she refused, saying that she didn’t need a maid for the Rigelhoffs, but thanks to Shane, who insisted that he was doing it for her sister, forced her to finally accept Sophia.
‘This too… Is it the flow of the original work?’
If on thought about it, the episodes that would happen in the future were all things that Sophia moved. Poisoning attempt, information leak, spying…
‘What do I do? How can I stop this?’
Sophia was a mercenary skilled in assassination and stealing. It was almost impossible for her to resist Sophia. Besides, Count Rigelhoff would have entrusted me her with full authority over her disposal, so even if she died at the hands of that maid, Count Rigelhoff wouldn’t blink an eye. Of course, it wasn’t that there wasn’t a corner that she believed in at all.
‘If I die, Sophia will no longer be in this house. The original work will be greatly distorted.’
So she wouldn’t kill Edith right away.
She watched anxiously as Anna taught Sophia her work. And finally, when Sophia and she were left alone in the room, Sophia’s expression completely changed.
“It’s been a while, Miss Edith.”
“…It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.”
“When I heard Shane talk about the young lady, I couldn’t believe it, but seeing how you responded, it seems that you really did.”
Wow, that’s just creepy. She held back her instinctive fear and tried to convince him as calmly as possible.
“Sophia. The power of Duke Ludwig isn’t everything you see. Besides, his power is growing day by day. If my father doesn’t change his mind, our whole family is in danger.”
“That is not for you to judge. All you have to do is follow the master’s orders.”
“Even if they all die then?”
“You should think of raising the name of the family by dedicating your life.”
Oh, this was real… Sophia was, to the very core, Count Rigelhoff’s. To the point where Edith wondered how she could follow that human to this extent.
“Shane said, the weapon-related documents were not sent by the lady…”
“I didn’t send it.”
“Is it because you knew it was a fake document? Did the Ducal family imitate the lady’s handwriting and send it because she didn’t send it?”
Uh? Could she have thought so? But she didn’t think that the Duke’s family had to do such a thing. Their primary purpose in letting her see the fake document was to test her out, not to attack the Rigelhoff family. Even so, to avoid getting beaten up by Sofia, it might be better to say that she didn’t send it because she thought it was a fake document. But on the other hand, if she acted that way, Killian could be suspicious of her again.
‘Let’s get rid of Killian’s suspicions at least. Let’s do that properly.’
She replied, recalling ‘selection and concentration’ once again.
“I didn’t even think it was a fake document. Because I had no intention of stealing it in the first place.”
As expected, Sophia’s gaze turned cold.
“Therefore… You mean you really made up your mind to betray your family.”
“I don’t know why this is a betrayal. Are you sure the Rigelhoffs will win if they beat the Ludwig family? Even if Grand Duke Langston became emperor, do you think he would give my father the title of Duke? Now, His Majesty’s throne is secure, and the Ludwig dukedom is stronger than the Grand Duke of Langston.”
“You’re wrong. Grand Duke Langston has the Count in his favor, and sooner or later the Emperor and the Duke of Ludwig will fall.”
“Who will? Father? My father is really mistaken. It’s all just his wishes!”
It sounded like there was a pop. Sophia, perhaps sensing the hint of sarcasm in her voice, came over and slashed her in the back of the head.
“Is this vulgar sow arrogantly teasing her snout?”
Sophia gave up on her respect, spat out swear words at her, and started beating at random the parts covered by her clothes.
“Bitch! Aww!”
It hurted more than she could have imagined. She picked out and hit only the places that were painful but inconspicuous, enough to make her wonder if those who learned were different. Edith rebelled, but Sophia didn’t flinch like a man made of wood and stone.
Then, suddenly, he squeezed Edith’s throat and said.
How do you feel?
