Renato’s instinct had been right on the mark. Lydia had asked her father to alter that law herself. I couldn’t believe it.
Olga sobbed harder in my arms, and I patted her back in an attempt to calm her down. All the while, I was having a hard time keeping my own feelings in check.
I thought I’d been careful enough to avoid Lydia taking notice of Olga, but it’d turned out that the beauty of her voice had garnered too much attention at the musical evening. Maybe people had gone to Lydia to praise her marquessate for producing great talents and had mentioned Olga’s singing and playing. I had no doubt Lydia had shown them a ladylike smile while thanking them for praising her vassal, and that she’d told them how proud she felt. Meanwhile, in the shadows, she’d started plotting to have the treasure of Olga’s family taken away.
“I couldn’t stop myself from lashing out at my father, and when he found out I wasn’t actually acting on Lady Lydia’s behalf, he struck me.”
“Oh no,” I murmured.
For such a horrible mark to have been left on his cheek, his father must have hit him very hard. What a sham of a father.
“I come from a military family. My brothers are always covered in bruises from their sword and spear training. I’m a bit of an oddball,” Renato added, rubbing his cheek. “I’ve never been hit before because her ladyship favored me, though. All the hopes of the House of Selesnoa are on Lady Lydia, as she’s expected to become the next empress. To put it another way, no one would think of refusing a request as simple as a minor change in law coming from her. The moment my father assumed I’d go against her, this is what happened to me.”
Renato’s relationship with his father seemed complicated to say the least, but right now, my focus was on Olga. A change in law was an internal issue of the marquessate, so neither my brother nor the prince could do anything about it. In a way, this was probably the smartest way to deal Olga a hit. This method was so like Lydia, and it pissed me off so much!
“Lady Lydia’s real target isn’t Olga,” Renato said. “It’s you.”
“Me?!”
“You’re her biggest competition to become empress, and you’re receiving praise from everyone for your music, of all things. She clearly took that as a provocation. She probably thinks that you’re nice to lesser nobles only to gain their support, so she’s come up with this way to hurt your plans. The way she sees it, you used her vassal to boost your reputation, and Olga now has to pay the consequences. If you do nothing, she’ll spread rumors that you have no qualms using lesser nobles as pawns and discarding them when they’ve outlived their usefulness to make you lose supporters. If you speak up, you play right into her hands and become the tyrannical lady who tries to interfere with another territory’s internal matters. That’s probably why the marquess granted her request so swiftly.”
What the hell?! Give me a break!
To me, the musical evening had been a karaoke party—a fun thing to do with friends, not some sort of ploy to gain supporters among the lesser nobles or whatever Lydia was imagining.
This is happening because I keep thinking like the commoner I was in my past life...
I was a noble lady now. Not just that, I was the lady of a powerful ducal house. Whether I liked it or not, my position put me in the middle of constant power struggles, and I should have been able to consider this before I acted.
I’m sorry. I’m a failure of a noble. I’m so sorry!
Renato chuckled. “I know you never intended for any of this to happen. You were just enjoying the music and trying to get everyone else to have a good time. That’s why it was so fun—for all of us. No matter how good the musicians, there’s no real pleasure to be derived from being forced to listen to music. That’s not music at all. In our marquessate, old traditional songs like the one Olga sang are regarded as inferior. But there are no inferiors or superiors in music. The essence of true music is enjoyment. I came to realize that during the musical evening. That’s the sort of music I want to play, and yet...”
Renato’s lips trembled, and he looked down. His adorable face warped with frustration.
I took a deep breath. “Thank you for telling me all this, Lord Renato. I’ve committed a grave mistake. I shouldn’t have made the two of you participate. Your father was so angry with you because you participated in my gathering, wasn’t he?”
Renato averted his eyes, and I knew I’d hit the mark.
“Lady Olga, I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you and your family,” I said.
“No... H-Her ladyship already disliked me! She heard me singing while I cleaned her room, and she once whispered in front of me that all my countryside ‘noise’ was giving her a headache, so...”
“Don’t you listen to that, Olga!” Renato screamed. “Her ladyship is so obsessed with getting invited to the God of Music’s garden that she sees all talents as threats she must remove. The only reason she makes me play for her while she practices is so I can’t practice my own music. Your voice is wonderful, so she’s jealous. I’m sure of it. Her ladyship’s singing is excellent. She has great technique and a beautiful voice, the sort that draws people in...but listening to her is no fun!”
As expected of our class’s music nerd. How passionate.
If he could read the situation this accurately, he’d probably been raised to be Lydia’s closest aide when she became empress. Nevertheless, whenever the subject turned to music, his brain cells vanished in a puff of smoke. I was his master’s enemy and thus his enemy by extension, and Olga was from a house he couldn’t be seen colluding with, but he’d never hesitated to compliment us. Even now, he was telling me all this even though he shouldn’t, just for the sake of Olga’s piano.
He really only thinks about music, doesn’t he? But I’m okay with people like that! Sidenote, when did he drop the “Lady” when talking to Olga...?
“Lady Selesnoa took my gathering as a challenge and chose to act against me. In this case, I, Ekaterina Yulnova, shall respond in kind,” I said, bringing my hand to my chest in a serious gesture. “I may not have any say in what happens in her marquessate, but I swear I’ll make her understand she shouldn’t touch my classmates.”
“Lady Ekaterina...”
Oh boy. I went and made a big declaration, but I have absolutely no idea what to do about it. Nevertheless, fear not! What Big Sister Ekaterina is not okay with is seeing children cry.
Besides, as the lady of a ducal house, I was pretty sure I shouldn’t take this sitting down!
Thank you for teaching me how to act as a noble lady, Lydia. I’ll be sure to thank you as I should. You’d better keep your eyes open, because it’s time for this villainess to strike back.
In my previous life, I’d been a commoner corporate drone. In this life, until very recently, I’d been a confined noble lady. Either way, I’d never had any experience dealing with highborn power struggles. I was a total beginner at this, and it would have been a mistake to assume I could fix this situation on my own.
In other words, my next steps should be reporting, contacting, and consulting.
However, if I wanted to resolve this situation, I couldn’t just go to someone and ask them to do all the work for me. I had to do my best to come up with a plan, then ask them to either help me make it a reality or tell me what was wrong with it so we could come up with a better alternative. The answers I received would depend on whom I talked to and the exact situation.
That was how things worked in a company. After your first few months, you had to try to deal with problems yourself.