Not that Leticiel would let him. She released a perfectly aimed spear from her hand, grazing his clothes and pinning him to the ground. “Don’t move,” she warned him. “I’m trying to avoid your face, but you might get hurt if you move.”
“Eeeeek!”
Arriving in front of Rocheford, who was unable to escape even if he tried, Leticiel bent down to meet his gaze. His anxiety reached its limit as she narrowed her heterochromatic eyes at him with a cold expression. He had certainly cast aside his pride as a prince.
“Your Highness, I don’t want to waste my time by engaging in unproductive conversations with you, so let me say just one thing.”
“U-U-Unproductive?”
“Please stop whining over every little thing. I’m simply stating facts. Returning to the subject, you said that I seduced a man despite having a fiancé. In that case, Your Highness, why do you always have a woman beside you despite having a fiancée?”
Rocheford’s shoulders stiffened at Leticiel’s emotionless question. He should have thought about the woman he was in love with before attacking Drossell and Zeke. Unable to respond to Leticiel’s logical argument, Rocheford could only look at her with lifeless eyes. He knew that he couldn’t argue, but he still felt the need to stick up for himself. “Sh-She’s…”
“Oh, you don’t have to say everything. She’s just a ‘close friend,’ right?” Rocheford was silent. “You have a close friend of the opposite sex, so why am I not allowed to have one? Do you plan on interfering with my friendships, Your Highness?”
“N-No, I…”
“Didn’t your follower already try to tell you that we weren’t alone? Why aren’t you more observant of your surroundings? You would have seen her if you’d looked closely, right? Or is your eyesight that poor?”
“Th-That’s…”
“Plus, you’re too close with my younger sister for me to believe that you’re just friends. How dare you accuse me while putting yourself on a pedestal.”
“Eek!”
The first smile Leticiel ever showed her fiancé was an icy cold one. She could hear Rocheford’s teeth chattering as the temperature around him suddenly plummeted.
This time, her powers hadn’t gone out of control; she was deliberately creating a blizzard. Since she’d been practicing for two months, she was able to control the events that occurred when she used her sorcery.
“I—I—I w-won’t forget this!” Rocheford was stumbling over his words, but he still seemed to have some pride left within him. When Leticiel released the spell, he was freed and immediately rolled away as if his rear end were on fire.
“Are you two all right?” Leticiel asked Mirandalette and Zeke, who looked awkward.
“Y-Yes,” Mirandalette replied. “U-Um, Miss Drossell…”
“Were you bothered by what His Highness said?”
“…Yes,” the other girl admitted.
At Lucrezia Academy, the uniforms worn by the sons and daughters of dukes, marquises, and some counts—in other words, the highest ranking nobles—were slightly different from those worn by other students. Colored stripes on the bottom of their shirt, cuffs, skirt hems, and the sides of the men’s trousers indicated their status, with high-ranking nobles wearing gold stripes and the others wearing black stripes.
“You don’t have to worry about what he said,” Leticiel told her. “I want to be friends with you both because I like you. Your social status doesn’t matter.”
Zeke and Mirandalette gave her wide-eyed looks as she plainly stated what was, in her opinion, common sense.
“I think that’s enough for today. Neither of you are in the mood to keep practicing, are you?” Leticiel suggested, guessing how they were feeling.
“Yeah…” With that, they said their goodbyes and dispersed.
After using teleportation to return home, Leticiel headed into the bathroom attached to her room to freshen up. However, when she returned to her room after her bath, she heard something outside of her room.
“Huh?”
Bang, thump.
She listened carefully, thinking that it sounded like someone had fallen, crashing into the wall near her room.
Wondering who it could be, Leticiel quietly drew closer to her door, pressing her ear against it to hear what was going on outside.
“How many times does this make?”
“I-I’m terribly sorry! Please forgive me, Your Grace!”
Leticiel could hear two women talking. Carefully opening her door so it wouldn’t make a sound, Leticiel peeked through the gap to see what was going on.
A little further down the corridor, she saw a maid lowering her head to the duchess. The duchess was wearing her usual heavy makeup and an extravagant dress, her mouth hidden behind a fan.
On the other hand, the maid was trembling so much that she looked pitiful. She had likely made some sort of mistake, but the amount of terror in her expression was abnormal.
“It seems like you want to be fired. Well, it’d be better to replace you with someone more competent, I suppose,” the duchess sneered.
“N-No! I beg of you, Your Grace! Anything but that!” All the blood drained from the maid’s face. She must have a reason not to want to be fired.
Leticiel wasn’t particularly interested in their dispute and considered ignoring them. But the thought of being unable to rest while they were causing a fuss near her room made her change her mind and she quickly intervened.
Opening her door, she greeted her mother in her usual expressionless manner. “Good evening, Lady Diane. I didn’t realize duchesses have so much free time that they can spend it idling away in places like this.”
Diane couldn’t hide her surprise at Leticiel’s appearance. With wide eyes, she asked, “Why are you here? What did you just call me…?”
Had she forgotten that she was right by Drossell’s room? Knowing the duke’s family, it was entirely possible. Ignoring Diane’s second question, Leticiel turned to the maid and said, “What is your name?”
Though she was surprised that the duke’s daughter had suddenly spoken to her, the maid dutifully answered, “I-It’s Nicole.”
“Right, Nicole. Why is Lady Diane scolding you?”
“Uh…”
“Oh, you don’t need to mind her. I’m the one you’re talking with right now.”
Nicole’s face twisted exaggeratedly as Drossell casually told her to ignore her mistress. The glare Diane was throwing her way sharpened, but Leticiel née Drossell was too uncaring to notice. Even as she thought, I’m definitely worried…, Nicole was wise enough not to speak her thoughts aloud. Instead, she said, “N-No, it was nothing.”
“Is that so? It sounded to me like she was saying that you’re useless unless you can clean properly.”
Nicole swallowed the words, “How did you know that?” before they could leave her lips.
To be honest, Leticiel had mostly guessed based on the cleaning supplies that were next to Nicole, but her guess seemed to have been spot on.
“I wondered what sort of incident must have occurred to have the mistress of this manor angry… But what a silly reason. Besides, this area doesn’t look dirty to me. Excuse me, Lady Diane, but could you specifically explain what is dirty?” Diane refused to answer, so Leticiel continued with a blank expression. “Could it be…that you’re finding faults with the servants? Though I find it hard to believe that you, the ‘flower of high society,’ would do something so uncouth.”
Unable to refute Leticiel’s argument, Diane gave her a nasty glare over the top of her fan. Leticiel remained aloof, unfazed by the duchess’s malice and much calmer than Nicole, who was nervous while watching the women from the sidelines.
Finally, Diane said, “You…”
“Yes?”
“What did…you call me?”
Leticiel had wondered what she was planning to say, but that was it? It was an extremely abrupt change of topic.
Apparently, Diane couldn’t believe that Drossell had called her by her name. Hmm… Is that really what bothered her? Leticiel could only tilt her head, not understanding why the other woman was so shocked. Wouldn’t it be more absurd for the daughter she hated to call her “Mother”? Besides, Leticiel didn’t feel like Diane was her mother, so she’d chosen a manner of address that felt more appropriate to her.
“I called you ‘Lady Diane.’ Why do you ask?” It’s common sense, her nonchalant tone seemed to suggest.
The hand that was holding Diane’s fan trembled. She glared at Drossell before quickly walking away with thumping stomps that were much heavier than the graceful ones you’d expect from a lady. She seemed quite angry.
What…? Leticiel was stumped. Diane was obviously upset about something, but Leticiel had no clue what it could be.
Well, they didn’t see each other often, so it didn’t really matter to her.
“U-Um, thank you very much,” Nicole said, bowing once Diane was out of sight. Leticiel quietly shook her head, stopping her. She hadn’t left her room with the intent to help Nicole, even if that was what had happened in the end. She didn’t deserve the other girl’s thanks.
“I just did what I wanted to do. You don’t need to bow to me.”
“Still…you saved me, Miss Drossell. I’m truly grateful,” Nicole replied, shaking her head. Then she went on to explain that Diane often scolded her for all sorts of things, but the other servants and members of the duke’s family only laughed at her in amusement or watched from afar. Leticiel was the first person to have come to her rescue.
“I didn’t do much…but you’re welcome, I suppose. Good luck with the rest of your work.”
“Yes!” Nicole smiled happily at Drossell’s parting words. She had only recently started working at the duke’s manor and was still not used to performing her tasks, plus she didn’t get along well with her coworkers. Her employers verbally abused her, saying she was useless, and the senior servants mocked her for being incompetent.
Leticiel would likely never know how grateful Nicole was for her actions and words.
“By the way, Miss Drossell,” the maid started. “You called the duchess Lady Diane earlier…”
“Yes, I did. I didn’t get her name wrong, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. But…shouldn’t you call her ‘Mother’?”
“Oh, it’s fine. I’ll be sure to call her ‘Mother’ when others are watching.”
“Errm, that’s not the issue I was referring to…” Nicole, who had made the remark without thinking, was perfectly right to think that way.