The young ladies displayed a full range of exaggerated emotions as they badmouthed Rachel. Rachel went on reading in silence as if they didn’t concern her in the slightest.
The young ladies, all dressed up, were standing on a stone floor, occasionally shifting their weight from foot to foot due to their painful high heels. Rachel, dressed comfortably, was seated in an armchair, reading.
The young ladies masked their insults with elegant words and kept trying to talk to Rachel. Rachel remained absorbed in her book and replied half-heartedly, not even glancing in their direction.
Finally, one of them snapped.
“Hey! What is this?! You’re sitting there in your cell, acting all self-important, barely giving us any response, while we’re out here, having to stand! Do you understand the position you’re in?! What is the meaning of this?! This is the reverse of how things should be!”
It seemed the others had been feeling the same way, because once one snapped at Rachel, the rest followed suit.
“Hey, how about saying something?!”
“Don’t you know your place as a prisoner?!”
Rachel wasn’t fussed by all this. She leisurely turned the pages of her book, waiting for the young ladies outside to wear themselves out with their complaining, then said, “You all lack discipline. I’ll be done in another fifty pages, so be polite and wait until then.”
“Wha?! Where does she get off saying that to us?!”
“Listen, you. What do you think will happen if you make enemies of us?!”
Rachel paid them no mind. If she wouldn’t even give Prince Elliott the time of day, she certainly wasn’t going to bother with these imbeciles who clung to him.
When they finally comprehended that Rachel wasn’t going to look away from her book, shout as they might, their faces grew tired from wasted effort. They were forced to wait half an hour.
Once Rachel was down to only a few pages left, they began to feel a sense of relief. But then, right before their eyes...
“Hm? What led to this again?”
Rachel turned back ten pages, and the girls all silently screamed. Now it was just a matter of whether their calves, abused by their footwear, would start to cramp, or whether their tired legs would give out from under them first.
Rachel’s self-proclaimed rivals became so focused on how many pages she had left that they stopped talking completely. They looked at one another in silence, waiting for Rachel to finally close the book.
Rachel laid her book on the side table and took a sip of her cold tea. Feeling refreshed, she said, “I never saw that ending coming. Reading a mystery can be nice once in a while. Yes, I do believe I’ll order a few more volumes by the same author. Ah, I was feeling parched, so this tea tastes even better cold.”
Grinning, Rachel set down her cup and turned to the young ladies. She noticed they were making an effort to protect their feet, which hurt from standing on the rough stone floor during their long wait.
“Oh, I’m frightfully sorry,” Rachel said. “I should have told you all to take a seat. Please, do sit down.”
“Are you joking?! Where is there anywhere to sit?!” cried one girl who was already teary-eyed from the pain.
Rachel looked at the front room, which only had the prison guard’s table and chair for furniture.
“That room is not my responsibility, so please direct your complaints to Prince Elliott.”
“Wh-What are you talking about?!”
“But it’s not as if we’re at sea. If you wanted to sit, you could’ve sat down anywhere, you know?”
“Wh-Why you!”
Young noblewomen, not lowly ones like Margaret, but girls of good lineages who could aim to become crown princess, would never deign to sit on the stone floor of a prison.
Amused by how vexed they were because they couldn’t leave or sit, Rachel smiled and added, “Come to think of it, you were saying something before, yes? I apologize, but I was absorbed in my book and couldn’t listen to what people I care so little about had to say. So, if you don’t mind, could you start again from the beginning?”
“Ferguson, you...!”
If looks could kill, these young ladies would have all been very intimidating...but they couldn’t, so Rachel continued, cool as a cucumber. She could kill without looks, after all.
“Now then.” Rachel smiled and rubbed her hands together. “I haven’t seen you all recently. I’m pleased to see you’re well.”
“You too. You seem energetic for someone who’s been in jail for months now,” remarked one of the ladies.
“Yes, I’ve been living a healthy lifestyle!”
Rachel’s beaming smile caused the girls to falter for a moment, but only because they were startled to see her so expressive. They did not yet realize the danger they themselves were in. They only knew the Rachel that had been playing the prince’s fiancée, so they’d never seen the dangerous, wild Rachel.
“Speaking of health, has yours been all right, Lady Barbara?” Rachel asked.
“Huh?” Barbara replied.
Knowing that they hadn’t grasped the meaning behind her question, Rachel put on a look of excessive concern. “I’ve heard that you’ve taken quite a liking recently to this new fried delicacy, the doughnut, and that you even enjoy them with a heaping dose of whipped cream on top. You’ve gained ten kilos in a mere two months, and your tailors are throwing a fit about how they’re unable to resize your clothing fast enough. It’s an amusing story, but when you get fat...I’m sorry, so pleasantly plump in such a short time, does that not put a strain on your heart? What did your doctor have to say about it at your checkup last week?”
“Wha...?!”
Barbara was well aware that she hadn’t been doing a good job of hiding it, so she went silent. However, the others, who were not yet under fire and therefore could view things with cooler heads, noticed something strange about what Rachel said.
Two months ago, Rachel had already been in prison. How did she know about a health checkup that had taken place merely a week ago, and in a private residence where the information shouldn’t have gotten out to begin with?
Looking around at each of the speechless girls, Rachel addressed her next target.
“Lady Cara.”
“Wh-What is it...?” Cara responded, obviously wary.
With a charming smile, Rachel cut straight to the chase and asked, “How did you enjoy the masquerade last week?”
Cara winced. The other young ladies began whispering suspiciously.
“Last week? Was there a masquerade last week?”
“No. I certainly never received an invitation, at least...”
Still smiling, Rachel added, “Ohh, I called it a masquerade, but it’s not the sort of thing that members of polite society would be officially invited to. It was a personal gathering, for young nobles who share certain interests...”
“Oh...”
They concluded that it must have been a dance circle, attended by a select few. They popped up from time to time. Boys and girls who were bad dancers and worried about embarrassing themselves at parties would get together to practice. That was nothing to cringe about, though.
It was time for Rachel to drop the bomb.
“One where they all dance together without any clothes on and engage in other fun activities.”
The young ladies were too shocked to even gasp.
“She’s lying, okay?! I don’t know anything about that!” shouted Cara, now pale as a sheet.
The knowledge that a highborn lady like her, one who aimed to become crown princess, was a regular attendee of such a depraved social circle would be a major scandal. It would be difficult for her to marry someone of the same standing as her, let alone the prince, once it came out.