Five minutes later, my sister’s tears stopped at last. Constance brought us our tea and meringues with perfect timing.
“Adele, this tea is native to Triste and very delicious,” I explained. “The meringues are a popular Lakeside Duck Bakery product, made with lots of berry puree.”
“Thank you, Francette.” Drinking the warm tea restored the color to my sister’s face. “Oh, it really is delicious.”
After eating a meringue, she smiled gracefully. I didn’t need to ask for her feedback to know that it had been to her liking.
“I’m sorry for losing my composure, Francette,” she said.
“It’s okay... I was just surprised. I wasn’t expecting it.” The Adele I knew was always calm, never showing any sign of unrest. “Um, could you explain what happened?”
“I couldn’t help but get emotional when I saw your face. I’ve been wanting to see you for so long.” She held my hand. “Thank you for inviting me to your wedding. I always thought you hated me.”
“Wh-Why would I?!”
“You suffered so much because of me.”
“That wasn’t your fault at all.”
“No, I failed to manage Prince Mael’s relationships with women properly.” With a distant look in her eyes, my sister began to explain how frustrating the broken engagement had been for her. “During queen training, I was taught that all women who marry into the royal family must manage the mistresses, because if you don’t keep track of them and control their every action, they’ll take advantage of your negligence and cause your downfall. However, this guidance was meant to be applied after we’d already been wed. Perhaps no one expected that a prince would take a mistress before getting married.”
“I-I see.”
“I knew Prince Mael wouldn’t like a stiff and formal woman like me, so after getting married, I was planning to select a mistress for him and set up a ‘coincidental’ meeting for them to get acquainted. I was prepared for that from the very beginning.”
Sadly, my sister’s elaborate plan had been foiled and the engagement called off.
“Prince Mael merely fell for a honey trap,” she continued. “There must have been someone orchestrating it from behind the scenes.”
She had a keen intuition, so perhaps she was right. But that was all in the past now.
“I spoke to mother many times about bringing you to the Empire, but she warned me that you were stubborn, so you probably wouldn’t leave the country unless forced to.”
It seemed that our mother understood me well. Back then, I surely would have refused to go to the Empire no matter how much my sister tried to persuade me.
“Mother kept telling me to let father take care of you, so I assumed you were well provided for,” she continued.
“I apologize for keeping the truth from you.”
“Father is to blame for everything. He should have been able to establish comfortable living conditions in a nicer district.”
Our father had accepted his fate all too easily, choosing to live in the old part of town and let his mistresses take care of his needs.
“I still haven’t forgiven him,” my sister said, clenching her fist. “If I see him at your wedding, I might just slap him on the cheek.”
I really didn’t want to have bloodshed at the ceremony. “Um, please refrain. I’m afraid you might hurt yourself.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Francette. For a while now, I’ve been thinking that his crooked nature needs to be corrected. This is a good opportunity to swing down the hammer of justice.”
My sister was the type to never waver in her decisions, so there was probably nothing I could do to stop her. I could only pray that our father would be able to dodge her attacks.
“Father has changed quite a bit,” I said.
“I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“He reflected on his actions after the knights detained him.”
I explained that he had cut ties with all of his mistresses and now lived a modest life with André, the attendant whom mother had sent. Personally, I felt that it would be fine to leave him alone as long as he wasn’t causing trouble for the family.
“Don’t be naive!” my sister scolded me. “When I received your letter, I interrogated father about what happened. That was how I learned that not only had you been living alone and struggling to put food on the table, you’d been forced to take responsibility for the consequences of him running away with his mistress. Francette, you told father that you would report the incident to me, but you never actually did.”
“I did tell mother, but I didn’t think you would have time for something like this. I put it off until later because I knew you would be busy before your wedding.”
“Francette, did you never think that father was a good-for-nothing?”
“I did and still do. I haven’t forgiven him for what he did.”
“As you shouldn’t. And he should be subjected to the same suffering that you were put through!”
My sister seemed to be burning with anger at our father. I was quite sure that this was the first time I’d ever seen her express her emotions so openly.
“Um, Adele, no matter what happened, I still think the adage of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is wrong.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because that cycle might never end—you could seek retribution, only for someone else to want vengeance against you in turn. Besides, if you give him such a clear punishment, he might mistakenly think he’s off the hook afterwards. I think he should have to live with his guilt for the rest of his life, so I don’t want to scold him too harshly or beat him, lest that make him think the matter is settled.”
“Francette...” My sister frowned sadly and looked at me with teary eyes.
I held her hand and gave her a reassuring look. “It’s okay.”
“I can’t do anything for you, can I?”
“That’s not true. Strangely enough, seeing you get angry on my behalf made me feel better.” Probably because this was the first time she had ever expressed such fury. “It was surprising, though. I didn’t know you could be so wrathful.”
“It’s only natural that you weren’t aware. I’ve been holding back these feelings all my life.”
As the future queen, my sister had been taught to keep her emotions tucked away at all times—to maintain a calm state of mind like the surface of a still lake.