A panicked scream echoed throughout the salon.
“Marie! Why did you open the curtain?!”
Seeing the state of her mistress, Marie heaved an exasperated sigh. “What on earth are you doing, milady?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” came the irritated response.
Curious about what was going on, I peered over Marie’s shoulder. There I saw Lady Rosalie in the middle of taking off a stunning white dress. In her dismay, she’d managed to keep it in front of her chest to cover herself, but her silky smooth back was on full display. The white bustier, with its delicate lace pattern, made her look especially bewitching.
As I gazed at her back, I unwittingly let out a surprised yelp.
“We have guests, Marie! Close it! Now!”
She crouched on the ground and turned bright red as if she couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Oh dear!” Marie replied. “Don’t sit on the floor in a corner like that! Your beautiful dress will get stained. Go on, stand up. I’ll help you get undressed.” She used both hands to lift her mistress up off the ground.
“I’m begging you, Marie!” Turning her back, she objected as forcefully as she could, desperate for us not to see her.
“Very well, milady. Misaki, Kirara, could you wait outside for a moment? I’ll get my mistress changed quickly.”
“Uhm, yes. Certainly.”
Kirara and I nodded mechanically, then escaped from Lady Rosalie’s personal spot.
Shortly afterward, Marie called, “All done! You can come in now.”
“All right,” we replied gingerly, stepping back in.
With a far more composed expression, Lady Rosalie was sitting on a chair in her regular Societal Arts uniform. “Welcome to my salon, the Gloriana Guesthouse. It’s a pleasure to have you here.”
She was smiling as if none of the prior events had happened. Hmm. I feel like the kindest thing to do would be to let it be, but she is trying to make formal dresses part of the salon’s official attire, right?
I hadn’t seen her wearing it properly, but what I had seen made it feel like a shame not to comment.
“That dress really suited you,” I ended up saying. “You looked as pretty as a princess. I hope next time I can see you fully dressed in it!”
She let out a sigh mixed with a wail. “I really hoped you’d just pretend you didn’t see it,” she confessed. Her face flushed again and she lowered her head. “I know it’s ridiculous. I don’t mind if you laugh at me. What’s the point in wearing a ball gown if there’s no ball?”
“No, don’t be silly! It really conveys the image you’re going for with the salon. It’s like we’ve stepped into the world of high society, especially with the other members pleasantly chatting away. You could forget you’re even at a school.”
Kirara backed me up. “Exactly! Dresses like that are what every girl dreams of wearing. I can’t wait until an occasion comes along where Lady Kagura needs me to wear one just like it.”
Gosh, I had no idea Kirara was such a fan of formal partywear.
“It makes me happy to hear that, but it’s still a little bit embarrassing, I suppose.”
As she spoke, Lady Rosalie slowly lifted her head. This looked so cute that all of us started grinning, but Marie had the biggest smile of all.
Marie whispered into my ear, “You see how adorable she is? It gets me so emotional that I just want to squeeze her tight.”
I’d gotten this feeling the first time I met her as well, but it seemed like Marie enjoyed seeing Lady Rosalie get into awkward predicaments.
“You do know I can hear you, Marie! I’m going to punish you later!”
“I’ll look forward to it!”
Marie added a little chuckle as she sat down next to her mistress. Clearly, she wasn’t worried about her punishment at all.
“Uhm, anyway, the two of you must have come to talk about Sakura, right?”
It looked like Lady Rosalie didn’t want to spend any time slowly sounding us out and instead got straight to the point. That meant we didn’t have to make any small talk to try and figure out her intentions either.
With a hint of a nervous frown, Kirara replied, “Yes. I’m impressed that you realized when we haven’t officially informed other salons yet.”
“Hee hee. I have my own information network, you know. I wasn’t told any details, but I found out not too long ago that the Sky Salon was going after Sakura. Of course, I already had an inkling when Sara resisted my early attempt to lure her in.” Lady Rosalie looked crestfallen. “I should have known it was a mistake to approach her out of nowhere. It was only natural that she’d find it suspicious.”
“Didn’t I tell you it was better to get closer to her slowly but surely?” Marie interjected.
“But I had secret information nobody else knew—except people like Lady Angelica and Lady Himeko. I couldn’t help being impatient.”
“I see your point. It might have gone better if Sara weren’t friends with Misaki and Kirara, I suppose.”
“That’s true,” said Lady Rosalie, turning back to us. “I didn’t realize you were her friend. Last I heard, you didn’t get along at all.”
A cold sweat came over me. Lady Rosalie knows way more than I expected. Whoever’s feeding her information, whether that’s Lady Shion or someone else, they even know details of our relationship with Sara. How? Does that mean it’s someone who sees us a lot?
Thinking about it, though, Kirara and I were actually pretty high profile at the school. Gathering information about us probably wouldn’t have been that difficult for anyone.
It was only very recently that Sara had really become our friend, so it made sense that that hadn’t reached Lady Rosalie’s ears yet.