BPOTWC Chapter 6

Clarisse quickly became certain that Betsy wasn't a very good person.

After bathing, once she'd been taken to a shabby room beneath the roof, Clarisse pointed out another of the maid's faults.

"You lied to me. You said that once I'd washed up, I could go pay my respects to the Duchess."

"Quiet! A criminal, mouthing back at me word for word like it's nothing!"

"But..."

"Besides, don't you realize Her Ladyship wouldn't want to be in the same room as a criminal like you?"

"..."

"But if you tell me whether there was a woman among the party, perhaps Her Ladyship might take a little pity on you."

She poked Clarisse's head with a fingertip.

"Think it over carefully, even now. See if you feel like answering."

When Clarisse stood there with her lips pressed firmly together, the maid picked up the single candle lighting the room and left.

With a bang, the door slammed shut and the cramped attic room was swallowed in darkness, and then came the sound of a latch being locked.

"...!"

Clarisse ran to where the last afterimage of light had vanished and knocked on the door.

"I-it's dark!"

Even to her words, thick with confusion, the reply that came from beyond the closed door was utterly cold.

"Isn't this the perfect environment for thinking it over?"

After that, no matter how much she called out through the door, no answer ever came back.

Maximilian's wife, the Duchess of Sheridan, "Asella Sheridan," was a woman so slight she seemed she might be scattered by the winter wind itself.

Her lovely silver hair, fitting for Sheridan, called the Winter Castle, and her demure, elegant manner suited the title of "Duchess" perfectly.

But that was only how she appeared from the outside.

Back in her room, the Duchess was nothing more than a young woman clutching a great deal of anxiety close to her chest.

Even now, she watched Betsy with frightened eyes as the maid moved about, thumping and banging as she tidied the room.

Betsy had come along from the Duchess's family home when she married.

Ordinarily, a bride would bring along a maid she could feel at ease with, but in her case, things were a little different.

Betsy was a watcher.

She was in the habit of writing down every single thing the Duchess did and reporting it back to her family.

Since the Duchess had left her own weakness sitting right there in her family's hands, she was always mindful of the watcher's mood and could scarcely manage to say a single word properly.

"Um, there's... something."

Still, today she worked up her courage and called out to Betsy carefully.

"What is it?"

"I heard there's... a little girl. The one I'm supposed to be taking care of."

"Ha, taking care of? Who's taking care of whom? Don't be ridiculous. If Her Ladyship's got time to fuss over some brat she doesn't even know, she'd do better spending it popping out one of her own!"

At the word "child," the Duchess pressed her lips shut.

Her birth family, the Darlingtons, were anxiously waiting only for news of a "pregnancy."

"If Your Ladyship would only bear a child, the Countess Darlington might finally allow me to go home! How much longer am I supposed to live in this godforsaken freezing place?"

"That... I'm sorry."

The Duchess apologized out of habit. Even knowing full well that there was nothing here for her to apologize for.

"Now that you understand."

The maid put both hands on her hips and snapped at her.

"Once the Duke returns, be sure to get yourself properly pregnant this time! Just how frigid do you have to be, that the Duke doesn't even look at your face before rushing off to the north?"

"But the little girl the Duke brought back..."

"Ah, never mind that! Is that what you're worried about right now? And you're fine with the Duke not even sharing your bed?"

At the blunt remark, her cheeks flushed red.

It had already been three years since their marriage, and yet the two of them still hadn't properly shared a bed.

Maximilian, out of consideration for his wife's honor, did visit her chambers now and then.

But he only read a little from a book before leaving, and showed no sign of intending to spend proper time together as husband and wife.

Of course, the only person in the ducal household who knew this fact was Betsy, who tended the Duchess's bedchamber.

"...No, it's not fine, but."

"Well then, at least try wearing that new dress. And put on a prettier expression while you're at it."

The Duchess dropped her head.

For the past half year, he'd been away because of the war, and it had been such a relief not to have to hear this dreadful sort of talk.

'Even so... I felt a little relieved that the Duke didn't come straight back. Though I do feel sorry for it...'

But he would return within three days, and with that, her brief taste of freedom would come to an end.

Then again, she'd resigned herself long ago, watching the course of the war unfold, to the fact that this state of affairs wouldn't last much longer regardless.

"Ah, all right. I'll try harder, so just be good to the child in the meantime. All right?"

"I'll handle it myself, so just leave it be. Anyone would think you were some real noble lady, the way you..."

Just then the Duchess started in alarm and quickly grabbed the maid's arm.

"D-don't say it!"

"Ugh, fine. Honestly..."

Betsy shoved her arm away roughly and scowled.

"Look at you, playing the good girl, when you're the very first one trying to swindle the Duke out of everything he has."

And with that, she left the room, her footsteps thumping heavily.

Though in the corridor, when she happened to pass other knights, her voice turned all sweetness and light.

Left alone, Asella—no, "Brielle," the liar who had to pretend to be her—let out a small sigh.

However she thought about it, she couldn't bring herself to believe that Betsy would take good care of a small child.

Clarisse had dozed off crouched by the door, and it was some time before she finally opened her eyes.

It had probably been less than an hour, but the once-barren room had been completely transformed.

For one thing, there was light. And not just any light—a lamp burning quite brightly.

And somehow, she found herself wrapped in a soft, warm blanket.

And best of all...

There was bread and soup. And that wasn't all. There was jam and butter, and chocolate too. And beside them, an intriguing-looking storybook!

"This is..."

Clarisse pressed her hand against the nearby floor.

She stroked the cold stone's surface again and again, running her fingers over a few of the stones, and then, after a long while, seemed to arrive at some understanding, for she lifted her head sharply.

"The... Duchess came quietly and brought all this herself? She really did? Truly?"

It seemed so hard to believe that Clarisse repeated the same question several times over.

"I... I thought she'd be a very frightening person."

Feeling a strange sort of sensation, Clarisse tore off a small piece of bread and put it in her mouth.

"It's like it's melting."

The warm white bread spread softly across her tongue, savory and delicious.

"To think she's called a queen, and yet she'd give something like this to a prisoner... What kind of person could the Duchess possibly be?"

Clarisse pictured her face once more in her mind.

Perhaps she was someone quite different from the "queen" Clarisse had imagined.

"Maybe she's soft and gentle, like this bread."

Or warm, like the soup.

Or perhaps as sweet as the jam.

"If she's as warm as this blanket... that would be wonderful indeed."

Clarisse, her stomach quickly filling up, fell into a deep sleep, freely picturing the Duchess in her mind.

The next morning.

Betsy made her way toward the room beneath the roof with a face full of confidence.

Having spent a night in a cold, dark place, the child should have come to her senses by now and grown properly obedient, or so she believed.

In truth, the maid was aware, on some level, that she was being harsh toward the child.

But having been sent out to this godforsaken freezing place, unable to return home for years now, all that remained in her head anymore was irritation.

With no one to properly vent that feeling on, she only ever grumbled at Brielle...

'They're going to raise the child in the manor?'

Betsy had been utterly dumbfounded when she'd heard the knights say the Duke intended to raise the fallen kingdom's little princess in the manor until she turned eighteen.

"Should've just killed it and been done—instead of coming all this way saddled with some growth stuck to him..."

Already the Duke was a block of wood who refused even to share a bed with his own wife—if some child went wandering about the house on top of that, the situation would only grow more hopeless still.

'I need to keep her tucked away somewhere as far from the Duke's sight as possible.'

She was a criminal regardless, so treating her this way was hardly something anyone would scold her for.

'Not shipping her off to some vermin-crawling dungeon cell—now that's generous of me.'

And yet this little brat didn't even understand that much, going on about repaying the Duke's kindness while refusing to tell her whether there'd been any woman in the party.

'I'll make sure she understands exactly who her master is from now on.'

She picked up a nearby broom handle.

If she carried something club-like, the child wouldn't dare think of defying her.

Betsy unlocked the latch and flung the door open.

"...What's this?"

The child she'd expected to find in despair was instead lying peacefully asleep, snug beneath a warm blanket.

She'd fallen into such a contented sleep that even with the door flung open this violently, she slept on soundly, unable to wake.

"Damn little wench! Where'd you get all this?!"

She let out a sharp shriek, and only then did the child manage to open her eyes just barely.

"Sneaking off to steal, then dropping off to sleep like you hadn't a worry in the world, living the good life... Christ, you even ate the food you brought back?"

"Ah..."

Not yet fully awake, Clarisse only stared blankly at the maid.

The exhaustion built up from the long journey hadn't faded yet.

"You even stole a lamp with oil in it!"

Betsy tore through the room haphazardly, ripping apart the blanket Clarisse had been wrapped in and flinging it to the floor.

That was when she found, tucked inside the blanket, the small pouch the girl had been clutching.

"And what's this you've stolen now?"

"Not that!"

Clarisse quickly grabbed for the pouch, but the maid snatched it away before she could.

"G-give it back!"

Clarisse held out both hands, pleading.

"Jewels, is it, then...? What? It's just a bunch of stones."

"That's my friend! Please, give it back!"

"Hah... friend? Don't make me laugh."

Betsy threw open the window and the wooden shutter and hurled Clarisse's pebbles out into the open air.

"Ah..."

As Clarisse stared at this in stunned helplessness, the maid shrugged her shoulders and said,

"You're going to be punished for stealing."

"I didn't take anything..."

"They'll whip you till you're dead."

At the frightening words, Clarisse could only swallow her breath, unable to answer.

Believing the child had finally grown properly obedient, the maid smiled.

"Do you want to live?"

"...I want to live."

"Then you know what you have to do, don't you?"

Clarisse pressed her lips shut.

"Keeping quiet like that... so it's true, isn't it—there was a woman with them? Did the Duke put a gag order on you? Gods, this is maddening."

Betsy pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a heavy sigh.

Clarisse, who'd simply been watching this quietly, looked up at her with fists clenched tight.

"Do I truly have to answer, in order to live?"

"That's what I'm telling you, isn't it? Are you an idiot? How many times do I have to say it?"

"In that case."

Clarisse turned her head toward a point behind the maid. And with an expression full of apology, she said the following:

"May I answer this question, Your Grace?"

Startled, Betsy turned around.