Chapter 88: Chapter 88

TL: Zimming

The woman looked shabby compared to other nobles in the room.

She came up the stairs and greeted the nobles, but no one replied. Their reactions to my aunt and me were very different.

A woman with dark brown hair stood alone while my aunt and I were conversing with the nobles.

When I glanced at her, my aunt said,

“It’s Lady Barthou.”

My aunt noticed and told me her name.

“Lady Barthou?”

“Leticia Barthou. The eldest daughter of Count Barthou.”

“I heard about many nobles from the chairman, but I didn’t know Count Barthou.”

“It’s because he’s full of debts, and he only has his title.”

“But how is she here? There are only people here who said the chairman was important.”

“Count Barthou is loyal to the Duke Marche and Empress Yvonne. He’s sending her daughter here to do all sorts of nasty things, to catch the eyes of the powerful.”

I blinked.

Then Leticia Barthou headed to the lounge. I quickly said to my aunt that I wanted to go to the toilet, and followed her.

Leticia was washing her hands at the sink. My eyes went to her reflection on the mirror.

“Hello, Lady.”

“Hello.”

Maybe she heard the other people calling me Dubbled’s young miss, but she didn’t ask who I was.

I went and sat on the sofa, as she said to me.

“You’d better stay outside. To them, this lounge is for losers like me.”

“But I’m bored out there. They’re all adults, and they only talk about difficult things.”

Speaking naively, Leticia smiled at me helplessly.

“Let’s play together!”

Leticia replied with a smile on her face,

“Okay. What should we do?”

“Please tell me a fun story.”

“Shall I?”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Sitting beside me, Leticia told me some tales of the Empire.

I reacted enthusiastically to her stories.

“Tell me about the whale story too!”

“Whale?”

“It’s about the father whale looking for the mother and baby whale.”

Leticia’s hands flinched when I told her a fairy tale that became famous recently.

“That…sorry, I don’t know much about whales. Ah, It’s already been a long time. I’ll go out first.”

It seemed that she was deliberately avoiding this topic, but I didn’t care.

Because I knew the reason why she was avoiding it.

This is the story of the whale family.

The father whale and mother whale, which lived in different places, accidentally met and fell in love, as the baby whale was born.

The story is about the mother whale and baby whale disappearing in an unfortunate accident, and the father whale was desperately searching for them.

The reason why Leticia didn’t want to tell me this story was because this is her story.

To be exact, the emperor’s brother, Duke Locard, deliberately spread this story to the empire to find his beloved woman who suddenly disappeared one day with their child.

Leticia once worked as a maid, hiding her identity to pay off her father’s debts.

She was the maid of Duke Locard, who was secretly recuperating to hide the fact that he had lost his eyesight due to illness.

At that time, the two fell in love and gave birth to a baby, and somehow Leticia fled as his vision gradually recovered.

‘But in the end, it’s a happy ending like the story of a whale family.’

Leticia will be his wife later, and I want her to be my godmother.

**

Sharon called my aunt and me to show us the sketch she had completed.

It was surprisingly a lovely and cute design.

I wonder if I would look good wearing this.

Aunt nodded.

“This would look good on Leblaine.”

“I know right! I’ve completed the sketch and I got goosebumps seeing this. This dress is perfect for her!”

“Can you give me the accessories too?”

“Hmm, I can’t say no to my muse. Well, alright. Because I like the little miss too.”

Aunt stamped the Ariage’s seal on the dress receipt.

I almost fainted when I looked at it out of curiosity.

‘That expensive?!’

It doesn’t even compare to Melvin’s dress.

It’s a price that makes me feel motivated to become richer.

“Thank you as always, customer.”

Sharon smiled and lowered her head.

Then we came back home.

Dad and brothers were already waiting for us.

“What kind of dress is it?”

Henry asked me.

“A really pretty dress.”

“I know Sharon’s ability, but I’m more excited to see you wear it.”

I told them how pretty the dress was and how expensive it was.

Even though I said the price, my brothers didn’t react much and I was embarrassed.

‘This is the very example of children being born rich.’

I also talked about Lady Leticia Barthou.

I knew the big story in the future, but I needed detailed information.

My dad and brothers knew about Count Barthou as I thought.

“The Count of Barthou…I heard that his daughter cleans and does the laundry herself because the servants left due to an overdue salary.”

“Didn’t they borrow a lot of money? Where does that money go?”

“The money borrowed was used for the education of their eldest son and younger son. Even after borrowing the money, the youngest, Lady Barthou still suffers.”

The lady cleans and does laundry herself…

‘She won’t have much time to go out because she needs to manage that big mansion.’

In addition, she had little time to go out because she had to take care of her own child.

Isaac asked,

“Why didn’t she just run away being treated like a servant?”

Henry replied, putting sugar cubes in my teacup.

“When they were young, people said that the relationship between them was nice. The Count lived with the lady, and the lady also said she would marry his father. Maybe she couldn’t forget the memories of that time.”

“What a fool.”

While they were talking, I wondered how to get close to Lady Leticia.

‘Hmm, I have to get close to Leticia…’

Suddenly, the surrounding became quiet.

I lifted my head, my dad and brothers were staring at me.

Dad asked me,

“Blaine, who do you want to marry?”

“Why do you ask the obvious? She likes me the most.”

“You’re absolutely wrong.”

Isaac and Henry replied to each other.

“Blaine.”

“Kid.”

“Leblaine.”

“Speak at ease, Leblaine.”

“Yes, you can be honest with me, kid.”

“Who is it, Blaine?”

If I said one of the three, I would have a hard time.

I rolled my eyes and said,

“I, so…um…Johann!”

The faces of three people, except for Johann, have become pitiful.

Their eyes were fixed on me like arrowheads.

“Why?”

Dad’s voice was low enough to shake the ground.

Isaac was glaring at Johann with fierce eyes.

‘That’s because he’s the most normal member of the family.’

Johann closed the book he was reading and got up.

‘Look, Johann doesn’t respond to these words like them.’

I was thinking so, but my dad said with a grim look.

“Where are you going?”

Then Johann answered in a strange way.

“I’m going to look for a tuxedo.”

Henry and Isaac glared at Johann as if they were going to tear him to death.

Dad called the butler.

“Put him back to the academy.”

***

I poked my head out the door.

‘Okay, no one.’

After confirming that there were no people, I laid the doll on the bed and took the device out of my pocket.

After thinking about the location, I opened my eyes after being wrapped in the light. There was Seria in front of me.

“Little miss!”

“Hello…”

When I greeted her with a tired face, Seria quickly got up and let me sit on the sofa.

“I got a letter saying you came to the city, but what brings you here without contacting me?”

“I want to confirm the progress of the work.”

The progress refers to tracking down the ‘customer’ who kidnapped me and bought Seria’s younger sibling.

“Yes, I heard that there was someone who worked in the house of hope related to the slave trade, and I checked it. But because they were pretty careful, I tried to spy on them carefully.”

“Well done.”

“Yes. But what’s the matter?”