As soon as Anne arrived at the room, she called out to me in a trembling voice.
“Miss… I’m truly sorry.”
“For what?”
At my calm—almost indifferent—attitude, Anne bit down on her lip.
“Earlier… when Young Master said those things… I couldn’t deny them.”
“You mean that I killed the Duchess?”
When I bluntly asked what she had been trying to say indirectly, Anne’s shoulders flinched hard.
Then, after a long silence, Anne inhaled deeply with an expression that looked almost resolute.
“I truly never thought that you killed Madam. Not even once.”
“It’s okay.”
“…What?”
Anne doubted her own ears.
“What did you just…?”
“I said it’s okay.”
I spoke firmly, as if driving the point into place.
“You don’t hafta apologize.”
“Miss, I disgraced you without even daring to defend you. So why…?”
“How could Anne possibly say no in that situation?”
I genuinely meant it when I said I was fine.
Anne was nothing more than a hired servant. There was no way she could recklessly stand against the second son of the ducal family.
Of course, saying I wasn’t hurt at all would be a lie. But I truly wasn’t angry at Anne. If I were in her position, I probably wouldn’t have stepped in either.
“Anne couldn’t help it.”
“Miss…”
I smiled faintly at Anne, who was looking at me with touched eyes.
“I couldn’t finish my apple pie.”
After staring at me quietly for a moment, Anne nodded vigorously.
“I’ll bring it right away!”
“Mm.”
Click.
As soon as Anne left, the room fell deathly silent.
From today’s conflict with Renzard, I came to a major realization.
‘Even trust becomes useless in front of power.’
I wasn’t angry that Anne hadn’t defended me.
It was more like… I had been forced to acknowledge an unrealistic truth right before my eyes.
At first, I had no idea how I was supposed to survive in this place, but thanks to Anne taking care of me, I adapted quickly.
After that, I set a goal for myself: if I had to continue living inside this novel, then I needed to secure a source of money that would let me survive even if I were eventually thrown out of the estate.
‘But now…’
I want to keep living in this mansion with Anne.
Eating Puichi’s apple pie and taking lessons from Dikal.
Now that I knew what it felt like to receive affection from others, I decided to change my goal.
Before, my only intention had been to gain Heinox’s favor and strengthen my position in the estate so I could secure financial support.
But now, I had decided that I needed to solidify my place in House Tanzeric itself in order to prevent the family’s collapse like in the original story.
‘To do that, I need to uncover the truth.’
House Tanzeric was already in crisis because of someone’s scheme that began with Priscilla’s death.
Because of that, Heinox wandered the battlefields, Chedman became indifferent and resigned to everything, and Renzard vented his anger over his mother’s death on an innocent target.
And originally, Roxina—branded as the child who killed the Duchess—would also grow up into a broken villainess.
But I already knew the outcome of the scheme manipulating all of them.
That meant I could stop it.
Uncovering the reason behind Priscilla’s death had now become my most important goal.
‘Whoever’s behind this, I won’t let them do whatever they want.’
Meanwhile, an atmosphere colder than midwinter filled Heinox’s office.
“I heard there was quite a commotion.”
“I’m sorry…”
Heinox didn’t say much, but the anger contained even within that short question made Renzard shrink his shoulders.
“I did not summon you merely to hear an apology.”
“F-Father, that’s…”
“I’ll explain.”
Chedman, who had come after hearing that Heinox had called for Renzard and saying that he himself had also been present during the incident, finally spoke up.
“I asked Renzard.”
But Heinox had already heard the entire story from the butler.
Even so, the reason he summoned Renzard was because he wanted to hear it from his own mouth.
“After training, I was walking through the hallway when I smelled something sweet somewhere.”
Renzard rubbed his sweaty palms against his pants several times before continuing.
“It wasn’t mealtime, so I thought it was strange and opened the dining hall door… and that child was eating apple pie.”
“And then?”
Renzard swallowed hard.
“So I asked why she was there, and…”
Unable to continue any further, he lowered his head.
Heinox clicked his tongue as if he understood enough already.
“So in the end, you were the cause of the entire disturbance.”
“…I’m sorry.”
After staring at Renzard hanging his head low, Heinox turned toward Chedman, who remained standing silently.
“Is Renzard telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else happened?”
For a moment, Roxina’s furious shout flashed through Chedman’s mind, but he found it difficult to speak of it carelessly.
“…Nothing else.”
Heinox tapped the armrest with his fingers.
“I see…”
To Heinox, it was only a brief moment.
But to Renzard and Chedman, it felt like an eternity before the rhythmic tapping finally stopped.
“You may leave now.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, Father.”
“They’re lying.”
After sending Chedman and Renzard away, Heinox remained alone in his office, recalling the earlier incident.
He already knew the entire story.
The reason he called them was because there was something specific he wanted to hear from them.
But neither son had spoken those words.
In truth, Heinox could understand why they hid it.
The two boys who had been present were probably the ones most shocked by what happened.
But Heinox was the head of House Tanzeric.
There should be nothing happening inside the mansion that he did not know.
“Not that they thought they could truly hide it from me…”
Renzard could be excused because he simply found it difficult to say aloud.
But Chedman was not the type to behave that way.
He should have known that this was not the kind of matter that could stay hidden simply because he withheld it here.
And yet, he still chose not to tell the truth.
“The temple, hm…”
According to the butler’s report, Roxina had told Renzard that the temple was responsible for Priscilla’s death.
“Where did she hear something like that?”
Heinox’s eyes darkened.
It was true that the temple had contributed to Priscilla’s death.
On the day Priscilla was dying, repeated messages sent to the temple had received no reply.
If the temple had arrived at the estate in time, Priscilla would never have died so meaninglessly.
But the fact that such a matter had surfaced inside the mansion—especially from the mouths of children—was another issue entirely.
“There must be some fool in this estate speaking too freely.”
Someone had clearly spoken carelessly about Priscilla’s death in front of Roxina without knowing their place.
“Roxina. Roxina Tanzeric…”
Even saying the name aloud still felt unfamiliar.
She was the final child born between Priscilla and Heinox.
Their last child.
Yes.
When he first held Chedman in his arms, he thought he had been happy.
The child looked exactly like Priscilla, as though she herself had been shrunk down smaller.
When he first saw Renzard, the feeling had been strange.
Green eyes like Priscilla’s and black hair like his own.
Their child looked like proof that they were husband and wife, and that made him quietly pleased.
And then there was the child Priscilla handed to him while breathing as though her life would snap apart at any moment.
He had been left speechless.
Not a trace of Priscilla remained in that child.
And yet, Priscilla smiled brightly.
Without even brushing away the damp strands of hair stuck to her forehead, she said:
“You resemble him.”
Her face was deathly pale, yet she smiled so clearly.
“Please make our child happy. Don’t let her suffer. Don’t let her be lonely.”
And then Priscilla died.
Looking back now, those had been her final words.
And Heinox had failed to protect even one of them.
Roxina.
It wasn’t that he hated the child.
After losing Priscilla, for several months he had desperately tried to cherish Roxina according to Priscilla’s wishes.
But when he looked at the child who resembled only himself and carried none of Priscilla’s features, Heinox felt fear.
It felt as though all the guilt of failing to protect Priscilla was being projected onto the child.
At this rate, he thought he might come to hate Roxina.
The moment Heinox realized that emotion, he immediately left for the battlefield.
Even if he could not love the child, he at least did not want to hate her.
When he returned from the battlefield, where he had gone to punish himself, the child was already four years old.
She could walk and speak on her own.
Seeing the child who once couldn’t even properly open her eyes now moving around finally filled him with guilt.
That was why he intentionally chose only unpleasant words whenever he spoke to her—so that she could resent the father who abandoned her to her heart’s content.
When he heard she had injured herself after hitting her head, he spent a long time debating whether or not he should visit her.
Because the child so obviously seemed uncomfortable around him.
In the end, after agonizing over it for a long time, he merely brushed back Roxina’s sleeping hair.
At least if it was in the middle of the night, she would never know he had come.
And then he thought:
‘Perhaps she resembles you a little after all.’
The way she boldly demanded a teacher.
The daring personality the butler described to him.
When he imagined that tiny child shouting at Renzard with her small body, a faint smile unknowingly formed on his lips.
“…Ha.”
“Y-Young Master.”
The maid cleaning Renzard’s room reflexively trembled at the sound of his sigh.
“The cleaning’s done, so leave.”
“Y-Yes!”
After dismissing even the maid holding the feather duster, Renzard flopped down onto the neatly arranged bed.
“She called me a coward…?”
Renzard recalled Roxina’s words from earlier.
‘The only ones who could’ve helped the Duchess back then were the temple priests. Not you, not me, not even the Duke. The temple.’
“She said the temple was the one at fault…”
Roxina had said their mother died because the temple never came to the estate.
‘Now that I think about it… it is a little strange.’
Calling priests to the estate was extremely rare.
It cost enough money to buy an entire mansion just to summon them once.
“But…”
There was no way Heinox would have refused to call priests for such a reason.
No one loved and treasured his wife more than Heinox did.
