Gianna’s eyes widened at Dante’s unexpected intervention.
‘This, this, this can’t happen!’
If Dante spoke honestly here, Idel wouldn’t be able to remain as a teddy bear in a toy box.
Unconsciously glancing at Idel, Gianna gasped at the slightly larger pupils in her eyes than usual.
Though she was pretending otherwise, it was clear that Idel was also flustered.
‘I have to step in!’
Awakening her “Trust your sister!” instinct that had been dormant since the nosebleed incident, she elbowed Dante in the side.
“As I mentioned before, I dislike Idel… Ugh!”
Fortunately, both of them were seated, so there was no risk of being caught.
While Dante was startled by the sudden punch, Gianna quickly thought on her feet and interrupted him.
“Y-Yeah, we totally dislike Idel!”
Having blurted that out, Gianna swallowed hard.
Dante’s gaze right next to her felt as if he were questioning how she could say such a thing.
Ignoring her increasingly dry lips, Gianna opened her mouth again.
“I also really hate being here together like this! If Mom had told me Idel would come, I wouldn’t have come!”
“Gianna!”
She squeezed her eyes shut at her mother’s horrified voice and Patrick’s hand covering his mouth. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt she couldn’t say anything worse.
Fortunately, she didn’t need to speak up again. Thanks to Gianna, Idel managed to escape the crisis and quickly wrap up the situation.
“Did you hear that? I don’t want to play these pointless games anymore, so don’t call me for this! I won’t come!”
“Idel, dear, just a moment…”
“My mom was right. I don’t have anyone on my side here!”
With that last remark, Idel dashed out of the dining room, words that would surely please Melisa lingering in the air.
She turned her body so forcefully that one of her hair accessories, which was hanging on precariously, fell off.
“Idel!”
Seeing the child’s expression, which seemed to be deeply hurt, Rowena’s heart sank.
‘I can’t let the child go like this.’
Rowena quickly picked up the hem of her dress and tried to follow Idel, but her feet were hindered by Idel’s hair accessory and a crumpled piece of paper.
“What is this…?”
Rowena momentarily bent down to pick up the item that Idel had clearly dropped while running out.
Contrary to her sense of urgency to follow the child, Rowena’s gaze lingered on the crumpled paper.
“Is this… a piece of newspaper?”
As she tried to calm her racing heart, the duchess carefully unfolded the paper and froze.
It had content related to the Count of Bright family on the surface, so she thought it was merely a cut-out newspaper article… but that wasn’t the case.
‘…It’s an advertisement for a boarding school.’
To be precise, it was part of an advertisement, but that wasn’t the important issue for the duchess.
What mattered was that Idel had sought out information about boarding schools on her own.
Over the advertisement listing the school’s advantages, memories from the past and Idel’s recent outburst flooded her mind.
‘I hate it! I hate everything! I hate the duke, I hate the duchess, I hate that one, and that one too! I hate people who just say no, and I hate this place; I hate it all!’
‘Rowena, that child… told me that it’s okay if I just keep hating her. That she doesn’t expect love from me.’
‘My mom was right. I don’t have anyone on my side here.’
Rowena covered her mouth with her hand as various thoughts swirled in her head.
‘Since when has Idel been thinking about boarding school?’
Her heart ached at the thought of the child harboring the desire to leave alone for a distant place. She had hoped that Idel would have adjusted to this home, but perhaps she wasn’t ready to open her heart yet.
‘What does she mean that there’s no one on her side here? Idel has Melisa, but Melisa is…?’
For Idel, who had simply not thrown away the article she had clipped while helping Ivan, this was an awkward situation.
Lost in a spiral of thoughts, Rowena didn’t even think to move her body.
Seeing the duchess frozen in place as if nailed down, Patrick gently rubbed the back of his neck and called out to her.
“Madam.”
“…….”
“Madam?”
“Ah! Oh, yes….”
Hearing the duchess’s response, he shook his head and spoke again.
“You were planning to chase after Miss Idel, right? I’ll go instead.”
“Pardon? No, there’s no need for that…”
“Since you didn’t leave immediately, it would be difficult for you to find her, madam. Moreover, even if you try to converse now, it won’t yield much. It’s better if I go.”
“Ah….”
Rowena smiled somewhat bitterly and nodded calmly as she looked at Patrick.
“Then, Sir Patrick, please. Make sure to confirm that Idel made it safely to her room. And… if possible, her condition as well.”
“Of course. Leave it to me! Ah—young master! Don’t go disappearing somewhere while I’m gone; stay here with the two of them. I’ll be back shortly!”
“……Alright. I also have something to discuss with Gianna.”
“Hmm… well, yes! Then!”
He glanced at Gianna, who seemed restless, before turning around and walking away.
‘Now, shall I go look for Melisa’s daughter?’
His yellowish eyes scanned the area, searching for any sign of Idel. The truth was that he had acted on impulse when he offered to go find Idel.
‘Originally, I intended to just ignore her.’
He had received warnings from Melisa, and the child often regarded him warily, like a cat with its fur raised.
But despite all that, he had acted impulsively, and he couldn’t help but think that it was because of her eyes.
Those blue, stubborn eyes.
Pushing aside unnecessary thoughts, Patrick put his hands in his pockets. If his guess was correct, she was definitely somewhere nearby…
‘Oh, there she is.’
Her bright red hair stood out against the lush green foliage, and her scowling face was visible as she crouched down.
‘But what in the world is she doing over there?’
Her posture, crouched down as if sulking, seemed strange. Patrick approached her quietly, driven by simple curiosity.
How much longer did he walk?
Once he reached the bushes where Idel was hiding, he immediately understood why she was there.
“So, Diane said she couldn’t take it anymore?”
“Yeah, her face was bright red, so I asked, and she told me. She’s been nitpicking about everything and causing a scene.”
“If she’s like this when she’s still young, it’s going to get worse and worse. What are you going to do? Is she hitting people too?”
“……Hey, I’m only telling you this because we’re together, but Miss Idel, she might get sent back to the annex again.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. There are so many reasons. Anyway, the people in that area are saying that. Ah, let’s go soon.”
Gossiping so openly in a public place…
‘Is this the plan Melisa was talking about? That brainwashing thing she mentioned?’
He silently closed his mouth, alternating his gaze between the retreating figures of the servants and the unmoving Idel.
Suddenly, he became curious.
If the brainwashing that Melisa had invested so much effort in took full effect, would that furrowed brow and stubborn eyes disappear?
‘Is she going to have dead fish eyes like what I often saw in Nox?’
Just thinking about it didn’t make him feel good. It felt like the mood when a cat that used to appear occasionally suddenly disappears forever.
While he was staring at Idel with a blank expression, she turned her body as if she had seen enough.
And the moment she looked up and spotted him…
“Eek! Ack!! Aah!!!”
Idel let out a loud scream and threw sand from the ground straight at him.
As the sand was thrown mercilessly, Patrick burst into laughter.
“Ahahaha! Ahh!”
“Y-you crazy…! What, Pat, Patrick?”
Her face, completely flustered, looked rather amusing. The stubbornness of her immediately twisting her expression as if embarrassed by her own flustered state was quite endearing.
‘Ah, right. I’ve decided.’
He didn’t want to just stand there and have her eyes turn into a dead fish’s eyes without knowing what was going on.
‘But if I ignore Melisa’s warning, I’ll be in danger too, so I’ll just throw out a little riddle.’
Whether she picks it up and solves it or not, and even if she does, how well she solves it is entirely up to her.
Well, it would be unfortunate if she couldn’t catch on, but it couldn’t be helped.
With a grin that seemed to suggest all of this was due to a tiny bit of sympathy and whim, he leaned forward and asked her a question.
“Sir, what are you doing here…”
“Miss, have you ever heard that rabbits dig multiple burrows?”
I found one just the other day under a tree next to the well.
