IMYL 8

Chapter 8

“They know too. They’re just pretending not to,”
I said flatly.
“It’s not something to be proud of, so I’d appreciate it if you pretended not to know either.”

“It was money spent on my engagement five years ago. It was all done under the table, so I deliberately left out the details.”

Rangsi nearly fell out of his chair.

Shock flashed across his face, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

“Pardon? M-Miss’s engagement?”

“That’s right.”

“No, what—how does it make sense for a seven-year-old to be engaged?”

He added with a groan,

“And spending this much money on it, my word, what kind of madman would do something like—”

“My mother led it.”

Having said something correct, Rangsi slapped his own mouth hard.

“Wendy must’ve possessed me for a moment.”

He was clearly in full panic.

I went ahead and delivered an even more shocking statement.

“It was broken off anyway. I took care of everything, so you don’t need to worry. On the day Alpheus became marquis, a request to annul the engagement arrived.”

Rangsi grabbed the back of his head.

“Don’t tell me—because you were no longer Seares’s heir, they immediately asked to break it off? How does that make any sense?”

“It makes even less sense to stay engaged when the conditions no longer match.”

“No, who in the world gets married by calculating every little thing so that no one loses anything?!”

“My parents.”

I explained calmly.

“My mother was a princess of a fallen kingdom with no dowry, so she had no choice but to marry a divorced man ten years her senior. And my father, as you know, openly went around saying he wanted to pass the marquisate to his missing eldest son, so he couldn’t marry a proper noble lady of the Empire.”

It was a political marriage formed under equally terrible conditions on both sides.

“There was no real substance, just name value. A perfectly matched union of two people whose worth canceled each other out. By the numbers, there was no way to say one was better than the other.”

“B-b-but…”

“And besides, well… my fiancé…”

I muttered bitterly.

“He wasn’t particularly happy about being engaged to me in the first place. The terms were already heavily skewed, and I never expected it to lead smoothly to marriage.”

Rangsi panted for breath before barely managing to ask,

“M-Miss… are you… all right?”

I frowned slightly. The question felt unfamiliar.

Only after a moment did I realize that no one had ever asked me, Are you okay?

The maids never asked me that. They didn’t dare.

And my parents…

“People hate whiny children, Rangsi.”

I answered calmly.

“When a child isn’t ‘okay,’ adults just find it bothersome.”

In truth, I hadn’t been okay even on the day of the engagement ceremony. I just hadn’t been able to tell anyone.

“Let’s end this topic here. What was the favor you wanted to ask?”

“I suddenly don’t feel like asking anymore. I do have some sense, you know.”

“Then you’ve also noticed that if you don’t ask now, I’ll feel disgusted at being pitied and won’t let you off easily.”

“B-but if I ask like this, it feels like my conscience won’t be at peace…”

“That just means more parts of your conscience will feel at peace once you ask, so hurry up.”

At my merciless reply, Rangsi sighed once and spoke carefully.

“T-then, Miss, I’m truly sorry to ask this, but… could you please… do something about educating the maids?”

I could feel him choosing his words desperately, afraid of offending me.

“The maids of the marquis residence are openly disregarding Lord Alpheus—and us, his people—as well.”

The fact that he brought this up at all could be seen as acknowledging me.

“We understand now that being pushed aside from the position of heir overnight wouldn’t sit well with them. But from our perspective, maids who talk nonsense without understanding reality, even when the house is drowning in debt, don’t look very agreeable.”

Rangsi paused there and cautiously gauged my reaction.

I slowly raised two fingers.

“I’ll say two things about that. First—yes, my maids really are ignorant of how the world works.”

“You already knew? Good heavens!”

Rangsi’s eyes flew open.

I said coldly,

“And that’s precisely why they’re still here. If you’ve checked the budget, you know how many months their wages are overdue, don’t you?”

Rangsi looked as though he’d been struck on the head.

“Anyone who understood reality already left. Only the maids who value the pride and honor of serving the last bloodline of the Riente royal family more than their wages remain.”

The Kingdom of Riente had fallen to the Kingdom of Sevon before I was even born.

Just before its collapse, the king hurriedly sent his youngest daughter—the Fifth Princess—to the Empire’s great noble, Marquis Seares. He had hoped that at least his youngest child might survive.

Even that mother had since passed away. Which meant that officially, I was now the only direct descendant of the Riente royal family.

“Riente’s history is longer than the Empire’s. But for a long time, Riente despised practical learning and valued only extravagance and empty ceremony.”

“I-is that so? But that’s not right, is it?”

“That’s why it fell.”

I calmly exposed my maternal family’s shame.

“Still, to those girls, my every action is the honor they’re meant to protect. I know you might find it ridiculous.”

I was their pride.

Something worth more than the wages I could give them.

That was why they weren’t childish. They were people who had come with my mother from Riente.

“But still, wouldn’t it be better not to mock someone’s consistent beliefs so easily? So, second.”

Looking straight at Rangsi, who had his mouth slightly open, I continued evenly.

“Come back and say this once we can pay all their back wages. Then I’ll educate them properly, just as you asked.”

In other words—if you want to give orders, bring money.

“A single coin in your hand is more precious than an unwrinkled hem of your mistress’s skirt.”

“…No.”

The budget officer, who had been silent, answered immediately.

“For now, Miss, your unwrinkled skirt hem is far more precious to all of us.”

And so, Rangsi chose to share his soul with the maids.

“All right.”

I accepted his change of heart generously.

“Then I’ll be going.”

With nothing left to say, I stood up quietly.

Rangsi even forgot to be angry.

This clever child knew the price of the fine clothes she wore.

She wasn’t the leader of foolish, babbling maids. She was earning her keep—the cost of her meals—under the debt forced upon the marquisate.

If there were no maids at all, who would run this estate?

“I-I’ll serve you.”

Rangsi hurriedly stood and followed behind Brisa.

But the moment he opened the door, he ran into a maid waiting outside.

After checking Brisa’s expression, the maid immediately whispered to Rangsi,

“The young lady looks bitter. Did you talk about the broken engagement?”

Sharp as a ghost. How did she know?

As Rangsi blinked in surprise, the maid continued,

“Don’t pity our young lady. She didn’t just secretly handle the annulment, you know. At the same time, an anonymous bouquet of flowers arrived.”

She said it proudly.

“It wouldn’t be strange at all if she receives a proposal from that young lord soon.”

Rangsi’s mouth fell open.

“She might even form a marital tie with a family of far greater standing!”

Surely that wasn’t supposed to be comfort.

Rangsi sighed inwardly.

He could roughly guess what had happened in this household.

While tactless maids poured out misguided affection, the child had been forced to grow up alone within it.

If Alpheus learned this, he would weep for three days and nights. After all, Alpheus himself was a child who had grown up too quickly.

“Brisa must have missed her family. She gave me this.”

Before leaving for the capital, Alpheus had proudly shown him a single dried herb.

“She’s probably shaken today, but I’m sure she’s a gentle and kind child—just like me. I want to see her again soon and play with her in the garden, blowing balloons for her. Maybe she’d like a surprise gift like soap bubbles from the capital?”

What Alpheus had feared most as he left was Brisa growing up too fast.

“I don’t want my little sister to become an adult so quickly…”

But sadly, one thing was certain.

My lord, you’ll have to pop the soap bubbles on your own.

Even if, by some miracle, the two of them were present at the same time, it was obvious that Brisa would be the one indulging Alpheus, not the other way around.