TSTRP 10

Seeing Alice’s shameless face, a hot wave of anger surged up from within me. I shouted Alice’s name like a scream and rushed toward her, forgetting all about maintaining appearances.

“Alice! You…!”

I must have looked like a charging bull, because even Alice, who feared nothing in this mansion, began to stammer.

“W-what?”

Then I noticed the necklace hanging around Alice’s neck. Shamelessly, she was wearing the very necklace she had stolen from me.

“Give me that necklace!”

“Eek! What are you doing?!”

I reached Alice in an instant. The moment I grabbed the necklace, Alice didn’t stay still either and began desperately trying to hold on to it.

She twisted her body while grabbing my hair and yanking it. I refused to lose, so I grabbed a fistful of Alice’s hair as well.

“That’s my necklace! Give it back right now!”

“Are you crazy?! Let go of me!”

The servants carrying food froze in place, unable even to think of stopping our fight.

“Are you going to stand there and let her keep doing that?! Get her out of here!”

Only after Alice screamed did the servants finally come rushing over in a panic and grab me. Several of them tried to pull me away, but I stubbornly held my ground, tightening my grip even more.

“What gives you the right to rummage through my drawer and take my necklace?!”

“My hair! Ah! You’re pulling my hair out!”

No matter how much they tried to push me away, I stubbornly held on to Alice’s hair and the necklace, leaving the servants completely at a loss.

As they forcibly tried to separate us, Alice’s hair was pulled even harder, making her screams grow louder. She was practically on the verge of tears now.

“Give me the necklace!”

“Eeeek! Aaaah!”

At that moment—

Snap!

The necklace Alice was wearing finally broke under the strain of our struggle. The ornaments and gemstones threaded along the chain scattered in every direction.

I hurriedly dropped to my knees and began searching for the pieces of the necklace. But the little gemstones had scattered everywhere, making them difficult to spot.

Under the carpet, beneath the servants’ shoes, between the plates of food, somewhere in the gaps between the floorboards… There were far too many places they could have fallen, and finding every single gemstone seemed nearly impossible.

I was sure that some of the servants would find the gemstones and secretly hide them away to sell later. There were very few people in this mansion I could trust.

“Th-the necklace Mother gave you…”

After the brief moment of despair passed, anger took its place once again. I glared at Alice with blazing eyes.

“What are you going to do about my necklace?!”

Alice, looking furious herself, snapped back.

“Whose fault is it for hiding it so carelessly? You’re making such a fuss over me taking some cheap necklace? Good heavens. You pulled out an entire handful of my hair!”

Was she even listening to herself? Her shameless attitude was unbelievable.

“Do you even know what kind of necklace that was?”

“Why should I care?”

That was more than enough to make me grab Alice by the collar again. But I had to stop myself at the attempt.

“What on earth is going on here?”

Alice’s twin brother, Pablo, had entered the dining room.

A familiar servant was following beside him with a luggage bag, so he seemed to have just arrived at the mansion.

Pablo was supposed to be staying at the academy, so seeing him return meant that the broken engagement with Viscount Montrache must have been quite serious. Judging by his appearance, he had rushed over from the academy after hearing that the family was in chaos.

Alice’s face brightened when she saw Pablo.

So her ally has finally arrived.

I sneered inwardly.

“Pablo, she—!”

But contrary to my expectations, Pablo began scolding Alice.

“I heard everything just now. Is it really true that you stole our great-aunt’s heirloom?”

“Hey! Whose side are you on?!”

Pablo had always been timid. He was perhaps the only one in this family who had enough sense to distinguish right from wrong, but that was about it. He usually hid behind Alice and remained silent.

Normally, he would have hemmed and hawed this time as well before quietly taking Alice’s side.

But strangely, this time Pablo spoke up for himself.

“You’re the one in the wrong this time, Alice. Apologize.”

“Hey, Pablo!”

Pablo looked at Alice with an unusually firm expression.

Alice stared at her twin as though she were seeing a completely different person, then shouted irritably.

“No! Because of that bitch Solana, Dad sold all my limited-edition jewelry! He said he needed to pay off an urgent debt! You can’t even buy those things anymore, even if you have the money!”

It seemed Uncle really had a fire under his feet. No matter how short on money they were, he had never considered cutting back on Alice’s extravagant spending. Yet this time, he had gone as far as selling her belongings.

Alice stomped her foot in frustration before storming out of the dining room.

The dining room fell silent.

The only sound now was me, crouched on the floor, picking up the beads from my necklace.

Even after things had come to this, I still couldn’t properly punish Alice and was left kneeling on the floor alone. It felt so miserable.

I picked up one of the beads with trembling fingers, desperately holding back my tears.

Then Pablo, who had remained in the dining room, approached me. He hovered around me hesitantly before finally speaking.

“I’ll apologize on her behalf. Alice didn’t, um… do it on purpose. This time, she was probably just too angry…”

Pablo had scolded Alice moments ago, but now he was defending her.

The hardest part of living in the Albre mansion wasn’t when they bullied me.

Even Uncle had certain lines he wouldn’t cross. He never physically abused his niece. He merely said a few hurtful words from time to time, and with the memories of my past life, that was something I could endure.

It was only when they occasionally took care of their own family that an unbearable loneliness would wash over me.

Even if they were hopeless people, they still cherished their own family.

And it was painfully obvious that I wasn’t part of that circle.

“Forget it. You’re only apologizing because I became a secretary.”

Uncle must have given Pablo a separate warning through his letter.

Your cousin has become a secretary to a member of the imperial family.

That had to be why this boy, who had never behaved this way before, was suddenly watching my mood.

Was he afraid that I might use the power of the imperial family to throw my weight around in this household?

“It’s…”

“Even as a secretary, I don’t have enough power to do anything that would hurt Alice. Unfortunately, I became the secretary of the powerless First Prince.”

“……”

The blatantly relieved expression on his face made my stomach churn.

If I didn’t want to see things like this, I really needed to become independent.

“I’m tired, so I’ll go to my room first.”

I stood up, brushing the hem of my dress.

There were no more necklace beads in sight. I had barely managed to collect even half of the ones that had been scattered…

I walked away slowly, my footsteps heavy and listless, when Mary came rushing over.

She bowed deeply at the waist.

“My lady, I’m truly sorry. I should have protected the necklace somehow. This whole mess is entirely my fault.”

“……”

“I-I’ll search for the rest of the necklace beads somehow, so…”

“It’s all right.”

Even if we found all the beads, what difference would it make?

Mother’s necklace was already broken.

“It could have broken at any time. It was an old necklace, after all.”

There was nothing else I could do but force myself to take comfort in those words.

My second day at work went much more smoothly than the first.

Apparently, passing through the Vine Forest really had been some sort of initiation ritual for newcomers, because this time I was shown a different route and entered comfortably.

I casually asked the maid guiding me,

“Do you happen to know why they leave the Vine Forest as it is?”

There was no reason to leave it abandoned like that, was there?

The maid, who was carrying a huge bundle of laundry, merely shrugged and answered casually.

“Maybe it’s just His Highness the Prince’s preference?”

That’s his preference? Isn’t there something seriously wrong with his taste?

The maid seemed accustomed to the Vine Forest already and didn’t find it particularly strange.

Or perhaps, because of the bad rumors surrounding Prince Lynel, she simply considered strange things being done to the garden to be nothing unusual.

Whatever the reason, one thing was certain: Prince Lynel hated windows.

It was as though he were mortal enemies with them. Any place with a window was inevitably covered in thick vines.

From the rear of the palace, the bizarre sight was clearly visible.

Perhaps worried by how interested I seemed in the vines, the maid warned me.

“Please don’t try to touch the vines. There’s a rumor that someone was once pricked by the thorns and died.”

“What? I passed through the vines yesterday.”

Had Prince Lynel already been trying to kill me?

I asked in alarm, and the maid waved her hands dismissively.

“Oh, no. The part you went through is a passage people use, so there aren’t any thorns there. You went along the path through the Vine Forest, didn’t you? The other parts of the garden are full of thorns, so you need to be careful.”

If you could even call that a path.

It was an extremely rough route, so narrow that even a child would have trouble passing through it, with muddy ground underfoot.

“I haven’t been here very long myself, so I don’t know much. But the others frightened me by saying that people die if they get pricked by the thorns.”

“Then are you saying I would have died if I had entered somewhere other than the path yesterday?”

“Hehehe! Oh, come now. You might get scratched and hurt, but surely you wouldn’t die? It’s probably just a rumor meant to warn people not to wander around carelessly. You’re quite funny, Secretary!”

No, but you just said someone died.

“Come to think of it, there was also a rumor that His Highness killed the secretaries who disappeared by stabbing them with the thorns…”

The maid glanced at me to gauge my reaction, then awkwardly averted her eyes as she continued.

“That’s just another rumor, too! Hehehe!”

“……”