Chapter 95

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: It’s Not My Fault
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Arabella sauntered leisurely into the hallway, feigning indifference as she took a full lap around the second floor.

‘She’s not here!’

Isabella was nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of life from her room, and the first-floor room Lucrezia was temporarily using was also quiet. She lingered in front of the girls’ drawing room and her mother’s original master bedroom on the second floor, but both her sister and mother were absent.

‘Alright then, I’m going in.’

After one last, careful check for maids, Arabella slipped into Isabella’s room. Though Isabella had been wearing simple dresses and light makeup lately, old habits died hard. Her vanity was still laden with expensive cosmetics and a curious array of makeup tools.

‘It’s so pretty!’

Forgetting the purpose of her infiltration, Arabella picked up a pot of rose blusher from Isabella’s vanity. She dabbed the blush on her lips, marveling at its delicate color. The reflection in the mirror looked a bit like her sister Isabella, and also like a grown-up young lady, which she found quite pleasing.

‘No, no, this isn’t what I’m here for.’

After being captivated by her own reflection for a while, Arabella snapped back to her senses. She began to diligently search the area around Isabella’s vanity. Her hands moved with practiced skill, memorizing the order in which she removed items so she could put them back perfectly.

‘Let’s see, I think it was around here…’

As she sifted through the boxes stacked beneath the vanity, her hand closed around one of Isabella’s partial wigs.

‘Found it!’

At the end of the light flaxen hairpiece, the exact same color as Isabella’s and Arabella’s hair, was a soft metal clasp designed to secure the wig near the scalp. Arabella held the clasp up to the light. It was a dark, dull color, but the part that caught the light was exceptionally white. She bent the metal clasp and then straightened it again.

‘Mostly silver… mixed with lead?’

For a piece of metal its size, it was unusually heavy—a characteristic of lead. The metal’s malleability was also nearly identical to what she had seen in Ariadne’s room.

‘This has to be it. I have to take this to Ari!’

The thought of Ariadne’s delight upon seeing the metal clasp made Arabella feel happy herself. The indoor dresses worn by daughters of noble houses had no pockets, so Arabella clutched the piece of the wig with the clasp in her palm and quickly began putting Isabella’s things back in their original places. Just then, a high, warbling voice, sharp as a songbird’s, echoed from behind her.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?”

“Agh!”

Startled, Arabella spun around. There stood Isabella, towering over the kneeling girl with an intimidating glare.

“You traitor. If you’re going to side with that stray who wandered in, you should stick close to her. Now you’re crawling into my room like a little rat, rummaging through my things?”

Arabella felt a cold sweat trickle down her spine as she pressed herself lower to the floor. Excuses would be useless. When Isabella was this furious, the best thing to do was run.

“S-Sorry… I won’t do it again.”

It was an apology she would never normally make, because she would most certainly do it again. *No need for family to lie to each other, right?* But now that a distance had grown between them, her eldest sister felt a bit like a stranger. Rummaging through a stranger’s things was, objectively, a bad thing to do. So Arabella felt compelled to offer such an apology. Isabella, too, seemed to sense something amiss in Arabella’s unusual contrition, her snake-like gaze meticulously scanning Arabella from head to toe.

“What were you trying to steal?”

Usually, when Arabella came into her room, she would sweep the makeup shelf clean. Color cosmetics were her top priority. Today, Isabella’s makeup shelf was relatively untouched. Aside from the rose blusher, which had been opened and closed, nothing else had been disturbed.

“N-Nothing.”

Arabella gestured with her chin toward Isabella’s makeup shelf.

“See? It’s clean.”

Isabella glanced between the shelf and Arabella with suspicion. Seizing the moment of her sister’s hesitation, Arabella decided to make a run for it.

“W-Well, I’ll be going now. Sorry, sister!”

As Arabella scrambled to her feet and darted toward the door, Isabella’s suspicious voice pierced her ears.

“Wait. What’s that in your hand?”

A few strands of hair were peeking out from Arabella’s tightly clenched left fist. The bright golden hair shimmered splendidly in the light. Arabella’s pupils dilated with tension.

‘Should I just give it to her?’

After a moment’s hesitation, Arabella shook her head. If she left now, there was no telling when she’d get another chance to sneak into Isabella’s room. Besides, giving it up wouldn’t guarantee Isabella would let her go peacefully. She’d probably be punished and subjected to a tantrum for hours before being released. Rather than that…

‘Run!’

Once Ariadne returned home, Isabella wouldn’t be able to touch her. Until then, if she could just kill time by locking herself in her room or hiding in a corner of the mansion, she would win. Arabella bolted for the door. Isabella shouted violently.

“You! Get back here! I won’t let you get away with this!”

Arabella fled down the corridor of the second-floor west wing like a nimble squirrel. But Isabella pursued her like a swift wildcat. As she chased her, Isabella repeatedly saw the hair in Arabella’s hand glinting and finally realized what her little sister had stolen. Seeing the hair, she had first thought it was a jeweled hair pin. But the amount of hair spilling out made it clear—it was a wig piece.

‘Wait, why is she taking that?’

It wasn’t even the whole wig, just a single piece. One piece was useless for adornment. It was as if she were taking it to someone as a sample or evidence. And of all places, Arabella was running toward Ariadne’s chambers. At last, Isabella understood why Arabella had taken the wig. She was undoubtedly trying to deliver proof of the metal clasp she had used to tamper with Ariadne’s dress at the débutante ball. The hook she had attached to Ariadne’s dress had been inspired by the wig’s clasp and was made of the same metal with a high lead content.

“You little rat!”

If that thing was discovered, she was in serious trouble. Cardinal de Mare had already put her on probation for three months for trying to ruin Ariadne’s reputation at the masquerade ball. And that was when nothing had even happened to Ariadne. By that standard, tearing the bodice of Ariadne’s dress at her débutante ball was an unforgivable offense.

‘No way! I’ll be in huge trouble if I’m caught!’

Isabella finally caught up to her youngest sister near the central staircase of the de Mare mansion.

“Stop right there!”

With a sudden grab, Isabella managed to seize Arabella’s wrist at the very top of the central staircase.

“Give that to me.”

“N-No!”

“Give it to me now, you little rat!”

“I said no!”

Isabella couldn’t contain her surging rage. She dug her nails into Arabella’s left fist, trying to pry it open as she screamed.

“Whose sister are you, anyway? Siding with an outsider to ruin your own sister’s life?”

Arabella had her own retort. Completely unaware of why Isabella was so frantic, she saw the situation as nothing more than the greedy Isabella refusing to share a single piece of a wig.

“If you’re my sister, then act like one! Are you ever nice to me? Do you ever play with me? All you do is scream and curse at me! Even His Majesty the King would be a tyrant if he acted like that!”

Arabella threw in a difficult word she had learned from her politics tutor. It only fueled Isabella’s anger.

“How dare a little pipsqueak like you talk back…!”

Isabella gave up on forcibly taking the clasp and raised the right hand that held Arabella’s wrist high, preparing to strike her.

It was the same posture Lucrezia always took when she hit the servants.

“Huh? Huh?”

Arabella, who had been pulling with all her might to free her wrist from Isabella’s grasp, suddenly felt herself lose her balance as Isabella’s hand disappeared. She instinctively flailed her arms to keep from falling backward. They were standing at the top of the de Mare mansion’s central staircase—the very same one from which she had pushed Isabella on the first day Ariadne arrived at the Cardinal’s residence in San Carlo.

“Whoaaaaa!”

Arabella’s flailing grew more frantic. She windmilled her arms, desperately trying to regain her center of gravity as she tilted backward. In her haste to stay upright, her left fist loosened, and the metal clasp attached to the golden hair flashed in the light. Arabella’s eyes met Isabella’s. Isabella had two choices: catch her sister, who was about to fall, or snatch the metal clasp. Her choice was simple. With a lunge, Isabella instinctively snatched the metal clasp from Arabella’s hand.

“Huh?!”

Having lost the delicate balance she had barely maintained due to Isabella’s sudden rush, Arabella locked eyes with her sister and fell straight backward down the stairs.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

A loud crash! Isabella had expected to hear a series of thuds first, followed by the sound of a final impact on the floor. That’s how it had been when she herself had tumbled down the stairs. But after Arabella fell, there was only a single, terribly loud impact that reverberated strongly through the marble floor. Isabella quickly clung to the banister and peered down at the scene below. Arabella was lying in a picturesque pose on the first-floor marble floor, the back of her head against the stone. She hadn’t even let out a cry after hitting the ground. There was no movement whatsoever.

‘Blood? Is she bleeding?’

Terrified, Isabella looked down from the second-floor railing, but from her vantage point, she couldn’t see any sign of blood.

‘She’s not dead, is she?’

Isabella frantically glanced around. The first thing she checked was whether there were any witnesses. Fortunately, no one had seen Arabella fall. Isabella had only just been released from her probation. She was in no position to handle any more trouble.

‘If someone accuses me of pushing Arabella, Father will believe them!’

A chill ran down her spine. This time, it would be the convent for sure. For a noble family, sending a daughter to a convent was tantamount to a death sentence. Daughters were sent there if they were disabled or simple-minded, if they were involved in an unbearable scandal, or if the family couldn't afford a dowry and had too many daughters. In many cases, once a girl entered a convent, even her family wouldn’t visit, and she would never come out again. Inside, the women abandoned by their families earned their food and firewood through needlework.

‘No, I can’t live like that.’

Even if there were no witnesses, it would be over if someone had heard her and Arabella fighting. *They fought. Arabella fell from the top of the stairs to the first floor. Why did she fall?* Beads of sweat began to form on Isabella’s palms. She hastily checked her appearance. There were no signs of a struggle, like scratches from Arabella. Isabella brushed her wrinkled dress smooth and quickly tucked her disheveled hair behind her ear.

“Time to mop the second floor. Let’s go up.”

“My section is the east wing today, right?”

The voices of maids chattering as they came from the first-floor kitchen drifted up. Isabella’s eyes widened. She couldn’t be caught standing here. She straightened her back and, with the most composed and elegant steps she could manage, walked back to her room on the second floor. Her posture was proper, but her steps were extremely hurried. Rushing back to her room, Isabella slammed the door shut. Lately, whenever Cardinal de Mare was home, she always locked herself in her room anyway. *Right, nothing happened. It’s just an ordinary afternoon. Nothing happened. I didn’t do anything.* Isabella ran to her vanity, grabbed the box containing the wigs, and threw the entire thing into the attached fireplace. The fire caught the paper box, and it burst into flames. On top of it, she tossed the single piece of wig she had snatched from Arabella’s hand. The hair caught fire, and the acrid smell of burning squid filled the room. Once it all burned, she would scrape up every last bit of ash and bury it in a corner of the yard. Without even thinking to air out the room, Isabella stood motionless, staring blankly at the roaring fireplace.