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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: The Reason for Disliking Studies
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“No. No. This is just…”
I muttered, quickly pushing Eric’s hand away.
“Just?”
“I’ve just never done something this close to a man who isn’t Philip, so I’m nervous, that’s all.”
I answered sheepishly.
It was the truth.
We were close, way too close! Too close!
I’d been wanting to point this out for a while now.
Because of the significant height difference between us, I kept finding myself staring at Eric’s collarbone. We were close enough to hear each other breathe, yet the butler kept giving me instructions…
It was a total disaster.
It was then.
“A man who isn’t Philip?”
Eric furrowed his brow.
He bit his lip, looking somewhat displeased. With the dark circles that had appeared under his eyes recently, he always looked tired and worn out, which…
Was pitiful, but…
‘He still looks so sensual.’
I recalled the gift I had received from Madam Margaret.
‘I’ll take this one.’
Among Madam Margaret’s ‘collection,’ the one I had chosen wasn’t a shirtless photo, but a perfectly normal one of him drinking coffee.
Seeing my choice, Margaret had remarked with an admiring expression.
‘You certainly have a good eye.’
‘…?’
‘Sometimes, not revealing is more…’
That’s as far as she went.
In any case, I had brought the gift, but it felt a bit too scandalous to open it where Eric could see, so I had hidden it on the balcony.
‘I need to unwrap that first…’
This blasted house had servants everywhere…
I thought to myself, stealing glances at Eric. Not revealing is more…
‘Ahhh, stop thinking, stop!’
I yelled at myself and stammered on.
“Y-yes. Philip and I held hands and hugged and stuff since we were little.”
We did hold hands and hug when we were little.
Ugh, just thinking about it is disgusting.
I replied, my face looking like I was about to be sick.
It was when we were really young, of course. When we were both in our early teens?
After leaving Lord Violode’s merchant guild, Philip and I had struggled so much that we had no time to fight.
Like a loving brother and sister, we would share food, and if one of us cried, the other would offer a hug.
But after I turned fifteen, such things stopped entirely.
Whenever we happened to cross paths in the Wedgwood mansion or on the street, we would just spit on the ground with looks of disgust. The urge to vomit just from seeing your brother’s face must be an emotion only those with one can understand.
In any case, despite all that, I was genuinely worried about how he’d been doing lately.
‘…Our relationship has gotten vaguely awkward…’
My goal was for the three of us—Philip, Helena, and me—to live happily together once this whole Mermaids’ Tomb business was resolved.
“…Why did I end up dancing?”
I was muttering to myself.
Just then, Eric, who had seemed lost in thought, spoke up.
“About Philip…”
“Yes?”
“So, Philip isn’t Violode’s son?”
What a random question.
“Of course not.”
Besides, Philip and I look nothing alike. Helena and I are the ones who resemble each other.
Philip used to grumble about that so much when we were kids.
‘I want to dye my hair red toooo!’
I can still hear that whiny voice in my ears.
Of course, once he hit his late teens, he learned for himself that women preferred blondes to redheads and quieted down.
As I scratched my ear, which felt like it was tingling at the memory, Eric wore an expression of deep contemplation.
Watching him, I had a sudden realization.
“Ah.”
The reason why the fact that we weren’t blood siblings was important to Eric.
“Don’t tell me…”
My face contorted as if I were about to gag.
“…?”
“You’re not feeling jealous of Philip, are you?”
I firmly stepped on Eric’s foot. This time, it wasn’t an accident; it was deliberate. Eric winced and muttered under his breath.
“Why would I be jealous of Philip?”
“From what I’ve seen, men tend to be very jealous.”
You could tell just by looking at Philip.
‘Still, to even imagine me and Philip together…’
I shuddered.
“Linking me with Philip is an insult to me!”
“…No, my question was why I would want to monopolize you in the first place.”
Was it?
But well…
Since I sometimes want to monopolize Eric, is it really that strange? The thought of other women having… *those* kinds of fantasies about Eric is frankly unpleasant.
Like Madam Margaret, for instance…
“And Philip cares for you, and you care for him.”
Cares for me? Is that really the right word for Philip? It seemed Philip’s pointless fistfight last time had created some sort of misunderstanding for Eric.
“But we’re family! Family doesn’t do that!”
As I shouted, the butler cleared his throat. He shot me a look that said, ‘Are you done resting?’ pressuring me. I quickly lowered my voice and whispered to Eric.
“And Philip is a real! Total! Thug, while I’m the most exemplary person in our family, I tell you.”
“…Hah. You?”
Eric narrowed his eyes in disbelief.
“Yes. You know that class I took with Vivian? I put up with it even when Vivian put weird things in my tea and secretly smeared honey in my hair, but Philip stormed out in less than an hour, and neither our teacher nor my mother could find him for the rest of the day.”
And the teacher, convinced that all the commotion was because she had accepted Philip and me into her class, pretended not to notice Vivian’s relentless bullying that followed.
‘I never should have accepted those filthy commoners!’
I remember the words the teacher had said, deliberately loud enough for me to hear.
‘She was a commoner herself…’
It’s always the commoners who live like parasites off the nobility who are the most obsessed with the class system.
“In your tea… put what?”
Eric frowned.
“Some drug. After drinking it, I had diarrhea for days… but the honey was worse than the drug. My hair was already a mess, and with honey in it, it was just…”
A strange light flickered in Eric’s eyes. He asked in a hardened voice.
“Why did Vivian hate you so much? At the dress shop, she was the one who started the fight.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? A commoner who barely managed to get her name on the very bottom of the peerage register because of her mother’s marriage—she just didn’t like me, that’s all.”
The look in Eric’s eyes grew darker.
“…She’d bully someone for such a pathetic reason?”
Eric looked down at me with a grave expression.
Am I… supposed to answer this seriously? He’s a bit too naive, isn’t he?
“Why are you so surprised? Art salons, dining etiquette, how to dance—all these things are cultures created by the nobility, aren’t they?”
And to learn that culture, I have to ‘study’ under the terrifying glare of that butler.
“It’s their way of building a barrier, saying, ‘Even if a rich commoner gets lucky and joins the ranks of the nobility, they’ll find it hard to understand our culture, built up over generations.’ And if you can’t learn it, they say things like, ‘See, this is why commoners are hopeless…’ all to protect their own positions.”
I shook my head with a look of utter disgust.
“…Why do I even have to learn this stuff? I’ve lived just fine without it.”
I muttered with a shrug of my shoulders.
At that, Eric’s expression turned peculiar, and he seemed to mull over my words for a moment.
Finally, he spoke.
“Yes. That might be true.”
“It’s not ‘might be’…”
“…Even so, you shouldn’t bully people. You shouldn’t put honey in someone’s hair, or drug their tea…”
“Yes, yes…”
But if I go to a royal party or a social gathering, things like that are bound to happen, aren’t they? A second Vivian will try to torment me. And their methods will be even more cunning.
I was thinking just that as I looked up at Eric. As if reading my mind, he said.
“You’re thinking it will happen again, aren’t you?”
Is he a mind reader?
Feeling a little embarrassed, I licked my lips.
“No. It won’t happen again. I told you. I’ll protect you.”
“Was that what you meant by protecting me? Not protecting me from, like, threats to my life?”
I thought he meant protecting me when the Duke tried to kill me again.
Eric looked at me intently and said.
“It includes all of it.”
Eric spoke nonchalantly, then asked me.
“So, when Lady Vivian was bullying you, what was that teacher doing?”
What was the teacher doing?
I remembered the teacher looking down at my hair, ruined by the honey Vivian had smeared in it, with an expression of contempt.
‘Filthy commoner…’
I could read her face as if she were a ventriloquist’s dummy.
But since that was my subjective opinion, I suppose I had to answer like this.
“…Nothing. She did nothing.”
“Why?”
Eric frowned.
I tilted my head.
“What was she supposed to do? Protect me? The only one in that class rumored to be of commoner birth?”
I was dumbfounded. Of course, I still held a grudge against that teacher, but it wouldn’t have been much different if someone else had been in her place.
No one would dare to scold the daughter of the wealthy Cavendish family of the south for the sake of a mere commoner nobody.
“She should have protected you.”
But Eric’s tone was firm.
“An adult should protect a child. That’s how it should be.”
Hah…
What an old-fashioned man.
Even as I thought that, I found myself momentarily speechless.
Because he stated something so obvious so matter-of-factly.
It had been… a million years since I’d met someone who stated the obvious as if it were obvious.
That must be why I was feeling so strange.
It was then.
“So that’s why you came to hate studying…”
Eric murmured under his breath.
Huh? I just hate studying in general, though…?
But before I could answer, Eric asked me.
“Do you want to continue the dance lesson?”
Do I want to continue? Is he crazy?
I shook my head.
“No!”
Just as I shouted, the butler rose from his seat and urged us on.
“Now, you cannot postpone any longer. Let us resume the lesson…”
But Eric shook his head.
“…Let’s stop here for today. Imeline looks tired, and so do I. If Imeline is too tired tomorrow as well, the lesson… just…”
Just?
I looked at Eric with a bewildered expression.
‘What is he going to say…?’
Was he tired to begin with? He clearly doesn’t look tired. Just a little haggard, that’s all.
Eric said firmly.
“Just scrap it.”
