Chapter 52
Busy footsteps sounded from outside.
Alicia must have done a good job.
Rebecca recalled Zeppelin's wails that echoed through the mansion. It was funny, considering she wasn't the one who had died.
The current situation was similar. Despite the shocking news that she was infertile, no one was giving Rebecca a proper explanation.
Even if she stopped a passing maid and asked, they would only give her vague answers with embarrassed expressions, saying she would find out later.
'This is a bit lonely.'
She missed Canna especially today.
From what she'd vaguely heard, Canna seemed to have gained Grace's full trust.
Thanks to that, she was assigned to supervise the laundry maids instead of washing clothes until her hands were raw.
'A silver lining in a dark cloud.'
As Rebecca was busily imagining what was happening outside the mansion, she heard a knock.
Rebecca quickly recognized the owner of the careful knock and jumped up from her seat.
"Canna!"
"Rebecca!"
Canna ran to Rebecca without even noticing the pile of laundry she was carrying spill onto the floor.
As if not wanting to let her go, Canna hugged Rebecca tightly.
Rebecca exclaimed with a joyful shriek, "Goodness. I can't breathe, Canna."
"Ah! I'm sorry."
Canna was startled and stepped away from Rebecca. Canna's face was pleasantly flushed.
Rebecca took Canna's hand and asked softly, "How did you get here?"
"The mansion is in such chaos right now that no one is watching me closely. And... Alicia let me in here."
"Alicia?"
Rebecca's eyes widened in surprise.
A kind of repayment, perhaps? That was quite cute of her.
"How dare you!"
At that moment, a loud shout was heard from outside the door.
Rebecca glanced towards the door and then turned her head.
Fabiola must have come to the mansion.
Zeppelin's scream-like cries and Fabiola's sobbing voice made the whole situation clear.
Rebecca gave Canna a faint smile.
"Things are working out, aren't they?"
Canna nodded. They were silent for a moment.
No words were exchanged, but Rebecca had a feeling that Canna was thinking the same thing as her.
The hope of escaping soon and the disgust for the current situation.
Instead of expressing her resentment, Rebecca decided to cover it with a gentle smile.
Canna stared intently at Rebecca's precarious smile. And she gripped her hand even tighter, as if afraid that the hand in hers would disappear.
Feeling the pressure on her hand, Rebecca said, "Canna, stop. My hand will wear out. And the laundry you worked so hard to wash will get dirty."
"Dirty things can just be washed again, Rebecca."
That was a phrase she had heard often.
Rebecca chuckled and stroked Canna's hair.
"Thank you for holding on so well. We really don't have much time left."
"I will follow you to the end."
"Oh, right. Did you hear from Margaret?"
At Rebecca's question, Canna smiled brightly.
The mole on Canna's nose crinkled up, showing how pleased she was to be able to give even a slightly joyful answer in this situation.
"Margaret said she will join us. Margaret is also in charge of educating the Liberta people, and it's progressing smoothly."
"That's really good news."
Rebecca needed reliable employees for the salon business.
In that sense, the people from the Poorhouse were perfect.
Rebecca had asked Julian to build the employees' dormitory along with the salon building.
The plan was to move everyone there as soon as it was completed.
One thing that bothered her was the behavior of the Poorhouse people.
Since it was a business targeting the nobility, the employees needed to be familiar with the etiquette of noble society.
So she was secretly trying to hire an etiquette teacher, but Margaret volunteered to take on that role.
Now that Margaret had drawn her sword, it was clear that things would go smoothly, so Rebecca was relieved.
"Madam, I will change the bedsheets."
They hadn't even talked for long when the maid knocked on the door.
Canna glared at the door resentfully.
Rebecca patted her hand.
"Canna, go now. Tell me if anyone is giving you a hard time."
"The work isn't hard. It's not difficult to supervise."
"You really stand out wherever you go. I'm impressed."
At Rebecca's admiring praise, Canna lowered her head shyly.
Now somewhat satisfied, Canna gathered the scattered laundry and put it back in its place.
"Then I'll be going. Take care until we meet again."
"Yes. If we meet again, we will never be separated after that."
Rebecca frowned for a moment, enduring the pain of the Pustules, but her lips held a genuine smile.
Canna was speechless, overwhelmed just by imagining the day when she would be with Rebecca forever.
Soon, she left the room with a flushed face.
* * *
"I would like to take a walk for a while."
Rebecca suddenly spoke to the maid who was silently tidying up the room.
"You are not well yet..."
"I know roughly what happened to me today. So I need to take a walk to soothe my heart, do you understand?"
The maid hesitated for a moment at Rebecca's calm face.
She was acting like a machine, but she was still a person with emotions.
The maid fell into thought.
There were orders not to let her act as she pleased, but there was no way Rebecca could escape in that state.
And wasn't it quite pitiful?
From a praised Countess to losing everything overnight.
The maids had whispered to each other that if it were them, they would have taken their own lives long ago.
Her feelings were no different.
Seeing Rebecca reaching out her hand as if the wind blowing in from the window was her only joy, her heart ached.
The maid opened the closet and took out a shawl. And she wrapped it around Rebecca's shoulders.
Because she couldn't swallow her food properly, her shoulders, which were already thin, had become even more emaciated.
Rebecca felt the soft texture of the shawl warmly enveloping her and smiled.
"You're a good child."
The maid's eyes flickered for a moment and then sank.
She led Rebecca to the garden.
"Where would you like to go?"
"To the Lilac Garden."
Because the weather had warmed up, the lilacs had already faded, and only lush green leaves occupied their place.
Since it was a garden that Zeppelin didn't care about, there were no flowers other than lilacs here.
The only garden management was to trim it so that it didn't look unsightly.
The maid was following Rebecca from a distance.
It seemed to mean that she didn't want to disturb her contemplation.
At the maid's consideration, Rebecca suddenly felt a little ashamed of thinking of her as just one of the mansion's accessories.
Fortunately, the wind was cold tonight. The cold wind washed away her shame a little.
When Rebecca took off her shawl, her collarbone was clearly visible. Rebecca cooled the burning Pustules in the wind.
How long had she been walking?
An unexpected guest appeared before Rebecca's eyes. He seemed to be out for a night walk as well.
A faint smile spread across Rebecca's lips.
"Leo."
The black cat was walking leisurely towards her.
Zeppelin hated all animals. The only animal he liked was horses.
So the only cat that could freely enter through this tight security would be Leo.
When Rebecca sat down on the marble bench, Leo jumped onto her lap as if he had been waiting.
Rebecca stroked Leo and took out a letter from the case hanging around his neck.
<Hang in there.>
Rebecca, who had been slightly nervous about what the letter would say, chuckled.
And then she imagined Julian struggling to write these few words and laughed a little louder.
Come to think of it, he always made her laugh.
"How much paper do you think your partner wasted to write this?"
Leo got up for a moment and then pressed down on Rebecca's thighs about ten times.
"Ten times...?"
Meow.
Leo cried loudly in affirmation. And then he rubbed his head against Rebecca's hand again.
"You don't seem to hate the smell coming from my body."
Rebecca's hand, which had been stroking Leo for a long time, stopped.
"Julian... What expression would Julian make if he saw my face now?"
Leo purred.
"He's definitely a kind person, so he wouldn't openly say he hates it. But he's a man too, so he wouldn't like the face of a hideous woman. That's how it will be."
Rebecca recalled Zeppelin's disgusted expression.
She felt a little sad thinking that Julian would make a similar face.
"Maybe he'll sometimes remember that face and distance himself from me. Is it too greedy of me to want him to be okay with it?"
When Rebecca finished speaking and reached out her hand to stroke Leo again, Leo avoided her hand.
"Leo?"
His bright yellow eyes were staring at Rebecca without answering.
It somehow seemed like he was rebuking her. But Rebecca was stunned because she couldn't understand the exact meaning.
"Rebecca?"
At the voice that suddenly rang out, Leo's eyes narrowed.
Leo hissed and bared his teeth at Zeppelin, who was approaching Rebecca.
Leo looked at him with eyes that scanned even the last piece of his soul.
Zeppelin, who met the cat's fierce eyes, suddenly thought of someone and suddenly became unpleasant.
"To think there would be a cat that dared to come here. I'll have the guards take care of it immediately..."
"He must be lost. I'll take him out of the fence, so don't worry about it."
Rebecca hurriedly drove Leo away, afraid that he would harm him.
Leo frowned deeply and then disappeared into the bushes.
Zeppelin, who had confirmed that the cat had disappeared from his sight, finally relaxed his expression and said, "Rebecca. Why are you out here at this hour when you're not feeling well?"
"I'm fine because I'm not having trouble moving around."
"Achoo!"
Zeppelin covered his tickling nose with a handkerchief.
He didn't know why he was sneezing so often these days.
Rebecca looked at his fancy handkerchief and opened her mouth.
"Why did you bother to come here when you hate this place so much?"
Rebecca's eyes folded gently.
Zeppelin suddenly felt like her face had regained its original light, so he rubbed his eyes for a moment.
But it was only a fleeting illusion.
The Rebecca in front of him had returned to her appearance with Pustules blooming with pus.
Zeppelin sighed deeply with a cold face and sat down next to Rebecca.
"I just came to see the sight of the lilacs all gone."
"Ah..."
A moment of silence flowed.
The cool early summer night air momentarily masked the stench flowing between them.
