Chapter 27
Intermission began after Act I ended. Marien thought she’d better hurry if she wanted to visit the restroom in her dress. She was surprised when she heard the intermission lasted a whole hour.
Cloise reacted as if an hour was nothing.
“The performance I saw with my mother last time had a ninety-minute intermission,” she said.
Ninety minutes? Well, if it came to it she could even go home and come back.
Watching, Marien noticed there was a reason the intermission was so long. People used the time as an opportunity for socializing.
Merchants were busy taking business cards out of sleek cardholders. Noblewomen with marriageable children approached households with unmarried children of similar ages with smiling faces.
There were quite a few who boldly visited the box where the Baileon siblings sat. Marien excused herself to the siblings and slipped out.
“Wow, you could run in here,” Cloise remarked.
The restroom, with its spotless teal-tiled floor, a huge mirror, brass faucets and elegant fresh-flower arrangements, was impressive. The ladies’ room tucked inside the private dressing lounge left such an impression that Marien learned the aides’ quarters weren’t even as nice as the opera house’s ladies’ restroom.
“And the hot water gushes out, too.”
Opera house bathrooms: overwhelming winner. In any case, Marien left the restroom feeling rather refreshed.
“Did you greet Her Highness the Fourth Princess?” Cloise asked.
“I tried to go before the performance started but failed. I’ll try again later.”
Marien, about to leave the ladies’ lounge, froze at the conversation between some noblewomen.
“I hear the earrings Her Highness is wearing today were a gift from His Majesty.”
“They say they’re actually a treasure of the Einfel royal family. They’re two hundred years old — the Empress wanted them badly. But…”
“She gave them to celebrate the duchess’s engagement.”
“I don’t know how she got that ice-hearted man to fall for her, but the princess’s standing at court has risen sharply since.”
Marien walked into the corridor with a sour expression.
Baileon works himself to the bone too, you know! Who should he hand the throne to — shall we ask Professor Know-It-All? The emperor spends his days playing ring-a-bell games while Baileon’s working from morning till late at night!
If you listed the big and small disputes Baileon solved, it would fill a book, right? Yet the emperor praised his daughter who married a northern duke. If Odette had been engaged to Baileon, she wouldn’t have received those earrings.
‘So Baileon’s just a fish already caught, huh?’
It felt dirty and petty; she had no words.
Because the emperor set the tone, of course people think Odette did well to ally with that northern fellow. Everyone cheers that idea on. Even if feelings had started to tilt toward Baileon, they’d swing back.
“I will find those earrings, no matter what.”
Marien set her jaw and returned to the box seats. From her spot she could only see part of Odette’s face.
She was curious to see the original heroine in person, but on the other hand she was glad she couldn’t see everything.
It’s easier to just focus on the ears, she thought. Marien again checked the silhouette of Odette’s earrings — they were said to be made of ten jewels.
For now both earrings seemed intact.
Those planning to greet Odette would surely notice her earrings, too. If one was missing, whoever found it first would naturally say something.
“Assistant, was the lounge crowded?” Cloise lowered her voice to ask. Lounge? Oh — she meant the restroom. Marien shook her head firmly.
“Excuse me.”
Satisfied with her answer, Cloise pushed through the crowd. It wasn’t until a while later that the younger Biers returned.
Act II began before she knew it. Since everyone was seated during the performance, Marien felt more at ease and relaxed her guard to watch.
Cough.
It was Baileon. His condition had temporarily improved after taking a cold medicine, but he’d talked to so many people during intermission that his throat was starting to itch and a dry cough seemed about to burst out.
Of all times, the singer with a nightingale-like voice was singing an aria. Marien quickly took a small bottle from her coat pocket and handed it to Baileon.
“It’s a cough lozenge. Please take it.”
“…Thank you.”
Even though his throat must have been raw and sore, he still forced out a thank-you. Baileon put the herbal lozenge in his mouth.
“Keep it with you, Lord Biers.”
“Alright.”
Marien turned her attention back to the stage. She kept smiling at the small satisfaction of having helped Baileon.
Just as the performance ended, the atmosphere in the adjacent box grew uneasy. Baileon, who had gone to see Odette, spoke with a grim face.
“It’ll be difficult to go home immediately. Her Highness’s earring has gone missing.”
◇ ◆ ◇
After discovering who was behind the bucket-throwing incident, Marien made a decision: from now on, before acting rashly she would first watch Odette’s reactions.
If the earring loss was Odette’s own staged drama, Marien Didi must never get involved. No matter how much she wanted to help Baileon, it would be wiser to wait for another opportunity.
But Marien remembered Odette genuinely looked flustered after losing the earring.
The earrings were not only Odette’s possession but also still imperial treasures of the empire. Whoever failed to properly guard them would surely be held strictly accountable.
“If my mother had come today she’d have been so excited she’d have gone down on stage,” Cloise said fanning herself.
“A jewel theft in a lavish theater,” someone mused.
“It wasn’t theft, though. She just lost it…”
Marien stopped speaking midsentence.
“Was it stolen?”
Marien shot Cloise a sharp look.
“Why would you think it was theft? Lord Biers only said it ‘disappeared’.”
Marien widened her eyes and crept closer to Cloise.
“Miss Biers, look me in the eye and answer. Did you… swipe it?”
Cloise was momentarily at a loss for words, then turned it back on Marien.
“Assistant, are you accusing me of being the culprit right now?”
“You left your seat for a long time during intermission, and you have the shield of being Lord Biers’s sister, so approaching the princess wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”
“Oh, you’ve started deducing already.”
Cloise continued.
“Haven’t you been spending too much time with my mother? Or with the youngest Daisy? How did their bad habit rub off on you, assistant?”
A hint of sadness crept into Cloise’s voice.
“Then you’ll show interest in someone like my father — an eccentric of sorts… or maybe you already do.”
This girl casually called her father an eccentric. Marien paused for a moment but didn’t correct the expression.
“Now’s not the time to worry about my love life, miss,” Marien said.
“What else in the world is more important than that, assistant?!” Cloise fanned herself with vigor.
“Love is supreme. Love will save the world! Kyaah!”
“E-e-easy,” Marien stammered.
Surprisingly, the girl had just called her father an eccentric.
A count who lovingly tends a garden and enjoys occasionally deceiving mansion visitors for fun — and Marien had assumed the Biers family was just a happily ordinary household with four children. She’d never expected such specific quirks.
‘The author was a bit daring with details outside the main text,’ Marien thought. She’d sensed it vaguely when she decided the extra characters’ hair and eyes — rose quartz and serenity — but still.
In any case, in the original story the Biers family was just a cheerful, harmonious family of four children; she hadn’t expected these eccentric traits.
“I’m right. Love is supreme. Love can do anything. So answer me straight: did you steal it, miss?”
Cloise waved her fan faster. Although she’d momentarily lost her composure, she didn’t seem particularly surprised as she looked at Marien.
“No.”
“Then why were you gone so long during intermission?”
“I drank a milk tea with extra cream before leaving the house. I just zoned out for a moment. That’s my explanation.”
“I accept it.”
The long absence was closely tied to personal dignity — and Marien dropped further questioning of Cloise there.
“There’s a reason I called it a jewel theft. You’re right, assistant. Actually, it’s more accurate to call it a loss rather than a theft.”
Cloise explained this as well, blaming her mother’s influence. The countess liked to exaggerate things and treat them as stories for her amusement. Marien found the explanation plausible.
“‘Theft.’”
Marien murmured to herself.
“Even though I’ve read the lines so many times that I could recite the major speeches from memory, I didn’t realize. This could have been a theft.”
Until now Marien had firmly believed it was Odette’s loss.
The earrings were heavy, matching their extravagant appearance. Just before intermission ended, while Odette was taking a breather in her private dressing room, she might have briefly taken them off.
She put them back on before leaving the lounge, but something had been loose. Tired from the outing, Odette may not have noticed the earrings slipping from her dress onto the carpet.
A page who entered later added a vase the height of an adult as a room decoration, and the earrings ended up under it, completely out of sight.
Odette’s attendants searched for the earrings but no one thought to lift the heavy vase.
Marien, who knew this line of events, planned to induce Baileon to check under the vase.
‘How do I know this fact…?’
Because the one who found the earring said so. When his fiancée asked where he found it, Kain Blackwood answered: under the restroom vase.
Baileon summoned the page in charge of the private lounge; the page’s testimony confirmed Blackwood’s claim was true.
‘But what if the northern fellow hid it from the start?’
The earring incident had been narrated entirely from Odette’s perspective. From the reader’s viewpoint, there was no way to know what the northern fellow had been thinking.
Marien watched Baileon from the stage boxes as he gave orders to attendants and guards below. It wasn’t a situation where she could easily go down and whisper to Baileon.
She thought for a moment. She had to be careful. If she let her feelings run ahead and personally retrieved the earrings to present them, she might instead be suspected as the culprit.
‘If it’s the northern fellow’s staged trick… who should I get help from in this situation?’
Just as Marien regretted the countess’s absence, her eyes fell upon the countess’s daughter.
“Miss, I have a question for you.”
There’s a saying: take any road so long as it reaches the capital. If the countess isn’t here, use the countess’s daughter somehow!
“You know the duke who’s loitering in the corridor? If he’s the one who slyly hid Her Highness’s earring…”
“…Yes?”
“What motive might he have? Think of the most romantic reason possible.”
Love and romance seemed to make Cloise’s brain rev up. A smile suddenly softened the young lady’s face.
“To win the trust of the cool, aloof princess, of course.”
Is the lunatic staging this for that reason? Marien bit back a curse and gave Cloise a second nudge.
“Then until I announce, ‘I found it,’ where would he hide it?”
“Without hesitation, on his person. Who would dare search the body of the Duke of Blackwood?”
Marien pressed her lips together. First, she’d figure out how to check under the vase somehow. If it wasn’t there—
Her eyes burned with a serenity-like light as they turned toward the corridor.
You, be prepared.
