IBVC 11

Chapter 11

Fortunately the butler’s foot stopped in midair.

“Butler, please calm down. This is the lady’s cat — sent by His Highness the Second Prince.”

Thanks to the knight who stepped in front of me. Watching his sturdy back, I slowly straightened the hunched-up posture I’d been holding.

“Butler, have you finally lost your mind?”

Eloise grabbed the butler by the collar with an angry face. It was the first time I’d seen her act so unladylike.

“Mya, myaong.”

Sir Knight — I will definitely repay you for this favor.

I hid behind the silver boots, and a maid who had been following quickly scooped me up.

“How could anyone try to kick such a little thing?”

The maid murmured, just barely audible.

Exactly! That man’s temperament was—very bad.

“Miss, that isn’t ladylike.”

“Then were you being a proper butler?”

While Eloise still had him by the collar, he was already pressing a handkerchief to the left side of his mouth. Sadly, he’d only torn off one side of it. He should’ve torn both sides off.

“You’re as willful as your mistress.”

At that moment, a voice, cold as if someone were crunching ice, spoke from behind.

“Ma—madam. You’ve returned?”

The maid turned, and against my will I caught sight of the Duchess of Monclair.

Seeing the duke standing beside her, it looked like the duke and duchess had been out and were returning home.

“Tch, Eloise. Come with me.”

The duke spun on his heel and headed toward the mansion. Eloise let go of the butler’s collar as if hurling him away.

Before following the duke, she stared intently at me. Her teal eyes fluttered slightly.

“…Take Rizette to her room.”

“No, the cat comes with me.”

“Mother.”

It seemed like the two women were about to bicker with me caught in the middle.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you intend to make your father wait?”

Eloise couldn’t come up with a reply and followed the duke inside.

The duchess motioned to the flustered maid and headed for the central parlor on the mansion’s second floor.

Another short outing ruined, then.

Duchess Katrin Monclair sat on the opposite sofa and stared at the trembling Rizette.

Since that little cat had come, emotions had begun to show on her daughter’s face — who had been like a porcelain doll.

Katrin admitted it: Eloise had changed.

“Bring something suitable for a cat to snack on.”

“Yes, madam.”

Click.

After the maid left the room, Rizette kept glancing between the closed door and the duchess.

Katrin worried over how to handle the commotion Rizette had stirred up in the Monclair household.

“A cat sent by the Second Prince—”

The Second Prince had liked her daughter very much since childhood.

Katrin had thought his feelings were ignored by his older brother and her husband, but it seemed the affection remained.

As Katrin thought of Marcel, there was a tearing sound that drew her attention.

Rrip.

The fabric of the sofa tore from the cat’s sharp claws.

Rrip.

Maybe because it disliked being separated from its owner, Rizette seemed to protest.

“Such a trifle.”

That small, mischievous-looking creature bore a surprising resemblance to her daughter.

Even the way it flinched at Katrin’s firm words and awkwardly settled its bottom into the corner of the sofa.

“A pretty little scamp.”

Eloise had been like that when she was young.

Until they discovered she couldn’t awaken magic, she’d been a bold but bright child.

It felt like only yesterday that she’d messed up the sofa trying to plant magnolias that her mother loved.

“Elly was exactly the same when she was little.”

The pet name for her daughter — used after a long time — tasted both sweet and bitter.

If she could have kept her daughter forever at home and never let her out into the world, she would have continued to call her that.

Since she couldn’t, she’d had to be harsh with her daughter.

“Mya, miyaong.”

Rizette, noticing the softened tone, lifted its bottom from the corner and took a few tentative steps forward.

At that moment, the maid knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

The maid surveyed the sofa’s wretched state and let out a short intake of breath.

“Place it on the table and leave.”

“Yes, yes!”

On the table sat a plate with well-dried dried fish strips.

She’d prepared them the moment she heard that Eloise was keeping a cat.

She picked up a strip of the salty-sweet-smelling treat and shook it gently.

“Nya, nyaang.”

Rizette’s head swayed left and right, following the scent.

Katrin stretched out her hand and offered the treat to Rizette.

“Would you like some?”

The sulking cat snatched the strip with a front paw and put it into its mouth.

Holding the treat with both front paws and chewing — it looked less like a cat and more like a little dog.

Somehow it even seemed human-like.

“You eat well. That’s a reward, little one.”

“Myaong?”

At the answering meow, her lips moved without her realizing it.

It was a remark she hadn’t even told her husband, the Duke of Monclair.

“So you poured tea on the Crown Prince, did you? Well done.”

Every time she thought of that man, she wanted to pour scalding tea on his face dozens of times a day.

She’d been delighted when she heard that the little cat had done it for her.

Rizette stopped chewing and looked at her in bewilderment.

Remembering that made her feel pleased, so she offered another strip.

“Eat quickly. There are plenty of strips.”

The way it held the strip it had been chewing and grabbed a new one with its front paws looked like an adorable puppet.

She had once given Eloise a cat doll like that; Eloise had loved playing with it.

If she hadn’t been engaged to the Crown Prince, would she have been able to keep seeing her daughter’s smile like that?

“Elly did well to chase out the Crown Prince.”

What she had said in the greenhouse was heartfelt.

Eloise, trained by her mother in the art of social repartee, might not have heard it as praise.

“That Crown Prince bastard. I’d like to peel him apart.”

At Katrin’s curse, Rizette’s pupils dilated as if it understood the insult.

Before marriage, Katrin had been bold-tongued and brash.

Once she let a curse slip, the suppressed reaction that had built up inside her made it impossible to stop.

“Son of a dog. When he sweet-talked his way into an engagement promising to make her empress, where’s the lover now?”

Katrin had suspected Eloise couldn’t awaken magic even before the official test.

She knew all too well what befell nobles who couldn’t use magic.

Her childhood friend had been such a case.

Shunned by society and unable to find a suitable house to marry into, she was eventually driven from her home and died a tragic death.

They would never cast Eloise out, but if the duke and duchess were to die… then—

“If I’d known she’d grow up just like her father, I never would’ve arranged an engagement. Damn him.”

She’d intended to make her daughter an empress in the future — to secure a powerful backing.

Supporting a crown prince without backing had been for Eloise’s sake; she wanted no one to be able to trample on her daughter.

Until that bastard stabbed her in the back.

“Chop-chop.”

Rizette nodded as if it understood.

While she continued to pick at the Crown Prince verbally, the cat diligently chewed the dried fish.

“I must be shameless. What a spectacle, gushing like this in front of a cat.”

Still, saying it out loud made her feel relieved.

The white, plump front paws had already finished the strip, so Katrin gave it another.

“I can see why Elly likes you.”

Just having it nearby put her at ease.

She hoped the little creature would become comfort for her daughter.

Apart from tearing the sofa, it seemed quite well-behaved and would suit Eloise.

“But why did it act like that toward the butler?”

“Yaoong.”

Rizette paused and meowed when Katrin spoke.

Indeed, it was clear the little thing understood her words.

It did not seem like an ordinary cat the Second Prince had sent.

“Madam, the young lady has come to see you.”

“Show her in.”

The parlor door opened and Eloise entered with a hardened expression.

She must have received a scolding from the duke.

Katrin had always taught her daughter strictly, but her husband’s discipline was on another level.

“You still keep it? Mother.”

“Yes. You ruined the sofa I treasure.”

“Then buy a new one.”

That sofa had been designed and made to commemorate Eloise’s birth.

She had anticipated a day when she and her grown daughter would enjoy tea together in the parlor.

A little tear was nothing.

Besides, the torn area held sad memories for her; it might be for the best.

“Eloise, I don’t want to replace that sofa with another.”

“It’s just furniture. It’s different from the father and the viscount you love.”

To prevent her daughter from being hurt in society, she had taught Eloise to bear a sharp tongue.

In society you had to eat others before they ate you, or else you’d be eaten.