CHAPTER 81……………………
“So then—”
Linaria chose her words carefully.
When the body is sick, the walls of the heart tend to fall. Even the most patient person can throw a tantrum. Once Ricardo’s cold cleared up he would surely regret what he’d said a moment ago. So she decided to treat his earlier remark as if it had never happened.
“If the form of address is the problem, calling Lord Obel ‘Lord Obel’ isn’t strange. Should I have called you ‘Marquess’ instead?”
Ricardo looked hurt. Linaria, who had planned to patch up the naming issue quickly and leave, was taken aback by his reaction.
“I don’t call you ‘princess,’ you know.”
“……”
“That wouldn’t be natural…”
Those were not names family used for one another. But neither was betrayal. Linaria, who had never regarded Ricardo as family, found his wounded expression irritating. Rather than waste time probing his motives or making excuses that wouldn’t land, she preferred to be bluntly antagonistic.
She answered honestly. “You dislike me. But do you want me to call you ‘brother’?”
“…Me?”
“……”
“Why—”
Ricardo, surprised, hauled himself up despite his pain. Was he acting now? Or was he really ignorant?
“You didn’t even bother to look my way the day I arrived.”
It was Ricardo who had forced this conversation out of her. Linaria spoke sharply, determined to strip away his smile of civility.
“I didn’t know how to treat you when I first saw you again.”
“Making excuses about being busy?”
“If I offended you, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand this conversation.”
She wanted to believe he was merely a betrayer putting on airs, but he sounded sincere, and that mismatch left her unsettled.
“You hated me from the start! From the day you came to supervise the heir’s training.”
Linaria’s voice rose before she clamped her mouth shut. Hearing herself angry cooled her head like a bucket of cold water.
‘What am I doing, confronting a sick man?’ she thought. His apparent sincerity was probably due to his illness. She moved to leave, but Ricardo spoke softly, barely above a whisper.
“When I first saw you—”
His voice, already ragged, trembled.
“As a child, when I saw your face, you looked like a doll.”
Recalling that day, Ricardo’s eyes dropped.
“Like a bisque doll placed on the highest shelf in a toyshop.”
“……”
“To look at that pretty doll you had to crane your neck until it hurt. When I was young, that height felt endless.”
Linaria understood. She’d always been an only princess of the Obel household, a status that made her feel distant. Seeing her—more beautiful than most bisque dolls—only reinforced his preconceptions.
“You were small and delicate, like something that would break if mishandled. I must have been overly nervous. I expected that if you opened your mouth, you’d say something foolish.”
“……”
“Like just now. I said something stupid to you. Pathetic, right?”
He let out a self-deprecating sigh. The feverish Ricardo spoke more than usual and showed more expression than he normally did; for a moment Linaria almost believed him.
“You never even tried to listen to me enough to strike up conversation.”
“Never at all?”
“The day a runaway named Mia fought over my doll and its leg came off—I remember you took her side and brought her away.”
Even as the words left her mouth, Linaria worried she’d misjudged how much Ricardo would remember; it had happened so long ago. But he did remember.
“At the time, she seemed to be the cause. I was eager simply to separate you two. You looked like you were about to cry.”
He remembered Linaria’s expression even then. According to his explanation, his choice had been made for her own good—but Linaria found that hard to accept.
Perhaps noticing the look on her face, Ricardo hurried to continue. “B-but!” He started coughing harshly, forcing him to cover his mouth. When the spasm eased and his face flushed red, he continued in a quieter voice.
“After that I had a similar doll made for you. But you refused it.”
“You remember it wrong. You gave it to Mia, not me.”
“No—I distinctly remember giving it to you—”
Their eyes met, puzzled. Then Linaria had a hunch.
“Could that doll have been passed on through Lady Meryl?”
“Yes. She was the one closest to you.”
“And she gave the same doll to Mia?”
“Why would I give it to her?”
Linaria was left speechless. If a doll that had been intended for her had been diverted and ended up with Mia, she felt a mix of indignation and disbelief. That Meryl and Mia would do such a thing was sadly believable; that she herself had been naïvely used was bitter.
“Lady Meryl didn’t give that doll to me—she gave it to Mia. Mia boasted it was from you.”
“No. I never gave it to her.”
“I believe you.”
“……”
“Truly.”
Linaria exhaled.
“Alright. We were simply misunderstanding each other this whole time.”
They had both thought the other disliked them, but the root of the rift was petty misunderstandings.
“I also know now that you’re not a doll.”
Ricardo glanced at the back of Linaria’s hand; a scratch mark remained there too—she’d been injured helping the cats. Yet she seemed unconcerned, even active while Linaria had been dazed. Watching his lively face close-up, it was impossible to think of him as a mere plaything. He breathed, felt, and acted like a living person—no motionless doll.
“If my avoiding you because I thought you were ‘difficult’ made you uncomfortable, I’ll change.”
“Yes. You’ve outgrown the need to crane your neck just to see a doll.”
“…Yes.”
“Get well soon.”
Linaria left the room as if all bitterness had been resolved. Still, a nagging doubt lingered in her chest.
‘Will this be enough to prevent Ricardo from betraying the family?’ she wondered. No matter how frustrated she was, she couldn’t demand he explain why he might betray his house—that would be about the future, not the past.
Meanwhile, at the Fletcher Marquisate.
“Miss, you need to eat. You’ve skipped two days.”
“No!”
Alicia shouted through tears and pulled the blanket over her head. The nurse soothed her and peeled the covers away. Alicia emerged, face streaked with tears.
“Nurse, have I gained weight?” she asked.
“Of course not. You look so thin.”
“No, be honest. Is my face puffy? Am I ugly?”
“You’ve always been beautiful.”
“Then why, why—”
Alicia screamed. “Why won’t he marry me?”
“My lady,” the nurse said gently, “you must be upset about Lord Obel. Didn’t he send a letter recently?”
“What good is that! He didn’t even look at me! He came to fetch the Obel princess and left! He didn’t spare me a glance.”
Alicia sobbed. She always tried to appear perfect before other young ladies; showing weakness might invite criticism. With no one watching, her true feelings surfaced.
“I’ll die—if I die, maybe then I can marry Ricardo, like my brother did.”
“My lady! Don’t say such things!” the nurse cried, clutching Alicia’s hand. But Alicia kept murmuring through her tears.
“When my brother died, they performed a soul-marriage by finding a girl of similar age to make him ‘happy.’ My brother had his wedding into the Obel household, so he must have been happy, right?”
Alicia envied him. Her brother had been matched with Ricardo’s elder sister; Alicia thought it unfair that marriage with Ricardo was so difficult for her while her brother, by virtue of being dead, had been easily tied to the family.
“If Father truly cared for me… then if I died, he’d make me marry Ricardo—even if he had to take his life to do it.”
She believed that, just as her brother had been paired with someone after death, her death would secure the match. Alicia clung to that desperate hope.
