Chapter 29
The drawing room on the first floor had a wide window offering a clear view of the front yard of the mansion.
Anne brought out the tea.
“Mmm~ you brewed it well, Anne.”
As Victoria closed her eyes and savored the aroma of the tea, Anne’s worries only deepened.
The front yard was noisy with the gathered knights.
The pounding of armored horses and marching knights echoed loudly, and Anne’s heartbeat began to race with the same intensity.
Would Matilda even remember what Anne had said?
She hoped the Witch’s Compass had taken her somewhere safe…
“A trace appeared near the border.”
Her ominous hunch had been right.
As Hannibal emerged in full armor, with his aide holding his equipment beside him, the knights who had been lined up dispersed swiftly in perfect formation.
Dozens of knights streamed out all at once.
It was already May, the peak of spring. The timing of Matilda’s disappearance was similar to what had happened in Anne’s previous life.
Had Matilda used the witch’s relic to escape that time too? Or had she fallen prey to beasts?
…In the end, war would break out.
“Anne?”
So even after coming back, nothing changed.
Was everything fated to happen no matter what? Or did her efforts to change the future mean nothing at all?
Without realizing it, Anne was biting her fingernails.
“Anne Perot?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She hadn’t even heard Victoria calling her right beside her.
Anne quickly turned her dazed gaze away from the window. Victoria was looking straight at her.
“Are you worried about Matilda?”
“I just wonder if it’s serious enough to send out the knights like that… It almost seems like… a war.”
“People in the West would go to war to retrieve a witch’s relic. Everything the witches left behind is more precious than life itself to those in Clayde. …I know you care for that woman, but she touched a relic. Even if she comes back, she’ll be executed. So you should give up, Anne.”
As she listened to Victoria, Anne bit her lip.
It wasn’t that she had cherished Matilda or held deep affection for her.
She simply pitied the way Matilda was still manipulated by noblemen and ended up losing her child in this second life, the same as before. It reminded her too much of her own past.
…But now she knew Matilda wouldn’t make it back alive.
That this skirmish near the border was just the beginning. Soon, war would engulf the entire Empire, and the Benton Duchy would be drawn in as well.
If both the Duke and the young Duke died, would Grey Benton become the new duke? And then again—
“Anne.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The mansion’s front yard, once full of people, now stood empty, swallowed by darkness.
Anne snapped back to herself at the sight of her reflection in the black glass window.
She was now Anne Perot, maid of the Clayde Count’s household. Not the same as before.
So she would not let the same ending repeat itself.
Reassuring herself, Anne forced down the surge of emotion.
“From now on, you’re the head maid.”
Anne gasped at Victoria’s sudden declaration.
“…Excuse me?”
“My brother might strip you of it as soon as he returns, but hey, they told me to be acting lord, so you can be head maid. You said you wanted the role, right?”
Victoria was lighthearted and unserious.
A stark contrast from the way she’d once used the name of Clayde to bully the other women in the household.
“Anne, you’re the only one I can trust. My brother must have been desperate to leave me in charge.”
“…”
“Patrick will handle everything. Even if I’m a joke, my brother isn’t. Let’s just drink tea and wait.”
The Clayde family was said to hold absolute dominance in the West, and even within the Empire, their name was widely known.
But when one looked inside the imposing and seemingly solid fortress of Tegenes Castle, it was all crumbling.
Anne recalled what she’d only known from the surface.
“The Count comes once a year, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah. It’d be better if he didn’t. He and my brother always fight.”
“Maybe because he’s trying to offer guidance or discipline, as a father?”
Anne offered a hopeful suggestion, since he was still their father, but Victoria burst into laughter.
“Our father? Count Clayde? He only comes to celebrate Witch’s Night. He brings a different woman every time and tries to squeeze more money out of us. He burns through the estate’s entire annual budget by himself. He’s always drunk from hosting parties. Last year, he didn’t even recognize me as his daughter!”
Though she mocked him cheerfully, Victoria didn’t touch the tea on the table, letting it grow cold.
It was clear that Count Arthur Clayde, who vanished every time he appeared with a new problem, had no real interest or affection for his children.
After Countess Sarah Clayde died, this huge and desolate mansion had been left to a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old.
Hannibal, at such a young age, had no time to rest as he marched from battlefield to battlefield, and Victoria had grown up like a wild foal without a proper tutor, raised by maids and servants.
Only now did Anne fully realize.
There were no adults in Tengenes Castle.
“When’s he coming? What if that scammer ran away? I wanted to punish him myself!!”
Losing her appetite, the childish Victoria stomped her feet impatiently.
Anne poured fresh tea after checking there was still warmth left in the pot.
The steam seemed to soothe Victoria’s mood slightly.
“He couldn’t have left Tegenes. He’ll be caught.”
Outside the city was nothing but desert, barren rocks, dry soil, and weedy plains.
Leaving without preparation in a single day would be impossible.
“In the meantime, I’ll investigate the maids. Head Maid May couldn’t have acted alone.”
“Right. They all looked down on me. I saw them sneaking around with May a bunch of times. They’re obviously in on it!”
Victoria downed her tea in one gulp and looked ready to burst out the door.
Anne gently stopped her.
“I’ll handle the investigation. You, my lady, should wait here.”
“And I just sit and do nothing?”
“You’ll be getting reports from Steward Patrick and making decisions. Also, my lady, about that—”
Despite the chaos, Anne had duties to fulfill and had to guide Victoria, now the acting lord.
But Anne herself had limited education and knew she wasn’t fit to teach a noble lady.
Especially about the West—there, she had more to learn than teach.
“We need to bring in a tutor.”
“Why?”
“You need to learn about Clayde’s history, traditions, and the family legacy.”
“Me? Why bother? I’ll just get married and leave. I’m out of here.”
Even when marrying, high-ranking noblewomen didn’t remove their family name from their title.
Victoria, who bore the name of Clayde—one of the highest noble families in the West—didn’t seem to understand its weight.
“Even if you marry, you’re still a Clayde. And if the young lord isn’t here, you’re the acting lord. Just like today.”
Anne had died before reaching thirty in her previous life.
Even then, she had never heard of Hannibal Clayde’s marriage.
If he died without an heir in the war-torn West, the next Clayde would undeniably be Victoria.
“That’s ridiculous. The Clayde lord is my brother. Only him.”
Victoria was adamant.
Did she know something Anne didn’t? As Anne looked at her curiously, Victoria added:
“Only someone who receives the witch’s blessing can succeed Clayde.”
“The witch’s blessing?”
Anne didn’t believe in witches or magic.
Back in the capital, the Luto Kingdom was often ridiculed as a nation swayed by superstition.
Even priests now sold blessings for gold, propped up by noble power—who would believe in witches?
The West was often disparaged as barbaric precisely because of its culture of venerating witches like deities.
Victoria suddenly straightened up and looked Anne dead in the eye.
“Anne, you really don’t believe in the witch? This is when I realize you’re not from the West.”
She looked at Anne with genuine fascination. Anne replied hesitantly.
“…Seeing Matilda use the Witch’s Compass to escape, it does make me think there must’ve been a time when magic was real. But to still believe in it today… life in the Empire has changed too much.”
All Anne had wanted was to survive, whether in the Benton Ducal house or the Clayde Count’s.
“You were brought here by the witch, Lady Moira’s design.”
If that were true, then maybe her return to the past was due to the witch’s power too.
A suspicion flickered in Anne’s mind, and she quickly shook her head.
She really was becoming influenced by the West.
How much time had passed? Noise rose from outside once again.
“I swear, I didn’t do anything wrong!”
A young man, already bound, was dragged into the mansion, shouting.
“That’s him! The one who sold me fake dresses and jewelry!!”
“It was all May’s doing! My lady, I really didn’t know. You know I poured my heart into making that dress for you—!”
The fake André, Sam Robert, shouted with a shameless face the moment he saw Victoria, his voice growing even louder in desperation.
“My lady, what should we do?”
Patrick turned to Victoria, who instinctively looked toward Anne.
“What do we do, Anne?”
