TSMA 30

After Renard suddenly got up and disappeared, I sat there blankly, staring at the tea the maid had left behind without even taking a sip.

Ever since Renard left, a certain emotion had been washing over me.
But I found it difficult to give that feeling a clear name.

Sadness?
That didn’t seem quite right.

‘Renard thinks of me as Orlando’s doll? But why…?’

Disappointment?
That seemed closer to the truth.
Renard, whom I had considered friendly, had said something like that to me.

But had I always been this kind of person?
The kind who would dwell on something like this just because someone hurt my feelings?

‘Betrayal…?’

For some reason, that felt like the right word.

‘But why would I feel betrayed?’

That was an emotion you could only feel if you had trusted someone.
You had to believe that person was on your side—believe they wouldn’t abandon you.

“Ha…”

A heavy sigh escaped me.

The sunlight reflected off the tea’s surface, glittering sharply like needles.
My eyes hurt.

“Get a grip.”

Only when the tea had gone completely cold did I finally shake off the emotion that had been weighing me down.

I realized how much time had passed only after lifting my gaze from the cup.
I thought only the tea had cooled, but outside the window the sunset had already dyed the sky red.

“Ha.”

A short, incredulous laugh slipped out.

‘So much time has already passed…’

I needed to quickly find a way to send a letter to the Cowell estate.

First, I decided to step outside the room and assess the situation.

But when I opened the door, the green-haired maid who had been lingering outside my room jumped in surprise and stepped back.

“Y-Your Grace…!”

“……”

“I mean… I thought… perhaps Your Grace might need something and call for me…”

Seeing how flustered she was made me wonder if Renard had ordered her to watch me.

So Renard really intended to keep me confined in this mansion.

“I don’t need anything. Thank you for your effort.”

I looked directly into the maid’s green eyes and closed the door again.

The pale yellow room, dyed by the sunset, suddenly felt suffocating.

* * *

Close to midnight.

Dark clouds covered even the faint moonlight, plunging the mansion into deep darkness.

Eloise welcomed that darkness and left her room.

Her quiet footsteps carried her from her chamber down the hallway where the entrance could be seen.

When she noticed two armed knights standing guard in front of the entrance, her steps slowed.

‘Why are they there…?’

Normally, knights didn’t guard that spot.

They usually stood outside the entrance protecting the mansion, or patrolled the wide area between the entrance and the main gate.

But the fact that they were standing inside, facing inward, meant the one being watched was inside the mansion.

‘And that would be me.’

The seriousness of the surveillance left Eloise feeling bitter.

But she had no time to dwell on it.

‘I have to send the letter quickly.’

There was no telling what the Cowell family might do tomorrow.

Eloise placed her hand inside the inner pocket of the robe draped over her dress, checking that the letter she had prepared earlier was still there.

Then she quietly made her way toward the kitchen.

The kitchen in the middle of the night was silent.

Even though Eloise had skipped dinner that evening, the kitchen must have been busy earlier; the rich aroma of food still floated through the air like dust.

Eloise had come to the kitchen for one reason—to get outside.

During a walk some time ago, she had seen a door connected to the backyard.

Judging by the clothes of the people going through it, she assumed it was a kitchen door.

Fortunately, her guess was correct.

In a corner of the kitchen, Eloise found a wooden ladder used to reach ingredients on high shelves.

After searching around, she even managed to find a fairly sturdy rope.

She gathered them and opened the door leading to the backyard.

As soon as the wooden door opened, fresh night air rushed in.

Her lungs seemed to rejoice at the outside air.

The clouds had cleared, and the sky was filled with countless stars.

If she went out now, delivered the letter to the Cowell estate, and came back…

She would probably live like a bird trapped in a cage for a while.

Thinking that made the night air taste unusually sweet.

She didn’t want to lose her freedom.

She hadn’t realized its value while she had it, but now that she might lose it, the thought made her deeply sad.

‘Should I just run away like this…?’

After a moment of hesitation, Eloise lowered her gaze from the sky and moved.

First, she decided to find a section of the wall low enough for her to climb.

The walls surrounding the prince’s mansion were generally high.

She stopped in front of one that was relatively lower.

A tree more than three times her height stood next to the wall.

Since the tree was taller than the wall, climbing it might allow her to cross over.

Eloise planned to climb the tree using the ladder, sit on a sturdy branch, tie the rope to it, and throw the end over the wall.

Then she would move from the branch onto the wall and climb down the rope to the other side.

Things were going more smoothly than expected.

Coming back would be the real problem, but if she failed to climb back over with the rope, she decided she would simply walk back in through the front gate.

Either way, she’d end up confined in the mansion.

But even leaving wasn’t as easy as she had planned.

She managed to climb onto a branch using the ladder—

—but in the process, she stepped wrong and knocked the ladder over.

Now she couldn’t climb down.

Eloise let out a deep sigh.

Her dress felt cumbersome.

Even though she had deliberately chosen the simplest dress she had, she missed pants terribly.

‘Should I make trousers fashionable in this world…?’

Just then, her slender body swayed downward.

The hem of her skirt had caught on something.

She looked down to see what it was—

But it wasn’t a tree branch.

Instead, a pair of reddish-brown eyes, wet with moonlight, stared up at her.

The owner of those eyes looked shocked.

“It’s dangerous. Please come down.”

Renard spoke to her.

But after a brief silence, Eloise shook her head.

Then she started climbing higher toward another branch.

At that moment, Renard grabbed her skirt again.

His urgent voice followed.

“It was an act, Your Grace!”

A cool night breeze brushed past Eloise, drying the sweat on her skin.

She looked at Renard with confusion.

His expression had turned anxious.

“There was a spy from His Highness the Prince in the mansion. To deceive the spy—and His Highness—I had to quarrel with you today. If I had told you beforehand… you might have acted awkwardly. I don’t know how good you are at acting.”

“……”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I meant to explain right away, but the spy never left your side.”

The green-haired maid outside my room.

“I was planning to tell you if you came to my room with the tea. I was also planning to send your letter, of course. But when you didn’t bring the tea, I went to your room… and to think you were already trying to run away from me like this…”

At the end of that sentence, Renard’s eyes drooped.

He looked strangely sorrowful.

Just earlier he had called her a doll, yet the thought that Eloise had tried to run away from him seemed to hurt him deeply.

“I… was wrong…”

Renard spoke with a trembling voice.

He still clutched the hem of Eloise’s skirt as if pleading.

The sight made Eloise unable to push him away.

He reminded her of a child desperately clinging to his mother.

It overlapped with her own childhood in the real world—when she had clung to her mother’s pant leg, begging her not to leave.

But she couldn’t trust Renard to deliver the letter.

Just this morning he had caught her completely off guard.

Everything he had said—and was doing now—might simply be another scheme to make her give up.

Most of all, she shouldn’t trust Renard.

‘People abandon you. People betray you.’

That was the only truth Eloise had learned in the real world.

And Renard, a schemer, was the last person she should trust.

She wanted to deliver the letter to the Cowell estate herself.

Just like in her previous life, she would solve her own problems.

“Let go.”

“Your Grace…”

“I said let go.”

When Eloise frowned, Renard finally said something he had tried to avoid.

The words shocked her.

“I cannot let you go right now. If you leave… I might have to cut off your ankle myself.”

My ankle…?

“What do you mean?”

“Of course, I won’t cut off your ankle. Even if I’m ordered to. But now is not the time. If we wait a little longer, His Highness the Prince’s interest in us will fade. He loses interest easily. When that happens, I’ll find a way to let you leave. I don’t like the idea of you being trapped here either. So please… just wait a little longer for me.”

Eloise blinked in confusion.

She still couldn’t understand what he meant about cutting off her ankle if she left.

‘Even if I’m ordered to…’

She repeated his words in her mind.

Then the meaning began to dawn on her.

If she tried to leave, Orlando had ordered Renard to cut off her ankle.

What a considerate fiancé he was.

“Truly… remarkably kind.”

“Hm?”

“I mean His Highness the Prince. Did he really order that my ankle be cut off if I tried to leave? And he’s supposed to be my real fiancé? That’s quite something… But I refuse to remain trapped here because of a single command from someone like him. If my ankle must be cut off, then do as you please. Go ahead. Cut it.”

“Your Grace!”

Eloise stubbornly insisted in a way she normally never would.

The moonlight flickering in Renard’s eyes made her act purely on emotion.

She felt wronged.

Being transmigrated into a book.
Being forced to accept a prince who would order her ankle cut off as her fiancé.

Then Renard, who had been silently watching her expression, suddenly spoke.

“I will help you break off the engagement.”