Episode 128
Sasha, who had woken early along with Isaac, saw him off in a tousled state, then returned to the bedroom and slept for about another thirty minutes before getting up. It was still earlier than usual, so Sasha got out of bed looking more dazed than normal, washed up briefly, and went into the breakfast room intending to drink coffee to wake herself up.
As always, the mansion was very quiet. Without Sasha having to say a word, the maid brought her the strong coffee she always sought out whenever she was tired, and soon served it with a chunk of dry, crumbly bread and butter to go with it.
After taking a sip of coffee, Sasha split the bread in half, spread butter on the inside, and looked around. As if asking what on earth had happened over the past two days, the mansion was utterly peaceful, and the servants looked busy with their work as though nothing truly had happened at all.
Sasha mulled over the conversation she had shared with them the previous evening and smiled faintly. Rather than a smile full of joy, it was a crooked smile with a somewhat sharp edge to it.
There had been no resistance from the servants, which she had half expected. There had been none of the dramatic reactions Sasha had imagined ever since she was young—things like, “How dare you, someone in the same position as us, perhaps even worse, order us around all this time?” Rather, they were worse than outsiders. Far from contempt or scorn, all they cared about at that moment was their own stable employment.
In a sense, they were loyal. Just as they had offered the Grand Madam obedience and submission befitting her position, they were merely treating Sasha strictly according to the role the Grand Madam had assigned her. Just as they had when she was a child.
To think that this proper indifference of theirs, which had once felt so heartless that it was almost resentful, would now instead reassure her like this. For Sasha, it was unexpected in many ways.
“Good morning, Mistress.”
“The morning paper, I see. Please give it here.”
Jason, who had approached looking somewhat hesitant, soon set the newspaper on a silver tray and offered it to her. Sasha simply picked up the paper and immediately unfolded it to read.
Since it was a morning paper published every day, even the front page did not always contain only the gravest news. Especially these days, society was so exceedingly peaceful that it would not have been strange for gossip about affairs—so frivolous and trivial that some would shake their heads—to be printed there.
That was all the more reason the reporters could not miss this news. With an expressionless face, Sasha read the article about the charity event printed on the front page. The words Sasha had spoken from the podium were printed exactly as she had said them, without a single syllable out of place.
Perhaps because it was an article, the writing had a suitably dry quality to it. Yet some people were the sort to read melodrama even from writing like this.
Rumors were like snakes without legs; if there was any opening at all, they would slip through and spread quickly. Moreover, this was a newspaper, openly informing people of the news. Even those who had not read it themselves would have people around them talking about it, so perhaps this morning, everyone in the capital might be chattering about yesterday’s charity event.
It was a somewhat crude method, but it was fair to say that the most urgent fire had been successfully put out. People would now have realized that this absurd fraud had been orchestrated under the Grand Madam’s very active involvement, so they would not be able to casually denounce Sasha as they pleased.
If there was one side effect, however, it was that people would now focus on “the whereabouts of the real one.” Sasha herself felt frustrated. She truly had no way of knowing whether the real one was dead, or whether she was alive somewhere, pretending not to know while leaving everything to Sasha and enjoying a modest but free life.
“Has there been no word from the ducal family?”
Sasha asked indifferently as she rummaged through the stacks of letters. When Jason replied that there had not, she wore an expression that seemed troubled in various ways.
‘They’re waiting for me to bend first and come to them.’
It was not surprising. Even now, with her identity so blatantly exposed, the lofty duke and duchess would not be the first to thunder at her, no matter how impudent they thought her.
But even so, the fact that there had been no word at all until now was truly strange. She might only be their niece, but that couple—especially the duchess.
##(flashback)“I truly want us to be like mother and daughter, Sasha. The sort of relationship where we can freely share things we can’t tell others. For example, about your peculiar fiancé.”
Hadn’t she shown an interest in Sasha that was rather unusual for something directed merely at a niece?
##(flashback)“Sasha. Your memories from the accident that day are hazy, aren’t they?”
Sasha lifted her gaze from where she had been blankly staring at the letters. She stared into empty space.
##(flashback)“Come to think of it, I heard that back then, you often woke up crying, saying you had nightmares. Do you still have nightmares from that time?”
The words she had brushed off at the time as a bit of a nuisance suddenly pierced into her mind.
Sasha gripped the innocent edge of the newspaper, crumpling it slightly, then set it down on the table with the stacks of letters.
“……Mr. Jason. What happened with Mr. Theodore?”
“Pardon? Mr. Theodore? Hm…… I haven’t seen him recently. Has something happened to him?”
At Sasha’s question, Jason asked back with a puzzled expression.
Sasha, who had asked just in case, replied vaguely, as if she was not particularly surprised, “There was something I had asked Mr. Theodore to do separately,” and rose from her seat.
“I need to go out. Would you prepare the carriage?”
＊＊＊
Until now, she had never been that curious about the real Sasha Grayson. Rather, when she was very young, she had even made the selfish wish that the real one would never return. Of course, after receiving an education that was practically abuse, she had stopped making even such wishes.
Now, Sasha was curious about what on earth had happened to the real Sasha Grayson. Not only the Grand Madam, but even Theodore, who had brought her to this mansion, had never told her under what circumstances the real one had gone missing at the time. Now, Sasha had become unbearably curious about it.
No differently from her original plan, Sasha intended for the time being to maintain her role in this play—now fully exposed—for about a year, until the term was fulfilled. Apart from the fact that the ducal family would now openly find her existence unwelcome, she had to brazen it out and endure for about a year.
Yet aside from such worries, several dubious points bothered her. Sasha recalled the duchess’s amiably smiling face, the face that had treated her with a kindness so exceptional it was beyond mere warmth. At the same time, she alternately recalled the face that had looked at her with no expression at all.
##(flashback)“Do you still have nightmares from that time?”
Now, Sasha had become curious about the tragedy the real Sasha Grayson had suffered. She wondered whether there might be some unknown truth behind that tragic incident that everyone knew about.
No, since earlier, she had already been suspecting that there was a truth no one knew.
“Mistress.”
The only reason she was curious about it now was for her own safety. It was purely for that selfish reason.
“……Mistress.”
Maud, the maid sitting across from her, called Sasha once more with emphasis. Only then did Sasha emerge from her thoughts and look at Maud.
“Are you all right? The roads on the way here aren’t well paved, so you may feel carriage-sick. I should have brought some medicine, but I was careless.”
Seeing Sasha’s pale complexion, Maud spoke in a gentle voice. Instead of thanking Maud for her consideration, Sasha looked out the window.
Maud followed Sasha’s gaze out the window and said, “We’re almost there.” The road was completely blocked.
‘It would be better to just walk.’
Having reached that conclusion, Sasha had Maud tell the driver to stop the carriage entirely. Soon, the carriage came to a halt on one side of the road. The footman who had sat beside Charles on the driver’s seat hopped down and opened the door. Sasha familiarly took the footman’s sturdy hand and stepped down from the carriage. The maid Maud followed behind her and got out as well.
“We will wait here. There are many people on the street.”
When Charles, seated on the driver’s box, said that, the footman nodded and said to Sasha,
“Even so, we should arrive within five minutes on foot.”
And so Sasha, the maid Maud, and the footman, the three of them, blended into the crowd. The footman, who had received firmer instructions than usual from the butler Jason, had Sasha walk close behind him as though he were shielding her, making sure she did not so much as brush fingertips with any nearby passerby. Behind Sasha, the maid Maud was doing the same, so in a sense it was truly suffocating yet peaceful protection.
They finally escaped the crowded street and entered a relatively quiet alley. Fortunately, Mr. Turner’s law office was located in a secluded alley with little foot traffic.
Recalling how Mr. Turner had once grumbled about rent and the like, Sasha kept walking deeper into the alley, but soon stopped dead. Naturally, the footman and maid walking with Sasha stopped as well.
“I don’t see anything like a law office.”
The footman said with a puzzled expression. Sasha did not answer.
Seeing Sasha’s face, which looked strangely dazed, the maid Maud followed her gaze upward.
There was a blackened, burned building.
“Mistress?”
Only the male footman, who did not understand what was going on, tilted his head with a bewildered expression, then soon stepped on something and raised his hand in surprise.
What the footman had stepped on was a signboard. To be precise, the remains of a signboard.
The white signboard that had once likely read Turner’s Law Office was burned black, with only the word “Law” barely remaining.