Chapter 131
Maud and Charles were sitting in one corner of the kitchen, where the embers crackled and burned, waiting for Sasha. It had only been a moment since Lana, the housekeeper, had poured the boiling water from the kettle into the teapot and carried it off with the refreshments.
It was the height of summer. At a time when sweat would bead on one’s skin even while sitting still, sitting in a kitchen with a fire going was nothing short of torment. Maud wiped the sweat from her brow with the handkerchief Sasha had given her, then naturally passed it to Charles, who was sitting beside her.
Charles shook his head and drank the water set before him instead. Lana had kindly placed a glass in front of each of them before leaving.
“Will Miss be all right?”
When Maud murmured with a worried face, Charles asked as if he had been waiting for it.
“What do you mean the solicitor’s office burned down?”
“Just what I said. It was all burned. Nothing left. From the first floor to the second, everything.”
“Deliberate arson?”
Charles muttered blandly to himself, and Maud, startled, struck his forearm hard.
“Are you mad? I’m frightened enough as it is, so don’t say things like that! Who on earth would do such a thing?”
“Who else? Miss has a lot of enemies now. Have you forgotten how even that young duke came all the way to the wedding and caused a scene?”
At Charles’s words, Maud shuddered as if even recalling it was dreadful.
“Surely not because of that inheritance? But to a great young duke like him, isn’t that practically pocket change? He’d do something so terrifying over that little money?”
“Maud. In their eyes, Miss is no longer a rightful heir. So of course they’ll try to take it back.”
“……Even by arson? Those refined people?”
“Maud. The higher up they are, the less mercy or hesitation they have in their methods. Even we, instead of gently catching that fly over there and letting it out the window……”
“Charles!”
Maud cut him off with a horrified expression. Charles merely shrugged, not particularly bothered.
“That’s what I mean. To them now, we and Miss will all look the same.”
Charles doggedly finished what he had to say, and Maud openly glared at him now.
“So? As soon as we return to the mansion, are you going to pack your things and leave too?”
“Maybe that would be the wise thing to do. But I told you last time. I’ll just stay.”
“……Because it’s hard to find a new position? Because of that train or whatever it was?”
Charles was about to answer Maud when Lana, the housekeeper, entered the kitchen carrying only an empty tray, having left the tea tray upstairs. The two naturally fell silent as though nothing had happened.
But Lana was not the only one who entered the kitchen. The young woman called Miss Works, who had been unpleasant to Sasha earlier, was with her.
“Look at her, coming to beg in the middle of all this. After never sending so much as a letter!”
“Miss.”
Lana jerked her chin toward Charles and Maud, warning Rachel with her eyes, but Rachel paid no heed. Rather, she spoke even louder, as if she wanted the two of them to hear.
“It serves her right. Grandmother was right. The Lord really is fair. I haven’t forgotten how that woman acted so haughty in front of me. When she comes out later, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind. I wonder if she’ll be able to look me straight in the eye like she did then?”
Even in the face of such blatant slander, Maud sat demurely without batting an eye. But she could not help the resentment that rose within her, and just then Charles gently took her hand to stop her, allowing her to swallow it down somewhat.
Unable to watch any longer, Lana spoke.
“Go upstairs and finish your drawing. Don’t get scolded again later.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Rachel was answering Lana’s dissuasion with a prim little retort when—
Thud, thud!
All at once, the heavy sound of someone knocking on the front door made everyone fall silent and look toward the entryway. In the silence, the knocking came again. Thud, thud! This time more urgently than before.
Before Rachel could react, Lana passed her by and headed to the front door. Lana slid down the small latticed window set into the door and checked outside with only her two eyes peeking through.
“What business brings you here? Who are you?”
What appeared through the small window was a coarse navy-blue cloth. The man standing in front of the door thrust his face toward the latticed window the moment Lana showed herself, as if he had been waiting. Startled by the graceless greeting, Lana flinched.
“Madam, we are bailiffs dispatched from the Goldington Magistrates’ Court.”
Another man, standing beside the one who had shoved his face forward in a rather polite posture, removed his hat as he spoke. The man who had thrust his face at Lana was a clerk carrying a briefcase, and behind him two constables were waiting.
Lana froze where she stood.
“We are looking for Mrs. Sasha Pincher. To be precise, a woman who identifies herself as Sasha Grayson.”
When Lana gave no response, the bailiff took an official document from his pocket and continued.
“A summons has been issued for the individual in question on the following serious charges. First, fraudulently obtaining a church marriage license by using a false identity. Second, inheritance fraud, for misappropriating an estate despite not being the heir named in the will of the late Mrs. Rosalyn Grayson. Third, impersonation.”
The bailiff’s booming voice echoed not only through the entryway but throughout the entire first floor. The neighbors nearby had probably heard it as well. That had been the intent from the start.
“The House of Duke Grayson has formally filed a complaint, and a joint investigation with the ecclesiastical court is underway. Is the individual in question staying in this residence? Or do you know her whereabouts?”
A chilling silence settled inside the kitchen. Maud sat stiffly frozen, then sprang to her feet at the bailiff’s final words. She had to tell Sasha at once.
But Rachel moved before she did. Rachel listened to the bailiff for a moment with a blank face, then immediately turned and went up the stairs.
“No……!”
“Shh. Be quiet, Maud.”
Charles quickly made Maud, who was about to rush out, sit back down. At the entrance, the bailiff was still threatening Lana.
“If you conceal the individual in question or aid in her escape, you may also be punished as an accomplice. Is she truly not inside?”
Bang! The door opened without a knock, and Rachel came in.
Caroline, as well as Sasha, who had been sitting opposite her in conversation, stared in stunned silence at Rachel, who had suddenly barged in.
Rachel’s face was flushed even redder than before, and there was something unusual about her expression. Whether Caroline called her to stop or not, Rachel strode straight toward Sasha. Then she seized one of Sasha’s arms and forced her to her feet.
“Rachel Works!”
“There are people downstairs called bailiffs who’ve come to arrest you.”
Whether or not Caroline called her in an angry voice, Rachel spoke quickly, spitting out the words.
Sasha stared at Rachel in astonishment.
“……What did you say?”
Perhaps she had cried while talking to Caroline for so long. Yes, perhaps she had even cried as she begged. The area around Sasha’s eyes was red. Rachel looked at Sasha’s face as if she found it deeply satisfying.
“……What?”
Caroline muttered next. She immediately left the room and headed toward the stairs.
Rachel was still gripping one of Sasha’s arms tightly. Strength entered her grasp. With an expressionless face, Rachel looked at Sasha, whose face had gone pale.
She had thought she would feel only thrilling elation. But now that the moment had come, it was not as gratifying as she had expected.
Strictly speaking, Rachel disliked Sasha. The only one who had exchanged something like a reconciliation with her was Isaac. To Rachel, Sasha was still someone she disliked. Rachel had even fawned over her first in an attempt to befriend her, yet Sasha had not only humiliated her before her family, but had even brazenly toyed with her while not even being a real daughter of a noble house. And so Rachel hated Sasha terribly.
She truly hated her so much.
“……So.”
When Caroline did not return for some time after leaving, Sasha, realizing that Rachel’s words were true, instead opened her mouth quietly with a composed expression.
“……Are you going to hand me over here and now?”
Even in this urgent situation, look at that shameless face, looking at her as if she were the childish and pathetic one. That shameless face of a fraud.
Her family had not only been humiliated by this woman but made fools of as well. Her family. His parents and aunt. Her precious family, and yet…… the family that had never cared about her at all.
The strength in Rachel’s hand, which had been gripping Sasha’s arm, loosened. Rachel recalled the face of her cousin Isaac, who had sighed as if troubled instead by her belated apology.
Rachel tightened her grip on Sasha’s arm even more than before and dragged her out.
At the very least, she had meant to get a proper apology out of her.
……Damn it.
“Come out right now.”
When Sasha was forcibly dragged out of the room by Rachel, not only Charles but Maud had already gathered in the corridor. Lana was still on the first floor dealing with the bailiffs.
“I’ll handle them. Go out the back door.”
Rachel said, flinging Sasha’s arm away. Then, without looking back, she went down the stairs.
After staring blankly at her back for a moment, Sasha quickly turned to Maud and Charles.
“This way. Sasha.”
Caroline was beckoning from the end of the corridor. There was a narrow service passage there. A remnant of an old-fashioned era, found only in very old mansions, lay in that place. Without a lengthy explanation, Caroline pushed Charles into the narrow passage first, then Maud next.
Before long, Rachel’s voice could be heard faintly from afar. As always, it was very high and hysterical in tone.
“Don’t worry about that child. Wearing people down is one of her specialties.”
Caroline said as though it were nothing, then gestured as if to say, now it’s your turn.
Sasha pushed herself into the entrance of the passage feet first.
“You have the note, don’t you?”
Caroline said, and Sasha answered, “Yes,” wrapping her hand around the note inside her clothes. Written on it was the address of a veteran solicitor who was an old acquaintance of Caroline’s.
“It will be difficult to see each other for the time being. Letters will be difficult too. You won’t be able to contact anyone around you. Their primary goal is to isolate you completely from the people close to you.”
Caroline explained calmly, placing a hand on Sasha’s back.
“Mrs. Caroline.”
For the last time, Sasha reached out and took Caroline’s thin hand.
“Thank you so very much.”
“…….”
“And please give Miss Works my thanks as well.”