"Madam, that is…."
Lady Isaac opened her mouth as if troubled, but Grace spoke.
"Please forgive my rudeness."
"How bold you are, asking for forgiveness as though you have done nothing wrong."
"I apologize. But I felt that I would inevitably commit this rudeness sooner or later."
"…What?"
"If I had waited in the drawing room, would you have seen me?"
Eliza's brow twitched. Grace did not lower her eyes even as she saw anger beginning to fill Eliza's pupils.
When Eliza moved to rise, Lady Isaac, who had been standing behind her anxiously, rushed to help her. The elderly lady slowly raised herself to sit up.
Between her cascading silver-white hair, gaunt, prominent cheekbones were visible. But more than that, the pitch-black pupils flashing between those silver-white locks drew the eye. Tightly pursed lips, a waist and shoulders held straight despite her feeble strength.
Though she had spent the past dozen or so years waiting only to die in what might as well have been a tomb, an air of dignity incomparable to those who had been playing at being master could be felt.
As Lady Isaac tried to tidy her disheveled hair, Eliza coldly stopped her hand. Then, glaring at Grace, she spoke.
"Yes, you know well. I would not have met you."
"Are you not curious why I have come to find you?"
"I am not curious. I am merely astonished that an unwed young lady of a noble house followed a duke. Have you no regard for your family's honor?!"
Eliza lashed out in a voice so sharp and clear that one could never think it belonged to an old lady so frail her bones showed through. But Grace did not so much as twitch a single eyebrow as she retorted.
"Do you truly think so?"
"……."
"If all had gone according to plan, I ought to have become the daughter-in-law of Count Sachsen by now."
At the name Sachsen, wrinkles formed on Eliza's brow. Grace lowered her voice and continued.
"If I became Sachsen's daughter-in-law—the one who killed my parents—and lived obediently, would the Taylor honor be preserved, Madam?"
"……."
"Let me ask you one thing. Madam, for what are you holding your breath?"
"Mind your tongue! How dare you to the Madam……!"
Lady Isaac flared up in anger, but Grace did not stop.
"What is the reason you remain like a person who has given away all of Richmond and merely waits in the shadows for the day your life ends?"
"This will not do. Leave!!"
It was precisely then.
Eliza, who had been glaring at Grace, suddenly began to laugh. Beneath her dried, withered skin, it was a laughter like black blood pooled in similarly withered entrails. After laughing for a long while with such darkness that Jessie, watching from behind, rubbed her arms, Eliza raised her right hand.
"Madam……."
"Don't speak to me of it being harmful to my health. Bring it."
Lady Isaac let out a small sigh and took out a cigarette from the table. When she placed the lit cigarette between Eliza's right fingers, Eliza smoked it for a long while.
Under the sunlight, the white smoke stood out especially. Eliza slowly opened her mouth, staring directly at the green eyes glittering through the smoke.
"You ask what I am holding my breath for?"
"……."
"Child. I do not even wish to know what you want from me, but I shall answer that question."
"……."
"I, you see."
In an instant, all emotions that had lingered in Eliza's black pupils receded like the ebbing tide. Just as the white smoke, seemingly taking form as it rose, vanished without a trace at some point, even the lingering anger dissipated into emptiness.
"That 'something' has disappeared."
At her withered voice, Lady Isaac held back tears, and Grace fell silent. Meanwhile, the elderly lady, having finished the entire cigarette, went back inside her blanket.
Lady Isaac, wiping away tears silently, tidied Eliza's blanket and then ushered Grace and Jessie out of the room. She gazed at Grace as though she had much to say, but in the end, she closed the door without a word.
"What shall we do, my lady?"
As Jessie asked cautiously, Grace turned away from staring at the closed door.
"For now, let us return today and come again tomorrow."
Walking down the corridor, which felt chilly unlike Eliza's room, Grace organized her thoughts.
First, as Walter had said, Eliza had certainly reacted to anger. But barging uninvited into her bedroom was insufficient to rouse her.
Second, the greatest reason Eliza would not rise was that she had lost her purpose.
Therefore, to rouse Eliza, clearer anger and pointing out a definite purpose were necessary. It was just as Grace was about to leave the annex, keeping these two conditions in mind.
"My lady."
Jessie stopped Grace. Following Jessie's gaze out the window, unexpected figures were waiting for her. There, maids in dark navy dresses with raised collars stood with haughty expressions.
She felt her heart sink with a thud. A sense of crisis for survival coursed through her entire body.
"It seems they intend to pin the crime of confining and assaulting the maids on me."
"What should we do?"
Green eyes gleamed with cold mockery. Was bait merely bait for no reason? One had to be prepared to be bitten to be bait, did one not?
"Hide yourself. Tell His Grace to observe the situation for now. Since this is a matter of internal affairs, if His Grace rashly intervenes, we may instead be driven into a corner."
Jessie bit her lip and then nodded.
"Understood."
Then, like a cat, she crouched low beneath the window and withdrew, and Grace, confirming she had disappeared into the corner of the corridor, pushed open the front door.
At that, the count's maids standing like judges raised their eyes as if they had been waiting and spoke in an overbearing voice.
"Countess Rinko summons you. Follow at once."