Episode 23
“Waaaah~”
I deliberately let out an exclamation as I looked at the scenery outside the carriage window. As expected, a familiar voice followed after me.
“Didn’t you go to the village last time? It shouldn’t be your first time on this road, should it?”
When I turned my head, deep green eyes filled with kindness but also slight curiosity met my gaze.
“Ah, well…… Back then, I went by cart, so I couldn’t properly see the surrounding scenery. It was my first time on the road, so I was nervous, and the cart shook too much…….”
As I muttered with an embarrassed expression, Viarte’s eyes gently curved into a smile.
“I see. Now that I think about it, I remember telling them not to give you a carriage.”
Huh?
At my half-sister’s unexpected words, my body stiffened on its own.
I had brought up the cart story to that woman to make her realize that I hadn’t been with Lakein that day. To avoid suspicion regarding the sudden overlap with his vacation.
But I had never expected her to bring up the mistake she had committed that day so brazenly.
Is this what it feels like to be ambushed?
This time, a purely raw, unfiltered reaction flowed out of my mouth.
“Uh, that’s…….”
As I rolled my eyes this way and that in confusion, Viarte smiled slightly. It was a smile that looked apologetic to anyone who saw it.
“It’s true that I did it on purpose that day. I was worried as your older sister, seeing you, who still doesn’t know the world, going outside. So I didn’t give you a carriage. I thought you wouldn’t be able to go out without one. I intended to take you later, when Mother or I had the time. But I never thought you’d actually go out…….”
“…….”
“I was very surprised. Enough to check that you had returned. I’m glad you went and came back safely, but please don’t do such a thing again. If you want to go to the village, tell me anytime. I’ll lend you a carriage.”
What the…….
I struggled to close my gaping mouth without realizing it.
It was something I felt every time, but my half-sister was personally demonstrating how even sophistry could become eloquence depending on who spoke it.
‘To think she even turned running into me back then into coming out to greet me.’
The memory of meeting her when I returned from the village and entered the mansion came to mind, and my tongue instinctively clucked in disbelief.
Had there been any sign that she was worried about me in any of those fragments of memory? If anything, it had seemed like she was trying to keep watch over me.
‘She’s definitely no pushover.’
My wariness shot up again, but without showing it, I nodded my head vigorously as if agreeing with my half-sister’s words.
“Yes. I will. I’m sorry for worrying you…….”
“I’m the one who should thank you for understanding.”
Looking at the deep green eyes that curved beautifully once again, I suddenly wondered how many tails were attached to that woman’s behind. Surely it must be nine, right?
Don’t people often say that a nine-tailed white fox bewitches even people?
There was no way she could be so cunning and sly otherwise.
Even after that, Viarte occasionally struck up conversation. Things like what colors I liked and what foods I liked.
Those questions were exactly the same as when I had first gone to the village in the past.
The funny thing was that among those questions, there wasn’t a single one about how I had been doing all this time.
‘Anyone watching would think we just met.’
I answered diligently and earnestly, but inwardly I laughed at the absurdity. How on earth had I failed to notice any of this in the past?
‘I must have been quite the fool, this girl that I am.’
As I mocked myself, I felt the carriage come to a stop.
Only after looking out the window did I realize where my half-sister had brought me.
Queens branch. It was the largest and most splendid dress shop in the village.
“My lady, we have arrived.”
The family knight in charge of today’s escort opened the carriage door and bowed his head.
Viarte gracefully rose from the carriage seat.
“Herna, come down too.”
“……Yes, Sister.”
She stepped down from the carriage first, escorted by the knight. A moment later, the knight politely extended his hand to me as well.
Feeling Viarte’s gaze from outside the carriage, I didn’t forget to act awkward when placing my hand atop the knight’s, nor to offer a shy word of thanks. As if it were my first time receiving an escort.
It was because, for some reason, I felt that she had been carefully scrutinizing my every movement and gesture since the carriage.
“Sister, where is this?”
As I, having stepped onto the ground with the knight’s help, looked up at Queens and asked, Viarte quirked up her lips slightly.
“This is a dress shop called Queens.”
“Queens…….”
“To be exact, it’s the Queens branch. The main store is in the capital. Let’s go in.”
“Yes. Sister.”
I pretended not to know, but I was well aware of Queens. After all, it was where I had ordered my clothes and dresses for two years in the past.
Queens. It had maintained its legacy for over 200 years, and it was where most of the royal family and high nobility ordered their dresses.
The one who founded Queens was Rosen Rosemang, the daughter of a count’s family who loved design.
Having graduated from Yubellos Academy with excellent grades, she had astonishingly declared that she would run a dress shop.
At that time, it was unheard of for a noble to engage in commerce, so the Count Rosemang family had reportedly opposed it fiercely. It was said that talks of breaking off the engagement even arose from her fiancé’s family.
Nevertheless, Rosen Rosemang did not bend her will.
In the end, her fiancé, who loved her, accepted her wishes and established a dress shop called Queens in the capital for her.
Rosen Rosemang was a woman whose ambition was matched by her design skill and business acumen.
At first, there was much gossip about a noble lady running a dress shop, but the novel and ingenious dress designs she drew up soon captured the hearts not only of the royal family but also of the nobility.
Above all, her service spirit of wanting to make every woman feel like a queen was directly reflected in her dress shop; I had heard that the time spent going to have a dress tailored truly made one feel as if they had become a queen.
Because of this, reservations were essential to have a dress tailored at Queens, and for dresses, it was said that one usually had to wait six months, or as long as a year, to get one’s hands on one.
I had never been to the main store, but I had heard many stories about how splendid it was.
‘Now that I think about it, the Queens branch was a place only for the Four Great Families.’
The Four Great Families, including Croisen, who possessed the guardian stones, were given various benefits.
The Queens branch was one of them.
For the Four Great Families, who usually did not come up to the capital but remained in their territories, the royal family had consulted with the Queens main store and opened Queens branches in each family’s most active town. The operating costs, of course, were borne by the royal family.
Because of this, the branch did not make the clothing directly. Its role was to measure the client, consult on the design, send it to the main store, receive the garment, and have the client try it on for final fitting.
This was only possible because they prioritized requests from the Four Great Families—or rather, from the direct lines of the Four Great Families—second only to the imperial family.
‘Honestly, it’s a tremendous privilege.’
Watching Viarte’s back as she stepped inside through the dress shop door the knight had opened, I secretly shrugged my shoulders.
Considering the roles the emperor and the heads of the Four Great Families undertook for this country, well, it wasn’t incomprehensible.
That was probably why the other noble families couldn’t say anything about it, either.
As I followed my half-sister into the dress shop, a Queens employee immediately ran out to greet us. She seemed to have been waiting after receiving notice.
“Welcome, Lady Viarte.”
The woman who bowed her head respectfully to greet my half-sister was someone I knew well too.
Rose Russell.
With her reddish-brown hair neatly pinned up and dressed in sophisticated attire, she was the manager of the Queens branch established in the Croisen territory.
She was sensible, quick with her hands, and well-mannered, so both the countess and my half-sister had taken a liking to her.
I had liked her as well.
As expected, a gentle smile hung at Viarte’s lips as she looked at Rose.
“It’s been a while, Rose. We saw each other last week, so has it been just one week?”
“That’s right. The dress you ordered then should arrive from the capital next week, as I mentioned. However…….”
Rose’s gaze, which had been directed at my half-sister, quickly moved to me.
“Is this the younger sister you mentioned in your letter?”
“Yes. This is my younger sister, Herna Croisen. We’ve come to have clothes tailored for this child today. She’s scheduled to attend a banquet in a week. Come here, Herna.”
At Viarte’s words, I awkwardly shuffled over and stood beside her.
Looking at Rose with a bewildered expression, as if I had never been to such a place before, I felt her quickly look me over, just as she had in the past.
Naturally, the words that followed were no different from my memory.
“What a beautiful young lady you are. And such a unique hair color at that. Your figure is very slender as well. I believe the new designs released this season will suit you wonderfully. A new catalog arrived from the main store just yesterday, in fact. Would you come this way?”
After that, things proceeded like clockwork, just as I had expected.
Viarte quickly picked out several designs from the new catalog. Some were for me, and some were for herself.
Of course, when choosing mine, she didn’t forget to confirm my opinion last. It was probably to show Rose.
The dress chosen in that manner had the exact same design as the dress I had worn to my first banquet in the past, creepily enough.
‘Does this mean that even if the schedule changes, what is meant to happen will happen?’
The bad memories of the first banquet came to mind, and for a brief moment I felt reluctant to wear it, but I quickly shook off the feeling.
It wasn’t the time to throw a fit, and hadn’t I resolved to break through instead of avoiding it?
Once the dress order was finished, Rose organized the completed request form and spoke.
“One week is tight, but I will ask the main store to somehow make it work.”
“Please do, Rose.”
Viarte gave a small nod and then rose from the sofa where she had been sitting. I too stood up from my seat, following her.
Bid farewell by Rose, we exited Queens and boarded the carriage again.
‘We’ll go to the jeweler next, right?’
I thought we would stop by Jewelstone, the largest jeweler in the village, just as we had in the past, but it took only a few minutes for that expectation to be shattered.
“Sister, this is……?”
Getting off the carriage, I was inwardly flustered at the sight of the shop before my eyes.
It couldn’t be helped.
It was Esther Shop, where I had stopped by a few days ago to buy a fake guardian stone.