A Veiled Promise and Buried Guilt
“Wouldn’t it be better if the sheer veil dropped all the way to the ankles in the back, but only to the chest in the front? It would feel mysterious without looking stifling.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely.”
So long as she could hide her face, the style hardly mattered.
The moment their opinions aligned, Bess handled the precious wedding dress as if it were her most treasured relic, gently lowering it into a large prepared box.
“It seems there’ll be no deaths here.”
Confused, Kayla stared at her. Bess’s expression softened into a rare, bashful smile.
“The flat district is a battlefield. Murder is the least of it—vandalism, and worse, reporters drove Lisa away from the laundromat entirely. What about me? I couldn’t even open the shop for days.”
Kayla stood frozen, eyes wide. She hadn’t seen the newspaper, so she had no idea how severe it had become.
“Your face says it all. No surprise. Noel’s always been blunt, and Lisa hates to give offense. It makes perfect sense. Still, you don’t need to act proud about it.”
Bess closed the box lid and kept talking.
“But where is this? Everyone else is moving upward. Lisa belongs in the bookstore, not the laundry. Noel would thrive as a driver far more than as a coachman. In the end, each of us is simply finding our rightful place thanks to you.”
Bess leaned out the carriage window until the last moment, waving as if the friend beside her was leaving for good.
Inside the cramped carriage that now barely fit the enormous dress box, she grumbled under her breath, yet her face glowed with pride—pride in building a future for her friends with her own two hands.
“Don’t worry! On that day, no one will dare speak ill of you. I’ll make sure of it myself.”
Bess winked boldly, then gave a cheeky grin. The carriage jolted forward at the coachman’s signal, but she paid no attention and lifted her voice.
“Let the most vicious, most beautiful truth in the world be exposed!”
Kayla stood motionless long after the carriage carrying the giant dress box vanished into the distance. Bess’s promise still lingered like a strange warmth in the air.
Just thinking of the snow-white shield Bess would build for her made Kayla smile softly.
From that day on, Kayla swept and polished the gloomy office every single day alongside Lisa and Noel. But while the daytime hours remained calm, inside the carriage returning to Archerfield she read the newspapers with frantic hunger.
At first the headlines had been modest: “Special Report—Will the Academy’s Numbers Save the Madersons?” Now they had become brazen: “The Shabby Past of the Veiled Baroness Revealed!” and even “The Bold Tales of the Secretary’s Male Escapades, Basil the Victim!”
Then came the wilder installments: “Hiding Behind the Boys’ Dormitory Wall,” “Miss K’s Secret Double Life.” Scandalous exposés poured out like a torrent, each one more shameless than the last.
The growing notoriety spread like an unquenchable wildfire.
“If my face ever becomes known, I might be killed by stones before they even realize I’m a murderer.”
The fear tightened around her throat every night. Afraid that sleepwalking would carry her unconscious into the dark, Kayla refused to let herself sleep.
On the night before the rehearsal dinner, she deliberately kept the bedroom lamp burning brightly and crept to the bed, dragging a long cloth over it. Only after she firmly tied her legs and arms to the bedpost did she finally lie down, forcing down the ominous premonition.
“I can’t sleep… but I must. Oh, this… this won’t do…”
The dream began again.
The chapel stood empty and quiet, its student gone.
Kayla stood on tiptoe, breath held, sneaking toward the bag waiting for its owner.
“I’ll just slip the bishop inside and run. No one will ever know who I am.”
She glanced repeatedly toward the direction the young duke and the priest had vanished, then yanked the bag open.
“Ah!”
The old beret caught her eye first. Beyond it, the owner’s blue eyes—wider, more stunned—pierced straight through her.
Kayla realized too late.
The reason he was shocked was simple: the chess player had been nothing more than a girl.
Shame and aristocratic humiliation for being defeated by a commoner girl, along with an unquenchable disgust, were laid bare in his gaze.
“I wonder what the Duke of Maderson was seeing when he sponsored that chess set.”
Those words had been the first thing the Theodani princess had spoken to her after the chapel incident.
“I wonder what Superintendent Moss was thinking. He wouldn’t have had any idea that the duke was trying to connect with a noble through a blind, pitying widow. Or would he?”
Kayla had instantly been labeled “the girl trying to sell her body for a man’s favor,” and even the boy who had spoken to her in passing had been forgotten.
At least she had endured the report card her father would receive. She didn’t want him to know that his precious daughter was rejected by high society.
Then came the day when snow began to fall.
Basil transferred into the academy.
“Even if I’m not very good, would you like to practice together?”
It was during dance class. He offered his partner with the carefree face of someone who didn’t care what anyone thought.
Kayla hesitated only a moment before nodding. That was the beginning.
The more time she spent with Basil, the more tasks piled up—preparation, responsibility, doubled in every way. Yet she didn’t mind. Having a commoner friend to understand each other was already enough.
Attending the academy’s founding anniversary and graduation ball had been natural.
It was also her first time at such a party. When she spread the yellow dress sent by the Genma lady, she caught her breath.
“The color is a bit too bold, isn’t it?”
Still, she lined up her shoes, lifted the pearl hairpin, and smiled alone. A commoner feeling almost like a debutante was slightly ridiculous.
She hung the bishop from a thin cord around her neck.
It was the very last chance to return it to the young duke who would graduate that night.
She practiced the words of gratitude and apology countless times in her heart.
But on graduation night, the young duke who stepped onto the stage didn’t finish his speech.
“Kayla, your face is too red. Let me cool you down. I’ll bring something refreshing.”
After the song she had lost count of, Basil smiled and steadied his breath.
“If you leave through the side door, there’s a small courtyard. Go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll be there soon.”
Kayla slipped into the powder room and smoothed her disheveled appearance.
Though she felt eyes on her in the mirror, she pretended not to notice and followed Basil’s directions.
She sat on the stone ledge surrounding the garden, cooling her skin in the night breeze.
From beyond the bushes came not Basil’s footsteps, but the hushed voices of laughing students.
“How long are we supposed to wait? I’m really bored.”
“It won’t be long. The princess said we should expect something. She doesn’t say things lightly.”
“As expected. She wants to show off a commoner who stole the emerald.”
“Stolen? It wasn’t the young duke who gave it to you.”
Crack.
The laughter whipped through the air like a lash and struck Kayla’s back.
She bit her lip and silently stood. Through the haze she glimpsed the dark outline of the warehouse.
Kayla crouched instinctively. Slipping through the shadows, she reached the smell of smoke.
Basil stood there. And beside him, the young duke who had vanished after his speech, cigarette between his lips.
“Why is Basil here with him?”
Before the question even left her mind, two voices drifting over the wall froze her ankle like ice.
“And what about your partner? Why are you hanging around here?”
“I’ll take care of it. It’s the last night anyway.”
“The party’s only just beginning, and you call it the last night? You’re lighter than I thought.”
“Don’t try to act cool, senior. Who would want to befriend the duke’s daughter?”
“…Mouse?”
“You don’t know? Police uniforms are mouse-gray. Chasing filthy, ugly scenes in the sewers—that’s the perfect nickname for a cop. I’m at my limit too. It’s been rough. I only did what I was told.”
“What do you mean ‘last night’?”
“Oh, the princess said she’d handle it cleanly. …She said she stole something.”