An Invitation from the Grand Duchess Raiwens

When no answer came back from Eleanor, Helena puffed out her cheeks and complained.

"El. Why aren't you saying anything? Ah! Could your injury be worse than you let on? This won't do. I should hurry and fetch a physician—!"

"It's nothing. I saw a physician just a little while ago and received treatment. It isn't a serious wound, either. Hm. Is this the first time I've called you by a nickname?"

At Eleanor's change of subject, Helena, who had looked ready to leap up and bolt from the room at any moment, settled back into her seat and smiled at her.

"That's right! I've asked you time and again to call me something familiar, but you always insisted on 'Lady Demera' or 'Duchess Demera.' I was a little hurt that I was the only one who ever got to call you El. And now the day has finally come when you call me by a nickname. I'm truly so happy!"

"...Then I'll keep calling you that. Ren."

Helena clapped her hands in delight, the cheerful crack ringing through the parlor.

"Wonderful! Look how friendly that sounds! Well, since we're getting closer anyway, what do you say we visit that new bakery on the outskirts of town? I hear the owner used to be a pastry chef at the imperial palace."

"A bakery?"

"Yes!"

Eleanor had no idea where this new bakery near the city might be, but she accepted the invitation readily. Helena, who had only half meant it as a joke, clapped her hands and cheered at the immediate yes, astonished. He actually agreed!

Eleanor was the sort who began every response with a refusal, so her unhesitating agreement visibly thrilled Helena.

"You really promise?!"

"I do."

"Then let's go together this weekend."

"Very well. Just let me know the time and place."

Helena nodded quickly, as if afraid Eleanor might take it all back at the last second.

Watching her rejoice so openly, Eleanor smiled faintly. She had always known that Helena wanted to grow close to her. But with whispers that a lady of Helena's standing was keeping company with an illegitimate child, Eleanor had turned down her invitations again and again, fearing she might stain her friend's good name.

Looking back, her past self had been such a fool. Helena had never cared about any of that in the least. If anything, by refusing under the pretense of protecting her, Eleanor may well have been the one who hurt her.

It wasn't too late to change. With that thought, Eleanor smiled.

She and Helena were chatting over their refreshments when the parlor door opened and a maid entered.

With her eyes demurely lowered and her head bowed, she appeared no different from any other servant at a glance. But her maid's uniform was of noticeably finer cloth than the others wore, and she bore small, unmistakably expensive accessories.

A lady-in-waiting to Grand Duchess Raiwens?

Eleanor studied the woman's face closely.

"Lady Eleanor, Lady Helena. My name is Abel. I serve Her Grace the Grand Duchess."

Helena, who had been placing a cookie—each of which she had savored—onto Eleanor's plate, nodded, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and asked,

"What business do you have?"

"Her Grace has asked that Lady Eleanor be brought to her."

Eleanor set down the cookie she had lifted and laughed inwardly. The memory she had completely forgotten came back to her only now.

That's right. This did happen.

In her past life, Eleanor had received an invitation from the Grand Duchess that very morning—much like today's—asking her to attend a gathering together, and she had refused. The Grand Duchess, as though she had fully anticipated the refusal, had attended the gathering alone without another word.

Back then, Eleanor had thought it best for both of them that she not tag along to an event meant for families. But later, the Grand Duchess's lady-in-waiting had confided that her mistress had endured considerable humiliation at that gathering.

Grand Duchess Raiwens had always sought every possible means to cut down Grand Duchess Prihoson, longing to see her face twist with humiliation and shame—or better yet, to see her cry. But then, when had Grand Duchess Prihoson ever been one to be pushed around? She was the kind of woman who wouldn't so much as blink even if disaster struck.

Whenever the two clashed head-on, it was always Grand Duchess Raiwens who took the beating. And knowing this full well, she was nonetheless a woman stubborn enough to make one click one's tongue in exasperation.

So consumed was Grand Duchess Raiwens with dreaming up new ways to insult Grand Duchess Prihoson that she remained utterly blind to what unfolded around her—so blind, in fact, that she was stabbed in the back by her own husband and died in the very prime of her life.

Eleanor had always wondered: why was Grand Duchess Raiwens so hostile toward her mother?

Eleanor held her silence and said nothing. Helena, by contrast, could only assume she had misheard, and asked again.

"Who did you say she was calling for?"

"Lady Eleanor."

Helena's clear eyes turned toward Eleanor in bewilderment.

Unlike Helena, Eleanor understood at once. Grand Duchess Raiwens intended to heap shame and humiliation upon both of them at once—upon Eleanor and Grand Duchess Prihoson alike.

Even after coming back, she hasn't changed a bit. Honestly, how can anyone do something so foolish? Hah.

Eleanor shook her head at the sheer absurdity of it.

People drunk on their own self-importance were truly insufferable.

She tried to picture what her mother must have looked like when Grand Duchess Raiwens had asked for her that morning.

She had probably done nothing but sip her tea with that same indifferent expression as always—however different the inside of her heart might have been.

Assuming Eleanor's feet must be too injured to walk, the maid had crept closer and come to a careful stop before her. Eleanor rose from her seat.

"Then I must trouble you to show me the way to Her Grace."

Confusion flickered across the maid's expressionless face. Apparently she had never imagined Eleanor would accept with such perfect composure.

It was Helena, rather than the unbothered Eleanor, who fidgeted with worry. She stole a glance at the maid, then leaned toward Eleanor and whispered.

"El. If you don't want to go alone, shall I come with you?"

The offer was unexpected, but Eleanor gave a small shake of her head. Then she, too, whispered back.

"No, I'm quite all right. It's not as though Her Grace is some man-eating wolf, is she?"

"Hm. Of course she isn't."

At Helena's earnest expression, Eleanor smiled.

"Exactly. She isn't, is she. Well then, would you lead the way, Abel?"

"......."

"I'm terribly curious what Her Grace wishes to speak with me about."

Eleanor flashed a radiant smile.

The first-floor parlor the maid led her to was the largest of the guest reception rooms in the Raiwens Grand Ducal Estate—spacious enough to seat some forty people with room to spare.

It was a space the Grand Duke Raiwens had gone out of his way to build for his wife. Grand Duchess Raiwens, for her part, would scoff that he had wasted money on something so needless, all while preening and boasting about it to anyone who would listen.

When Eleanor knocked upon the parlor door, a voice from within bade her enter. The maid slipped inside at once, and Eleanor followed behind her. In her past life, she seemed to remember trembling terribly in just such a situation. But having lived once more, she found herself thinking, with some surprise, that it was really nothing at all.

Meeting the brazen, unwavering stares of the noblewomen head-on without turning her gaze away, Eleanor straightened her shoulders.

In the old days, she would have cowered beneath those stares, head bowed, unable to manage so much as a proper greeting. But that was no longer the case.

Unlike these women, raised in nothing but luxury, Eleanor had weathered every storm life had to offer. Such thinly veiled, contemptuous glares no longer intimidated her, nor wounded her pride.

Besides, she knew perfectly well that several of the people in this room would soon be bowing their heads and begging favors of her—either shortly before their deaths, or once she became Empress.

Eleanor's gaze settled on the table. Every teacup and every teapot arranged upon it was a priceless treasure beyond valuation.

Exorbitantly expensive things that even Eleanor, who had once been Empress, had never possessed. Her eyes sharpened as she looked down at them.

The Lesgerham Empire no longer had slaves. Or rather, slavery was, in effect, forbidden. Anyone who defied the law—keeping or purchasing slaves in secret—could not escape the judgment of the courts.

Human greed, it was said, knew no bounds. Grand Duke Raiwens, already possessed of enormous wealth and honor, had apparently been unable to stop himself. In her past life, he had kept and exploited slaves in secret, breaking the law to do it.

When he finally stood trial, Grand Duke Raiwens had pleaded desperately for mercy. He had never once bought a slave privately, he swore, never beaten one to death—placing a hand over his heart and swearing oaths upon oaths of his innocence. And then, without so much as a flicker of hesitation, Grand Duke Raiwens had shifted the blame for his crimes onto his eldest son, Sebastian Raiwens.

The memory of that face, smeared with tears and snot, rose unbidden in Eleanor's mind, and she couldn't help but grimace.

At that very moment, an irritated voice rang in her ear.

"Grand Duchess Prihoson's daughter?"

Eleanor's mind snapped back to the present. She smoothed her expression, fixed the brightest, most demure smile she could manage on her face, and turned to Grand Duchess Raiwens, who sat enthroned at the head of the room.

Every probing gaze of the assembled noblewomen swung toward Eleanor.

Gracefully gathering the hem of her dress, Eleanor offered a curtsy.

"It has been some time, Your Grace, ladies. I am Eleanor Prihoson."

She put deliberate weight upon her "family name."

At Eleanor's impeccable, elegant greeting, the hyenas who had been lying in wait to devour her at every opportunity merely snorted and quietly bided their time for the next chance.

"I heard that Your Grace wished to see me privately."

"That's right, my dear. But tell me—did something happen on your way here?"