Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Translator: Effe

Editor: Yonnee

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Claire wiped Elisa’s tear-soaked cheek with the palm of her hand. And she asked in a low voice like a whisper.

“What about your boyfriend?”

She asked because she was starting to put two and two together.

Claire heard about the dorm party from Elisa, but Claire only half believed it.

In reality, there would have been a party in the all-girls dorm, but the person Elisa wanted to spend time with was probably her boyfriend, not her friends.

She knew that Elisa had a boyfriend of the same age right away. Elisa kept his identity a secret, but she didn’t keep the fact that there was one.

Any other house would have scolded and rebuked their daughter, Claire didn’t.

Elisa was about twenty years old. Even if she had a boyfriend, it wouldn’t be weird. It wouldn’t do any good to prohibit her from having one—it was more likely that she would go astray while trying to hide it.

Instead, Claire made Elisa promise two things.

Take care of her own body, and be sure to tell Claire and seek help if anything were to happen.

Claire wanted to know the other person’s identity, but Elisa kept her mouth shut even though she knew Claire was a trustworthy person.

[ He’s a person of high status. ]

Even when Claire joked if Elisa didn’t trust her sister, she only shook her head.

They had a promise between them, and that Claire would be the first to tell it once it became more or less into reality.

It wasn’t that she took the promise of a twenty-year-old seriously. But Claire believed that Elisa would not do anything wrong.

Yesterday was her coming-of-age party, and Elisa did everything she could to look pretty.

She must have had a boyfriend.

However, Elisa’s face was wet with tears at Claire’s question. Her frightened body convulsed even more.

“Hic, hiiicc… Sister I can’t. I really can’t.”

Claire hugged Elisa tightly and answered.

“This sister of yours isn’t doing this to interrogate you. If you really… witnessed something serious, shouldn’t your boyfriend help, too? You said he’s from a good family.”

“D-Don’t.”

“If it’s because he was dating you without his parents’ permission, I’ll speak to him properly.”

“He, he is d-dead…! Uhhh, uhhuhh!”

Elisa sobbed until she finally blacked out in Claire’s arms.

* * *

Click.

The door opened. The butler, who had been pacing around impatiently at the sound of wailing coming from inside, quickly turned around.

“Mistress, is the Miss all right?”

“She fell asleep. It’s okay. I think something surprised her yesterday.”

Claire tried to speak calmly.

“I want to clean her face, so bring me some hot water.”

“Please allow the maid to do it. I also had your bath prepared, Mistress.”

Claire shook her head.

“I don’t want a bath. I changed my mind . Just bring me some clothes to change into. And pack up.”

“Pack up?”

“Yes. As soon as we are ready, we’re going back to the Delford estate.”

“Do you mean right now?”

“Yes. Don’t ask anything else.”

The butler kept his mouth shut and nodded his head.

Claire went back into the room. She cut Elisa’s dress and her cloak to pieces with scissors.

“Damn it.”

Her hands were sore from cutting it dozens of times.

Claire wrapped the shredded pieces of clothes in the pelerine she was wearing. Then she realized.

The cloak Elisa was wearing was also of high quality. As much as something the Duke Klausener’s family wore.

‘I heard that her boyfriend has a high status.’

She believed Elisa’s words. Last night Elisa saw something terrible and her boyfriend died on the spot.

“Screw this pre-modern era.”

In this era, a person’s life is no more than a fly’s life.

A nobleman would be better off, but people like them, who were from a countryside barony with connections at all to the powerful, would not live easily.

No one would know if they got killed on the way back and were thrown into a swamp somewhere. The law and public order was supposed to encompass all, yet it was something that would not touch the real nobility.

‘What did you see, what is it?’

She wiped Elisa’s pale face with a warm washcloth, carefully wiping the dried stain between her fingernails.

In the meantime, the butler knocked on the door as if the preparations had been completed. Claire stood up and opened the door with her own hands. Elisa’s nanny from her childhood, Martha, was with him.

“Oh my God, Miss Elisa…”

Seeing Elisa’s bruised face and her limbs, Martha put a hand over her mouth.

“Martha, as you can see, this is something you cannot tell anyone.”

“Y-Yes!”

“Martha, you have to personally take care of her as much as possible until the wounds heal. This should not be known outside. Understand?”

“Yes. I will never do anything to harm your honor.”

She knew what Martha had misunderstood, but Claire deliberately let it be.

On her way she will spill some words to the maid. It might be a blemish to Elisa, but if she had really been in danger, it would have been better for her to think that she had hurriedly left the capital in that matter.

Simple trip arrangements were finished. Claire picked up the bundled pieces of clothing herself. When she left the capital and stopped at an inn, she intended to burn it little by little.

The elderly butler personally carried Elisa wrapped in a blanket and laid her on the carriage. Claire followed her into the carriage.

The ill-fitting dress got caught on her feet. Only then did she realize that she still hadn’t changed her clothes from Erich’s mansion.

That interrupted her thoughts for a moment. But she shook her head to get the idea out.

It was not the time to think about the mistakes she had made in the past.

* * *

Erich Klausener thought that time did not pass by that day.

‘Should I have just stopped her?’

He sat down at the tea table with the morning newspaper brought by the butler as usual, but the letters hardly caught his eye.

It’s not nice to have Claire seen staying long in his mansion. In his daily life, he was always exposed to people’s gaze.

After all, he couldn’t be known to have arguments here. It would hurt Eric’s reputation, sure, however a scandal would no doubt be something that Claire would not be able to handle.

‘Why should I worry.’