Mad Rosetta - Chapter 41

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Rosetta Gone Mad

Chapter 41

The Villainess, the Rose, and the Ghost (7)

“Oh, I suppose I never mentioned this. There was never any gift sent to the Duchess in the first place, so rest assured.”

“….”

“I simply told you a lie so you might experience a taste of suffering yourself.”

As I offered a final smile, contempt swiftly flooded Vicky’s eyes, replacing the fear that had dwelt there moments before.

She would be furious.

From the day of the Spring Stage until now—these past several days of uncertainty, left grasping at shadows with nothing to show for it.

Vicky would come to believe that every agonizing moment she had endured was born solely from my deception.

“…How dare you make such an accusation without a shred of evidence?”

And so she glared at me with those blazing eyes, her defiance laid bare.

Vicky sneered, as though the whole affair were beneath contempt.

She seemed confident that as long as the powder was not discovered on her person, any strange substance found in the necklace could be dismissed with a simple denial.

“Evidence, you say? How convenient. Then I need only summon people to search your room thoroughly. Surely something will turn up when we examine your pillowcase and the like, yes?”

Forgive me, but my informant happens to be a ghost.

Vicky’s eyes reflexively darted toward her pillow, yet she dared not ask how I had come to know.

“Should evidence be discovered in your room, you will be dismissed from your position as a Servant this very day, and likely face a beating before being cast out.”

“Ah, Lady….”

“There’s no Noble House anywhere that would take in an Attendant who tried to harm the master they served.”

A cornered cat with nowhere to flee hisses in its final, desperate struggle.

As though foreseeing her own fate, Vicky’s expression—which had been crumbling under despair—shifted into something venomous.

It was a gaze of resentment directed at me.

“…Since it’s just the two of us anyway, let’s be honest, shall we?”

Yes, hate me all the more.

And then give me what I desire.

“Why did you do such a thing, Vicky?”

“….”

“Who ordered you to commit such an act?”

“…No one.”

“…I see. Then you alone will bear all the blame.”

“Ha! I’m telling you, no one ordered me! I did it because I despise you! I just wanted to see you suffer!”

“…Why? What wrong have I done to you?”

In that moment, Vicky sprang from the bed and glared at me with fierce intensity.

I flinched, thinking she might strike me.

Consumed by rage, her eyes unseeing, she spoke through ragged breaths with venom.

“Why? You’re asking why now? Ahahaha! Foolish Lady. I’m certain all the attendants at the Duke’s Estate despise you, aren’t they? Always screaming, always irritable! No matter how much you pretend to have changed, who could possibly care for you?”

“…Don’t drag others into what you alone believe.”

“No? It’s the truth. How many attendants do you think truly serve you out of genuine affection? You’re delusional beyond measure.”

“…Vicky.”

“Ah, well. Being so oblivious and foolish, you’ve lived your entire life dismissed by lowly creatures like us. Do you know what everyone calls you? Benatra’s wild child! A villainess!”

“….”

“That’s why the Duke locked his own daughter away in her room and pretended not to know anything about it, isn’t it?”

Vicky continued her scathing accusations as though desperate to wound me.

‘How she does prattle on.’

Yet I found my heart far less turbulent than anticipated—so much so that I was almost bewildered by my own composure.

Perhaps it was the effect of consuming that final antidote the day we returned to the Townhouse after the Feast?

Or perhaps I had simply imagined this scenario so many times in my mind that I had grown numb to it.

‘I had hoped to extract a confession that Odette orchestrated it all. But perhaps I should be satisfied with this much?’

Her eyes had flushed crimson with rage.

Finding her crude accusations tedious, I cut through her shrill voice with a low sigh.

Seeing no apparent impact from her words, Vicky’s breath caught, and she opened her mouth once more.

“Your boldness brings me such peace of mind. But let us end this here.”

“Ha! You really are…!”

But I was faster.

“I’ll let you vent the rest before Father.”

Vicky’s eyes, which had been narrowing as she tried to discern my intent, suddenly widened.

Her pupils trembled with an intensity incomparable to anything before.

Though I heard footsteps approaching, I deliberately did not turn around, instead fixing my gaze upon Vicky’s fear-stricken face.

“Unless you’ve lost your mind….”

“Ah, ah….”

“How dare you spout such nonsense to my daughter.”

In her eyes, a man with the same violet gaze as mine gleamed vividly.

* * *

What in the world was this spectacle unfolding before me?

Rosetta’s father.

Aremis Soivan gazed at Vicky’s face, drained of all color in disbelief, and the back of his daughter’s head as she refused to turn around.

– “Father, there’s something I absolutely must show you.”

It was right after Aremis had gladly offered tea to his daughter, who had sought out his Study the moment they arrived at the Manor.

Rosetta had spoken those words with a grave expression.

Ordinarily, what one wished to show another would be a gift or something worth boasting of.

Yet his daughter had worn an expression of reluctance.

So he had simply followed her at the appointed time to the Servant’s Room on the third floor of Rose Manor.

“Had things gone your way, I would have been covered in a rash and unable to attend the Feast at all. It was quite a clever scheme.”

Never imagining he would hear such an absurd conversation.

At first, he had struggled to comprehend the situation.

For him, the notion of a servant plotting to humiliate her master was beyond the realm of common sense.

“Well, of course. Being so oblivious and foolish, you must have lived your whole life being despised by underlings like us.”

But it wasn’t long before Aremis grasped the situation his daughter faced.

The Servant’s panicked shriek when asked to put on the necklace.

As I listened to those shameless confessions of guilt, spoken with such brazen malice….

I found myself accepting it, whether I liked it or not.

‘That one has gone mad.’

Artemis thought so.

An Attendant had dared to exceed the bounds of respectful counsel toward a member of the Duke’s House—and worse, toward Rosetta, whom I cherished dearly.

No, could such a thing even be called counsel?

To scorn one’s master, to harbor disrespectful thoughts, and then to voice them so brazenly.

It was utterly unthinkable.

– “Really now, Soivan…. Please put down our Coco. Children at this age need to learn to walk, and holding her constantly like this is actually harmful.”

– “What can I do when she refuses to come down, content in her father’s arms?”

– “Stop making excuses and put the child down, Soivan.”

My wife, who had been offering such advice as the child squirmed, remained vivid in Artemis’s memory.

Rosetta—who was she?

A child I had raised without her feet ever touching the ground, for fear that even a scratch might mar her delicate skin.

When she came running toward me, her fluffy crimson hair streaming behind her, and nestled into my embrace, I felt as though I possessed the entire world.

Above all, until after losing her mother, Tabena Ariela, and before Rosetta began to show increasingly sensitive tendencies, the Attendants in my memory had clearly always held her in high regard.

“So the Duke must not have been ignoring the situation while keeping his own daughter locked away in her room?”

Thus, the moment I heard those words, it was only natural that I felt despair crash down upon me like a weight sinking to my feet.

The memory of Rosetta, unable to forgive herself for her shameful behavior toward others, eventually wailing and begging for confinement—that image came rushing through my mind.

Who would wish to lock away a child they love so dearly?

I had reluctantly accepted her plea, fearing that if I left things as they were, she would truly fall apart.

Yet I could not deny the fact that to others, it appeared as though I had abandoned Rosetta or cast her aside.

‘Now, to have endured such humiliation all this time….’

He felt the blood drain from his entire body with violent intensity.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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