42 Aggrieved

"What happened?" Annabelle stood up immediately, grabbing her fan from the table. The others girls also tensed.

A young maid rushed up and whispered in her mistress's ear. After a few moments, Annabelle's face turned dark. She turned to Kalina and said with an icy voice, "It's your sister."

'Lucille? What happened to her?' Kalina got up quickly and followed the maid. Annabelle scoffed, but she went along.

The other ladies were clustered together in a corner. Though a gap in their skirts, Kalina caught a glimpse of Lucille's sitting on the grass.

She hurried forward and the ladies moved aside for her, shifting their glances from the sister on the ground to the sister standing above.

"Lucille, what happened to you? Were you pushed?" Kalina exclaimed, going quickly to Lucille's side. Lucille's hair and skirt were disheveled. She was unharmed and seemed to have fallen over from shock. The rims of her eyes were red as if she was about to cry.

Annabelle stood to the side, watching the two with a narrow glare.

Hearing Kalina's familiar voice, Lucille woke up from her trance. "No, but Sister, they...they were making fun of me!" she wailed.

"Who bullied you?" Kalina bent down and helped Lucille to her feet. Some of the girls standing nearby gulped. They didn't know that Kalina placed such importance on her little sister.

Lucille ducked behind Kalina and pointed at three noble ladies with a shaking finger. She bit her lip and said: "I went over to talk to them. I wanted to be their friend, just like you and Lady Annabelle. But they kept saying that I didn't belong here, and that I should stay on the streets!"

Kalina touched her ring to check. Lucille's eyes stayed the same deep purple color. She wasn't lying.

The accused flushed red with embarrassment. They hadn't been that direct, but they couldn't deny that they hadn't implied those things. However, they thought that Lucille would be too ashamed to bring it up.

"Is this true?" Kalina shielded Lucille behind herself and turned to them with an apprehensive look. Their silence confirmed the fact.

Annabelle sighed behind her fan. She stepped forward to apologize to Kalina. "Lady Kalina, I shall apologize on behalf of my friends for their behavior. They really..." she glared at them out of the corner of her eye. "They really love to gossip mindlessly. If they have said anything that offended your little sister, please allow me to make up for it with this apology."

"Is that true? But I feel like Lucille also deserves an apology from those who have caused her grief. After all, if she really had gotten injured today, my father will surely be upset when we return."

"If that is what you wish." Annabelle promptly gestured with her eyes for the ladies to apologize.

The ladies shuffled forward reluctantly and bowed their heads. Kalina couldn't see their faces, but she knew they were gnashing their teeth as they said one after the other, "My apologies to Lady Lucille. I spoke foolishly. Please forgive me."

Lucille was still hidden behind Kalina back, so no one could see her lips curl into a grin. The taste of power was so delectable she didn't even realize it was someone else's.

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Kalina was sure that after this incident, Annabelle wouldn't have a good opinion of her or Lucille. She had pushed them a bit too far today by forcing them to apologize. However, she knew that Annabelle, with her proud personality, would blame Lucille more.

Sure enough, Annabelle was currently investigating Lucille's birth. Kalina and Lucille were born less than a year apart. The Duchess's pregnancy had been a huge scandal at the time, shaking the world of noble society. Even now, some nobles still gossiped about it.

It was unlikely for a woman who had been shunned for getting pregnant at a young age to have another baby so soon, if at all. Plus, Lucille didn't resemble the Duchess or the Duke with her silvery hair and violet eyes.

Every descendant of the main bloodline of the Ephraims had golden hair and eyes. It was a dominant gene that had never changed for hundreds of years. This meant that Lucille couldn't probably be a child of the Duchess, which also meant that she was the Duke's child if she was living with them.

"Lady Annabelle, I've sent people to ask the Ephraims' servants. They should be returning shortly." Annabelle's maid entered the bedroom where Annabelle was waiting.

"Okay."

Ten minutes later, four servants stood in her room, side by side. They all looked like they were hiding a big secret.

"Spit it out." Annabelle said. Even if she had changed out of her extravagant dress she had worn to the party, she was still poised.

"Apparently that girl is the child of a prostitute and not the Duchess."

"She was only brought into the household a few months ago. Her mother secretly raised her for twelve years."

"I heard that they lived in the slums and survived by eating dirt."

"Really? Someone told me that they had to fight with stray dogs for scraps."

Annabelle was able to grasp the situation from the first two remarks. The last two were just rumors, although they must have lived roughly.

"Okay. Good. Reward them." She signaled to her maid, who gave each of them a few copper coins and sent them on their way.

What Annabelle didn't understand, though, was why Kalina cared so much about an illegitimate child.

She thought again of her younger brother who was born from her father's mistress. Right now, he was a great threat to her brother, who did not have the title of heir apparent.

Was Kalina not aware of the fact, or was she choosing to ignore it and become close to her half-sister anyway?

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Kalina passed spring lazily, writing and reading letters coming from her friends. Holly constantly expressed her desire to come to the capital, and one day, she excitedly wrote that her father was considering moving to the capital and expanding his jewel business.

Kalina smiled faintly as she read the letter. She folded it up carefully and tucked it in a drawer of the desk.

The summer was nearing and the weather grew hotter. Nora stood by her side, lightly fanning her mistress with a circular fan. Beads of sweat ran down the maid's face but she could only endure.

"Nora," Kalina spoke up. "You're turning twenty soon. Is there anyone you like? I'd be happy to match you with someone nice."

"No, no, it's fine." Nora stepped back and waved her hands frantically. "I...I don't need it." She was too cautious to say that she and Thomas were meeting each other.

"Okay then. Keep fanning." Kalina turned away and closed her eyes.

Nora gritted her teeth and clutched her cramping arm tightly with her other hand.

Kalina seemed to remember something and sat up abruptly. Nora, surprised, barely managed to fix her angry expression. She put down the fan and asked: "What's wrong, Lady Kalina?"

"What's the date?"

"The fourteenth day of the fifth month."

Tomorrow was the day that Lucille and Heinrich met for the first time.