Chapter: 57
Seraphina desperately suppressed the anger boiling inside her.
The moment she lost her temper here, everything would fall apart.
Everyone would brand Seraphina as overly sensitive.
They would laugh and mock her for losing her composure, and then drag her down into the dirt.
So even if her feet were on fire, she had to pretend to be as relaxed as possible, maintaining a calm expression and demeanor.
“By the way, I heard Lady Ancy has recently been attending the Watkins Reading Club with Lady Claudius, is that right?”
‘Watkins? That bookworm gathering?’
Seraphina raised one eyebrow.
Wasn’t that a gathering that even Seraphina herself, along with the members of the ‘Peony’ social circle, had subtly looked down upon?
But the moment Lady Claudius’s name was added to that gathering—
“Oh my, I want to go too!”
“A reading club? It certainly makes one’s intellectual side shine.”
The reading club was instantly elevated into a gathering that everyone desperately wanted to attend somehow.
And that situation became a sharp arrow that was fired at Seraphina once again.
“By any chance, was Lady Lopes not invited again?”
……
Why bring up that subject all of a sudden?
Seraphina had an ominous feeling.
And that feeling proved correct.
“Well, I decided to attend starting with the next meeting.”
Lady Sanchez, who had been forced to remain the second-in-command of the ‘Peony’ social circle because of Seraphina, raised an invitation to the Watkins Reading Club as if deliberately showing it off.
“To be honest, I never thought much about it before, but Lady Claudius has been very active in high society lately, hasn’t she?”
Lady Sanchez smiled brightly, her eyes curving into a pleasant crescent shape.
“I’d really like to meet Lady Claudius at least once, and my mother and Countess Sherwood are very close friends. So I received an invitation through my mother this time.”
“Oh my, I’m so jealous!”
“I really want to go too. Could you somehow invite me later?”
The ladies of the gathering each looked at Lady Sanchez with envious expressions.
“Of course. What else is friendship for?”
Lady Sanchez shrugged and gazed at Seraphina with a triumphant look in her eyes.
“Oh, and just in case, I should tell you in advance. It might be a little… difficult for Lady Lopes.”
“……”
Seraphina’s gaze turned cold.
Pretending to be cautious, Lady Sanchez continued to poke at her.
“We have to consider Lady Claudius’s feelings, after all. You’ll understand, won’t you?”
“Don’t worry. I never intended to ask to be invited in the first place.”
Seraphina smiled as beautifully as a lily.
“That would be rather… childish, wouldn’t it?”
Of course, Seraphina herself had once asked Laritte to invite her to the ducal family’s salon.
But Seraphina desperately erased that memory from her mind and put on as much bravado as possible.
“Instead, I’m curious about Lady Sanchez’s intentions.”
“My intentions?”
“Of course. I had no intention of asking in the first place, so why did you go out of your way to bring me into this?”
In truth, the best response would have been to stop at ‘That would be rather childish, wouldn’t it?’
But Seraphina was so irritated that she added one more remark.
“Oh my, were you hurt by that?”
Lady Sanchez seized the opportunity, widening her eyes and painting Seraphina as a petty person.
“I was only trying to be considerate because I thought Lady Lopes might misunderstand. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“Lady Sanchez, that’s…”
“Well, I was worried you might feel somewhat isolated.”
Lady Sanchez smiled sweetly.
“I forgot that Lady Lopes is such a proud person. Of course you wouldn’t need an invitation like this at all… I suppose I was simply making assumptions.”
Although her voice was as soft as down, her words were filled with thorns.
“You’ve been unusually quiet today, so I was worried that perhaps you were upset. I suppose I was mistaken.”
“……”
Seraphina clenched her teeth tightly while keeping the smile on her face.
‘I made a mistake.’
She should never have given Lady Sanchez an opening to pick at her.
‘…She’s really getting on my nerves.’
If this had been the usual Lady Sanchez, she would never have dared to chatter so freely while watching Seraphina’s mood.
But today, she was the one leading the conversation in Seraphina’s place.
That alone was practically proof that Seraphina had lost control of this gathering.
And that made Seraphina feel even more miserable.
“By the way, hasn’t Lady Claudius’s demeanor become a little softer lately?”
“That’s right. She smiles more often than she used to.”
“She used to feel so difficult to approach, but lately she doesn’t seem that way.”
“I happened to run into Lady Claudius recently, and believe it or not, she actually greeted me.”
The ladies who had once gossiped behind Seraphina’s and the young lady’s backs suddenly flipped their attitudes as easily as turning over their palms and began taking the young lady’s side.
On top of that—
“I only thought that was the case because Lady Lopes always said Lady Claudius was cold.”
“Perhaps that was just our prejudice.”
……
They were even subtly shifting the blame for all that gossip onto Seraphina.
‘Endure it.’
Seraphina tightly shut her eyes and composed herself.
At least for now, she still had influence within this gathering, so she had to keep attending as much as possible.
One of Seraphina’s greatest sources of influence was the ‘Peony’ social circle, after all.
For the time being, the best course of action was to keep showing her face at the gatherings and wait for an opportunity to somehow push Lady Sanchez out.
There was no Laritte left for her to manipulate, and the Lopes baronial family was far too insignificant for her to receive any help from them.
Gregory had also been cold toward her lately…
‘Gregory.’
At the thought of that name, Seraphina felt as though her breath was being choked off.
After all—
‘It seems like Gregory has been avoiding me lately.’
Ever since the incident in the south, Gregory seemed to have completely lost interest in Seraphina.
He used to visit her so often that he practically wore out her doorstep, but lately, he had stopped coming altogether.
Unable to bear it any longer, Seraphina had gone to see Gregory herself after a long while.
“Serra, what brings you here?”
He made it painfully obvious that he had no interest in Seraphina.
“Did Laritte not come with you?”
……
The humiliation of hearing those words directly to her face was unbearable.
And that wasn’t all.
He would leave Seraphina sitting beside him while he stared blankly into space, lost in his own thoughts.
It was also common for him to leave her alone and walk away.
If not that—
“Serra, you haven’t heard anything about Laritte lately, have you?”
He would interrogate her endlessly about Laritte and nothing else.
‘No, I’m just imagining things.’
Seraphina clenched her fists tightly.
It was already a huge blow that Laritte had sided with Lady Claudius.
If she lost Gregory as well…
‘That absolutely cannot happen.’
She didn’t even want to imagine it.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon.
At last, the gathering came to an end.
“It was really lovely today, Lady Sanchez!”
“I’ll see you again!”
The ladies exchanged cheerful goodbyes.
Seraphina, who had remained until the very end, finally relaxed a little.
‘I should hurry home and rest.’
After sitting all day under the ladies’ piercing gazes, her entire body had stiffened.
Her lips, which she had forced into a smile all day, were practically twitching from exhaustion.
But then—
“Oh my.”
Lady Sanchez covered her mouth with a fully opened fan and smiled sweetly.
“It seems Young Master Gusto isn’t here today?”
“……”
Caught off guard, Seraphina swallowed a breath.
Lady Sanchez gently waved her fan as she continued.
“Normally, Young Master Gusto always comes to pick up Lady Lopes.”
“…That…”
“Didn’t he even put Lady Lopes before his fiancée, Lady Ancy?”
Lady Sanchez’s smile deepened slightly.
“Every time I saw that, I thought, ‘Lady Lopes must truly be loved.’ I was so envious.”
As she said this, Lady Sanchez looked Seraphina up and down with eyes filled with mockery.
Seraphina felt her face burning hot.
With a sharp snap, Lady Sanchez folded her fan and lowered it, then shrugged in an irritatingly smug manner.
“Then please get home safely, Lady Lopes.”
With that, the ladies each climbed into their family carriages and disappeared.
Seraphina hurried into her own carriage as though fleeing.
