‘Run away!’

After Ariadne came home, Isabella couldn’t touch Arabella. It was a victory for Arabella to bide her time, whether she locked the door and hid, or holed up in a corner of the mansion until then.

Arabella ran towards the door. Isabella yelled harshly.

“Aren’t you going to stop there? I won’t leave you alone!”

Arabella ran away to the west wing corridor on the second floor like a squirrel. But Isabella, like a cheetah, swiftly followed Arabella.

Only after repeatedly seeing the sparkling hair in Arabella’s hand as she chased Arabella did Isabella realize what her younger sister had stolen.

When she saw the hair, she first thought Arabella had taken something like a jewel hairpin. But seeing the amount of hair falling out, it was a hair wig.

‘Hold on, why is she taking that?’

It wasn’t even the whole hair wig, just a piece of it. A piece of a wig could not be used for dressing up.

It seemed like she was taking it to give to someone as a sample or evidence. Coincidentally, the direction Arabella was running was towards Ariadne’s residence.

Isabella finally realized why Arabella was taking the hair wig. There was no doubt that she was trying to present evidence of the iron clamp that had been pranked on Ariadne’s dress at the debutante ball.

The hook that had been attached to Ariadne’s dress was made of the same metal with a high lead content, inspired by a hair wig decoration.

“This rat!”

It would be a big problem if that item was discovered. Cardinal de Mare had already put Isabella on penance for three months because she tried to ruin Ariadne’s reputation at the masquerade.

That was even though nothing significant had happened to Ariadne.

Based on that standard, tearing the chest of Ariadne’s dress at Ariadne’s debutante ball was an unforgivable act.

‘I can’t get caught! It’ll be a big problem if I get caught!’

Isabella was able to catch up with her younger sister near the central stairs of the de Mare mansion.

“Stop right there!”

Thud!

Isabella succeeded in grabbing Arabella’s wrist at the top of the central stairs where it begins.

“Give it to me.”

“No, no way!”

“Give it right now, you rat!”

“No way!”

Isabella could not contain her rising anger. She forcefully grabbed Arabella’s clenched left hand and tried to pry it open with her nails, screaming.

“Whose sister are you? Are you trying to ruin your own sister’s life?”

Arabella also had something to say. From Arabella’s point of view, who had no idea why Isabella was startled, the current situation was nothing more than Isabella not wanting to share a single piece of hair wig due to her greed.

“Act like a real sister if you’re a sister! Are you nice to me? Do you play with me? All you do is yell and curse all day, if King His Majesty acted like that, he would be a tyrant!”

Arabella tried to insert a difficult word she learned from her tutor during political science class. That infuriated Isabella even more.

“Where did this bellsized creature learn to back talk…!”

Isabella had given up trying to forcibly take the iron handcuffs and raised her right hand, which had been holding Arabella’s wrist, to hit Arabella.

It was always the position Lucrezia took when hitting her subordinates.

“Oh, oh?”

Arabella, who had been trying to exert her strength to get her wrist out of Isabella’s grip, felt she lost her balance when Isabella’s hand suddenly disappeared.

Arabella flailed her arms instinctively to prevent herself from falling backwards.

They were standing at the beginning of the central staircase of the de Mare mansion. It was the same staircase where Arabella had pushed Isabella on her first day when Arabella had come to the cardinal’s residence in San Carlo.

“Ugh, aaaah!”

Arabella’s gestures were becoming increasingly intense. Arabella flailed her arms and desperately tried to catch the center of gravity that was trying to fall backwards.

In her rush to regain her balance, Arabella’s left fist loosened, and the iron handcuffs connected to the golden hair inside Arabella’s fist shone brightly.

Arabella’s gaze met Isabella’s gaze.

There were two choices for Isabella.

Either help Arabella who was about to fall back, or snatch those iron handcuffs.

Isabella’s choice was clear.

Thump!

Isabella instinctively grabbed the iron handcuffs from Arabella’s grip.

“Oh, oh?!”

Arabella, who barely maintained her balance due to the rushing Isabella, fell backwards down the stairs, directly facing Isabella.

“Ah, ahhhhhh!”

Bang!

Isabella thought she would hear a clamoring noise first, followed by a thump as she hit the floor. That’s how it was when she herself had rolled down the stairs before.

However, after Arabella fell, there was only one shockingly loud noise that strongly echoed off the marble floor.

Isabella quickly clung to the railing to look down at the situation on the lower floor.

Arabella had fallen in a picturelike pose with the back of her head against the first floor marble floor. She didn’t even scream after the collision. There was no movement at all.

‘Is there blood? Is there blood?’

Isabella, palefaced, looked down from the secondfloor railing, but she couldn’t see any blood from where she stood.

‘She’s not dead, is she?’

Isabella looked around in a hurry. The first thing Isabella checked was whether there was a witness. Fortunately, no one had seen Arabella fall.

Isabella was barely relieved. She couldn’t afford any more trouble now.

‘If someone accuses me of pushing Arabella, my father will believe it!’

She felt chills down her spine. This time, it was definitely going to the nunnery.

Sending a daughter to the nunnery from a noble family was as good as a death sentence.

However, if there was a fool or disabled daughter, if there was an unbearable disgrace to the daughter, if there was no money to pay the dowry and there were too many daughters, they sent the daughter to the nunnery.

In many cases, once you entered the nunnery, even your family wouldn’t come to see you, and you could never leave. The women abandoned by their families in there made a living by sewing, earning their food and firewood.

‘No, I can’t live like that.’

Even if there were no witnesses, it would be over if someone heard Isabella and Arabella fighting. They fought. Arabella fell from the stairs to the first floor. Why did she fall?

Sweat began to fill Isabella’s palms. She quickly checked her appearance.

There were no traces of a fight, like scratch marks where Arabella had scratched her. Isabella straightened her crumpled clothes, hastily tucked her disheveled hair behind her ears, and fixed herself.

“It’s time to mop the second floor, let’s go up quickly.”

“My duty today is the east room, right?”

The sound of the maids coming out and chatting in the kitchen on the first floor could be heard. Isabella’s eyes widened. She couldn’t be caught in this situation.

She straightened her back and returned to her room on the second floor with the most nonchalant, graceful step possible.

She was upright but her steps were shaky. In a hurry, Isabella returned to her room and closed the door with a ‘bang’.

After all, these days, whenever Cardinal de Mare was at home, Isabella always locked herself in her room.

Yes, nothing happened. It was just an ordinary afternoon. Nothing happened. I didn’t do anything.

Isabella ran to the vanity and picked up the box containing the wig, throwing it into the fireplace attached to the room. The flames from the fireplace caught the paper box, and it burned brightly.

On top of it, Isabella also threw a piece of a wig that she had snatched from Arabella’s hand. The fire caught onto the hair and the smell of burning hair spread harshly throughout the room.

When all of it burned, Isabella planned to scrape even the ashes and bury them in a corner of the yard.

Isabella, without even thinking about ventilating, stood dumbly, staring at the burning fireplace.