After Genevieve left, Adaline went to the dining room for breakfast.
Each servant he met, as if by agreement, lowered his head and turned away as if he had become an accidental witness to something shameful. This made me feel uneasy.
[How inconvenient it is to have a drinking party without even properly introducing yourself...]
[I wonder what they think of me now? They probably decided that I was some kind of weirdo...]
[However, she will have to confirm this status more than once. ]
[When you decide to be shameless, you have nothing to lose.] Lifting her head higher, Adaline walked forward. Lloyd walked towards him.
“I told you, don’t keep everything to yourself.” - he remarked, looking into her face. "You're making that weird expression again."
"..."
“The dining room is on the other side.” - he added calmly.
[It seems that Lloyd has already figured out the internal hierarchy in the mansion.] He nodded briefly to the maid who accompanied Adaline, and she, bowing slightly, hurriedly left.
“There are not enough people here for such an estate. It won't be difficult to take control."
“We actually didn’t come here to fight...”
The one who a minute ago was walking around with the look of a fighting cock, as if she had forgotten how she behaved.
“Shane left only the quiet and obedient ones. When the former Duke moved to a country mansion, he took the old servants with him. The butler is new here, he has only been working here recently. The composition is constantly changing."
“Shane treats people badly?”
“Rather...he’s just almost never home.”
“What a beauty.” - Adaline said with such genuine delight that Lloyd couldn’t help but grin.
Adaline laughed with him.
[The atmosphere at the Blanchard estate has indeed changed. This used to be the typical home of a high-ranking aristocrat.]
As soon as you entered the main gate, all the servants lined up. Everyone's faces were stony and tense. The house was oppressive, they knew how to make an impression here.
[Until I was nine years old, I visited here quite often...]
[After the death of the former Duchess, Adaline was worried about her motherless groom and tried to visit him.]
They spent almost a year together. Adaline genuinely cared about Shane. [Yes, and he seemed to need someone nearby. Under various pretexts, he often came to her himself; it seems that loneliness weighed heavily on him.]
Looking up, Adaline saw portraits of the former Duke and Duchess on the wall.
[The Duchess is a cold beauty, reserved, noble. A model of a court lady, as befits a former Imperial Princess.] Adaline met her gaze - the same color as Shane's - and then turned her gaze to the portrait of the Duke. He looked as stern and motionless as his wife.
[And this whole house, as if carved from stone, kept the same oppressive silence.]
[I wonder what it was like for Shane growing up here alone...]
Before Adaline left Delmez, he lived with his father, the official head of the family. [Relations between them did not seem warm then.]
"Mistress."
“Oh...Sorry. Went."
“Then you’ll have to go alone. I'm heading to Lucian."
“You won’t even have breakfast?!”
“I got up at five in the morning and had already eaten.”
“Without me?!”
"At this time you..."
"..."
Adalyn pressed her lips tightly together.
[She...was sleeping. In Shane's arms.]
Instead of reminding him of this, Lloyd said with feigned severity:
“What, I had to risk my life and wake you up so you could eat?”
"...No..."
“That’s good. Eat normally. Then I’ll check if there are any vegetables left on the plate.”
[If I don’t eat it, he’ll force you. He's so...]
Adaline nodded obediently. [Lloyd is the type to see things through.]
“Honestly...even if you didn't eat, you still wouldn't come with me, right?”
"Right. We wouldn’t be able to eat together anyway...I...don’t want to see him.”
[There was no need to specify who exactly.]
[Lloyd couldn't stand Shane even in his "good" times. They hardly spoke and pretended that each other did not exist.]
[The fact that Lloyd was allowed to come here at all is thanks to Shane. But there was still no direct communication between them.]
"He hates me too." - Lloyd grinned, there was irony in his voice.
“And he does the right thing.”
Adaline didn't answer. She just put her hand on his shoulder and told him to be careful.
Lloyd nodded, with a slightly cheeky expression on his face as always, and went on his way.