Chapter 18
Of course, this was merely a one-dimensional guess.
Even so, it would not have been easy for a young lady to choose the path of killing her entire family and becoming all alone.
And if she had set the fire, she would not have been able to escape from there either.
‘I’ll keep investigating this as well……. As for the coachman, I think I can definitely rule him out as a suspect.’
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the coachman.
There were many testimonies describing him as a quiet, sober, diligent, and ordinary family man.
What surprised people about him was that Rosalyn had paid his family a considerable amount of compensation and even hired his daughter as a maid at the estate.
“She wasn’t the kind of person who would do that. I suppose seeing someone die right before her eyes must have been quite a shock.”
“Of course. No matter what, she was a noble young lady who had grown up without ever seeing anything terrible.”
“But isn’t it surprising that she kept a promise made to someone who was already dead? She could have simply pretended not to know about it.”
“That’s true.”
It seemed that Rosalyn really had changed tremendously from before.
She no longer threw hysterical fits, broke things, obsessed over her appearance, or did foolish things—in other words, she had become a normal person.
There were certainly reasons for the change.
‘She doesn’t have anything to fall back on anymore.’
Before, no matter what she did, her parents would have cleaned up after her.
But now, even the servants simply turning their backs on her could put her entire life in jeopardy.
How ridiculous would a twenty-year-old young woman serving as the head of the family look?
So she was probably trying to win the favor of her subordinates in whatever way she could.
Her relationship with the Count and Countess Brough, as well as the marriage that awaited her, must have played a role as well.
However, there were also aspects that could not be explained by those things alone.
“The young lady’s posture has changed, I’m telling you.”
“You think so too, right? She always had a somewhat crooked posture before, but now she keeps her back straight like a dancer.”
“Do you remember? The young lady used to walk so strangely that her shoes wouldn’t last even half a year.”
“That’s right, that’s right! The heels would wear down entirely on one side.”
Overhearing the conversations exchanged among the maids who had once worked at the estate also became important information for him.
‘A person’s posture and way of walking aren’t things that can be easily corrected…….’
The coachman, the Count and Countess Brough, and even the longtime butler all called her Rosalyn, so she was undoubtedly Rosalyn herself.
Then why did his thoughts keep drifting toward the idea that she seemed like a different person?
‘My paranoia is acting up again.’
Ash scoffed at himself and took a sip of the cold coffee.
The reason he had survived two deployments, and the reason he had been able to solve major cases one after another after joining the police force, was precisely because of this paranoia.
As a child who had never received stable affection from his parents, he was always terrified that he might be abandoned, and even the sight of his mother wearing a different shade of rouge would make his heart beat uneasily.
That was when he developed the habit of carefully observing everything and preparing for the worst whenever something seemed suspicious, and it never disappeared even after he became an adult who had given up not only his parents’ affection and social recognition, but even his own personal happiness.
The world seemed to be made of lies, and his instinctive attention toward the dangers hidden within it was almost like a natural instinct.
By now, he even enjoyed it with something of the feeling of playing a game.
Ash flipped through the reports and chased away his idle thoughts.
‘The strangest person, actually, isn’t Rosalyn Tessis, but Emma Hampton.’
There was nothing clear about her.
She was said to have been an outsider who moved to Tessis a little over two years ago, but no one knew where she had come from, and there were no objects or places that could confirm her traces.
There wasn’t even anyone who could accurately remember what she looked like.
Judging from that alone, one might think she was a ghost, but everyone vividly remembered her very existence.
“Other than the master and mistress and the head maid, Emma was the only one who could handle Miss Rosalyn. Whenever the young lady started getting angry, she would quickly stand beside her and soothe her with all sorts of kind words. You wouldn’t believe how good she was with words.”
“At first, everyone was jealous of her too, but thanks to that girl, we were able to avoid the young lady’s temper more times than I can count, so eventually everyone became grateful to Emma.”
“Emma was the only one among the servants who noticed how overworked I was and tried to help me in any way she could. It’s heartbreaking that she died like that…….”
Yet Rosalyn did not seem to value Emma very much, as she coldly dismissed her after Emma was forced to pay a large compensation.
If Emma’s claim was true that Rosalyn had framed her for what she had done, then Rosalyn could be said to bear considerable responsibility for Emma’s death.
‘Something went wrong after the Baron’s family came to Herona. I don’t know whether that was the cause of the fire, but I should investigate as far as I can.’
Ash closed the report he had been reading.
Then, in order to cool his head, which felt as though it had overheated, he picked up his coffee cup and approached the window.
Whenever he absentmindedly watched the people passing by, he would feel calmer, thinking that the world continued to turn even without him making any effort.
The coffee that a low-ranking female employee had brought down for him that morning had become a liquid too embarrassing to even call coffee anymore, but he didn’t care.
He wasn’t drinking it to enjoy its aroma or taste in the first place.
As he quietly stared out the window and took one sip after another, a familiar woman caught his eye on the other side of the street bathed in the sunlight of late spring.
‘Rosalyn Tessis?’
He wondered if he was seeing things because he had been thinking about that woman so much, but no matter how many times he looked again, it was Rosalyn.
Moreover, she was not alone.
A tall and handsome man was beside her.
‘He looks familiar……. Who is he?’
Judging by the fact that they weren’t linking arms or standing close enough for their bodies to touch, they did not seem to be lovers yet, but it looked like they were at the stage of getting to know each other.
Information about Rosalyn unfolded rapidly in Ash’s mind.
‘There’s a high probability that she’s meeting the sons of families who have sent marriage proposals.’
Whatever the deceased Baron and his wife’s purpose had been, Rosalyn Tessis’s current purpose for staying in Herona was probably marriage.
A chuckle escaped him.
When you looked at her, that woman really did seem to be working hard to live her life.
‘The marriage itself probably won’t be a problem. A woman who possesses a baronial title and is fairly attractive, too.’
She wasn’t extraordinary enough to be called a beauty of the century, but she was attractive enough that no one could argue when someone called her pretty.
Rosalyn was chattering away with a smile like a wildflower.
The man who heard what she said also burst out laughing despite himself.
‘Her expression is somewhat different from what I saw in Tessis, but she doesn’t seem to be pretending to be a refined lady either.’
Ash quietly watched the woman and the man until they went from one end of the street to the other.
He sipped the completely cold coffee one mouthful at a time.
By the time their backs had completely disappeared, the taste of the coffee on his tongue had become so disgusting that he furrowed his brow.
“I can’t drink this.”
Ash put the cup down without hesitation.
Perhaps the coffee grounds had settled at the bottom, because the liquid remaining in the cup was so dark that it looked pitch-black.
***
A party invitation arrived for me.
It wasn’t sent through Count Brough, but directly to me, Rosalyn Tessis.
What was surprising was not that I had received an invitation, but who had sent it.
“What on earth are you plotting?”
I muttered without realizing it as I looked down at the name ‘Heather Dartmouth’ written on the envelope.
She had had a bad relationship with the real Rosalyn, but she had never exactly formed pleasant memories with me, the fake Rosalyn, either.
So why had she gone out of her way to invite me?
‘There’s definitely something going on…….’
If I had the option of simply not going, I wouldn’t have to worry about this either.
“Rosalyn, you received the invitation, didn’t you? The Dartmouth family’s tea party.”
Countess Brough brought it up during the meal.
“Yes. But honestly, I don’t know how I ended up receiving an invitation as well. It’s not as though we’re particularly close…….”
“Hm? Heather seems to know you. When I asked Lady Dartmouth to send you an invitation as well, Heather, who was beside her, said that she would send one to you herself.”
“What?”
My voice nearly cracked.
Perhaps she noticed my displeasure, because Countess Brough gently advised me in a suggestive tone.
“You’ll be living in Herona from now on, so you need to get along with the other young ladies as well. Besides, I was the one who asked for the invitation first, and if you don’t go…….”
“Ah, I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t go. It’s just…… rather unexpected.”
“Isn’t it? Still, there’s no way you would disappoint me.”
To think she would call even my simply not attending a party a disappointment.
Since I had been so obediently accommodating her, it seemed these people truly knew no bounds.
