“Have you lost your mind?!”

Elodie flinched as her father’s hand came down hard on the table beside him. He had never raised his voice in that manner when it came to her, so she was astounded and frightened at the reaction.

“Calm down, Husband. You’re scaring her,” insisted her mother quite calmly.

“Scaring her? She should be scared. Will she be scared when we lose everything, and we’re thrown out into the streets? That’s if we’re even still alive.”

The man was now pacing and the surprised servants in the room were silent with their heads down.

“Father, what do you mean? My attendant was already imprisoned. Surely, they wouldn’t punish the fam-”

“Shush,” prompted her mother.

It was hard enough to calm her husband. Elodie clearly didn’t understand that by saying such things it would only make the situation worse.

“Look at your good daughter! Talking about the imperial family as if they lived next door! The audacity!” roared Mr Mercier while pointing to Elodie and looking at his wife.

His hand shook while he pointed at his daughter, as if he barely believed the nerve of her saying such a thing considering the situation that they were in. No one could stop people gossiping in their homes but being caught disrespecting the imperial family was a treasonous crime and now there was even a physical altercation. What bad fortune!

“Look at the nonsense your good daughter is saying! Who cares about some little maid? Does she understand that we have such good fortune because the Vilaro family also invests in our travelling routes?”

The man laughed in disbelief as he thought about the situation only stopping after a few minutes.

Even if Empress Livinia was not particularly fond of her husband’s other children, this was not something she showed to outsiders. Publicly insulting any of the siblings was grounds for her to act as the imperial mother, clearly showing an unbiased stance when it came to the imperial family and its descendants.

“They are one of the most powerful families in the empire both financially and politically. If we fall out of favour with them… Oh, I don’t even want to know what could happen,” he said slumping down back into his seat while laughing again.

After a while he shakily drank some water for his parched throat. No matter how parched his throat was, she wouldn’t understand the political implications behind this.

As a parent, he only had himself to blame that his daughter wasn’t even interested in such things. Being the only daughter from his main wife, Elodie was raised with the most meticulous care. In the eyes of her parents, she was a pretty glass flower who would one day be picked and planted into a wealthy family as a little madame.

So, with thoughts of a rich husband in a house where everyone would obey her why would she be interested in politics? She wanted to mix with nobles but wasn’t trying to understand the workings of the upper circle whether it was national or household politics.

The Mercier family had been merchants for a few generations, it was where most of their fortune and power came from. He could hardly have imagined that the family could see it’s decline due to a few maids. They couldn’t delay and had to visit Minister Vilaro with a few gifts.

Surely, there were some valuable things he had added to his collection in the past few weeks that could be presented that could be passed on to the Empress as well.

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His wife merely glanced over at him for a few moments and then turned back to a shocked Elodie.

“Do you have to shout at her over a mistake made by a stupid maid? And it’s not as if it was the Empress’s daughter. How was it her fault if that princess was dumb enough to protect a little servant?”

“You, you-” Mr Mercier could barely finish his sentence from his fury.

He stood up and threw his wife a glare before angrily gathering his robe and storming out of the room with a door slam. His steward bowed to the madam before following him. She walked over to Elodie who seemed to be on the verge of tears after the unexpected scolding.

“Don’t mind him my dear, he’s just overreacting. That Consort is nothing compared to the Empress. We’ll just get you another attendant,” insisted Madam Mercier as she fixed her daughter’s hair.

She understood that their little angel was most likely very embarrassed without having other people shout at her. As her parents they should have been comforting her instead.

“If anything, the Consort’s daughter should be blamed for all this. Keep your head up, okay.”

Elodie slowly nodded as Madam Mercier looked at her and gently smoothed down her hair again. Her mother was right, there was only one person to blame in this mess. She had never been so humiliated, and it was especially worse since it was in front of Velia and other nobles.

Edan was a well-spoken and rather popular son of a minister and Mirek was not only a Łaska but an outstanding young talent in the legal field, both excellent young noblemen. The rest were all people related to the imperial family. As if the small social death wasn’t enough, even the father who had only ever cherished her as she grew up raised his voice at her. She was still shaken.

Her voice was almost a whisper when she spoke.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“This is just like dealing with the little minxes that try to enter your husband’s door. It’s nothing serious at all, you just need a few subtle methods to deal with them,” assured Madam Mercier.

“As long as the Empress’s daughter is by your side for now, there’ll be a way to deal with things.”

Just because her daughter wasn’t a noble didn’t mean that she had to suffer such treatment.

With the way that the social circles in the capital ran, Madam Mercier would end up being excluded as well and she had worked hard to be able to mix in aristocrat circles even though some of them still looked down on her.

Besides the wealth of their family, socialising with the tightly knit and exclusive aristocrats had allowed her to enjoy a very high status in the circle of merchant spouses. This unfavoured princess truly had the cheek to try and slander their family’s reputation.

****

Servants were busy cleaning when the young master returned from his social visit. As he passed by, the servants softly greeted him with their heads down.

“Darling, you’re back,” said an older woman as she looked up from her embroidery.

Edan loosened the top of his robe before taking a seat on the sofa. His mother could tell that he was displeased even with just a few actions. Madam Dunbar gestured to one of the servants to bring him something to drink.

“Did anything interesting happen at the palace?”

“It was barely interesting, but something did happen,” he said at length.

One of the young maids arrived with a tray. Edan’s eyes were on her the entire time as she set everything out on the table and curtseyed before leaving. For some reason she made him think of Kamaria which annoyingly brought his mind back to Khayri as well.

He finally took a sip of his drink in silence. Even after all this time, thinking about Khayri made him more annoyed than ever. In the entire capital, no one disrespected him as much the youngest prince.

His messy thoughts then returned to Kamaria. Even he had to admit that the little princess had a certain charm.

Edan barely had the chance to see it before due to her rare social appearances. A few thoughts going through his mind made him realise something.

“I’m going to take a rest,” he said standing up.

“Should I send the girl to your room?” calmly asked his mother as she worked.

Edan smiled at just how well his mother knew him before walking away.

“Eldest young Master seemed to be in a bad mood. Should I start looking for another maid to replace her?” asked Madam Dunbar’s steward.

The woman nodded before continuing with the embroidery. Her steward left the room to attend to the task as if it was the commonplace thing to happen in the household.