"I suppose that concludes our lesson for today, my lady," Ballinger said, bowing respectfully, "we will meet here tomorrow after breakfast, I presume?"

"That would be much appreciated, Mr. Ballinger." Rowena already felt exhausted, as if she was feeling the journey after all, not just her sore behind.

"May you have a blessed day."

She followed his example, smiling and bowing in return, though not as deeply as he did. "Thank you for your guidance."

As she saw him out, her benign expression fell, leaving a face as hard as stone. The servant who had burst in on them earlier was even more shocked by her quick change of attitude.

"Now to you," the noble said, tucking some of her hair elegantly behind her ear, "show me the way."

With these simple words, she made her order clear, leaving no questions as to what the girl should do. But at first she was frozen, unable to carry out the order until she shook herself awake again.

Hurriedly, she almost ran out in front of the young lady of the Grand Duchy, making her mistress hasten as well. This was not the kind of behavior she was usually allowed to show under the strict gaze of her own head maid.

I may be called the ladies' maid, but she literally takes me for granted here. She swallowed the words she wanted to spit out as she had other things to worry about.

Clearly, she was going to file a complaint as soon as whatever was going on was resolved. For that, she needed to get to the bottom of this.

As they left the annex and walked through the garden with the gazebo where she liked to have a cup of tea, they entered the main building.

Even before the door was opened, her heightened senses picked up an angry voice from inside. In fact, she might have heard it even with her normal ears, for she saw the maid in front of her wince at the first high note.

"...you say that, I would never have done something like that!"

'Oh yeah, definitely a voice I've heard before,' she thought as she imagined the angelic face of a melodramatic fifteen year old, 'she seems to enjoy yelling. Just my type of person.'

'She certainly seems to have a lot of energy.'

'I know, right?' Almost laughing, the large doors swung open and the troublemakers came into view. "Norina, what's-" she started, then stopped herself and blinked blankly instead.

Turning around, she could clearly see Norina in the corner of the room, standing next to a young, healthy redhead whom she hadn't seen in such a state before, but recognized easily. The person in the middle of the room, held back by two other maids, looking ready to jump into another's face even if Rowena only saw her back, was none other than Ava.

'Calm, collected Ava? Having a fight?' It was somehow hard for her to comprehend. 'Wait, I was expecting Norina to be the culprit. That's unfair too, I guess.' It was always the quiet ones.

She wasn't the only one in the room. There was Arabella, whom she had already heard from outside, then a woman behind her who might have been her stepsister's nanny.

'I haven't seen Beatrice at all, but that's not her. Not by a long shot.' The woman was ordinary looking, brown-haired, with a strict updo. A gray shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, hiding a dark green dress.

Beatrice was someone beautiful, radiant despite her age, with golden hair similar to her daughter's, and usually wore light bluish hues. She was also the Grand Duchess, so there was no way her clothes could be so simple, as she was very active in social circles and always conscious of her appearance.

She hadn't much that would help her understand the person behind that description, as she appeared even less than the Grand Duke in the "Saintess' Shield", but that much was obvious to her.'Great, so it's Arabella, her nanny, Ava, two random maids holding her by the arms and an old lady… no, there's another.'

Ava was directing her anger at everyone in front of her, but a little out of Rowena's sight, she saw another maid who was eerily familiar. She hadn't seen her after her first days in this world.

'Her name was Liza.'

'Sometimes you listen really well, don't you?'

'Sometimes... better than you.'

Feeling pricked, she shelved the request to talk to this particular partner after all, and concentrated on what was most important. She faked a cough, but their bickering didn't allow her even a little bit of their attention, as only Norina seemed to have noticed her mistress' arrival.

"I demand to know what is going on." Her voice echoed loudly through the hall, causing everyone to finally turn their heads in her direction.

Ava, blushing with shame, couldn't meet Rowena's eyes and instead avoided them by lowering her head. "My lady, you didn't have to come here."

"It seems I had to." She turned to give the maid who had come to fetch her a sideways glance, then scanned the room once more. "So what is going on? I hate repeating myself."

Arabella paused, not a word coming from her glossy lips. Her presumed nanny was busy covering her mouth, as if she hadn't expected this at all, although she must have been aware of the maid who had summoned her.

Only the aging woman sighed and furrowed her brow in concern. "May I speak?"

Trying to hold back her annoyance, the lavender-haired girl took a deep breath. "Who else would speak but you, if no one else is willing?"

"'Certainly, my lady, I do apologize. My name is Nona, I'm the head seamstress of the Varnhagen household. I am pleased to finally meet you like this."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"The pleasure is all mine," the lady said, becoming more and more impatient, "now what has happened here?"

"There seems to have been a misunderstanding, young lady Rowena."

"A misunderstanding of what nature?"

"I tailored a dress to Lady Arabella's liking. It wasn't her size." As she said it, she felt her fingers grow cold as panic crept into her old bones. "It was quite large in the bosom, but very small overall. It took me a long time to get the materials and copy the original tailor's work."

"But you had no right to do that!" The words suddenly burst out of the maid, her cheeks still red. "How dare you do this to my lady's dress!"

"Ava, calm down," Rowena had to intervene, as she was only making things more complicated. At the same time, she gained some valuable information from her outburst. "And what do you mean? My dress?"

She struggled to free one of her arms and held up a letter in her hand. "I accepted a letter for you today, it was from Sir Silver Cain."

Surprised, Rowena looked at her. "It's not like you to open my letters, Ava."

She shook her head quickly. "It's not open. His messenger told me it was about the dress sent here a week ago and how you liked it."

"But I wasn't here."

"Indeed, my lady. So I told him that you hadn't actually returned until this morning, but in response he claimed that someone had taken the dress and that it had been given to the lady immediately when it was delivered last week."

Confused, Rowena looked around. It must have been the elaborate gown she had ordered to be ready in time for the Victory Banquet.

Reality slowly set in. 'No way,' she thought, 'they stole my ace in the hole, those fuckers.'

The maid who had brought her here became more and more nervous as time went by, feeling as if she had missed something. Obviously, she had been sent to fetch the young mistress, so why were they acting so shocked? Was she not supposed to lead her to the main hall?

The truth lay somewhere in between, as Arabella, still petrified, stared at her sister. Last time she had seen her, she had looked so healthy compared to before, but not having seen her for a few weeks, her complexion was breathtaking. She was truly beautiful, a spitting image of her biological mother.

She stood in the main hall with an attitude like she owned the building, making her past behavior seem like a lie. Truthfully, they hadn't expected her to come because she never did.

'This is Rowena. She doesn't move for anyone, she just stays locked up in her annex room all day. What is the meaning of this?' Arabella was stunned.

Her nanny wasn't much better. In fact, summoning Rowena was a mere formality, they hadn't expected her to show up for real.

While all this was going on, a confused Nona shook her head. "I was unaware, my lady. I was instructed to tailor the dress to young lady Arabella's size."

"And you didn't question the original measurements at all?" Rowena replied sharply.

"I am deeply sorry, my lady. I hadn't seen you in so long that it didn't even cross my mind."

The last time she'd seen Lady Rowena, she'd been a few years younger, a head shorter and without a bust. It could have been a badly tailored dress, for it almost fit Lady Arabella, just not quite.

Now that she thought about it, of course it was strange, but the dress wasn't the only reason. She looked around and found a bob-haired maid staring daggers at the still seething Ava.

"Besides," she finally added, "it was brought to me by someone I trust."

As if struck by lightning, the maid who had learned so much from the old seamstress and treated her like an aunt all her life, Liza, flinched. "How could you say that, Nona?" she gave herself away.

With a raised eyebrow, Rowena was about to ask her why she would give her dress to her stepsister when an already forgotten voice chimed in.

"Right!" Arabella shouted, "I didn't do anything!"

"What are you talking about?" Rowena didn't really want to deal with this, but it was already clear that she had to, if only for Ava to come out of this unscathed.

"The dress was brought to me by your maid!" she continued, far too loudly, filling the entire hall with her pleading whine, "I didn't know anything about it. She said it was not to your liking so I could have it as an apology for your behavior earlier."

She began to hide her face in her hands, dramatically sinking to her knees as her nanny wrapped her shawl around the poor girl with a worried expression.

"My lady, are you all right?" she asked from behind her. "Do you need to see a doctor? Shall I call for her Grace?"

Under her hands, Arabella panicked, not crying, but the panic that crept into her made her tear up at the right time. Because of this, she did not see Liza looking down at her, her face losing all color.

A few other maids in the room exchanged glances, not quite sure what to make of the situation. But aside from some comparably quiet crying noises, the hall fell eerily silent.

With a long sigh, Rowena crossed her arms over her chest once more. "All right," she said, "bring the dress here."

When she received nothing but questioning looks, she shot them a stare that needed no further confirmation. The maids hurried to be the first to leave the hall, to get out of the situation more quickly.

"So, Nona," she finally said, "is there any way to undo your work?"

The woman lowered her head. "It would be difficult. The job was already done more roughly than the original, I'm afraid. The addition of new cloth will always be visible."

'True. If they took the breast off and put it back on, it would look silly. You would have to put on more shit just to cover it up.'

It didn't take long for the dress to be brought back down. Liza stood there with her face as white as a sheet, looking at the expensive piece of clothing she had given to her mistress' stepsister her a week ago.

This wasn't what she wanted. No, not precisely - it wasn't what she had expected to happen. All she wanted was to leave the gloomy annex for a better mistress. This wasn't fair, was it?

Tears began to form in her eyes as well, but she knew it wasn't her place to cry. If she broke down like the young lady Arabella had, there would be no one to put a shawl over her shoulders.

"I will tell the truth, young lady Rowena," Liza finally opened her thin lips, feeling as if they might have turned blue already, "and only the truth."

Rowena looked at her once and motioned for her to continue.

"A few weeks ago, after you left on your journey, I visited Madam Nona in the main building and met the young lady Arabella." Her words were spoken softly and slowly, but they startled the blonde lady on the floor. "She told me how she lacked a proper dress and couldn't get an appointment with any of the great designers because they thought she was... inadequate."

'Inadequate?' It was referring to her standing as the step daughter of the Grand Duke, as opposed to his legitimate children. 'That's not a thing. She's just as accepted as the rest of us.' Shaking her head, she continued to listen.

"There was that scene at the gazebo earlier, where Your Ladyship had forbidden her to come to the dress review with Silver Cain." She looked around, for Arabella hadn't moved an inch, but strangely enough, her deliberate weeping had stopped as well. "She asked me if I was a new maid in the main building, but I said I was employed as an annex maid. I was told that if I could help her out here and there while you weren't around, maybe she could put in a good word for me to be transferred to the main building."

"So long story short, you wanted to crawl into the main building, and therefore you took the lady's dress?" Ava couldn't stop herself from blurting out. "You're so shameful, I can't believe I ever respected you as a maid."

After all, she had trained with the seamstress for a short time. She had thought she was a trustworthy person; someone with many talents.

"Calm down, Ava, it's all right," Rowena said, looking at the dress.

It was indeed exceptionally beautiful, even after being soiled. She looked at the sparkling white and silver, as well as the beautiful off-the-shoulder cut that Silver Cain seemed to like to see on her.

I forgot," she thought, "I don't care anymore, she can have it if she wants. As for you," she said, looking back at Liza, "I'm sure you know what's going to happen without me saying it."

In reality, there was nothing she could decide for herself, but she had to say something to stop this, because it was exhausting. "If only someone with higher authority...

And as one should always be careful what one wishes for, the door slammed loudly behind them. They hadn't noticed it open at all, so they froze again when a new face appeared.

With an awkward bow, Rowena blinked at the stern beauty standing before her. "Greetings, Your Grace. I trust you have been well."

The Grand Duchess Beatrice returned the greeting with a polite nod.