Chapter 18.1

Yelena hurriedly headed toward the dining room.

She saw Christine snooping through the arched dining room entrance. Yelena hurried over to her and grabbed her sister’s hand fiercely.

“Christine!”

She tried to keep her voice as low as possible, but the pent-up anger burst out.

“It is immodest to eavesdrop on a gentleman’s conversation. Do you want to show the duke something like this?”

“Christine is the main character, so it’s okay. Sister, be good to me.”

“Christine! Come with me right away.”

As she tried to stand up holding the struggling Christine in her arms, two thick shadows cast over her head.

She looked up and saw Duke Janus and her father standing at the door.

The expression of the boy wearing the monocle was so insensitive that she couldn’t understand what he was thinking, and her father behind him shook his head with contempt.

A look as if asking what the hell is her use.

Yes, the nursery school or whatever were all empty dreams.

Yelena was an ugly 16-year-old girl who couldn’t even take care of herself and was wondering if she could get married in time.

“Father! Christine missed you!”

“Hoho, Christine. It hasn’t been a while since we separated.”

“Christine still wanted to see you.”

Christine hurriedly ran up to her father and came to his arm, and the Count’s face became a kind and benevolent father again.

“It’s because you’re so childish…… I don’t know what to do with you, Christine.”

“Can I stay with my father, Duke? I’ll be quiet so I won’t disturb you when you talk, okay?”

As the Count and daughter looked at him as if asking for his permission, Duke Janus lightly nodded his head.

“It’s a request from my favorite Christine, so of course I have to grant it.”

In an instant, Christine’s cheeks flushed beautifully like a ripe peach. With the granted permission, the father took his beautiful daughter in his arms and walked into the dining room.

It was a good place for the lovely 12-year-old to join for a while.

Yelena quickly picked up the right words for the situation and bowed.

“I made a lot of discourtesy. Then I’ll just…….”

“Lady.”

The boy who was looking at her pointed to her left ear as he followed the Count into the dining room. Yelena was horrified when she touched her own ear, like looking in the mirror and copying it.

‘My earring…… !’

She hurriedly checked her other ear, and there was the jade earring her mother had left behind. The Duke was puzzled by her appearance, wearing a large jade earring on only one side.

“Ah, thanks for letting me know…… thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

When was the last time she checked her earrings?

When she glanced in the hand mirror for a moment in the downstairs parlor, it was clearly on both ears.

‘Maybe it felt from when I ran here from the children’s room.’

She hoped that was the case, so Yelena meticulously retraced her steps.

From the dining room, Christine’s giggles and laughter broke out faintly.

-My favorite Christine.

‘Why does that word come to my mind in the midst of this, stupid.’

The duke came here to make connections with the child he is sponsoring. He can’t help but take pity on Christine, who will be entering the school next spring.

And Christine is Yelena’s younger sister, and Yelena is the eldest daughter, so she has to be the model for the household. But she’s not grown-up enough to not show jealousy towards her younger sister.

The jade earrings that her mother had left her never appeared.

‘Then where did I lose it?’

She does not know.

When she looked in the hand mirror in the parlor now, she wasn’t even sure if she really had both earrings.

She was out of her mind at all today.

‘That’s why I lost Mother’s belongings.’

What had happened to her?

How much time had she wasted wandering the hallways and going up and down the stairs? Yelena suddenly came to her senses, her face pale with another worry.

‘I must be crazy. I shouldn’t have been away for a long time, even for Betty’s sake. But I accidentally lost my earring…….’

Yelena almost jumped to the parlor where the children were waiting.

“Matthew, Betty, did you listen to Jane and kept quiet?”

Yelena, who entered with a bright voice, panicked once more.

It was because there was only Betty who was looking at her with round eyes while eating the dessert alone.

“Betty, Betty? Where is Matthew? What about Jane?”

“I don’t know. Miss Jane was away for a while, but after a while, Lord Matthew too…….”

At least it was obvious.

Not once or twice did the nanny abandon the children when Yelena neglected the watch a little. She must be sleeping in her room or giggling with the other maids.

Even if she scolds Jane saying, ‘Jane, what the hell are you doing here?’ She would act brazenly and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it has been this long, miss,’ And Matthew also doesn’t have a watcher, so he must be doing stupid things as he pleases.

He must be running around the mansion in all directions looking for the two of them, only to raise a vase.

Yelena felt ashamed when she realized the troubles in her family.

‘Betty doesn’t know anything now, but what will she think later when she grows up and recalls County Mceuena?’

Is Yelena really the only one in this house who knows shame?

Still, it was fortunate that Betty, who had been left alone, was quiet in the room. If Yelena couldn’t find Betty as well, Yelena might have lost her mind out of worries.