Chapter 61

Chapter 61

I collapsed in my seat. If I didn’t take a deep breath, I felt like I was going to cry at any moment.

The images of the children I couldn’t save passed through my mind one by one.

The warmth of Sasha’s soft paws not only felt like a relief to me but also seemed to ease the bitterness in my heart. At the same time, a complex sense of sadness overtook me about how great it would have been if I had been able to use this ability before.

“Rowaine…?”

Sasha’s thin voice was mixed with worry.

Her soft fur touched my cheek as I closed my eyes tightly. I bit her lip and suppressed the sobs. After taking a deep breath twice, I opened my eyes with a smile.

“Sasha, does it hurt anymore…”

My voice cracked. Sasha was looking up at me with her blue eyes and mouth wide open.

“I’m fine. Is Rowaine okay?”

“If you’re fine, I’m fine too.”

I didn’t know how Dimitri was looking at me. It was because when I looked back at him, he had already looked the other way. It was only when I finished my treatment that the doctor knocked on the drawing-room door.

Dimitri stood up and whispered to me before opening the parlor door.

“It’d be better to deceive Madam Elbas into believing that the doctor treated Sasha. Of all the things you have, you have to hide the most valuable cards. I’ll take care of things for now.”

Then, he told the doctor that Sasha had been rushed here in a hurry and told him to prescribe medication. As soon as the doctor left, I lightly placed my hand on top of Dimitri’s, who was sitting on the couch.

“….?”

Dimitri reflexively pulled out his hand and placed it on top of mine. Cats wouldn’t normally give the back of their hand to others. Concerned that he might not be a cat, I laughed at his behavior, which showed the habits of a cat even in trivial things.

I uttered, putting my hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll treat Dimitri as well, just in case.”

“Me? I’m still feeling fine because Rowaine already treated me last night.”

“You passed through a hall where lilies were piled up like mountains. Lilies are poisonous to cats.”

At my words, Dimitri made a surprised face as if he had no idea.

‘This world has no development in veterinary medicine, so it’s understandable that he wouldn’t know.’

As I silently grabbed Dimitri’s shoulders and gave him my energy, just like I did with Sasha, he quietly leaned over to me and asked.

“Are you saying that Sasha is like that because of the lilies?”

“Yes. So I definitely asked not to let any flowers, including lilies, be brought into the mansion yet this happened.”

Dimitri suddenly grabbed my hand tightly. It was a warm, calloused hand. It felt a little hot to me, perhaps because he had a higher body temperature than humans. He was holding my hand as if he were holding a rope before asking me a question.

It seemed that he was so taken aback by what I said that he didn’t seem to realize that he had caught me. Dimitri kept asking me what was going on.

“Are you saying lilies are lethal? To the cat shapeshifters?”

“To be precise, I knew that it was bad for cats though I didn’t know how much it would affect shapeshifters. However, looking at it today, it seems to be quite lethal even for a shapeshifter.”

Perhaps, it might have been more dangerous to Sasha because she was still young.

As Dimitri’s eyes sank deeply, an unexpected story suddenly came out of his mouth.

“Madam Elbas loves lilies.”

So, it seemed that it was her servants that were moving the lilies. Meanwhile, Dimitri repeatedly murmured with a slightly absent-minded look.

“…Madam Elbas has always loved lilies.”

His hands seemed to tremble a little. As his grip was too strong as he was clasping my hand, I had no choice but to remove it.

“It hurts, Dimitri.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Dimitri let go of his hand, startled, before he put my hand on top of his head with a bitter smile.

“Then, please do it again. Because Rowaine’s energy makes me feel good.”

‘I can’t do it with his hands, so his head is fine.’

To an ordinary person, the feeling of being held by their head would be more unfamiliar than their hand, but he was a cat.

That was what they said about cats.

I did as I was told and focused, placing my hand on top of Dimitri’s head. Fortunately, he was fine with no signs of poisoning.

Coming out of the drawing room, I immediately ordered the servants to burn all the lilies. Had it not been for my healing powers, Sasha would have been on her way to death by now. That fact made me very angry.

‘How dare she bring something poisonous to my children?’

No matter how much I thought about it, I was filled with anger.

“Why are you doing this, Duchess! These are the flowers the Madam ordered to decorate the room…!”

Madam Elbas’s maids protested against me, complaining that my order was too unreasonable. Though instead of talking to them, I summoned Lucy and Agwen and asked them sternly.

“Didn’t you explain to the guests that flowers aren’t allowed in this mansion?”

“I told them clearly, Madam.”

Only then did I look back at Madam Elbas’s maids.

“Then, didn’t your mistress break the rules of this place?”

“The Madam likes flowers very much. Flowers don’t do any harm, but isn’t that a very strict rule…”

“Did Madam Elbas say that, so she was allowed to break my rules?”

At that moment, the tiger came when I called for it. Madam Elbas answered instead as she ascended the stairs.

“Dimitri knows that I love flowers. I really thought you wouldn’t be narrow-minded about me by giving me that sleazy rule.”

I glared at her sharply.

“It’s not about being narrow-minded, it’s about exercising my authority. The guest, Madam Elbas, is now overstepping her authority.”

“What?”

Madam Elbas, who had stopped halfway down the stairs, looked down at me in a mocking way. Nevertheless, I confronted those eyes head-on as anger was boiling inside me like lava.

“You don’t seem to realize it yet, but the mistress of Blois is no longer the Madam, but me. I have the right to set up any number of small rules and the right to abide by them.”

I continued sharply, glancing at her.

“Since I sat in the seat of the Duchess of Blois, it’s understandable that you’re too greedy to give it up to your daughter-in-law and come down here like this. However, even the sun humbly steps down when the time comes.”

“Ha.”

She bursted out laughing as if she was in high spirits. At the same time, the eyes of Madam Elbas and mine collided fiercely.

“You insult me out of nowhere, Rowaine.”

“I’m only telling you to abide by my rules in my house, Madam Elbas.”

With every word I uttered, my head was spinning tighter.

It was because she could be referred to the Conduct Guidance Committee, which managed and supervised the conduct of nobles, if Madame Elbas pushed too much.

The Conduct Guidance Committee is an aristocratic life guidance organization made up of senior nobles with good reputations and integrity, regardless of title. To put it simply, it’s an organization in charge of aristocratic trials and disciplinary action.

The aristocrats fear, above all, the reprimand from the Conduct Guidance Committee. This was because if you were disciplined for your conduct, you would be shunned by the aristocratic society.

‘It’s not just bullying… It’s the level of burial, both economically and socially.’

I wasn’t very interested in aristocratic society, but it was a different story if it was to fulfill the marriage contract with Dimitri faithfully.

‘I can’t harm Dimitri.’

The elders who were already trying to kick out Dimitri already had lights in their eyes, but they couldn’t make a justification.

‘Besides, I played a prank on Madam Elbas in front of many noble ladies last time, so she won’t let me off a second time.’

At that time, Madam Elbas first threw an apron at me and started a fight, and even her employees were watching it. So, even if I had acted a little out of manners in confrontation, she wouldn’t have been able to appeal to her behavior guidance committee.

Most of all, she couldn’t have said, ‘my daughter-in-law enjoyed sitting on my lap!’ because that was actually all I did.

‘Back then, it was a light joke to recognize the opponent, but now it’s a real fight.’

In my mind, I wanted to rush in and fight without being seen as an adult, although the Conduct Guidance Committee was on my mind.

“Conduct” refers to moral qualities. In other words, how well one abides by moral principles and norms becomes the criterion for judgment by the Conduct Guidance Committee. That was why the Conduct Guidance Committee was terrifying.

As the scope of morality was too broad, and it was a philosophical realm that could be interpreted differently depending on the person.

‘…Sasha almost died.’

Sasha would have died after all had I not had the ability to heal her, fortunately.

Thinking of that made my mind have a thousand fathoms*.

[ T/N: It’s an idiom which means, ‘It’s very difficult to know what a person has in mind. ]

But here, Sasha was ‘only’ a pet slave. Didn’t I already realize something while talking to Dimitri about Coco’s business?

‘To these people, slaves are nothing more than objects, and if I get angry right now, I’ll be the only one sensitive…’

A daughter-in-law, who ran into her mother-in-law because of a mere slave, would surely be the object of rebuke from the nobles.

As I thought so, I tried hard to suppress my anger.

While I was thinking about how I could give Madam Elbas a stern warning, she first sarcastically sneered at me in a soft voice.

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