Chapter 97
Chapter 97. The Rose's Invitation (4)
The sound of a great grandfather clock echoing through the corridor.
The heavy, cool air particular to old stone buildings.
The instant Clarisse's presence faded into the distance.
Jurgen's footsteps were already heading toward Penelope's room.
He had not seen with his own eyes which wing her room was attached to — North, South, East, or West......
But it was fine.
Large as the manor was, it was still just a manor.
From the very moment he had first set foot inside, Jurgen had been mapping its internal layout in his mind.
An occupational habit, one might say.
Dark corridors where armed employees and servants drifted about.
Jurgen's body slipped through the gaps in their awareness, gliding toward his destination.
Clarisse desired her younger sister's ruin.
In that case, the purpose behind this invitation may have carried impure intentions as well.
For instance......
Not simply the persuasion of Jurgen, but a direct attack on Penelope.
An estate blanketed by vast private grounds.
Should a single person disappear without a sound, no one would notice.
And even if someone did notice and filed a missing persons report, no proper investigation would follow.
Concealing his unease, Jurgen slipped in through a window into the grand room and pressed his hand to his chest in relief.
"......"
Penelope, perched on a chair in her pyjamas.
Head drooping, she looked deflated — but she was safe.
Did that mean the Rosemore family hadn't quite descended that far after all?
"Jurgen......?"
As soon as he deliberately made his presence known, Penelope raised her head.
"What — you? How did you know to find me here?"
Gladness, bewilderment, and a faint flush of shame crossed Penelope's face in quick succession.
True to her nature as someone who was always impeccably composed, it was reined in almost immediately.
"A surprise visit. Were you very startled?"
"Of course I was startled! How can you barge into a lady's room like that?"
"You barge in on me too, don't you? Don't worry. I made sure no one saw me."
In the outside world, perhaps — but to be caught alone together in the middle of the night inside the house was another matter.
Penelope was already in enough disfavour as it was — and now here she was, a man in her room in the dead of night.
"As if that makes it any better...... haa, go back now. Be as careful as you can not to get caught. If the elders see, they'll make a dreadful fuss about the family's ruin."
Even as she scolded Jurgen, warmth seeped through Penelope's words.
Like a child who had been lost and found a trustworthy adult.
"You should go back and sleep too. My sister will probably come tomorrow, so."
Watching Penelope coolly issue him an order to leave when it was plain she wanted him to stay felt all the more unsettling.
But someone had to tell her.
"Penelope. Do you trust me?"
"......?"
He felt Penelope's puzzled gaze on him.
A long silence followed.
"I do. Of course."
Penelope blinked slowly, then glanced away and smoothed the sleeve of her nightclothes.
It was an answer that carried the depth of trust rooted as deep as an old tree.
With that, Jurgen steeled himself and told her the truth.
"The thing is......"
Clarisse, who had come to find him. The deal she had proposed.
Clever as Penelope was, she would have understood what this context meant.
The Silver Ring she had been hoping for — it was not coming. Recognition of Y&P Trading Company as an External Business — that was not coming either.
There would be no reconciliation with her sister Clarisse.
On top of that — the fact that everything she had ever put her hand to had gone wrong might have been because of her sister's Backroom Dealings all along.
Because to Clarisse, Penelope was a dangerous element capable of triggering the family's division at any time.
"That is the situation...... It is truly unfortunate."
He could not shake the sorrow and concern.
Penelope's goal had been to have her abilities recognised by the family, and to reconcile with her sister.
The rainbow she had chased while swallowing mud-like humiliation, the end she had never once doubted she would reach — it had turned out to be a place she could never arrive at, not ever.
"I know, of course, that it won't be easy to believe. But......"
She wouldn't believe it.
She wouldn't want to.
Did not even the five stages of accepting death begin with 'denial'?
"I believe you."
But Penelope nodded without resistance.
"So that's how it was. I thought something seemed off."
"......Are you all right?"
"It's a shock, naturally. But it makes sense. There's no way I could have been that incompetent, is there? So this is how it was."
Rather than being shaken, she looked almost refreshed — as though a longstanding question had finally been resolved.
"Then...... we haven't time to be sitting around like this. Jurgen, we have to return to Nortaris immediately. If you refused her offer, my sister will move right away. She'll probably keep making one excuse after another to pin us down here while pretending to wait."
"I think so too."
Right now, the two most important people in Y&P were sitting inside the Rosemore estate.
A perfect situation to pull some scheme.
"Let's go. I'll be back after changing."
Penelope made her decision in an instant, summoned the butler, and had him prepare the carriage.
The butler was flustered by the sudden demand, but under Penelope's urging the carriage was ready in short order.
In the wake of the carriage's wheel tracks, the lights of the Rosemore estate grew gradually distant.
"Jurgen, sorry. I'm going to sleep for a bit."
Having been looking out the window, Penelope collapsed sideways onto the seat and fell asleep.
Curled like a foetus, or like a small animal seeking shelter from the cold.
***
"We've arrived."
A voice full of concern shook Penelope awake.
Half-asleep, Penelope looked around her.
The front entrance of The Richfield Hotel was visible.
And this place was the inside of a carriage.
Why had she been sleeping in a carriage?
"Ah, right."
Penelope shook her head back and forth to shed the unpleasant grogginess.
Whether because she had slept in an uncomfortable place, her head felt ready to split open.
"Sorry, I slept the whole way. You must have been tired too."
"I slept as well, so I'm fine. Penelope — I understand how you feel, but go inside and rest for today."
Separate from the headache, Penelope's grasp on reality was clear.
From here on, attacks from her sister Clarisse would come pouring down.
Since Jurgen had kept his word and not handed over his stake, some form of interference would come, one way or another.
Just yesterday she had been swelling with the hope that Y&P might be recognised as an External Business.
And now here she was — reduced to the position of having to deflect incoming sparks.
How terribly ironic, the way the world worked.
She wanted nothing more than to devise countermeasures immediately, but......
"I suppose I should...... Why am I so sleepy? I feel dreadful......"
No matter how good the suspension, curling up inside a carriage was not a comfortable way to sleep.
She must have slept over six hours, and yet a maddening wave of drowsiness crashed over her as though she had swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills.
A near-pathological urge arose in her — to go back, bathe, and sleep clutching a soft feather pillow.
"Good strategy only comes from proper rest."
"Mm, I'll contact you as soon as I wake up."
"Take your time to collect yourself first. That's soon enough."
"I'll do it straight away."
Penelope stepped out of the carriage.
As she passed through the Revolving Door and was about to set foot in The Richfield's lobby.
"......"
Her steps halted with a jolt.
Wasn't the lobby far too dark?
The lobby's interior design was indeed meant to block outside light......
But today it looked pitch-dark enough for monsters to come crawling out. Dark enough to make her afraid to step inside.
She turned around and saw Jurgen standing with his arms folded, wearing a look of concern.
He seemed to have approached because she had been standing there blankly for some time.
"Is something wrong?"
Perhaps because her mind wasn't working straight after sleep.
Like a dam breaking inside her chest, senseless words were threatening to spill over.
'......Do you want to sleep in my room?'
Nothing else was meant by it.
She just wanted to see his face the moment she woke up.
No — she wanted him stuck right by her side like a comfort doll, all the time.
'You have to sleep anyway. Wouldn't it be nice to get some rest in a proper suite? Mine is the best one.'
But the words that had risen all the way to the tip of her throat.
Penelope never let them out.
"It's nothing. Sleep well."
She said her goodbye to Jurgen and stepped into the hotel lobby.
Contrary to the ominous premonition, no monsters appeared after all.
She drew a few glances, but there was none of the sneering she had once endured.
Nothing more than the ordinary scenery of the hotel lobby, same as always.
"Hoo."
Penelope sighed a sigh of unclear meaning and went up to her suite.
All she had done was move by Elevator, and yet a whole-body lassitude descended upon her with no small force.
When she opened the door to her private suite and stepped inside, she sensed a presence — in a suite that ought to have been empty.
"It has been some time, Young Lady."
Sitting there as comfortably as though it were her own room was a short-haired woman in a men's formal suit.
Bell — Clarisse's maid and closest confidante.
The moment she saw that grinning face, a yellow light flickered on in Penelope's foggy mind.
"Why are you here?"
She had always been an uncomfortable presence.
A woman who, though not of the family's bloodline, had at some point come to handle more of the family's affairs than Penelope herself.
It was not simply a matter of inferiority — the eye-smile that never let one see through to what she was thinking had always felt unsettling.
"Fufu, who knows?"
Looking at Bell's smile, Penelope discovered herself harbouring a fleeting hope.
Bell, her sister's closest confidante, had come all the way here — could it mean?
Did her sister have something to say?
Was it all a misunderstanding, or perhaps some kind of test — and now that Penelope had rushed away, she had sent her own person after her?
"Ta-da!"
Bell thrust a single sheet of paper in front of Penelope.
"It's exactly as written. As of today, all operational rights to The Richfield Hotel have been delegated to me."
It was a letter of delegation bearing the family's Seal.
"The Young Lady is now a guest of this hotel. In keeping with the name of The Richfield Hotel, I will ensure your stay is free of any inconvenience! However, this ultra-luxurious private suite will henceforth be used by myself, Bell — so please pack your things and vacate immediately!"
"...... What about Manager Ritz?"
"General Manager Ritz has retired upon reaching the age of retirement as of yesterday, due to urgent personal circumstances."
"That's not retirement......"
"It's a joke. A joke."
Penelope replied, dumbfounded.
A hollow laugh escaped her.
It was not as though she had ever been particularly attached to the hotel.
It was a business nominally entrusted to Penelope, but she held barely a sliver of the stake.
She had always assumed her sister could take it back whenever she felt like it.
And yet now that the moment had actually arrived......
Now that the reality that her sister truly intended to destroy her had sharpened into unmistakable outline......
A thunderous roar, as though a building were collapsing, seemed to ring out inside her head.
***
Since receiving the Royal Warrant with CCC's chicken, Y&P Trading Company had two major visions.
The first.
To actively make use of the newly recruited Brigitte and elevate CCC chicken's taste even further.
The second.
To standardise that levelled-up chicken and establish Franchise branches one after another.
But for now — a complete halt.
For the time being, it was necessary to prepare for the Rosemore family's interference.
More worrying than that, however, was Penelope's state.
'So that's how it was. I thought something seemed off.'
An interaction that seemed subtly detached from reality.
'It's a shock, naturally. But it makes sense. There's no way I could have been that incompetent, is there?'
Excessive rationalisation and intellectualisation, with emotion stripped out entirely.
'Why am I so sleepy? I feel dreadful......'
Extreme drowsiness.
All of these were defence mechanisms commonly seen on the battlefield.
This incident had delivered a shock to Penelope comparable to battlefield stress.
There is a reason defence mechanisms are defence mechanisms.
They are fundamentally psychological buffers.
Tear them away without preparation, and one crashes into reality without so much as minimal cushioning.
And so for now, he had given Penelope time to process her emotions alone.
But would it have been better to stay by her side?
Or should he go to her even now and put Vic in her arms?
"Hoo......"
It was the kind of day that made him think of cigarettes he had given up long ago.
The drizzling monsoon rain falling outside the window made the mood all the more dreary.
Knock, knock, knock.
A knock sounded.
When Jurgen opened the door, Penelope was standing there.
"Good lord — you've walked through the rain?"
She was drenched to the bone.
Her hair, always impeccably set, was plastered to her cheeks and forehead.
She had only stood at the entrance for a moment, yet a small puddle had already formed at her feet.
"Why did it take so...... long to open the door...... It's your fault...... I got completely soaked."
"I opened it the moment I heard the knock......"
"No you didn't...... I waited forever......I'm telling you......"
The thin, trembling whimper was saturated with tears.
Her shoulders shook pitifully.
Jurgen first pulled out a towel and draped it over her.
"What happened?"
"I have...... nowhere to go......"
Penelope squeezed the words out, haltingly.
It was less like speaking and more like wrenching out her very heart.
"...... My sister abandoned me...... It's not as though I didn't know...... It's not as though I hadn't sensed it...... But even so, I...... thought that if I worked hard enough...... things would change somehow...... I thought that...... but they didn't."
Penelope was not foolish.
She had always been sharp and quick-witted.
The reason she had believed in her sister's goodwill was not because her faith in Clarisse had been unshakeable.
It was because the desperation to keep telling herself the lie — until there was no longer any way to deceive herself — had been that great.
The desperate longing that she might one day receive the family's recognition.
That longing had crumbled today.
"What do I do, Jurgen? I don't know...... what I'm supposed to do anymore...... not at all......"
Held in Jurgen's arms, Penelope wept.
She wept like a child.