Several dishes were arranged on the table, the variety of meat present was something extraordinary; 'befitting of the Duke's household' and nothing less. The grand dining room was filled with staff rushing about setting cutlery and plates on the long table. New staff, despite being recently hired, were dextrously carrying several dishes from the kitchen to the table.

The Duke was sitting in the dining room and watched this unfold with a calm demeanour. Paul stood beside him with a clipboard holding reports of the mansion.

“So all this happened while I was away?” Duke Theodore closed his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed, contemplating. “……. Continue letting her do what she wants.”

“I understand, my lord”

Rosette and Issac walked into the room holding hands, stopped short when she saw the Duke at the end of the table sitting elegantly.

She immediately tensed upon seeing the Duke. It was not her voluntary doing, but the body’s normal ingrained response. 

This fear was drilled into the young girl’s body. 

Her grasp on Issac hands tightened for a moment, and she didn’t know how or when sweat started perspiring on the palm of her hands. When she realised, Rosette suddenly let go of the hand she held. 

She didn’t want Issac to know. 

If possible, she wanted to be a good and protective sister, not an “unfortunate” one.

“Father we’re back.” Rosette plastered a polite smile on her face.

Dinner ensued. The dining table was deadly silent except for small clanking noises from the cutlery. The bland food and the thick atmosphere was giving Rosette indigestion, she was barely swallowing the food she put in her mouth.

She picked up the tall glass of water placed in front of her, attempting to wash the food down.

“I’ll assign tutors for both you and Issac. It’s time you learn proper etiquettes.”

Cough cough cough

Water escaped through Rosette’s lips back into the glass. Rosette was startled at Duke’s sudden words which came out of nowhere. 

The duke looked at the unsightly scene with subdued disappointment. The maids rushed to wipe the water which splashed onto the young girl’s clothes and table.

Rosette was somehow managing to maintain “proper etiquette” from what little she knew back in her previous world, and from reading books in this world. 

However, the books without illustration had unnecessarily complicated words and passages for the sake of ‘flair and flamboyance befitting of a noble author’, making it hard to imagine what they were really intending to describe.

For example, this was one of the excerpts from the ‘Ladies’ book of etiquette and manual of politeness’ Rosette had dived into in third day after being brought to this world:

Let the filaments of hair always be smooth and becomingly arranged, each article of clothing adorned exquisitely clean, neat collar and long sleeves, well-ordered footwear and stockings, and the simplest of dresses will appear ostentatious, while torn or besmirched collar, bristly hair or disordered  feet will entirely ruin the effect of most costly and elaborate dress, despite judged to follow the dictates of fashion, avoiding the appearance of eccentricity- (yada yada, it goes on but you get my point)

Where each sentence was a paragraph on its own, the book took immaculate effort to decode for Rosette. And with maid Theresa’s help, she was barely holding on. Yet it seems she was still subpar in Duke’s eyes.

Rosette has no reason to deny, or rather, she wasn't in a position to.

‘But this situation is actually helpful for me. I can make use of this.’ 

“Thank you for your consideration, father.”

“Yes. Don’t disappoint me again in the future.”

‘This fuckin- can’t you say one nice word out of that mouth?’

><><><><><><

Night was slowly setting in.

Rosette was feeling stomach cramps after having her *torture session* dinner with the Duke. She could feel the food she swallowed stuck in the middle of her oesophagus, refusing to go further down.

A long sigh escaped her lips.

Rosette dropped the quill she was writing with, and frowned deeply while staring at papers spread on the study desk placed in her room. A feeble candle light dimly befall the desk and penetrated the darkness towards the elegant bed filled with satin pillows and silk bedsheets. 

It also casted deep shadow on the young red-head’s face contours, accentuating a ghastly pale suffering and frowning expression due to indigestion. At this moment, Rosette truly resembled a full-fledged evil villainess whether she intended or not.

Rosette wanted to dramatically throw herself onto a bed and weep like some Disney princess. But she withheld her urges because she could imagine it'd only excruciate her stomach pain.

“I wish he’d at least leave me to eat in peace.” She complained. “Shitty asshole of a man giving no cents on their own offspring really-  DOGS ARE BETTER THAN HIM.”

Letting out frustrated cries and futilely kicking her legs dangling from the chair, Rosette buried her face in her hands.

“Usually villainesses in novels are spoilt rotten by their doting parents, so WHY AM I STUCK WITH THIS DOUCHE OF A DAD? AND I’VE NOT EVEN SEEN A TRACE OF MY MOTHER?”

“I want my justice!! Hey God?!”

Silence ensued. There was realistically no god or an omnipotent being who was going to answer her in this situation. After cooling down, she resignedly sunk further down the chair.

I really miss home.

“Rosette?”

She immediately fixed her expressions at the pink-haired boy peeking in through the door. She inwardly let a sigh of relief she was spewing hellfire in English. Who knows what the Duke would do if words got back to him.

Usually you’d expect one to knock before entering the room, but Issac was probably raised without knowing noble etiquettes. That's fine.

This noona will teach him.

As a person who was mentally an adult, Rosette felt the urge to protect Issac who was but an 8-year-old boy, even if he was a year older than her. She had no urge to bully the boy because he was a 'half-brother' but instead felt pity he was raised without a fatherly figure and was left alone when his mother passed.

... Not that she was in a position to pity him with her circumstances as is.

However, unlike Rosette who had loving parents in her previous life and have felt happiness from an affectionate family, Issac only had this experience he will live on with. 

She did not want to add more to the existing injury.

“Issac~! Come in.” 

Rosette quickly tidied up her study desk, stacking up papers of her ‘To-do list to not die’ away in a drawer and locking it with a key.

Issac curiously eyed her actions, but Rosette who did not notice Issac’s intentions just naively welcomed the boy into her room. She didn’t feel a need to keep her guard up around a 8-year old boy.

And Rosette never knew at this point in time, that this was a decision which would lead to further fuck-ups she’d come to regret.