The Lady Awaits a Broken Engagement

Chapter 9

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By the time Savina began to climb the stairs back to the third floor, her heart wasn’t pounding quite so aggressively. She quickly walked up the remainder of the stairs and turned a corner, when a familiar voice froze her in place.

“Long time no see… Although I would have been fine with that being a bit longer,” said an irritating voice.

Savina whipped her head around to see the boy who had given her such a rude greeting. Just as she had feared—it was her cousin Fabian, who never failed to put her in a sour mood. It appeared that he had spotted her while coming down from the fourth floor. He raised an arrogant eyebrow at her in displeasure. Slowly, he approached her until he came to a pause on the stair right above her own. She stiffened in surprise.

Apparently, he had arrived a bit earlier than Lady Annabelle. Now the commotion from earlier made sense. The servants must have been bustling around with Fabian’s unexpected return. It only took her a split second to regain her composure.

“I will be going now. I am sure you are tired from your long journey home,” she said calmly.

However, Fabian immediately blocked her path. “How dare you try to walk away before me?” he snapped.

Fortunately, the thirteen-year-old was a bit too young to be intimidating. However, the brat was still taller and bigger than Savina, who was small for her age. She gave him an annoyed glare, even though she knew that it was hardly intimidating.

“What do you want?” she growled.

“Oh, come on. You should be a bit more excited about seeing your cousin again!” Snickering in an extremely irritating manner, Fabian added, “I know that you’re still here because you like being the niece of Duke Charlot.”

His words didn’t even deserve a proper response. The only reason that Savina was here was because she wanted her mother to recover from her illness. Unfortunately, Fabian didn’t care about what she was going through. To him, his cousin was nothing more than an unwanted guest, which she was well aware of. Whenever she was reminded of this fact, she realized that there was no point in wasting her energy to argue with him.

“You know why I don’t want to talk to you? It’s because you’re nothing more than my cousin right now. I’ll be gone by the time you become the duke,” she snorted.

“What?” Fabian sounded a bit shocked.

“I’m saying that there’s no point in being nice to you since I won’t get anything from it. Do you understand?” she continued, refusing to back down.

For a moment, Fabian was speechless. Apparently, her aggressive response had shocked him. It made sense that he was so surprised. After all, she had never talked back to him, even though he harassed her regularly. She knew exactly who Benjamin would side with if she ever got into a fight with her cousin. However, she was no longer interested in trying to be civil.

It doesn’t matter if I’m well-behaved or not. It won’t change the way they think about me.

“Ha! So now you decide to show your true character?” snorted Fabian, finally regaining his composure.

Sighing, she waved her hand half-heartedly. “Sure, whatever you say.”

“You ungrateful wench.” Fabian poked her shoulder with a finger in disgust. “I hope Father sends you to some boarding school in the mountains where I’ll never see you again.”

Although the words were grating, Savina didn’t try to fight with the boy. After all, it sounded like a good idea.

“Ask him to do it, then,” she told him.

“You can beg for mercy all you want, but… Wait, what?”

“You said you want me to go to a boarding school, right? Go and ask the duke to do it,” she said with a careless shrug.

Living in the countryside for a few years outside of the prince’s reach sounded much safer than trying to sneak around the manor. Furthermore, she wouldn’t have to rely on House Charlot once she became an adult. In fact, this was starting to sound like a great idea. Since she knew about all the major events that would come to pass, she could become incredibly successful.

“I’m saying that I want you to go to your father and ask him to send me to a school far away instead of just tossing those useless threats at me,” Savina added, just in case Fabian wasn’t comprehending her words. “Being locked in a boarding school sounds much better than staying here.”

Fabian snorted at her in disdain, probably thinking that she was only bluffing. “You think I won’t do it?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how easy it would be for me to kick you out of this manor? Huh?!”

Savina stared at him with a mask of obvious confusion. What was he so upset about? They had finally managed to agree on something! Seeing this, Fabian’s face crumpled in rage.

“You foolish girl! This is exactly why—”

“Foolish?” she interrupted. “I’d actually use that word to describe you, since you’re making me repeat myself over and over again. Get out of my way if you don’t have the guts to go to your father about this.”

Perhaps realizing that she had been mocking him all along, Fabian’s gaze hardened in anger. However, Savina simply walked past him and began climbing the stairs. Unfortunately, Fabian raced after her and grabbed her arm.

“You little brat!”

“Ah!”

Savina yelped as she lost her balance from her cousin’s unexpected aggression. It didn’t help that she had already been trying to suppress the pain in her legs whenever she took a step. Her leg twisted, and she ended up falling to the floor in a heap.

Surprised, Fabian blinked. Apparently, knocking her to the ground had not been his desired outcome.

“What was that?” he muttered, scanning Savina suspiciously. His gaze drifted past her legs, then snapped back to focus on her knees.

Savina quickly glanced down as well, recalling that Melissa had tied the bandages in a loose knot.

Oh… The bandages on her left leg had slipped down, revealing a good half of her burn.

Fabian reached out like a viper and grabbed her ankle. He asked frantically, “What happened to your knee?”

“Go away,” she muttered, drawing her body back. Discreetly, she glanced back to check on the notebook that she had taken from downstairs. Thankfully, it was still tightly secured with her waist strap.

Perhaps Fabian had interpreted this as a blatant dismissal, although she was simply checking on her stolen prize. He yelled even louder, “Answer me! I want to know what happened to your legs!”

“Nothing, so go away.”

“Not until you tell me exactly what happened.”

Unable to contain her annoyance, Savina tried to kick Fabian away, although she didn’t accomplish much. Realizing that he was unfortunately much stronger than her, she tipped her head back in exhaustion for a moment.

Straightening her neck once again, she explained with forced patience, “It was nothing, okay? It was just an accident during one of my lessons.”

“A lesson?” Fabian repeated in disbelief. “What kind of lesson would result in an injury like this?”

“A lesson on afternoon tea etiquette. Madam Clarissa hit my hand and made me spill my tea.”

Staring at her, Fabian muttered, “Madam Clarissa… dared to injure you?”

“Well I don’t have any authority, unlike your father who hired her,” Savina said calmly, since it appeared that Fabian was a bit confused about how the manor was run. Then she realized that there was a question she ought to have asked a while ago. “Why are you getting angry for me? You’re not even the one who got hurt.”

“Angry? You think I’m angry… for you?” Fabian repeated loudly with a flushed face, making him look quite… angry. The fact that her cousin was actually angry on her behalf was extremely strange to her.

Apparently, Fabian had also found this quite absurd, for he snorted at her. “Don’t make me laugh! I was just concerned that you might stay at the manor forever. After all, nobody will take you if you have some kind of scar on your body… along with your dirty blood.”

Savina sighed, thinking that she must have been mistaken. Fabian had absolutely no reason to become angry about an injury that she had suffered.

I can’t believe I thought he was angry about what Madam Clarissa did… He was talking about me like I was a bruised apple! Savina couldn’t help but release a soft snort. It was true that Fabian was still a child, which meant that his aggression wasn’t too unbearable. However, sometimes it was just too much.

Adults were often immune to a child’s taunts because they had the power to easily subdue one. Unfortunately, Savina did not have that ability to protect herself. Once again, she was reminded of just how frustrating it was to remember her past life while living in another world. It was true that Fabian’s bullying was laughably childish. However, his words always cut deep.

At that moment, a thought occurred to Savina. “You’d say something like that at my funeral too, wouldn’t you?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“What?” Fabian said, dumbfounded.

“I’m sure you’ll say something like… ‘I can’t believe she died like this! What a waste of money. We should have sold her off a bit sooner.’”

For a brief moment, Savina entertained the possibility of the prince actually taking her life. Fabian had obviously never liked her, so he would probably be overjoyed by the loss of a bothersome burden. As for Simon and Benjamin, they likely wouldn’t try to hold the prince responsible for her death. And I’m supposed to call them my family… Hah! That’s a good one.

“Have you finally lost your mind?” growled Fabian.

“Can you be a bit quieter? You won’t benefit from the adults seeing this, you know.”

“I don’t care! Do you have any idea what you just said to me?” Fabian yelled, ignoring her concerns.

“Wow… it must be nice to be young. You’re so energetic!” Savina snorted. Now that she thought about it, Fabian’s life was about a hundred times easier than hers. Not only was she stuck in a child’s body because she had some hazy memories of her past life, but she had to deal with all sorts of troublesome situations… Savina stared at Fabian, genuinely feeling a bit jealous.

“D-did you actually knock your head against something?” Fabian stuttered. It seemed like Savina had given him quite a shock by treating him like a child when she was one herself.

That’s fine. It’s not like I expected him to understand. Noticing that Fabian’s grip around her ankle had loosened, she rose from the ground. Brushing off her dress, she glanced at her cousin.

“Maybe I did knock my head pretty hard. I think I’ll have to go to my room and get some rest. Make sure to talk to your father about kicking me out of the manor. I’d be fine with a mental health institution, just so you know.” Then she walked away with a wave, not even casting Fabian a backward glance.

Dazed, Fabian stared at her retreating figure, only snapping out of his shock when Savina disappeared into her room. “That brat… she was making fun of me!” he said, scrambling up from the ground. He raced to Savina’s room and began banging on the door, enraged that he had been mocked by his “lowly” little cousin.

The commotion ended about an hour later, when Benjamin climbed all the way up to the third floor to take his son away.