My Charlotte Hates Me

Chapter 48: Anomaly

Arielle heard rumors of how Prince Erik was seen hugging the new transfer student. Unable to contain her feelings anymore, she went to confirm the rumors with Prince Erik himself.

"...Is it true that you have been spending a lot of time around the new transfer student?" Arielle asked.

"...Are you now monitoring my actions?" Prince Erik asked.

"No! I do not mean anything by it," Arielle said defensively. "It is just that some of these rumors can be harmful to either Your Highness or the Lady in question."

"Are you threatening me now?" Prince Erik asked.

"Threaten...how could Your Highness think of me like that? I am Your Highness' fiancée. I shall support Your Highness in all of your endeavors to the best of my ability, but the lady in question does not have a reputable reputation..."

"The only woman allowed by my side is you, right You only care about becoming Queen. You have never once cared about me...Just stay away from both myself and Lady Kaya, Lady Maddox," Prince Erik said coldly after leaving Arielle by herself.

I went to see Arielle who put on a forced smile when she greeted me.

"...I apologize for making you see such a scene, Charlotte," Arielle said.

"Do you know what spurred on this kind of behavior?" I asked.

"...I am not sure. Maybe I offended him without knowing," Arielle said.

The two had been inseparable in all of the other timelines, yet they are facing their first sign of discord along with the sudden appearance of this strange anomaly...

Arielle wanted more time to study alone for the upcoming exam, so she stayed cooped up in her room by herself. I understood her feelings of not wanting to be near others when the current hot topic of rumors consisted of her fiancé hanging out with some lowly Baron girl. Even if she did not want to hear such rumors, they would always come back to her. It would be a lie to say that those rumors did not hurt her at all.

I went to the source of the rumors, Lady Kaya Ouchi who was also the daughter of Baron Otis with only a title to his name. When asking around, I found that she often sat in the center of the courtyard with several men whom I very well recognized. Beside her was Prince Erik, a follower of the church sect Gavin Lord, Arielle's cousin Randall Maddox, the son of a high ranked official Channing Wells and the son of a Knight, Dolton Grass.

When I asked around, it seemed that Lady Kaya was unable to make any female friends. It was not because no one wanted to approach her but because of her loosely controlled mouth. She often stepped on other people's toes and on other people's nerves.

One of the more infamous stories I had heard about Lady Kaya was when a girl had approached her hoping to be her friend. Lady Kaya then mentioned rumors about the girl's fiancé being much older than her.

"I heard that your fiancé is almost as old as your father. How could you handle that? I would never be able to marry someone that old," Lady Kaya said to her.

Even though it was quite common for young ladies of respected families to have marriages arranged to them, in most cases where the other party is much older, it was rude to mention such a thing at point blank. It was not common knowledge that the young lady was an arranged marriage with someone much older than her. Her family agreed on the marriage because the other party agreed to settle their debts if she accepted.

The fact that Lady Kaya had said the careless statement quite loud and in front of a lot of people embarrassed the young lady to the point where she would show her face in school for over a week after malicious rumors of her doing anything for money came out. It was then when one of our dorm representatives found her when she tried to kill herself. Lady Kaya continued about her school life without any remorse and believed that the lady had a preexisting mental illness and that she had no fault at all.

I decided to approach her, but suddenly noticed that a black cloud had surrounded her neck. I thought my eyes had deceived me and tried looking again and saw that the cloud was still hovering around her neck. I tried to not mind it and continued walking towards her.

"Good afternoon," I said as I lifted my skirt in a curtsy.

"...Good afternoon," Lady Kaya said.

"I am Charlotte Castile daughter of Viscount Castile. It is nice to meet you, Lady Kaya," I said with a smile.

"What do you want, Lady Charlotte? Are you here as Arielle's proxy?" Randall asked.

Asking if I am Arielle's proxy with such a hateful glare...

"Oh? Was I speaking to you, Sir Randall? I hadn't noticed you until just now," I said as I sent him a cold look.

He quickly shriveled under my gaze.

"It is not often that I get people to come see me, so what are you here for, Lady Charlotte?" Lady Kaya asked.

She had long black hair and brown almost black eyes. Her face was also slightly oval shaped. She was not nearly as pretty as Arielle but had an overflowing sense of innocence that seemed to be the only thing attractive about her.

"...I wanted to invite Lady Kaya for a study group for the upcoming test," I said.

"You would like to invite me? That sounds–"

"Is Arielle a part of this study group? How can you make sure that Lady Kaya won't be mistreated?" Randall asked.

I sent a cold look towards Randall.

"...Even if you are Arielle's cousin, you still have to refer to her by her proper title, or have you forgotten your manners ever since there were talks of yourself getting adopted?" I asked.

"...Lady Charlotte, you are too much," Randall said. "You should not be the one teaching me manners."

"In place of your parents, the people whom have the right to put you in your place are people with higher intelligence than yourself...Also, if you had not noticed. You just cut off Lady Kaya while she was talking mid-sentence. If you do not think that was rude towards Lady Kaya, I do not know what then," I said.

"I apologize, Lady Kaya," Randall said as he turned towards her.

"It is alright. I don't mind it at all," Lady Kaya said.

I found it odd that Arielle's cousin had become one of the girl's lackeys despite knowing full well that the girl in question was hanging around Arielle's fiancé. Randall never liked being around women. Despite being possibly adopted by Arielle's father so that he could take over his title and one day become Prime Minister, he was often compared to his brilliant cousin Arielle as being her lower less skilled half. For that reason alone, he hated Arielle as well as envied her.

Has the fool fallen for this woman? Is her lack of Noble air that enchanting?

Also, that black mist around her neck is not dissipating any time soon...

"Sir Randall, you are missing one apology," I said with a sneer.

"...I apologize for my rude behavior, Lady Charlotte," Randall said as he lowered his head towards me.

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