I Thought It Was a Common Transmigration

Killian’s brow flinched momentarily at Cliff’s title. But, in fact, it wasn’t an unusual title. Because he also always called her ‘that woman’.

“It’s because I don’t care. Why ‘that woman’?”

“I heard she’s going to work under Renan’s supervision from today.”

“She seemed to be like that.”

“So I asked Renan to stop by. Ask him what was wrong with her.”

Cliff raised the teacup with a graceful motion. He still seemed convinced that Edith was the culprit in the document leak.

“From the first day, she mustn’t have done anything strange yet.”

“Still, you never know. Because Renan is quite sharp.”

And after a while, Renan really came.

“Did you call?”

“Sorry for being busy, Renan. It’s not important but… it’s said that from today you will be monitoring Edith?”

Killian didn’t like the words Cliff used. Monitoring. Of course, there was also the purpose of monitoring, but she was always helping his mother with her work. Even Edith asked for someone who could do as her watcher first. 

As Killian covered his mouth with the teacup to hide his displeasure, Renan replied in his characteristic emotionless voice.

“I heard that Lady Edith should properly grasp the documents she is handling so that they are not in danger of being lost, but to be precise, it is Miss Edith who came to help me with my work.”

“That is it. Anyway… How do you see her? Did you get any suspicious signs?”

Renan didn’t say anything for a moment, as if he was reminiscing about the morning he worked with Edith, then he spoke slowly.

“I’m not sure I saw her briefly today, but to be honest…”

Killian was so nervous about what he was going to say that he forgot to drink his tea.

“She seemed to be working very meticulously. She has excellent concentration, understanding, and judgment, and most of all, she has persistence. My office environment could not have caught the eyes of an aristocratic lady, but she worked diligently without any complaints.”

“This is the first time I’ve heard you compliment someone like this. She must have been trying pretty hard to please you?”

“Well. After all, I only saw her this morning.”

“But… Okay, okay. Maybe next time we will call you again. Let us keep a watch on her.”

Cliff encouraged and sent Renan back. But Lise, standing next to him, blushed and spoke shyly.

“I think Renan has a crush on Edith. It’s the first time I’ve heard him compliment someone like this.”

At those words, Cliff sighed.

“He’s not the kind of person who’s swayed by emotions…”

“But where in the world is a person without feelings? Renan isn’t married yet, and Edith is pretty… That might be enough.”

When Lise opened her mouth, she was always lovely, but Killian was offended by what Lise said for the first time today.

‘No matter how much we are a couple on paper, but I, Edith’s husband, am by Lise’s side, and she says things like that…’

No, he couldn’t even call it ‘on paper’ anymore. Because he even slept with Edith. But he couldn’t let that happen.

“No way. I believe in Renan. It’s been years since I’ve known Renan. Is it because you don’t know how harshly Theo taught him?”

Theo Filch meticulously educated his successor, Renan, from one to ten. Even the rigorous Duke thought he was harsh enough to say if it was too much. However, Renan accepted his father’s education without hesitation and built up his skills, and thanks to that, he helped the duke’s house from a young age. One of the things Theo taught Renan then was to have no feelings other than loyalty to his master’s family. At that time, there were often noble ladies who fled after having an affair with a servant, so Theo put a lot of emphasis on that to Renan.

“Besides, when it comes to beauty, Rize, you add more. He couldn’t have been swayed by Edith if Renan wasn’t swayed by you before.”

“Kil-Killian!”

Lise blushed.

“You’re playing tricks on Lise again.”

Beside her, Cliff sneered. It was a routine thing. However, the emotions that Killian felt were quite different from before.

‘It’s nothing…’

His heart ached every time he spoke his heartfelt words to Lise like a joke, and every time Cliff laughed at her beside them. But now, nothing happened. In fact, he was more concerned about other things than that.

‘…Could it be that Renan really didn’t have a crush on Edith?’

He said he would trust Renan, but he didn’t know about people. Although Renan was blunt in front of Lise’s beauty, Edith was a different type of beauty.

‘Maybe Renan’s taste is the voluptuous beauty.’

If he faced such a sensual woman for hours in a closed room where they were…

‘Renan is a man too, so he might be swayed. Maybe he had a wild imagination. They said that if the woman is determined and tries to seduce…’

When he thought of Edith kissing him and raising her moist eyes, and Renan looking stoic at the same time, his stomach felt hot.

“If I’m done talking, I’ll get up first.”

“Uh? Already?”

“I have to go down to the Raizen estate with father next week, so I have a lot to prepare.”

“Okay, go in first.”

Lise tried to catch Killian as if she was a bit embarrassed, but Cliff said goodbye as always. He used to sit there until the end because he didn’t like it, but now he was able to get up. The painful days of imagining what Cliff and Lise would have done if they were left behind somehow felt far away. Now, more than that, he couldn’t stand it because he was worried about the relationship between Renan and Edith.

‘I’m worried about Renan. She might have been trying to seduce Renan as well… Couldn’t there be something going on while I’m gone?’

Though he thought it was Edith who was bad, Killian gritted his teeth as he remembered Renan.

* * *

Three times a week she waited for new episodes to start, helping Renan with his work, enjoying her hobbies, and chatting occasionally with Killian. When she tried to remember the original story, it seemed that an episode in which the confrontation between Lise and Edith would stand out would begin. And a few days after Killian left for a tour of the estate with Duke Ludwig, the Duchess called her and Lise and said,

“Next month, the Countess of Ermenia will open a bazaar. So starting tomorrow, there will be an embroidery meeting at my room. You too should attend.”

The bazaar episode was about to begin. One may want to know what the bazaar and the embroidery meeting have to do with it, but the setting in this novel was like that. The items that elegant wives put out at the bazaar were mainly embroidery works. And the bazaar was prepared by forming an embroidery group among close wives, and the meeting place for the embroidery group to which the Duchess belonged this year was, of course, Duke Ludwig. Because it’s where the main character lives.

“My skills are not very good… I don’t know if it’s causing trouble or not.”

Lise answered humbly like a heroine, but in fact, it was me who didn’t have the skills to show off. In the meantime, she tried to embroider as a hobby, but she was still at the level of very basic stitches. Edith of the original work had little memory of embroidery, probably because her embroidery skills were poor.

‘Then how about it?’

After all, it was an event to promote friendship and raise donations, so it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t have great skills. She just said she would attend and focused on preparing the embroidery tools. Originally, when you start something, having equipment is the most fun. And the next day, she had to face the eyes that looked her up and down for the first time in a long time.

“As you all know, this is my daughter-in-law, Edith.”

“Nice to meet you. Edith Ludwig. My skills are lacking, but I will do my best.”

She received the introduction of the Duchess and politely sent her greetings, but the members of the embroidery group seemed to regard her as the ‘Riegelhoff family’s little girl’. Well, well, the people in this family were still there, but how could one tell them apart?

“And this is Miss Lise Sinclair, who is staying as an honored guest in our house.”

“Hello? This is Lise Sinclair. Please teach me a lot.”

Lise, who smiled brightly, received friendly gazes and replies.

‘Isn’t it a perfect environment for a normal person to become a villain?’

She felt bad for Lise’s friendly response, but anyway, what she wanted wasn’t a future where everyone would be kind to her. Only the people of the Ludwig family she would live with, more precisely, Killian, had to have no thoughts of killing her.

‘Choice and concentration, choice and concentration.’

After thinking about it, the cold attitude of the wives towards her became nothing. After greeting each other, the full-fledged embroidery time began, and the wives with good skills picked up fairly large embroidery frames and announced plans to make masterpieces. As she took out the small embroidery frame to place the embroidery on the handkerchief, she was slightly discouraged, but Lise anyway… huh? What was that?

“I’m going to embroider a wild flower garden on a muslin shawl I just completed.”

“Oh! It must be really pretty. But you said you made that shawl yourself?”

“Yes. I knit it myself with the help of the maids in the bedroom. It’s a bit messy, but…”

“Sloppy! Did you make it too well? You know how to handle a loom, that’s amazing!”

To embroider such a large shawl… Was Rize like that in the original work? Rather, it seemed that Lise embroidered the handkerchief, and Edith ordered the maid she brought to buy a very large piece… It’s fraying.