Although Evelyn had already entered the moss-covered room, every word she had said outside the door had reached Lucian Ravenholt’s ears perfectly clearly.
“How could you actually let that whole basin of eggs fall on me? Look at me now! I don’t even know how long I’ll have to wash before I can get all of this off!”
Her voice was clearly filled with irritation.
Yet she did not sound as though she were talking to herself.
If anything, she sounded like she was genuinely complaining to someone.
“I know they’re both here right now, so it isn’t convenient for you to show yourself. But in an emergency like that, couldn’t you at least have saved me first? Don’t let it happen again, understand?”
There was a brief pause.
She seemed to sniff herself again, because when she spoke next, her voice sounded even more miserable.
“All right, all right, I’m done talking to you. I need a bath. I stink!”
The moment she finished speaking, the door shut behind her.
Lucian remained standing where he was.
For quite some time, he did not move.
Surely not…
She really hadn’t been talking to herself?
Judging by her tone, she had clearly been speaking to some kind of “person.”
And not merely a stranger.
Whoever it was seemed to be someone she knew extremely well—someone she was accustomed to seeing regularly.
But the problem was—
There had been absolutely no one standing there.
Lucian slowly turned his head and looked toward the empty space where Evelyn had been speaking.
For some reason, a faint chill crept down his back.
Could it be…
She was actually talking to a ghost?
If that was true, then perhaps all those rumors about Evelyn’s courtyard being haunted were not simply stories exaggerated by frightened servants.
Perhaps there really was something here.
Lucian could not help looking around the courtyard once more.
Overgrown weeds.
Ancient trees.
Cobwebs.
Dark, abandoned rooms.
And then there was that moss-covered chamber from earlier, glowing faintly with strange colors while indistinct shadows seemed to drift around inside.
At first, he had merely thought this place looked like a haunted house.
Now it seemed the word looked might be unnecessary.
This place really was a haunted house.
“Oh…”
On the other side of the courtyard, Felix Ravenholt was still standing there with his nose pinched between his fingers.
Clearly, the stench of those rotten eggs had nearly pushed him to his limit.
He gave a distracted response, no longer caring where exactly Evelyn had gone.
Then he turned around and hurried straight out of the courtyard.
Only after he had completely passed through the gate did he finally release his nose and tilt his head back, taking several deep breaths of fresh air.
“Whew…”
Alive again.
That smell had been horrifying.
Felix remained outside for a while, recovering from the assault on his nose.
Only then did he finally turn around and properly examine the courtyard before him.
Earlier, he had chased Evelyn all the way back here without paying attention to his surroundings.
His only thought had been to keep her from slipping away.
But now that he was standing outside and looking carefully…
He finally realized just how wrong this place felt.
There was barely any light beyond the dark courtyard gate.
Large shadows from the trees overlapped one another, and whenever the night wind passed through, the branches and leaves swayed softly.
Add in the weeds covering the ground and the occasional strange shadow sliding across the walls—
No matter how he looked at it, this did not resemble somewhere a normal young lady should live.
Felix shuddered.
“Honeyberry has been living here all these years?”
He muttered the question under his breath.
Earlier, when Evelyn said she had never been favored since childhood, Felix had privately wondered whether she was exaggerating at least a little.
Now…
It seemed she really had not exaggerated much at all.
While he was still staring at the courtyard, Lucian quickly walked out as well.
The moment Felix saw his older brother, he instinctively moved a little closer.
“Brother.”
Lucian did not answer immediately.
Instead, he turned and looked back at Evelyn’s courtyard.
He had originally been wondering whether he truly wanted to follow through with his earlier decision and stay here for the next few days.
But the moment he remembered Evelyn speaking so naturally with that invisible “friend”…
Even Lucian could not deny that he felt slightly uneasy.
Then again, they had not deliberately offended whatever might be living here.
As long as they behaved themselves, there should not be any problems.
Probably.
Besides, Lucian had volunteered to stay nearby in the first place because he wanted to protect Evelyn and keep an eye out in case anyone in the estate tried something behind her back.
Thinking about it that way finally made him feel somewhat better.
He raised a hand and patted Felix on the shoulder.
Felix turned toward him.
The brothers looked at each other.
Neither mentioned what they had just seen or heard.
Yet somehow, both seemed to understand perfectly.
A moment later, they turned around in complete agreement and left the courtyard, heading back toward the great hall.
By the time they returned, the hall was no longer as lively as before.
Most of the guests who had come for the birthday celebration had temporarily gone elsewhere to rest.
Alaric Sterling had also dismissed the servants and his daughters, leaving only Lillian Sterling and the two Ravenholt brothers who had just returned.
Alaric sat in the seat of honor.
The moment he looked up, he noticed that something was wrong with the brothers’ expressions.
Lucian looked unusually serious, clearly preoccupied with something.
Felix was even more obvious.
His usual carefree, mischievous attitude had disappeared entirely, and there was a faint trace of anger between his brows.
Alaric’s heart sank.
Had Evelyn done something again and offended the two young masters of the Black Tortoise Clan?
The thought alone made his temples begin to ache.
This daughter of his rarely appeared in front of him.
Yet whenever something happened, she somehow always managed to become the source of another headache.
“Did Evelyn do something to offend you?”
Alaric looked at the brothers, his voice already carrying a trace of helplessness.
“Why do the two of you look so upset after returning?”
Of course.
Evelyn again.
Somehow, that girl could always find a way to cause trouble.
But what Alaric never expected was that after hearing those words, Felix did not complain about Evelyn at all.
Instead, the anger on his face became even stronger.
“Lord Sterling.”
For once, Felix was neither grinning nor behaving with his usual casual carelessness.
He looked directly at Alaric with rare seriousness.
“I truly never expected you to treat your own daughter worse than you would treat an ordinary commoner.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the atmosphere in the hall turned cold.
Alaric’s expression darkened slightly.
Before he could speak, however, Lillian had already snapped,
“Impudent!”
She straightened in her seat, displeasure written clearly across her face.
“Lord Sterling has always treated all of his daughters equally and cared for every one of them. Young Master Felix, how can you claim that he treats his own daughter worse than a commoner?”
“Equally?”
Felix gave a cold laugh as though he had just heard something ridiculous.
He had already been furious after seeing the condition of Evelyn’s courtyard.
Now, hearing Lillian use the words treated equally only made the entire situation seem even more absurd.
“If that is what you call treating them equally, then do all the other young ladies live in courtyards where the weeds reach their knees, the rafters are covered in cobwebs, and the whole place looks no different from a haunted house?”
Lillian’s expression instantly stiffened.
Alaric, however, frowned sharply.
“Haunted house?”
He repeated the words.
Then his gaze shifted toward Lillian.
Lillian had never seen him look at her that way before.
For a moment, panic flashed across her face.
Her body instinctively shrank back, and she nearly failed to maintain her composure.
Alaric stared at her, his voice lowering.
“What exactly is going on?”
“L-Lord Sterling…”
Lillian’s heart jumped.
She quickly forced a smile, trying her best to make her voice sound natural.
“I don’t know what happened either. Perhaps… perhaps Young Master Felix simply isn’t familiar with Evelyn’s courtyard because it was his first time there, so he found it a little desolate.”
She paused before hurriedly adding,
“Maybe he exaggerated slightly. I’m sure it isn’t actually as bad as he says.”
“I exaggerated?”
Felix’s temper immediately flared again.
He had just opened his mouth to continue when Lucian, who had remained silent beside him until now, reached out and pushed him half a step behind himself.
“Brother?”
Felix looked at him in dissatisfaction.
Lucian merely gave him a look, silently telling him not to speak yet.
Of course Lucian understood why Felix was angry.
They had both seen Evelyn’s courtyard with their own eyes.
There was absolutely no need for anyone to exaggerate its condition.
But if Felix continued arguing with Lillian now, the situation would only grow worse.
And in the end, the person most likely to suffer the consequences might still be Evelyn.
With that thought, Lucian put on his usual faint smile.
His tone softened as well.
“Madam is right. My younger brother has always had a tendency to exaggerate when he speaks. He was probably upset just now and made the situation sound somewhat worse than it really was.”
Felix’s head snapped toward him.
What?
He exaggerated?
That courtyard was practically falling apart and had all but become an actual haunted house!
What part of that had he exaggerated?
Felix opened his mouth to protest.
Without even turning around, Lucian calmly extended one arm behind himself and blocked him again.
Felix had no choice but to swallow the words that had reached his lips.
He remained behind his brother, looking thoroughly displeased.
Lucian, meanwhile, behaved as though he could not feel Felix’s furious stare burning into the back of his head.
“We didn’t return because we wanted to hold anyone responsible,” Lucian continued with a smile.
“There is simply something we would like to ask of Lord Sterling.”
Alaric frowned at him.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing serious.”
Lucian’s tone was perfectly natural.
“After we arrived at Evelyn’s courtyard, the three of us fooled around for a while and accidentally made the place somewhat messy. So we came back hoping Lord Sterling could send a few servants over to help clean things up.”
He spoke casually, as though what had happened earlier truly had been nothing more than harmless fun.
As for the knee-high weeds, layers of cobwebs, abandoned rooms, and the fact that even the servants seemed unwilling to approach the courtyard—
Lucian did not mention a single one of them again.
At his words, something flickered in Lillian’s eyes.
Felix, meanwhile, nearly choked on his own saliva.
Fooled around?
That was what his brother called fooling around?
First, Honeyberry had been buried from head to toe in white powder.
Then an entire basin of rotten eggs had crashed down on her.
By the end of it, she had smelled so terrible that she did not even want to speak to them anymore and had run straight off to bathe.
And his brother called that— fooling around?
Alaric clearly had not expected such an explanation either.
His expression immediately became somewhat strange.
“Fooled around?”
He looked at Lucian.
Then repeated the words once more.
“Fooling around?”