Veronique wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Alexander’s arrogant mug again, but it wasn’t like she had a choice.

  She tried to think of the bright side half of this cursed day was over and soon she was going to see Mos and Bos again.

  She really hoped they didn’t cause Lucia too much trouble and they started getting used to Kaine at the least a little.

  The Dead seemed to keep their distance from her for some reason, was her subconscious trying to keep them at bay or something? Maybe she should be happy about that but seeing them move away from her instead of doing their own thing felt so wrong.

  She had gotten used to them being around.

  “Lady Veronique what are you doing?” Miss Hawkings harshly asked in a loud whisper, a vein seemed to pop on her forehead

  “What?” Veronique was confused at what she could have done this time to upset the old hag

  “Get down those clouds and take notice at where you are” the woman told her with a tight forced smile, that was when Veronique noticed they were at the Dinning room.

  She had followed Miss Hawkings all the way to the wall where the staff is supposed to stand in waiting.

  “Oh” that’s all she could say as she went a bit white in the face

  “What are you standing there for? go to your place” Miss Hawking whispered to her with urgency

  “Right!” Veronique said and did just that for a moment she almost sat next to Rhea again then she remembered and headed towards the Duchess

  ‘Got to leave the empty spot or the Duke will think I am challenging him’ she reminded herself, a sigh of relief leaving her as she sat down exactly one seat away from the Duchess as Miss Hawking had told her to do earlier, then rushed to recompose herself as she felt the Duke gazing upon her

  “I see Miss Hawking is working miracles” he commented his face didn’t betray his emotions

  “Didn’t you see her go to the servant’s spot?” Alexander pointed out, Veronique couldn’t keep her eyebrow from twitching from anger.

  “Alexander, this is called taking small victories in the face of defeat” the Duke replied and the redhead wasn’t sure if to take that as an insult or not.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Don’t be mean to Veronique she’s trying” Duchess Lucretia took her defense, even if the words she used made Veronique feel a bit inadequate as if she was some kind of slacker and she had had enough of that in her past life.

  ‘Everything would have been a lot easier if I ended up in a commoner family, at the least I wouldn’t have to deal with stupid rules and could slouch whenever I wanted’ she thought, already not liking the pressure of being a noble, even a powerless one like herself, just then she noticed that Rhea didn’t seem all too happy either but the same time lunch arrived and the scowl Veronique thought she had seen on the child’s face was gone.

  ‘Maybe I imagined it’ Veronique thought getting distracted again as she got a terrible doubt in her mind

  ‘Err which fork am I supposed to use for this?’ she tried to recall Miss Hawking’s teachings but they didn’t really go over most of this stuff so she was clueless on what to do and she didn’t want to pass off as stupid for not already knowing.

  Not eating would be an insult to the Staff and eating with the wrong fork wasn’t going to help her case either.

  “Oh someone on the staff forgot to put the correct fork on your side, there Veronique” Duchess Lucretia suddenly pointed out handling her the fork in question even if she had to stand up to do so, there was indeed no fork like among on Veronique’s cutlery.

  “Thank you” the redhead said grabbing the fork in question feeling utterly grateful

  “Such thing better not happen again” the Duke declared making his displeasure known with a single glance towards the staff, who quivered under it.

  “She didn’t even notice herself” Alexander pointed out, but was fortunately ignored for his sake…cause Veronique was about to leap to his side of the table and strangle him.

  She tried to focus on the food to calm down before some damp dungeon became her home and that’s when she started noticing the taste of her meal was vastly different then what she usually got.

  This morning she didn’t pay attention to it because Rhea was distracting her, but now she can see the meals were way fancier there.

  Sure the taste was stronger and richer…but it wasn’t as filling and it looked as if the Chef was more concerned about getting the food to look good and fancy then give appropriate portions.

  Thinking back to what Miss Hawkings said before about the meals in the Main dinning room being a public appearance Veronique got the feeling that even the food was part of the performance.

  ‘Great, it’s like we are dolls put on perfect displays to be admired’ she thought disturbingly and already missed the privacy of the Est wing, but reassured herself that once Miss Hawking’s lessons were over then she would be back to it and make sure to keep herself out of similar troubles.

  It wasn’t like she was even considered to be an heir and the Duke didn’t even like her that much, so it was unlikely that she would be allowed to keep eating there and she was only supposed to follow Rhea around till the end of Miss Hawkings’s lessons so at the least her dinner was saved.

  Even if Veronique was worried about another thing and that was Rhea’s reaction, the child seemed on the brick of a temper tantrum just from her not sitting next to her and it was admirable that she wasn’t already crying.

  They should really cut some slack to the children and let them be kids, she didn’t even think whatever Veronique did in the past was bad enough to get her exiled to the East Wing.

  ‘I hate being a noble’ she thought as she resumed her meal.

  Needless to say after lunch Miss Hawkings went over all the correct use of all cutlery for four endless hours.