The Crazy Daughter of the Duke's Family - Book One: Pandora

Chapter 12: Waiting for a Long Day Off

A tad uncomfortably, Rowena glanced over to her second brother Colin, who had looked stressed since earlier, but more from his own thoughts than from her. Would he be able to keep them from having a conversation? She wouldn't put it past him.

But to her surprise, he held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "I will wait in the salon on the other wing." He meant the hallway opposite the one they were in, where his own bedroom was. "I hope your conversation is fruitful. The servants will see you to a carriage to take you home afterwards."

"You are too kind, Young Master Colin, we already owe you so much."

"Don't mention it, it is my job to do at least this much." As he looked her up and down, his eyes rested on her arm for a moment. "Your injury must still be very painful, take care not to overdo it."

"I will. It wasn't enough to make a fuss about." In reality, her arm was badly injured.

If Colin had not moved in with Logan Randall by his side, there would have been no one to save it from amputation. It was badly torn and showing the first signs of infection.

Still, she didn't feel too bad about the pain. If anything, she felt motivated.

Rowena watched them after Colin had finally said goodbye, trying to figure out what their intentions were. So she slowly approached the sitting area, noticing a large basket that Ansgar was holding onto with a cloth covering its contents.

She saw a bottle and some other signs that it was filled with food. As she motioned for them to sit down as well, she wondered if they had truly come to thank her.

Iris seemed surprised as she followed the lady's gaze to the basket and noticed that she hadn't mentioned what they had brought. "Oh, we brought you a gift out of gratitude. I'm very sorry, I forgot..."

"It's not important. Please, have a seat." She motioned for them to sit down again, while they shared a look of uncertainty before nodding and doing as they were told.

"It is, in fact, quite important," the older woman began, taking the cloth from the objects after her husband had placed the basket on the coffee table in front of them all, "Of course, we have brought some food from our village. Bruno, the fisherman, has some good connections with a winery in the south, we got a bottle of their best grape juice, since you have not had your debut yet."

Blinking, Rowena had to think for a moment as she realized that it would have been normal for the bottle she had noticed to contain some sort of liqueur.

She had never drunk alcohol in her life, of course not, she was only thirteen! Even if she thought she was fourteen, it made no difference.

But as far as she had understood from the novel, people in this world were allowed to drink alcohol from the day of their debut, which varied from sixteen, in very early cases, to eighteen. Usually, however, it was seventeen.

Since the age of debut was regulated, it could be said that the legal drinking age was somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, which was somewhat consistent with what she knew of European countries in her old world. It was a curious fact, as the Arlen Empire resembled a few European nations in a blender.

"Anyway," Iris said, waking Rowena from her daydream as she took a wheel of cheese and some other things from the basket and placed it on the table next to it, to reveal something hidden underneath, "I thought we should get this back to you as soon as possible."

There was something wrapped inside a white towel, and as she handed it across the table, the young lady took it with a confused look on her face. The confusion quickly dissipated, however, as she unfolded the item in her lap and saw something she had completely forgotten.