Chapter 275 Esther Wants To Be Closer

When dinner was served, Ulrich was absent once again.

Hermione noticed his empty place before she sat down. She looked toward the doors, waited until Monika came within speaking distance, and made no effort to conceal her annoyance.

“Has Ulrich arranged another private meal with his precious Ceres?”

The sarcasm in her voice left little room for Monika to misunderstand the question.

“My lord is not hungry this evening,” Monika replied, concealing her amusement. “Lady Ceres has already eaten on her own.”

Hermione glanced at her.

“So he isn’t coming?”

“No, Lady Hermione.”

Monika’s answer should have settled the matter. Ceres was not with him, and Ulrich had simply chosen to remain elsewhere. Yet Hermione found little comfort in it. He had been able to eat with Ceres earlier, but apparently had no appetite when it was time to sit with them.

She knew that was not a fair way to look at it. Knowing did not make her feel much better.

Airam had already taken her seat. She did not ask any questions, but her expression darkened further when Monika confirmed that Ulrich would not join them.

By her own reckoning, the day had been dreadful.

She had spent the afternoon trying to do something Esther and Hermione accomplished almost immediately. Shana had assured her that seeing the Tree could take time, and her sisters had tried to encourage her. Airam had heard them. She had also watched their pleased expressions whenever they spoke about what they had found.

Hermione had a red Tree. Esther had a golden one. Both could describe its Branches and the finer Veins along them.

Airam had nothing to describe.

She was supposed to be the one most suited to witchcraft. It came to her readily when she needed it, sometimes too readily, and she had never doubted that she could learn to understand it with proper instruction. Instead, the first exercise had left her behind her younger sisters. Worse, she had released power without meaning to and forced Shana to protect them from her.

That alone would have made the day difficult.

Then she had seen Ceres with Ulrich.

Airam remembered the way he had told the girl to rest if she was tired or in pain, and how easily Ceres had stepped forward to embrace him. She remembered, too, that he had already eaten with her while the sisters waited at lunch. It seemed he could find a gentleness for Ceres that he seldom showed so openly with them.

Airam did not want to examine whether that thought was entirely true. At the moment, it felt true enough.

Once the food reached her plate, she began eating.

When Airam was upset, she often ate more than usual. Tonight she made little effort to observe the manners Elana had spent so long teaching them. She took another bite as soon as she finished the last, scarcely allowing herself time to put down her fork.

Ulrich was not there to correct her. Since he had no wish to dine with them, she saw no reason to concern herself with what he might have said.

Hermione watched for a moment, then glanced toward Esther.

Their eldest sister’s face remained dark. She was eating as though the meal were something to get through rather than enjoy, although that did not stop her accepting another serving when a maid approached.

“Airam,” Hermione said quietly.

Airam looked up.

Hermione had intended to ask whether she was feeling better after the lesson. The question seemed foolish with her sister staring at her like that.

“Nothing,” she muttered, returning to her own plate.

Esther tried a little later. She began to say something about Shana, perhaps hoping to bring the conversation back to the part of the day they had enjoyed, but Airam’s brief answer discouraged her. After that, both younger sisters left her alone.

Hermione was not in a particularly cheerful mood herself.

Remembering her Tree helped. She could still picture the red trunk and the light moving through its Veins, and whenever she recalled it, she felt some of the afternoon’s excitement return. She had learned something that had nothing to do with Grandmaster Strelley’s lessons, something she could explore further when Shana taught them again.

But the thought of Ceres kept intruding.

It was not merely the embrace. Hermione had seen the slight curve of her lips when she noticed the sisters standing behind Ulrich. That look remained lodged in her mind, making the farewell feel less innocent every time she remembered it.

Ceres had known they were watching.

Hermione was certain of that, and she disliked the girl all the more for it. She wanted to enjoy what she had accomplished that day without remembering another girl clinging to Ulrich in front of them. Instead, she found herself cutting her food with more strength than necessary and looking toward his empty chair.

Esther’s unease was quieter.

She wanted to be happy. She had seen her Tree, Shana had praised her, and she was eager to try the exercise again. Ordinarily, she would have spent dinner asking questions or describing some detail she had only just remembered.

Tonight she kept those things to herself.

Airam was unhappy, Hermione was irritated, and Ulrich was not there. Esther had wanted to tell him more about the lesson. She had managed a few words at the entrance, but it had been too brief to explain how beautiful the Tree looked or how it felt when she found it again.

She did not dislike Ceres in the way her sisters seemed to. Yet she was afraid of what might happen if Ceres continued growing closer to him.

Would he spend more time with her? Would he begin missing meals with them more often? Esther knew Ulrich had duties that took him away, but this felt different from work. She had seen Ceres look up at him and embrace him without hesitation, and she could not stop wondering what that meant for the place the sisters held in his life.

She did not want him to become distant.

If anything, she wanted to be nearer to him than before. After everything that had happened, she had begun to believe she could speak to him more easily and trust that he wanted them to remain. Now she sat at the table thinking about his absence, too distracted to enjoy a day that should have made her proud.

The sisters were not the only ones occupied by uncomfortable thoughts.

Shana sat farther down the table, trying to eat without drawing attention to herself. She had barely followed Hermione’s exchange with Monika. The questions about Ceres meant little to her compared with the instruction she had received at the entrance.

‘Come to my office after dinner.’

She had repeated it to herself so often that the words no longer sounded like an ordinary summons.

At first, she ate slowly. Each small bite gave her another moment before the meal ended and she had to go upstairs. Then she remembered that Ulrich would be waiting for her. Keeping him waiting could only make the meeting worse.

She took several hurried bites, stopped when she realised how quickly she was eating, and slowed again.

The pattern continued through the meal. She wanted more time, then feared what taking that time might cost her. Her thoughts moved faster than she could sort them out.

She kept imagining how the meeting would begin. Should she speak first, or wait for him to tell her why he had called her? Would he expect her to understand without an explanation? She had convinced herself that she knew what his promised “reward” meant, but knowing, or believing she knew, had done nothing to prepare her.

She remembered his impatience whenever she became frightened enough to cry. Whatever happened, she thought she should try to hold back her tears. She did not want to seem ungrateful after he had brought her out of the cell and given her work she had genuinely enjoyed.

That thought troubled her in turn.

Until now, she had not spent much time considering her maidenhood. It had belonged to some uncertain future, perhaps with someone she trusted, perhaps with Creon if things between them had ever become more than unspoken affection. She had never needed to decide what it meant to her.

Faced with the prospect of losing it that evening, she suddenly felt that it mattered a great deal.

She should not have to offer it merely because she had been spared. Yet she found herself trying to make the idea less frightening by remembering that Ulrich had given her another chance at life. Perhaps, she thought, giving something precious to him was not really wrong.

The reasoning brought no lasting reassurance. Gratitude and willingness were not the same, however much she tried to make one stand in place of the other.

Then embarrassment overtook her fear. She knew so little about what she imagined he wanted. She understood the basics, but that was very different from facing a man who might expect her to know how to please him.

Would he take charge of everything? Would he be angry if she misunderstood an instruction? What if she failed him?

The last question worried her most.

Ulrich had assigned her a purpose in his household. Teaching the sisters had made her feel useful for the first time in years. She did not want to lose that place because she could not satisfy an expectation he had never actually expressed.

What if he simply decided she was not worth keeping?

Shana lowered her gaze and made herself take another bite. The food tasted distant. Her face had grown red, and she hoped no one was looking closely enough to notice.

A suspicion she had formed that morning had become a certainty by evening. Ulrich’s brief instruction had confirmed nothing, but Shana had supplied an explanation and then built the entire meeting around it in her mind.

For the better or worse, Ulrich had no idea whatsoever what Shana was thinking and preparing for…

Monika remained beside the table, quietly overseeing the meal. She did not need anyone to explain that something was wrong.

She watched them all and found herself uncertain what to say. None of the four looked ready to speak freely, and reassuring one might only provoke another.

For the moment, she made certain their plates were filled and left the silence undisturbed.

Fortunately, Esther spoke before the silence could get any heavier over the table.

“Um… Monika?”

Monika turned toward her.

“Yes, my lady?”

Esther hesitated. Her fork rested between her fingers, but she had stopped eating some time ago. She glanced toward her sisters before looking down at her plate again.

“I’m worried about Lord Ulrich and us.”

Airam raised her eyes. Hermione turned toward Esther as well, her own fork becoming still. Neither interrupted her.

Esther moved a piece of food across her plate without taking it. Now that she had begun, she seemed uncertain how to explain what had troubled her all evening.

“I feel as though we haven’t spoken very much lately,” she said. “And we aren’t as close as we should be…”

Her voice grew quieter toward the end. She did not want the words to sound like a complaint about Ulrich. He had done so much for them, and she knew he had work that could not wait merely because she wanted to spend time with him. Yet the feeling remained, and leaving it unspoken had only made her worry more.

Monika’s expression softened.

Esther had always found ways to endear herself to her, even when she was distressed. The other two did as well, though Airam would probably have regarded the suggestion with suspicion and Hermione would have protested at once. Monika had watched all three girls grow accustomed to the estate. She knew how much their place beside Ulrich mattered to them, however differently they showed it.

“Are you worried about Lady Ceres?” she asked gently.

Esther’s cheeks turned pink. She lowered her gaze again, embarrassed that Monika had understood so readily. For a moment she seemed about to deny it, but then she gave a small nod.

Monika chose her next words with care.

“My lord is concerned for Lady Ceres,” she said. “But he has known you and your sisters much longer than he has known her. Her being here does not take those years away.”

Esther listened, though the reassurance did not quite answer what she had meant.

“I know,” she said. “It’s just… I want us to be closer to Lord Ulrich. I want it to feel that way too.”

Hermione blushed.

She wanted to deny these embarrassing words, but she could not deny the words without denying what she had felt herself. She had spent lunch asking about Ulrich’s absence and had begun dinner with another question about Ceres. Pretending now that she did not care would be difficult even for her.

So she remained silent.

Airam said nothing either.

Monika considered Esther’s words for a moment. Knowing that Ulrich cared for them was not quite the same as having time to feel it. He was capable of going to extraordinary lengths for the girls and then returning to his work as though nothing more needed to be said. It was hardly surprising that they sometimes struggled to understand him.

A small smile returned to her face.

“There may be a way to help you become closer,” she said.

“R—Really?”

Esther looked up immediately. Her fork came to rest beside her plate, forgotten now that Monika had given her something more hopeful to think about.

Monika nodded with a smile.