#6. The Requirements of a Lady (3)

While her daughter was writhing at Louis Edmund’s oily compliments and the flirtatious hints he had slyly woven into them,

Etie, her mother, was having anything but a pleasant time herself.

The Empress, Annerose, changed her attitude the moment she entered the Empress’s Palace.

As soon as they entered the drawing room, where refreshments had been laid out for the guests, the Empress gestured vaguely with her chin toward the chairs opposite her.

She told Etie to sit wherever she liked, then launched straight into the matter at hand before Etie had even taken her seat.

“I hear there’s talk that the Grand Duke of Verbritz visited your townhouse.”

Etie took a seat as far from the Empress as possible and replied politely.

“My daughter caused a small incident at the ball, so I invited him to the townhouse on this occasion.”

“Really? And by an ‘incident’… do you mean something between a man and a woman?”

The wrinkles beside her emerald eyes twitched beneath the heavy makeup...