Chapter 53: Live To Sienna Pt.53
“Are you going to participate in this?”
“All right then, but I’m not holding hands with you. I’ll just help you with this.”
“Thank you, eh-hem!”
Sienna yawned his gratitude. She didn’t get enough sleep the previous day, but she spent a lot of time talking to him. In a blink of an eye, a day was already breaking out of the window.
When he saw her, who had forgotten her current situation and managed to yawn in front of him, Carl took his coat and put it on his bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m done. Do you want me to sleep here?”
“I don’t mean that.”
Carl flung himself through the window as usual. Sienna shook her head as she saw him leave.
“He’s not even a night owl, but it happens all the time.”
Thinking that his calling was, in fact, more of an assassin or a thief than a prince, Sienna strolled to the bed.
“Eh-hem, I’m so sleepy to death.”
She finally fell onto the bed, but she couldn’t sleep.
*
“Oh, my God! Your Royal Highness, you can’t stay like this!”
A tearful scream forced Sienna to lift her heavy eyelids.
“What’s going on?”
“What, did you take off your robes by yourself? It’s a big disgrace if this thing leaks out.”
“Uh… eh? Hain?”
Sienna opened her eyes. She was flustered at the familiar voice. Hain, who is tightly bound with curly brown hair, was a maid-in-law who was here to support Sienna firmly. She was very mature, as evident with the largeness of her bust.
Hain kicked her arms up and raised Sienna up.
“Your Royal Highness! You have to get up. What in the heavens happened. What did you do to your wedding dress?”
“Wedding dress?”
Sienna was then awakened. She then started thinking that she should have asked Carl to help her put that dress back on before he left. She didn’t even think about it. If anyone found out that she’s not wearing the dress…
“What’s going on here?”
A shrill voice rang in the room. Sienna’s face was young with dismay. Hain spoke in a frightened voice.
“Your Majesty the Empress.”
Why didn’t she think of this?
In the original imperial court, no matter how empresses were, they did not enter the bedroom of another royal family. Even servants couldn’t go into their bedroom unless their owners allowed it. That’s because it’s a private space.
However, there’s an exception, which was the day after the wedding. On that day, the empress had to ensure the bride’s safety. This was done to know if she had adapted to her new environment or not. If she stayed up all night alone, for her husband hit her with a hailstorm, then she would comfort her and strip her dress instead.
Thus, it was only natural that Empress Arya came into Sienna’s bedroom early in the morning.
“What’s going on here?”
Queen Arya’s sharp gaze was directed at Hain, but in substance, she was asking Sienna. She would criticize her for taking off that dress by herself without a husband.
Arya examined the wedding dress on the floor. It’s also amazing that the princess, who stayed up all night without her husband, took off her robes. Still, what intrigued her was that there were traces of shoe prints of an adult male on her white robes.
‘I thought she’d be a gentle cat, but I see that she has a fun side.’
Hain fell flat in front of the empress and asked for forgiveness.
“I have sinned, Your Majesty. This is the fault of a meager woman. I didn’t know that the First Prince will not come, so I took her dress off because I felt sorry that she would stay up all night while wearing such uncomfortable clothes alone. Her Majesty refused, but I insisted.”
Queen Arya’s eyebrows wriggled. She didn’t like hearing such a lame excuse to cover for her master. She reached out her hand to the woman whom she had forced to marry beside her.
A woman who’s wearing a light green dress, not a maid’s dress, handed a black leather whip to Arya in a polite gesture. It was a short black stick with several leather straps, used by the nobles to discipline their subordinates. Although it may look like an ornament because of how it looked, it was still a tool designed to hurt people.
When Sienna saw it, she sprang up from her seat. Without giving Sienna a chance to stop her, Arya swung the whip.
The clattering sound of leathers was frightening. The whip went past Hain with a slap on her shoulder and back. The force was so strong that it left a red mark over the maid’s neck, who fell sideways.
As soon as Empress Arya tried to wield the whip again, Sienna ran to stop her.
“It was me!”
Arya’s forehead was brimmed as if she was not happy with her actions.
“I took it off! I did it alone! She was just trying to cover up my faults since I am her superior. Hain has done nothing wrong!”
Sienna said as she breathed out her breath. Arya asked, looking straight into her eyes.
“You took off that dress alone? Is that what you’re saying?”
Sienna glanced at the dress she had taken off. It seemed like a dash of disbelief was painted onto her when she said, “I took it off all by myself.” However, it was actually her husband, Carl, who took it off for her. She smiled with an embarrassed look as she twisted her arm behind her back.
“Me! I’m very flexible. I took it off with my arm like this. It wasn’t so hard, but I could take it off.”
She clearly pictured in her mind how funny she would look. Nevertheless, she could not just watch others suffer for her own mistakes. She thought some people would laugh at her appearance, but fortunately, they didn’t because they were well-educated servants.
“Really? Even so, it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t serve your superiors properly. Get out of the way.”
“I won’t move.”
Sienna said, glancing at her, not taking her gaze off the flustered Arya.
“Move out of the way, or I can’t guarantee that you won’t get hurt.”
“I won’t move.”
“If you discipline your underlings, then you have to be strict with it! If people saw you dragging others around with compassion, then how would you fix the hierarchy?”
“Discipline can be achieved with words as well. How would you call whipping people as a form of discipline?”
Arya smacked her lips tightly together. She was furious, but she still gave a strong front. Nevertheless, Sienna had no intention of backing down.
Arya pushed Sienna roughly and swung her arm up. The moment the whip was about to hit Hain’s back, Sienna grabbed her wrist. Arya then looked at her wrist and stared at Sienna. Her willpower was so fierce that one of the servants beside her was surprised and breathed in, ‘oh!’
Sienna tightened her grip to prevent Arya from wielding the whip at Hain again. Arya tried to pull her hand out of her grasp, but she could not escape the strength of her grip. She was a descendant of the Waters family, even though she looked like a normal-looking girl. She had much superior physical strength and compared to the general public.
She was Sienna, although she couldn’t even fight a knight, she had the stamina to compete on equal footing with an average, ordinary person. Though her body was born of natural strength, her stamina grew exponentially after following Jamie around everywhere.
The only heavy thing Queen Arya had ever heard of in her life was a teacup. She fluttered her chest before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to see if she could win by force.
“Princess Sienna!”
Arya called Sienna in a calm voice to show that her actions had offended her. Sienna admired that grace of hers and how she could quickly regain her calmness.
“If a person does something wrong, they should be lectured. That’s the duty of a superior. It’s not like they are three-year-old children.”
“I agree that discipline is necessary, but Hain is someone under my care. No matter what you say, Your Majesty, you have no right to punish my servant. You’re going too far.”
“…Is that so? I must have acted presumptuously.”