"That's right, if it's a collaboration, you have to clearly state that it's co-composition."
Cesare de Como approached slowly and greeted Ottavio and his friends by clapping their hands.
"Beautiful Isabella, long time no see."
He smirked and bent his knees, giving Isabella a courtesy. She held out her hand to him after Isabella rose from her seat and bowed her head, and Cesare gave her fake kiss loudly into the air above Isabella's back on her hand and took her hand.
"You are still beautiful. Today, you are still a beauty worthy of the name of the most beautiful woman in San Carlo."
He didn't care whether Lucrezia was looking at him or not, he strode over to Isabella and put his face close to her ear. At a distance close enough that breathing could be felt, the man whispered to Isabella in a languid tone.
"Your strength is your beauty. Trying to be swept away by others and trying to wear clothes that don't fit is just ugly. Like today."
Isabella opened her eyes wide and looked at Cesare.
"Have you been swept away by someone else?"
"Is it not?"
"I am not conscious of such a person!"
"I never told you who I was, but you understand perfectly well. Oh my God, you have this kind of beauty and intelligence."
He raised both hands exaggeratedly.
"Guys! Lady de Mare is so smart!"
Ottavio and the other spirits giggled together as if putting together a sum. Isabella's face flushed with shame, and Julia de Baldesar whispered something to the person next to her, then lifted the corner of her mouth and smiled. Isabella was sure Julia had laughed at herself. Camellia de Castiglione, not daring to laugh openly like Julia, lowered her head and desperately managed her expression. Lucrezia was about to intervene, but Cesare hit the head.
"Today, I heard something that there is good music, so I came to see it, but I went to see something different that I hadn't expected. I think I've seen everything, so let's go first."
He bowed gracefully to Lucrezia and immediately turned around and left, and Ottavio and Cesare's group greeted Lucrezia and left in a hurry. When her lover left alone, Camellia de Castiglione was at loss of what to do, but she greeted Isabella and Lucrezia and left, and Julia de Baldesar also put a polite, distant smile on her lips. She floated, stood up, and went out.
When other young ladies left for Julia, they stood up together. Left alone, Isabella looked around her with her eyes wide open. All that was left of her were the musicians, the nuns in charge, and a few priests who belonged to the Temple. She was all under the absolute influence of her father, Cardinal de Mare. Isabella vented her pent-up resentment in the presence of the influential sons of aristocrats.
"What are you staring at? Shut it all off!!!"
***
Cesare led a group of friends and leisurely left the front gate of the San Ercole Cathedral. As he was about to jump on the auburn horse he always rides, Ottavio, who was holding the reins of his horse beside him, spoke up.
"Hey, Count Cesare. Why are you coming here?"
Cesare turned his head arrogantly and looked back at Ottavio.
"What are you talking about, Ottavio?"
"Hey, didn't you like Isabella de Mare quite a bit?"
Ottavio shrugged.
"She has a lot of pride, Isabella de Mare. To be honest, she has a pretty face, so that's understandable. It will take quite a bot work to calm down again, but are you confident enough to pass it on, or have you lost interest at all?"
Cesare frowned. It really seemed that he was offended. He frowned and let out his words.
"It's not that it isn't. Since when did I just look at women and not say what he wanted to say?"
Displeasedly, he took off his hat and ran his hair through it, and glanced at Ottavio.
"If you want to meet me, you have to be patient. If you don't want to hear hateful things, you should have a brain that only speaks wise words. Don't you know me that much? Lord Ottavio?"
Cesare jumped up and mounted the horse.
"I go first. See you at the salon. I'm in a bad mood, so I need a drink."
Then, he spurred on the glossy reddish-brown horse and ran away with the horse's lively neighing.
***
Arabella, brought to her house, was immediately dragged into her mother's parlor with Lucrezia grabbing her by the scruff of the neck. Isabella was weeping behind Lucrezia's back, in the same elaborate dress she had put on to visit her friends.
"Mother, how do I carry my face now?"
Isabella burst into tears as if exhausted from crying.
"Have you seen the face of Count Cesare? It was a contemptuous eye! Have you seen Julia de Baldesar's expression? They won't talk to me in the future! What if they ostracize me in the social world?"
"My daughter, my poor daughter, do not cry. Everything will be fine."
Rubbing Isabella's hair, Lucrezia soothed her eldest daughter. She then shouted terribly at her little daughter, who was trembling in the corner.
"Why did you go out there like that!"
Arabella lowered her head and looked down endlessly at the floor.
"Oh no, that's... I thought my sister allowed it... I mean, the song was about to be released with the sheet music wrong..."
"Whether or not the song is misrepresented doesn't matter! That damn song! Now your sister's name is being tarnished, and there's an uproar!"
At her mother's words that there was an uproar, Isabella cried even more sadly. Arabella thought that the patterns on the marble floor resembled either a donkey or a dog, and she tried her best not to be swept away by her mother's wrath.
You should have just stayed there!"
Behind Lucrezia, who was pointing, Isabella snuck in and spiced it up.
"Okay! For no reason, they are spreading strange rumors about my song!"
Arabella, who was trying to see the distant mountains as much as possible, finally got angry at Isabella's words, 'my song'.
"Your song? That's mine!"
"What?"
"It's a song I wrote! You stole it!"
"Hey!"
Arabella stopped speaking to Isabella and begged her mother.
"Mother, that's really my song. I mean, my sister stole it. Even if everyone else doesn't know, Mother needs to know."
But Lucrezia was stuck on something else.
"Are you arguing with your sister?"
"Mother!"
"you should always be polite to your older sister! Mother told you not to fight your sister, didn't I?"
While Arabella started to cry in spite of herself, Lucrezia scolded Arabella harshly.
"Are your songs that important? Sisters write everything together! If your sister's marriage gets blocked, you'll be responsible?"
Lucrezia scolded Arabella even more for Isabella, who sobbed from behind as if having a seizure at the words 'the road to the wedding was blocked.'
"What a high-profile jewel in society our Isabella is! What a proud mother's daughter she is! Mother won't let anyone ruin it! Whether it's you or your catchy song. I'll never forgive you for anything!"
Lucrezia picked up an oak stick for punishment. It was never used by Isabella and was originally used only by Arabella, and more recently by Ariadne, a stick used only for two idiots.
"How many do you want? See how many times you get hit as much as you do wrong!"
Arabella said to Lucrezia with a weeping face.
"I did nothing wrong! It's Isabella's fault for stealing my song! If she hadn't stolen it, none of this would have happened!"
"This reversal even goes against your mother? And stop blaming others! Her disposition is so bad that she has gotten to this point, but you blame your sister?"
Booung!
Lucrezia brandished an oak stick menacingly in the air.
"Kneel!"
Arabella was startled by her mother's screams and fell to her knees, but she still didn't want to be hit. She twisted her body, and bit by bit Arabella pulled her body out behind her. Lucrezia leaned her upper body in front of her and pursued Arabella as if charging. Arabella avoided her mother as much as she could, keeping the line of not running openly in a confined space, but here Isabella intervened savagely. She forced her knee on Arabella's back as she knelt on the floor, binding her sister to her mother, and her brief struggle ended.
"Come here!"
Arabella, who was caught, eventually held out her palm while crying out loud.
Puck!
Lucrezia struck Arabella in the palm of her hand with an oak stick.
Puck!
Arabella shed tears incessantly with each blow. But Lucrezia did not stop her hand. Having filled all ten, Lucrezia gave one more blow, saying that she did not want to see Arabella cry.
"You! Go to your room and get sober! You can't go anywhere except for the Great Mass for a month! Eat your meals separately in your room! You know you can't even look at meat!"
Arabella, who barely received the order, threw herself out of her mother's living room as if to run away.
Bang!
The heavy maroon oak door closed before Arabella's eyes. It was good that she managed to escape, but her being cast out was heartbreaking for her. There was a love and bond between her mother and her sister that Arabella could not share in Lucrezia's drawing room. She fled from Lucrezia's parlor to the west wing, used by her children, as Arabella escapes. People watched the little girl run away crying and the maids chatted, but no one talked to her or cared for her. It was because they were afraid of the anger of the owner who did not know when it would explode from the position of a subordinate.
Instead, in the west wing there was Ariadne, who had heard of Lucrezia's commotion in the east wing drawing room. When Ariadne was Arabella's messy teeth, she didn't say anything, just held her arms open. She didn't say a word like sorry to Arabella or that she thought she was wrong, but Arabella just jumped into Ariadne's open arms.
Arabella went into Ariadne's room and cried into Ariadne's arms. Ariadne didn't say anything, just gave Arabella a small pat on the back. Arabella's little body burrowed into Ariadne's arms like a small mountain beast. Their body temperature met, a silent apology and understanding passed between them, and no more words were needed between the two.
New series, Even if it is Trampled and Broken, was uploaded!
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