Chapter 134 134. Preparation, Part XIX
Editor: Aelryinth
The problem was that she was tired and couldn’t hear the rapidly approaching wagon. Phoebe looked casually to the right and found a carriage racing towards her. She tried to avoid it in fright, but her heavy leg didn’t move as she wanted...
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Christine was almost thrown out of the carriage, and shouted from the floor, "What the hell are you doing? How the hell are you driving a wagon?"
Christine was on her way to Madame Louai’s dress shop on Eloz Street to order the dress she would wear at a royal party on the last day of the season. After seeing Princess Kiellini’s costume yesterday, she went out to get a new dress instead of the dress she had originally intended to wear, because she thought it would not work as well.
The dress Christine chose today in consultation with Madame Louai was a white silk dress. Although she had never worn white before, she chose a color that didn’t overlap with the princess, who seemed to enjoy wearing dark colors.
Colors were her choice, but since design was a unique part of the designer, Christine was forced to leave the dressing shop this time, emphasizing that she wanted a new style of dress.
Madame Louai had promised a new dress with great ambition and confidence, probably because she had heard rumors about Princess Kiellini’s dress, but Christine wasn’t expecting much. She felt bad because she felt like she was losing to Princess Kiellini. She was driving back in her carriage with a feeling of displeasure, but the carriage that had been running well stopped so suddenly it felt like she had been sent upside down.
At Christine’s angry call, the driver’s face ran to her with a deathly pale, "I’m sorry, miss. A woman didn’t get out of the road, so I tried to stop quickly. I’m so sorry."
When the carriage was running at a frightening speed and stopped by a hair’s breadth, Phoebe fell to the ground in a frightened faint.
Christine got out of the carriage to punish the cause of the accident, which had set fire to an already bad mood. She saw a woman in the middle of the road and ordered the driver, "Take her, I think she wanted to die so much that she jumped in front of a running carriage, so I should grant her that wish."
At the angry command of his mistress, the driver rushed to the fallen woman.
"Hey, get up. Why did you dare to do this? Do you know who is in that carriage? Do you want to die? The lady is calling, so get up."
The driver was shaking the woman’s shoulders, and was taken aback by her lack of response. Looking at her, she could not hear even if he explained the situation.
The driver grabbed the woman’s leg and began to pull, thinking that he would have to drag her away in a hurry.
"Aa-a-a-argh!"
Phoebe, who had been unconscious, woke up and shouted painfully at the painful separation of her prosthetic leg. Surprised by Phoebe’s screams, the driver released her leg and saw a wooden prosthetic leg visible outside her skirt, which had been pulled up in the wind.
Christine looked at the blonde hair of the woman, exposed by the hat had fallen off while she twisted on the ground. The woman’s pale blond hair looked quite splendid, thanks to the noontime sunlight. Christine’s face grew cooler as the girl reminded her of Princess Kiellini.
Looking at the screaming woman on the ground, Christine’s image began to catch the eyes of the passers-by. When the bewildered driver browbeat her to be quiet, she stopped crying and looked at them with a frightened face.
Phoebe’s eyes were clearly green, as the noon sunlight hid the brown spots. Christine felt a wave in her heart as she looked at the contrast of blonde and green, both lovely and hateful.
Before she met the princess, blonde hair reminiscent of her father and younger brother Pierre was her favorite hair color, and their eye color, the green, was her favorite color. But she couldn’t believe they created such a feeling of hatred now.
Christine’s deeply sunken eyes calmly glanced over at the woman who had yet to get up. Her wooden prosthetic leg, slim figure, and pretty face in her curled-up skirts suddenly softened her expression.
This was the Eloz Street, with many eyes. It would be a fatal blow to the image she had built up to marry Killian if she would not help the poor woman who fell on the street.
"Jeff, what are you doing? Are you going to leave her there when she is sick and can’t move at all? I’ll have to take her to the doctor, so hurry up and get her in my carriage."
"My, my lady?"
When the driver heard a command so different from those spoken before, he hesitated, and Christine rebuked him, "Don’t you see how distressed she is now? Hurry up and get her in the wagon."
Christine approached the woman who was unable to stand up properly to see if her prosthetic leg had fallen, and crouched in front of her. She forced down the woman’s skirt, which was curling up, and called over her maid Penny.
"Help the driver and get her in the carriage. Hey, hang in there. I’ll take you to the doctor right away."
Christine kindly consoled the distressed woman, opened the carriage door herself, and waited for the woman who was fallen on the street to get on. When the woman, almost carried in by the driver, managed to get on the carriage, Christine sent fine greetings to the people around her and followed her to get on.
When the carriage door closed, Christine ordered coldly, "Pull down the curtain."As soon as Penny lowered the curtain and blocked the gazes from outside, Christine slapped the face of the woman in front of her.
"You almost ran in front of the carriage and got us into an accident, but you got on the carriage impudently when I said to get on. Think of it as a wagon fee that you were slapped in the face."
Christine stared at the woman sitting in front of her without an expression, until she was through the busy street. In the first place, she had no intention to heal her, so she planned to throw her out as soon as she passed by a lonely place, but at the appearance of a pretty fine woman, an idea came to her mind.
"Penny, don’t you think she would be a good gift for Francis?"
Francis was the Prince of Austern and had the backing of the family of Duke Dudley, and so had nothing to fear in the world. He began to indulge in hedonistic parties to assuage the boredom of his life, while showing off his power, and was ever more perverted by those who curried favor with him.
One day he began to be attracted to the imperfect things that made his perfection stand out even more. He was now attracted to something physically or mentally deficient, and his deficiency became more and more severe as the days went by.
"Penny, take a look at that woman’s skirt again. I didn’t look closely before, but I have to be sure."
Phoebe couldn’t figure out what had happened to her for a moment.
While she was distracted by the pain of her leg, she casually climbed into the noblewoman’s luxurious carriage and could barely pull her prosthetic leg under her skirt. When she was shocked out of her half-conscious state by a slap and the pain from her twisted prosthetic leg was barely gone, she heard the word "gift".
"Gift?"
It was a familiar word to a woman who had lived in a brothel: a gift that would please someone, a gift that would please the other person as a kind of plaything, not as a human being. It was a word she had heard many times.
Phoebe quickly grabbed the handle of the wagon, feeling like she was just going back into hell.
"Please stop! I’ll get off! Please stop the wagon!"
At Phoebe’s frightened cry, Christine waved the bell in the carriage as a signal to run fast. As the carriage increased its speed, Penny forcibly pulled back the woman from the door and lifted her skirt.
"Oh, it’s ugly." Penny freaked out when she saw rugged wood under her knee instead of her leg.
Christine smiled prettily at the woman who was embarrassed and was about pull down her skirt.
"What’s your name?"