CHAPTER 270: GOVERNESS

"What should her forfeit be?" One girl asked with a sharp, eager voice, like she had been waiting for Aristia to lose all this while.

A few of the bolder children exchanged glances, mischievous smirks tugging at their lips.

One even whispered something about making her kneel and beg for forgiveness, while another whispered about making her do a silly dance.

[So bold. Why are they only whispering? They should speak loud and clear.] Aristia thought with a small smirk.

Wade and Alaric glared at the children who had even dared to whisper.

The children noticed this and shrunk their necks timidly.

Before someone dumb could make a stupid suggestion and get into trouble, Lavinia quickly stepped forward. "No, no, I’ll choose the forfeit for the princess!" Her tone was firm.

"Princess Aristia must..." she looked around desperately, then brightened, "...must try to eat a cake without using her hands!"

The children burst into laughter, watching with interest.

Aristia blinked, then allowed the maids to set a small cake in front of her. Without hesitation, she leaned down and took a careful bite, cream smearing the tip of her nose.

"Pfft—!" Alaric burst out laughing, clapping his hands together.

Even Wade couldn’t help but do the same with sparkling eyes.

The other children laughed too. It was indeed funny.

Aristia dabbed her face delicately with a napkin, then looked up with a faint, dignified smile as if nothing had happened.

"That," she said calmly, "was actually quite fun."

The children’s laughter increased.

After that, the game continued normally.

Some children tried to turn it into bullying by suggesting cruel forfeits, but Aristia and Lavinia steered it back into harmless, fun ones.

After the tea party, the children prepared to leave.

"Princess Tia, I’m thinking of hosting a tea party in my fief. Will you attend?"

"Of course I will, Wadie." Aristia nodded.

"Why should we attend your tea party?" Alaric asked with his hand on his hip, annoyed.

Lavinia approached them at that moment. Her parents were with her.

"Once again, thank you for coming to my tea party, your highnesses, and young master Oswalt." Lavinia said with a smile and a curtsey.

"Yes, thank you." Her parents said.

"Thank you for inviting us," Aristia said. "Maybe we’ll attend again if you invite us." Aristia said with a smile of her own.

[Or maybe when papa sends me to another tea party at your house.] She thought inwardly.

"I’ll definitely invite you again next time." Lavinia said.

The family bid the three farewell as they boarded their carriages.

Aristia and Alaric boarded their own carriage, while Wade boarded his.

"Goodbye, princess Tia! Goodbye, prince!" He waved through the window.

"Goodbye, Wadie." Aristia waved with a small smile.

Alaric just humphed and crossed his arms.

The carriages left the Churchill Estate, heading to their respective Fiefs.

Aristia sighed. [Day one of completing punishments— successfully completed. Thirty more to go.]

The next days that followed, Aristia spent most of the time in the library, reading books.

She was reading books for her class. Like she said, she would be reading ahead of her classes, so that she would have more free time, and she had been doing this since they came to Orrivale.

But when she met Catherine, her mother told her that she would be assigned a governess to tutor her on her subjects since most of the other tutors were in the capital, or in their Fiefs, if they were nobles.

Aristia was supposed to meet the governess a day later.

The next day, the governess arrived at the Estate.

She met Aristia in the Estate’s drawing room.

"Greetings, Princess Aristia. I am Andrea Sevyn, the governess assigned by her highness." The woman said with a bow.

"Greetings, governess Andrea. Please teach me well." Aristia replied.

After they exchanged greetings, the woman took her seat.

Aristia observed the woman. She was old, though not too old, and her hair was mixed with greater strands of grey, indicating her age.

She had a kind look on her face and moved and acted gracefully.

"Turn to page sixty of your history book, princess."

Aristia looked away from her and back to the textbook, opening the page.

In the original book, there hadn’t been enough planning because the famine had taken everyone unawares, but since the locusts first appeared in the West, the king and his Minister’s had a hasty meeting before they hurried off to their Fiefs.

She rummaged through her brain to see if there was any mention of Aristia having a governess in the Orrivale Fief, but nothing came to mind.

Seeing that she had opened the page, governess Andrea Sevyn began teaching from it. She also talked a bit more about the East.

Aristia had already studied this curriculum, yet she still listened to the woman.

Governess Andrea was impressed with Aristia’s attention and answers.

’Such deep understanding.’ She thought.

After the history class, there was a short break in between before Aristia came back for the next class.

After all her classes, she sat down in a chair in one of the mansion’s balconies with Alaric.

Since she was under house arrest... no, since she was technically grounded and couldn’t leave the mansion except for tea parties and other social events, she was spending all her time inside.

Alaric sat down beside her and completed the work his own tutor had assigned to him, while Aristia sipped from his cup. There were two jugs and two cups, but one contained juice and the other only had water.

She was drinking his juice because she wasn’t allowed to have any.

Well, she had the thought that if Wilson really didn’t want her to eat any of their luxury food, she wouldn’t be able to, even if secretly.

So underneath the surface, he just turned a blind eye as she sneakily ate Alaric’s food.

Alaric on the other hand would bring more than he could finish, saying that he had a large appetite, when everyone in the mansion already knew that he was doing that so that there would be enough for Aristia.