Aleena Kiron watched silently as her mother went back to her table and then turned to face Yvonne.
"Yvonne was it? Why don't you join us?" She gestured for her to come to sit with them.
Yvonne glanced at her smiling face and then at the table that had no empty seats for her to sit on.
'Either they forgot how to count or this is some immature way of bullying me.' She smiled at the older girl who had made such a stupid offer.
"Oh no, Big sister Aleena! How can she sit here when there are no available seats here?" Mae Blaise chuckled as she reminded Aleena.
'Ah, there it is. The legendary bullying the new kid. At least they still remember how to count.' She nodded in agreement with Mae's words.
Seeing her calm and composed face, their lips twitched but they did not say anything further.
Noticing the awkward silence that prevailed over the table once again, the youngest at the table decided to speak up.
"Why don't we play near the pond? There is a beautiful swing set that Papa built for us." Rika Kiron spoke in an adorable childish voice and smiled at Yvonne.
'She seems like a nice kid!' Yvonne smiled back when she saw that Rika had just given her an apologetic smile.
"Is everyone okay with it?" Aleena being the oldest asked around and then decided to follow this plan when everyone agreed.
After informing the Marchioness of their short trip to the swing set, the six girls along with Yvonne marched in its direction.
'I haven't been on a swing set since that last trip to the park with my mother in my last life. So this might be a nice opportunity to try the things that I missed out on.' She cheerfully followed after the girls.
As they walked along, Yvonne silently listened in on their conversation to get a better understanding of how the minds of these young girls worked.
'To know the mind of your opponent you need to study their ways completely.' She remembered another one of Grandpa Leo's classic lessons from her past life.
"Have you heard that Glennise Brodie was chosen as the first playmate of Princess Felicia?" Mae Blaise whispered as they walked along.
Hearing the Princess's name all of them nodded because by now this news had already spread among the nobles.
"I wonder who the second playmate would be?" The daughter of a Baron thought out loud.
Realizing her mistake, she quickly put her head down and avoided everyone's eyes.
Yvonne was walking at the end of the group and silently scoffed when she saw the daughters of higher status all turned and glared at that girl.
'This 'speak only when you are spoken to' rule is so archaic and regressive.' She shook her head but did nothing to help that girl out.
"Do you think Glennise might be meeting the Prince as well? Oh, I would fall in love with Prince Fritzen if I were to meet him so often!" Mae held her hands close to her chest and smiled widely.
'Well Duh! Not only does she meet him every day, but that stupid princess also invites them for meals together which in turn makes poor Glennise fall for the shitheaded prince.' Yvonne recalled the plot of the story.
A few polite smiles and a caring gesture was all it took for Glennise Brodie to fall head over heels for Prince Fritzen.
When Prince Fritzen's name had come up in the conversation all the girls sighed in unison.
Following which were incoherent squeals of praises that they poured out for the only prince of Rosenhyde.
'Aren't they supposed to be dignified children of nobility? Is this how they should be behaving?' Yvonne criticized them in her mind.
She then covered her ears with her palms and made an extremely annoyed face.
'Will they stop squealing like pigs? What is so good about that idiot prince? Other than the fact that he too is a pig in his own right!' She sneered and regained her poker face before anyone could notice the traces of disgust that had formed on her face.
After their momentary lapse in decorum, the girls all straightened their backs and stood upright as though the ones screeching like banshees just a few seconds ago weren't them but someone else.
Mae Blaise thought of something that brought a smirk to her face.
Controlling her facial expressions, she turned towards Aleena and asked her another question.
"Big sister Aleena, who do you think will be chosen as the Princess' second playmate?" Mae glanced to the back of the crowd in Yvonne's direction and then faced Aleena.
'If this was the original story then I would have already been in that position. But right now I have no intention of ever getting close to anyone from the Royal family. So I don't care who takes up that spot.' Yvonne shrugged as she glanced at the grass as she walked.
Deep in her thoughts, she did not notice the secret look that the girls had given each other.
Aleena was already older than the Princess so there was no way that she had any hopes of being chosen.
However, her little sister, Rika was the same age as Princess Felicia, so her chances of being the second playmate were rather high.
That would have been the ideal solution if only the violet haired child genius was not present in the equation.
Aleena and Rika both turned to Yvonne and stopped in their tracks.
When the two girls stopped, so did the others.
Everyone just turned around to face Yvonne who had been silently listening to their conversation the entire time.
Yvonne tilted her head and looked at them when they all just turned around and stared at her as though she was some mythical creature who had ascended to wreak havoc on them.
"What do you have to say about that, Yvonne?" Mae smiled at her and questioned with her arms crossed against her chest.
'What exactly is her problem? She has been trying to mess with me since the moment I came to greet them?' Yvonne couldn't understand how she had managed to annoy this girl when they had never met before.
"I don't know who it will be. Hopefully, someone who will be useful for the Princess' education." Yvonne gave them an indifferent and lazy answer which made their brows furrow.
"Are you saying that you have not been chosen by Marquess Samed to be her playmate?" Aleena raised her voice at Yvonne.
'What the hell does that big-mouthed man have anything to do with the selection of Felicia's playmate?' Her small lips pursed together as she tried to find a connection between them.
"Marquess Samed did speak to me about this but I told him that I am unwell and would not be suitable to accompany the Princess." She thoroughly explained so that there might not be any confusion between them.
The other girls all thought for a moment and then nodded their heads.
They had heard about Yvonne sustaining some unknown injury when she was at her summer mansion, though not everyone knew what had actually happened.
"Lies! Then why did the Marquess ask me to be better than you if I wanted to join her highness?" Rika Kiron screamed at Yvonne in a loud voice.
Marquess Samed had come to their place a few days back and told them that Yvonne was the biggest opponent for Rika in this selection.
This made the little girl panic and she spent her entire time in their family library trying to learn ahead of their classes in order to impress her tutor.
'What is that man up to now?' Yvonne's eyes rolled when she heard what that little girl had just said.
Rika's glare deepened when she saw Yvonne's disrespectful attitude towards her who was a whole year older.
"I have no clue why he had said such a thing but I most defi-" Yvonne's next words came to a halt when she saw two figures coming through the thick dark trees in the opposite direction.
"Tsk tsk tsk… The proud daughters of nobility and this is how you behave in private?" A snarky voice came from behind which made the group of girls who were ganging up on Yvonne to turn around.