Last time on apologism, Linden-chan just didn’t know! Really!

The secondary love interest doesn’t show up the next day, but evil mad scientist does and invites her to play golf.

Vaughn hooks his arm around mine, and it’s so much more invasive than the way Linden does it.

Rhine spends the entire time going on like this about how everything he does is evil unlike the wonderful rapist.

She claims she’s not good at golf, but then doesn’t actually try to do badly because the only thing that’s smarter than lying randomly is to make it really, really obvious you’re lying. She does a good job and is complimented, but evil mad scientist still wins the game. It’s probably metaphorical. Also, evil mad scientist tells her how happy she’s making his son and how glad he is.

“You’re a much better player than you give yourself credit for,” he laughs as we walk back to the mansion.

So I was all ready to have some nice, squick-free raging about the grammar here, and then I thought that actually the idea this wasn’t looked at closely by an editor is reassuring.

She goes back inside and finds that Gabriel doesn’t show up with lunch, despite that being his job.

An attendant we’ve never seen—a first generation—brings us our lunch, and he

I think this is the first mention of a male first-gen servant. So I guess it’s not a sign that women have fewer employment opportunities, it’s just that the author defaults to female for servants most of the time.

He doesn’t know where they are and wakes Cecily to ask, and she throws a fit.

The attendant looks frightened of this small pregnant fireball of a girl. But when I look at her, I can only see the bags under her eyes, the purple swollen ankles propped on pillows. “You’re going to hurt the baby if you get yourself all worked up.”

So close and so horribly far. She notices Cecily looks bad…so she tells her to think of the baby, because the precious fetus is already compromised by her feeble body and there’s no need to make things worse for it. What if her heart gives out? What will the baby do then, Cecily????????

Jenna, always the superior protagonist, explains that Cecily’s upset because of the terrible quality of the food. She quickly reassures the attendant that she doesn’t blame him, it’s the cook’s fault and suggests Rhine go down to complain.

But Jenna trying to be as nice as possible to the guy is for nothing.

“Don’t mind them,” I say, and give him a reassuring smile once we’re in the elevator and the doors have closed. “It’s nothing personal. Really.”
He smiles back, glancing nervously at me in between staring at his shoes. “They said you were the nice one,” he says.

Because Rhine’s sueishness can’t be compromised. She must be the most loved at all times. In the kitchen, the staff says that Rhine never complains and ignores it, then Rhine edges over and asks what happened to Gabriel. The cook says she shouldn’t ask, it’ll only cause him more trouble.

A fierce chill rushes up my spine. “Is he okay?”
“Haven’t seen him,” she says. And she looks at me with such a sad expression. “Not since this morning when the Housemaster called him down to the basement.

Oh no! The person who has dissects people who die naturally asked a living person down to the morgue, as he does regularly for various non-sinister things! CLEARLY THIS MEANS IT WAS FOR MURDERING PURPOSES.