Well two possibilities come to mind. This is the royal court, so there might be a political struggle about to blow up they're trying to keep her out of. Or, as already suggested, the good old-fashioned surprise gift story. In latter case though, I don't see why everyone would be so super busy, and in any case I don't see why they'd try to keep her out of the library. They're also taking a stupid approach, if they wanted to keep her away they should've assigned people to chaperone her 24/7. Of course be plan needs to blow up, or we wouldn't have a story...
by the way the guys at the library reacted when eli tried to grab a book without gloves, they were probably testing the books for poison or something like that
If I had to guess, they believe there is a plot to kill the little Bibliophile (Her household was a neutral party, marriage of old were often to form alliances. Which may tip whatever balance there was into the Royal's favor)
Of-course they're spastics and don't want to alarm her so they don't tell her why they're behaving like this. (Which would explain why they don't want her to leave her belongings in the Library and why they're all wearing gloves etc)
@IncreaseSoup : Of the 4, I think Theodore (library guy) has the most 'understandable' action so far.
The crack in the ladder Eli found was likely aimed at her, and the gloved checking of books likely were to check if any books were poisoned.
In fact there's another series with similar event
In Bookworm, one time Myne return to her office and felt something was off.
She was about to ignore it when one of her aides noticed something was off about her for that short moment and asked her NOT to ignore that intuition feeling.
Well, she explained, they checked everything. A book/magic tool has been replaced with a fake AND coated with a slow acting poison.
The poison was dealt with quickly, but the fake, or rather a different copy of the book can't be opened since only the regional owner can use it (in that sense, whoever got her copy also can't open theirs)
The plan is to make her publicly fail due to being unable to recite the text in the book for a ceremony, and the poison is just to finish her off later.
Joke's on them though, Myne's spartan teacher made her MEMORIZE every important ceremonial texts so she could recite them without needing the book itself.
Glass guy keeping her away from politic is kinda ok.
But Prince and Guard guy...eh....the only way I can see it working out in their favor is if they were threatened into it.
Like, say
"Hey, nice walking encyclopedia of knowledge you've got there, it'd be a SHAME if she gets into...misfortunes...from all the jealous people seeing her with you..."
And they're just going along with the villain's whims until they can figure out the moles in their groups that might harm Eli.
After all, despite Eli saying that's his real smile, she also rarely attend social events and this "misunderstanding 'business smile' as real smile" (i.e. "that must be his real smile because he never smile like that at me...of course not girl) is fairly common for shoujo stories.
@Romashk if there was ever a woman who you would expect to be able to go around behind to deal with potentially life threatening sociopolitical problems without her finding out, and succeed, it would be Eli.
Unfortunately for you, @Yamibi, the aide's reaction to the prince's panicked question pretty heavily implies that is NOT what is actually happening.
What is it what is it
They have a secret they're hiding from her 🤔 so curious
Are they all plotting something against Irene? Does she have a secret they all know that they're trying to get?
Ah I can't wait!!!👍
So I sorta glossed over the first chapter and then read this chapter a tad lost. Most manga don't really have... a story you need to mentally keep up with. There's a lot of stuff that happens in the first chapter that leads over into this chapter, and lots of things that we see indirectly without knowing what exactly occurred.
For starters I don't believe that Irene is 'evil' or anything of the sort, I also don't believe that anyone is specifically going after Elianna
So let's look at the facts of what occurs.
-We find out that Irene is learning manners
-Irene accidentally spills tea on a book, the book is popular which is why she had it (important factor here is no one knows that it's the Elianna's book, so Irene didn't purposefully do this)
With these two factors we can already deduce that Irene feels bad for ruining Elianna's book. She meets up with all the 'important' characters and finds out that Elianna is quite well liked. So for someone who is going out of their way to learn manners, and just did something they felt bad for... they would reasonably want to make it to the person. So for those reasons Irene has contacted all those people. I believe the ladder being damaged is a red herring entirely.
-There is a Tea Party but something goes wrong
-Irene and others become doused with water over a damaged water pipe
-Irene immediately apologizes to Elianna before reluctantly being led away
This implies that Irene wanted to reconcile with Elianna but something went awry. We don't quite know what but it's something that Irene feels responsible for. Considering that Irene was very likely with Christopher prior to the Party, it seems like she was planning on making up with Elianna before it got ruined by whatever occurred with the water pipe.
-Library is being scrubbed with gloves
Some people want to believe it's poison. I think it's plausible but more likely that they're looking for fingerprints of some kind. Irene spoke to a Medical Director who wanted her advice on something. It's possible that there is some medical case going on related to the books in the library whether it be poisoning or something else.
-Irene visiting Christopher
Listen closely to the words they're speaking. "I didn't know you had an interest in handicrafts" - Why would Christopher be interested in that?
Christopher then goes on to state that anything he made himself would be subpar to Irene's own workers. I.e. he's hiring her to make something for him.
Gee whiz why does Christopher want some sort of homemade... anything by a woman? Oh right it's for Elianna.
So this whole thing is a huge misunderstanding. Irene is trying to make amends to Elianna after ruining her book and planned on apologizing at the Tea Party. Hell she practically does so the second she sees Elianna there, but then cowers because her clothes are wet and it's 'improper'. Failing at that she's STILL trying to make amends when it seems like Christopher makes a new plan to 'hire' Irene to make a gift for Elianna, where Irene could apologize with it instead.
Even if the whole thing is obviously a big misunderstanding, her "fuck you" on page 38/39 was breathtakingly sharp. "Hey, you know how dear books are to me, and how much I wanted this one in particular? Well, you've messed up so badly that I'm giving it back, just because it came from you."
@WhoCares
In a way it's sort of deserved. Christopher isn't being honest with Elianna about his feelings and why he proposed to begin with. He was scared that he would be rejected if he proposed to her with his honest feelings so he went the side-route of "I'll let you keep reading" and about how beneficial it would be for each of them politically/socially.
And now it's turned on him because Elianna believes that there was never any romance between them. All due to Christopher's incompetent proposal.
@shoker I assumed that he fell in love with her over the course of the engagement, since he seems open/honest and there weren't many indications of prior affection during his proposal. An author/artist's skill at storytelling can make the presence and absence of little details like that somewhat hit-and-miss in predicting the direction of a story...but the precision of the background details so far has me hopeful.
Speaking of little details: notice that the library was no longer off-limits after the Prince gave Elianna that rare book? I bet they were trying to keep her out so that she wouldn't be disappointed if the search turned up nothing and/or so that the gift would be a surprise.
@WhoCares if you look back at the first chapter, there's actually already sign of affection on the time of proposal. More precisely, when Eli turns into a soft mush of chibi after he promised her access to the library. In the first place, I don't think he would be without affection before the engagement if he decided to propose before social season of looking for partner, which prevents Eli from meeting other men first and the perfect time for a prince to measure and hand-pick his future partner. He also said he'll protect Eli's free time. This is a show of his care, I believe.
