@Lorraine Sales na....that's just a bad writer. I get that the empress wants him and keeps hitting the button, but why does it have to be the same way? Jk Rowling wrote like 20 different times to get into Hogwarts. The fact that this shi*** writer can't write a different setting is crazy.
Over a theater play, at a bąll, at the modiste, on the streets, at a fancy restaurant.... There are a million other places and ways for them to have that talk, but to have them every single time taking the same tea, at the same place, at the same time, with the same excuses to leave? Oh hėll no 😂 this is what happens when a person who can't write decides to copy an existing story but has no idea how to create anything new to fill the story up
@deleted user I don't find it to be a bad writing. They want to show how the Empress is only bulling the Duchess behind closed doors. Most of those places you said are public places. The Empress is shown to be a silent bullie, with the reputation of a Saint, she's annoying but not stupid enough to say all of those things where people can hear. Her tea time is her safe place, you can't even see the maids when they're together. Without saying, doing the same things every time is a way to show she does that because she can get away with this behavior.
The point is: their only way to break the loop is to show others or even the Emperor her true face, but the Duchess don't want to start a conflict with her, because she knows the Emperor can become really tyrannical because of the Empress.
