At first I was so pissed at Ripley, coming from the real world in the current times, and s...

It's not uncommon for other maids to fetch Ripley. Geronis used to send them via messengers to carry out his message that he wants to meet Ripley etc. Ripley doesn't remember all the maids in her house, so following an unknown maid that is working in the area of the count's mansion is not weird, and no one could expect oneself to be kidnapped within their own residence.

She just finished doing all of her work for both business and wedding preparations, and she hasn't fully recovered from her nosebleed and exhaustion from overworking. So blaming her for being negligence is hardly justified.

Regarding the letter, she has her own reasons. It will be revealed later in a couple of chapter.

maybe I should have worded my sentence better, I didn't mean it's stupid to follow the unknown maid because she's not expected to know all the workers around a big mansion, what was stupid was following the unknown maid OUTSIDE THE GATE WHILE SHE WAS BASICALLY GROUNDED BY HER FIANCE.

that's stupid.

specially since the reasoning was her fiance forgot to give her a gift.

.....um, send over the gift then? aren't you the maid? are you telling me my overprotective boyfriend who knows I just recovered from a nosebleed, exhaustion and overwork is asking me to come fetch a gift all the way from the mansion to the lobby to the driveway and OUTSIDE the gate....to go fetch a gift?

again, very sus, very stupid. She should have realized it as soon as she peeped the back gate (and not the front gate), and then saw a shabby carriage..... alarm bells everywhere!

that was my point.

so yeah I do blame her for being a woman from the modern world who didn't even realize how sketchy everything was, given she was exhausted and whatnot.

I stand by my words, it was stupid of her. I hope you don't take my opinion too personally because I'm not attacking you or this fictional character. Just expressing my opinion on how stupid she was.

She was allowed to move within the perimeter of her mansion. Outside the gate of her mansion is still considered within the count's property(because it's not that far from the gate entrance).

You'll know that she has permission to move outside her room(as long as it's within the perimeter of the mansion) when Ripley cheekily asked what if she got lost in the mansion, to which Geronis replied with "I'll find you no matter where you are".

In the past few chapters when Geronis asked for Ripley, Ripley ignore his messages and saying that she was busy(with the business proposal) in which Geronis reprimanded her for not focusing on her wedding preparation(it was the scene where Ripley was being undecided with her wardrobe selection, this is also where Geronis told her to respond to his reply ASAP when Geronis asked of her). Since the maid was using his name, it wasn't until later that she knew something was wrong.

Also the webtoon kinda dumbed Ripley down like quite a bit. Idk the reason why, time constraints? The webtoon definitely follows the novel's plot, although some parts are either omitted or changed slightly, to my disappointment.

In the novel, Ripley is much more perceptive, and questioned the maid when she took the back route of the mansion. The maid gave some excuses, and when Ripley finally saw the carriage, she immediately knew that it wasn't belonged to the duke. She tried to get back to the mansion, but the maid already closed the gate. Two kidnappers appeared in front of her, to which she attempted to negotiate to buy their allegiance instead while trying to find some ways to escape. It failed, because in the next scene we already know it was Rose who hired them.

It's obvious that I'm defending Ripley heh, because the scorn she gets from the readers are sometimes unwarranted, but this is more due to the fault of the webtoon though. So I understand why people would be frustrated at Ripley's action sometimes.

On the spot