Chapter 31: 30

***

When I wake up, it may be Progen’s mansion again. In the morning, Rosie or Molly comes in and wakes me up to see if I sleep in again. Noah sits next to me at breakfast and reads the newspaper.

And in the evening, he would come to read the fairy tale of the dog and the wolf in a sluggish, lazy voice. I really liked his low, clear voice.

It was just an ordinary day, nothing special at all. After it was broken to the point where I couldn’t look at it any more, I would look at the wistful wreckage and reminisce about how beautiful and special it was. That’s why I hate special things.

“Good work, princess, on becoming an adult.”

What do you mean, “adult”? I’m not mature yet. I’m like a fully grown child who still wants to be pampered. I’ve never been spoiled by anyone. Now I might want to say that to someone.

The recurring fragmented memories were like a heartless dream. So I tried not to place them, but deep in my new mind, there remained an unfulfilled need for repose and comfort.

In my failed attempt to escape reality, I sluggishly lifted my eyelids and leaned against the dark gray wall to face the reality of my confinement in the cell.

Seeing my breath scattered in dim sunlight, unfamiliar thoughts emerged from the back of my mind. It was the thought of being alone and lonely.

I’ve always loved to be alone with my thoughts, but now I’m becoming completely isolated and lonely.

I didn’t cry. Not when I entered this mischievous life, not when I was locked in a stable and nearly frozen to death, not even right before the mercenaries were about to kill me…. And I left Noah, I was immune to misfortune.

Rather than repeated hardships, I was shaken and collapsed by the trivial words that I would protect myself. Just as I did not budge in the freezing cold and snowstorm, I melted desperately in a piece of warm sunshine.

“It’s cold and annoying.”

How can there be so many ups and downs in a life that I wanted nothing to do with?

I had never been to prison before. The treatment was not bad. The food was well prepared, the bedding was clean, and maybe my wish would be fulfilled, but anyway, this seemed different.

Lieutenant Colonel Grenendall came and said “Don’t worry too much.” Then he just left.

Perhaps it was because of his backing, but the officers and guards did not treat me carelessly but only looked at me with a bad expression.

So when are they going to let me out? I had just closed my eyes in meditative contemplation. I heard the sound of shoes walking gracefully again, and Celine entered, wearing a pheasant-colored dress and her platinum hair tied up in a bun.

She seemed to have come for a visit, to mock me. She stared at me with her soft green eyes and laughed softly.

“Not bad.”

“Then you should stay here.”

“You’re still living off your mouth, aren’t you?”

She covered her mouth and giggled like a child. I stared at her with my arms crossed with uncomfortable eyes.

“Why are you here?”

“Do I need a reason to see my sister? Are you already seducing the guards? As you did with the enemy Duke. I didn’t know that you were such a light-hearted woman.”

Listening to her whisper, I felt strangely sentimental. Maybe it wasn’t just a light relationship, because between Noah and I there was an insubstantiality, a coexistence of lightness and heaviness that could not be easily touched or let go of. I silently ignored her as not worth answering.

I closed my eyes. She kept saying things that tended to make me nervous, but in the end she shut up at my intuitive remark.

“You got dumped, didn’t you?” (Diana)

That’s why she did this unthinkable thing. Celine’s face twisted as her eyes gradually turned red. Her long eyelashes trembled shallowly as they lowered as if she would soon start crying.

“Was it nice to play with people’s hearts? You’re so evil.” (Celine)

“What? Do you think you’re a good girl? As you know, I’ll be released soon. And when I do, what will happen to the reputation you have so diligently built?”  (Diana)

“See, you’re born bad. You try to take everything away from me. My mother died because of you.” (Celine)

As mentioned in the original story, the Admiral threw the blame and resentment for the misfortune of his wife’s death onto this innocent body, and that woman must have lived with a sense of outstanding superiority, giving justification to all the irrationality and abuse with that one premise.

It was a happiness that started from the misery of others. That was why I couldn’t stand to be pushed around by my sister, who had always lived like a hero and been treated as a princess.

“You know as well as I do that this is not the reason. You don’t have the conscience to sell your dead mother for that.”

I looked at her with a smile. Celine, who seemed to have been exposed, barely swallowed her saliva. She seemed calmer instead, as she tried to suppress her emotions. However, she couldn’t hide the feelings of anger and hatred in her green eyes.

I asked her with an expression of pity.

“Did you think about what will happen in the future before you did this? Father is responsible for the management of confidential documents.” (Diana)

”What are you talking about?” (Celine)

Celine hesitated for a moment, then tilted her head slightly with a strange look on her face. The face looked quite brazen.

“You stole father’s operational secrets, gave them to Progen, and framed me.” (Diana)

Celine’s eyes widened as I spoke. She remained silent for a while as if seeking words, and eventually spat out a short phrase.

“Take care.”

She turned around quietly. Some strands of her platinum hair flowed down her beautiful neck and swayed lightly as if in farewell.

***

“Jeffrey, I was told that you testified that you gave Miss Diana Claire the rose diamond necklace.”

Prime Minister Damien Grenendall asked reprimandingly as he sat in a long wooden chair in the chapel of the Grenendall mansion.

Unlike his sturdy sons, he was small in size, but as the Prime Minister and Duke of the Belford Empire, he gave off a solemn atmosphere.

The reprimanded Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Grenendall stood expressionlessly and stared at his father.

“That is correct, sir.”

“How are you going to explain you got the necklace which is only available in Medea?”

“My mother is from the great aristocracy of Medea, and I think that is sufficient to explain it.”

“You are going to say that you gave away your mother’s belongings? If you do, I’m sure there will be talk of marriage.”

“I can’t?”

Jeffrey asked monotonously, dismissing the question as nothing.

“Are you going to marry her?”

“I may, depending on her wishes.”

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“No matter how free marriages have become, will you marry a woman suspected of being involved with the enemy?”

“Father also married my mother who fled from Medea.”

The Prime Minister’s blue eyes, somewhat clouded by age, caught Jeffrey’s dark hair.

“I regret that choice. Your mother had many secrets from me.”

He held his wrinkled hands together as if praying and turned his head. He thought of the black-haired woman whom he once married only with love.

She was the second daughter of the Herisson family, the great aristocracy of Medea, and she never revealed why she ran away.

She eventually accepted the Prime Minister’s proposal on the condition that he would not ask anything about her past, and was

constantly depressed during their marriage, and passed away from an unexplained illness within a few years. The Prime Minister, who had been tightly silent in reminiscence, opened his mouth.

“I’ve always respected your choices, but this time I’m not going to allow it. As long as the woman you helped is suspected of being a spy, it may be to your detriment. I promised your mother that I would protect you as a father.”

His voice was firm and stern. Jeffrey made no reply as he stared silently at the sculpted statue of the chapel in front of him.

A white sculpted statue of a woman holding a baby looked down at the two men with a compassionate face.

“Do you resent my mother?” (Jeffrey)

His father sighed weakly with concern at his son’s question.

“You asked even though you know it well.”

“I did it for my deceased mother. You are correct that I’m interested in Diana.” (Jeffrey)

“Did the girl remind you of your mother? You’re stubborn like someone.”

The Prime Minister, who paused, sweeping his gray blond hair with a frown. He looked at the broad back of his son who left without reply and let out a long sigh.

“Yeah, it’s because you look like me. Because you’re my son. Although we don’t have any similarities on the outside…. Ah, Agnes….What did you want to hide so desperately from me?”

(*Agnes was Jeffrey’s late mother)

Muttering to himself, the Prime Minister sighed. He recalled the image of the young Jace and Jeffrey holding their mother’s hands tightly and looking at him with a terminal look.

At the same time, Jeffrey left the chapel and exited the mansion. His keen eyes were lifted sharply as he thought of his late mother’s dainty will.

“I’ve always lived with guilt, but I could not tell your father because I was afraid he would despise me. Please help me find and protect the child without your father knowing, and make sure she is happy.”

“How far are you going to go?”

Stopping and reciting low, Jeffrey got into the car. His voice contained a series of anger at the Admiral*.

(*The Admiral is Celine’s and Diana’s father)

***

Duke Noah Rothsilde’s mansion, located on the outskirts of the city, had always been a quiet place, but today it was infinitely quiet, as if nothing existed.

The sky outside the window was cloudy, as if it was about to snow. The fire in the fireplace had long since been extinguished, and a cold chill settled over the office.

Seeing the paper in the cooled coal ashes, his secretary, Vincent, lit a match and threw it into the fireplace. The only sounds in the deserted room were the sound of the paper burning and the second hand of the clock counting the time.

He took out his cigar and stood by the window of the deserted office, like a nameless stone monument. He watched through the window with a dazed face as the soldiers rushed in.

His brown eyes approximated the number of soldiers entering the mansion from the garden. Vincent, who chuckled, murmured in a voice that was borderline between a sigh and admiration.

“Crazy Duke….. madness at last.”

As soon as the Duke (Noah) heard the news that one woman, Diana, was in danger of dying, he left everything behind without a second thought.

Everything he had: honor, the status of a great nobleman with a long line of inheritance, and astronomical wealth. Even the guaranteed future of a young man who was trusted by the emperor and could have walked a smooth path if he had not.

To throw away his life, one can only say ‘crazy’.

All he (Noah)  has left now was a criminal who deserted during the war, violated the Imperial Security Law, and committed treason.The Emperor could impose any crime at his discretion.

It was a pragmatic choice. What could be done in such a short time when the empire was fighting a long war, struggling to find a single position on the front lines?

It was the closest option, but any normal person would have thought it was the worst way to go and would have turned away, giving up on the purpose altogether.

Noah shot the person (Molly) from the intelligence department who had been watching him, not in the head, but in the arm. It was for Molly to avoid being accused of helping him.

Normally, he wasn’t such a considerate man, but it was strange. The sound of numerous military boots gradually approached, and with a bang and a breaking roar, the door to the office opened quickly.

Vincent smiled faintly when he saw the soldiers breaking down the door and entering.

“You’re too late. I absolutely tried to stop him.”

(The soldiers came to catch Noah)

“Sir Vincent, you’ve been the Duke’s secretary for a long time.

charge of secretarial work for a long time. I need to ask you some questions about the Duke, so please go in and testify. If you agree, you will be able to avoid punishment.”

Reveal the corruption. It’s the first thing you do when you’re trying to kill a corporation or an influential individual.

“Call Count Ford’s legal lawyer first. I won’t say anything until you do.”

Vincent, sitting flexibly at his office desk, lit a match and burned the cigar in his mouth. He exhaled the smoke of a deeply inhaled cigar.

He pulled and loosened his tie, which he had always worn neatly, as if it were tight.

If not now, when would he have a chance to smoke a cigar here? That crazy Duke would never return here again.

The soldiers began their search, turning the office and the mansion upside down noisily. A painting of a ghostly horse had been hanging in a corner of this room for some time. The plated frame of the strange and creepy painting fell and made a harsh sound, and was trampled down and broken by military boots.

The papers he had once seen were scattered like the last festival.

It was over. The reputation of the long standing Duke’s family, and the young Duke who was once called the Emperor’s great horse.

It was spectacular. It really must be another form of art. Seen through the flickering white papers, Vincent, who had at one time been Duke Noah Rothsilde’s faithful secretary, murmured softly in disappointment and emptiness.

“Now that I’m unemployed, I suppose I’m free to date.”

***

*Noah left Progen to rescue Diana against the Emperor’s order, so the Emperor sent soldiers to Noah’s mansion to catch him and searched for his secrets. Noah is now like a criminal on the run.

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