She was small in stature, but the strength with which she clutched the hem of my dress was quite formidable.
‘Was it then?’
When I mentioned the rumor I had picked up to lighten the mood.
‘The Duke reacted noticeably.’
Perhaps while recuperating here, he might have had another woman in his heart for a while.
When the body is weak, doesn’t the heart also weaken?
“Please bear with me a little longer while you are here.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Go on.”
At Margaret’s dismissal, the maid did not retreat but fidgeted.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
The hesitating maid soon opened her mouth again with difficulty.
“There was one more thing…There was something strange.”
“Why are you hesitating so much?”
The maid swallowed her dry saliva. It was by chance that she found out about this.
Taking advantage of everyone being busy welcoming guests, the maid managed to enter the annex.
She thought it was strange that they didn’t let outsiders in, even though it was where the servants stayed.
And as if to prove that the maid’s guess was right, she saw it and was speechless.
A boy with silver-grey hair and red eyes, strikingly similar to the Duke.
“It seems the Duke has an illegitimate child.”
“!”
Her face, reflected in the blazing fire, glowed red.
It was a strange expression, a look of both anger and delight.
****
After the banquet was ruined, the next few days were peaceful, as they were before the guests arrived.
The Duke acted as if nothing had happened.
But the guest was still staying in the Duke’s Mansion, and no problems had been resolved.
Carol was the only one who had achieved her goal, and it felt strange that she was only concerned about herself.
‘I should start talking about quitting soon.’
In this chaotic atmosphere, it wasn’t easy to say, thus she hadn’t yet.
“I’ve finished the book.”
“Already?”
At first, Carol read to him, but from the middle of the book, he read in Braille.
“I’m frustrated because I can’t go out at all.”
“Are you very frustrated?”
“Now that I’ve just started to get some fresh air, it seems more so.”
Carol put new firewood in the stove and scraped out the ashes with a poker.
“It would be nice to have a garden house like in the book.”
The Duke closed the book with a sound as if he wanted to say that.
“There is one.”
“Yes?”
Carol shifted her gaze to the Duke.
The Duke had changed a bit since the last banquet.
He had always been neat, but now he was definitely trying harder.
The curtains that had been left torn, the bookshelves that had been dusty, everything was neatly arranged.
“There’s a garden house beyond the garden, on the back hill.”
“There is?”
“The view of the birch forest from there is spectacular.”
It wasn’t strange for such a large mansion to have a garden house.
“But I can’t go now because there are guests.”
“It’s really nice.”
A place full of white birch trees covered in snow. The whole world would look white. Carol dreamily imagined and murmured.
“Let’s go together later.”
“With me?”
“Do you dislike it?”
And the wall between the two became a little stronger.
The Duke began to ask Carol’s opinion on even trivial matters.
She knew why.
‘He must be misunderstanding.’
He seemed to think that people wouldn’t treat monsters like people.
She thought about when she had slapped the Duke’s hand and unnecessarily fiddled with her palm.
It was ridiculous to explain in detail now.
Maybe it was better to keep a distance as it was.
Unconsciously, she felt like she had gotten closer to him than she thought.
“It would be okay to go as part of the lesson.”
She couldn’t say she disliked it.
“It’s a story after the guest leaves, though.”
She didn’t know when that would be, and there was no guarantee she would be there until then.
“They’ll be leaving soon. The carriage they came in is not suitable for the snowy road.”
With a nonchalant answer, the Duke spoke with a smirk.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Ah, and I forgot to return this book.”
The Duke pulled out a book from under the bed. It was a fairy tale book that she had given when he started reading Braille. He had returned the other books, but he had kept this one because he said he would read it again.
“Thank you. I had forgotten about it too.”
As she took the book, the image of the sun on the cover and a child reaching out towards it caught her eye.
“Ah…”
Suddenly, she realized why she had felt subtly uncomfortable.
[Even if the child knew about his death yet still wanted to go to the sun, wouldn’t that be better?]
The excuse was that she couldn’t say she would quit because the atmosphere was chaotic.
‘Without even knowing what would be a better choice for the Duke…’
Even if it was short and tragic, the Duke might have wished for the original development.
For him, being trapped here and living a long life might have been a greater tragedy.
As it is, the Duke will live a long life trapped here.
Thinking that he might suffer more because of her, her complexion turned pale as a sheet.
“About the guest.”
“Hmm?”
She brought up the guest, whom she had been consciously avoiding.
Carol swallowed her dry saliva. The connection with the female lead was not completely severed yet.
It might seem more unnatural to pretend not to know at all, even though she was there, she thought.
“Are you talking about the young Viscount Walden?”
“No, it’s Lady Chesworth.”
“Lady Chesworth?”
“Yes.”
“She’s your fiancée, isn’t she?”
“That’s right.”
The Duke furrowed his brow. He didn’t like the word ‘fiancée’ coming from Carol’s mouth.
“Didn’t you treat her too coldly?”
“I didn’t expect you to say that.”
The Duke got up and went towards the window. When the Duke, sitting on the windowsill, slightly opened the window, a cold wind blew through.
“I heard that they are a family with divine power.”
“That’s right.”
It might have been better to end it like this with Margaret Chesworth.
But Margaret was the link that led Elisha and the Duke to meet.
She shouldn’t have touched it recklessly. She should have come into this Duke’s Mansion with the determination to break the curse.
She was suffocating with regret.
But people always make mistakes.
The problem is not running away afterwards. It wasn’t too late. It was fortunate that she didn’t say she would quit right after the banquet.
“Sometimes in fairy tales, there are such stories, aren’t there?”
Carol looked at his back. The Duke continued to speak without turning his head.
“Did someone give you a hint?”
“Mrs. Wells didn’t say anything to me.”
Silence flowed between the two. It was the same tense atmosphere as when they first met.
“I didn’t know you were so romantic.”
The Duke grumbled without answering.
“…I just thought it would be hard to be coldly treated by the person I loved and met after a long time.”
“A noble’s marriage is not a union of emotions.”
“I know that, but…”
She bit her lip too hard and tasted the bitter taste of blood.
“Teacher Carol, you’ve always been one step behind the line I’ve set.”
A faint discomfort brushed across the Duke’s face.
“But you seem particularly concerned about this matter.”
“I’m just…worried.”
“Worry is a luxury for a monster.”
“Don’t say that!”
Carol denied the Duke’s words with a shrill scream.
If he refrained from killing Margaret in a rampage, and gently broke off the engagement, then met the true female lead, the chances of breaking the curse would increase.
In this world, changing a fiancé was not a flaw.
So it wasn’t good to persecute her like this, as if to completely cut her off.
The Duke laughed bitterly at Carol’s answer, which came out without a moment’s hesitation.
“If you’re worried about something else…”
“Yes?”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t harass you.”
“It’s not because of that.”
“Or maybe your original career aspiration was to be a marriage broker?”
“That’s not it…”
“Stop talking. This doesn’t seem like a topic to discuss with a teacher.”
The Duke cut off Carol’s words, pressing his temples.
****
“Why doesn’t Carol know what even a child knows?”
“…What am I?”
Carol glared at the boy with a sullen face.
“What kind of adult does that?”
The boy squinted his eyes and interrogated Carol.
Noah Winternox.
Since their reunion when she received a dismissal from the Duke and came to the garden alone, the two often met.
The Duke did not come to the garden to avoid any potential danger from the guests, and this garden was a hard-to-reach place from where the guests were staying, so their meetings could be held secretly.
“I just wanted to comfort you!”
“But even if I want to take sides, it’s clear who’s wrong.”
“…I must have made a lot of mistakes.”
“Yeah.”
“All the more because a mere commoner said such a thing.”
“…I don’t know much either, because I lived like a commoner before I came here, but that’s not it.”
Noah comforted Carol in a seemingly mature voice.
“Is that so?”
They didn’t fight. After that, the Duke was still polite, and a good model student who listened to the lessons diligently.
‘But it’s definitely different from before.’
The casual conversation that naturally came out during the lesson noticeably decreased.
And with that, the lesson ended early.
So before the carriage arrived, there was a brief gap where she could meet Noah here.
“My answer may not be the correct one…”
Noah added a postscript, hesitating.
“Yeah.”
“If someone I thought was close to me acted righteously without considering my feelings, I think I would have felt bad too.”
