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Chapter 3
The answer made me beam with delight.
Of course it did.
Because I already knew.
How kind Hernan had been to the young heroine.
And how he was currently sponsoring a charitable organization.
So I couldn’t help smiling in front of the man who kept his expression blank as though asking, So what’s the problem?
“That’s just like you.”
“Saying things you don’t truly mean so naturally.”
I let my laughter drift away on the cool autumn breeze beyond the terrace railing.
That was why I never noticed his deep emerald gaze lingering on me for a long time.
* * *
After repeatedly warning the old butler Pippin to keep silent, I instructed him to prepare a room for Kiara.
Then I had the servants feed her and help her bathe.
I even made sure they remembered the dessert I had promised after dinner.
Before I knew it, I was sitting beside Kiara’s bed with a fairy tale book open in my hands.
Honestly, this wasn’t something I would normally do.
If anyone had seen those little arms and legs reddened and chafed by the winter cold, they would have done the same.
It was still early evening.
After finally getting a proper bath and meal, Kiara had become sleepy much earlier than usual, so we decided to turn in early.
The pajamas I had sent someone to buy fit her perfectly.
Lying in the soft bed, she looked up at me.
Unlike the vicious villainess from the original novel, the child before me was simply quiet and reserved.
She pulled the blanket up to her chin before speaking.
“I have something to ask.”
“Anything.”
“So… you’re my sponsor now?”
“Do sponsors usually talk politely?”
Kiara really is smart.
“Do you know what sponsorship means?”
“I heard about it when I lived at the orphanage.”
Ah.
I fell silent.
Not because of anything she had done.
Because guilt stabbed at me.
By now, according to the original story, I should have already been married and adopted Kiara.
But I hadn’t.
More accurately, I had chosen not to.
“So… you lived in an orphanage.”
Because I had stubbornly refused marriage.
Which meant this entire detour had happened largely because of my own choices.
“Yeah.”
“But I ran away.”
“They kept hitting me.”
Kiara turned over irritably.
The novel had mentioned that she had been abused in the orphanage.
Watching her speak about it so casually left a heavy weight in my chest.
“The maids… um… told me you have a lot of scars.”
“Because they hit me.”
“…It must have hurt.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“Why would you even ask?”
“I’m sorry.”
Kiara merely snorted.
“It’s fine.”
Once again, I found myself speechless.
She somehow feels more mature than I am.
So, if I had to summarize Kiara’s current situation in one sentence…
I had already missed the time when I should have adopted her.
Unlike the original story, she was never adopted and eventually fled the orphanage after enduring endless abuse.
…Damn.
The guilt that had been quietly pooling inside me suddenly became overwhelming.
The true villains were the people at the orphanage.
Even so…
“I’m feeling awful right now.”
“Huh?”
“Why?”
“Just because.”
Even though I knew I had no right to feel this way.
Honestly, I wanted to burn that orphanage to the ground.
“What are you talking about?”
Kiara frowned.
I smiled faintly.
Finding her at the train station really was a miracle.
I couldn’t even imagine what would have happened if I had walked past without noticing her.
“You won’t be hurt anymore.”
“So don’t worry.”
I was already drowning in guilt for not finding her sooner.
Thinking that every day I failed to find her was another day she suffered made me want to crawl into a hole.
“As for the polite speech…”
“Just think of it as one of my habits.”
“Nearly everyone I meet is someone I’m expected to speak to formally.”
“It’s simply become second nature.”
That applied both to high society and to Lomen University.
Almost everyone around me outranked me in status, and I hardly had any close friends I could casually speak to.
Come to think of it, Hernan was the unusual one.
Even while remaining perfectly polite, he had always spoken to me with surprising ease.
Kiara studied me with curious eyes.
“Then… are you a commoner?”
“No.”
“I’m a noble.”
“Just the eldest daughter of an insignificant family.”
“We’re simply a little wealthy.”
A complete lie.
There wasn’t a single person in the Empire who hadn’t heard of House Jonas.
“And yes.”
“I’ll become your sponsor.”
“You aren’t actually the person I was searching for…”
“But you’re clearly very clever.”
Another lie.
Kiara was exactly the person I had been searching for.
But…
If I told her everything, she’d only become frightened.
Anyone would panic if they learned that someone from House Jonas had been searching for them for years.
So I decided I would keep that secret forever.
The distrust hadn’t completely disappeared from her golden eyes.
Still, before long her eyelids slowly drooped.
“It’s bedtime.”
I quietly closed the fairy tale book I had planned to read.
People always said children fell asleep the moment their heads touched the pillow.
Apparently, they were right.
The room settled into a peaceful silence.
“Sweet dreams, Kiara.”
As I gently brushed her loose bangs aside, I swallowed the words I could never bring myself to say.
I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.
* * *
Kiara had apparently just turned eleven.
She doesn’t even look ten.
The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to storm into that orphanage and tear the place apart.
They beat her…
And they starved her.
House Jonas would never forgive them.
The very next day, I went straight to the police and filed a report.
Thankfully, Kiara remembered the orphanage’s name.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Uh… your name is on the report.”
“Good.”
“That makes things easier.”
“I’ll leave this in your hands.”
“Y-Yes!”
“I understand exactly what you mean!”
Power certainly had its uses.
If only everything had been solved that easily.
Originally, I had planned to remain in the capital only until Kiara’s injuries healed.
The problem was that those lunatics at the orphanage had done such horrific things that even after several days, the bruises refused to fade.
Her skin, scraped raw by the winter cold, healed painfully slowly.
The doctor simply told us to apply medicine and wait.
As if I could just sit there and do nothing.
So I spent more than a week desperately trying to strengthen her immune system and create better medicine.
I had always been interested in pharmacology, so I treated it as practical experience.
Needless to say…
I achieved absolutely nothing.
Which made perfect sense.
I knew nothing whatsoever about medicine.
A week passed.
I wish I had studied pharmacology.
Choosing the same major as my previous life because I wanted an easy path had clearly been a mistake.
I had spent years peering through microscopes at plant structures, and now I was suddenly trying to develop herbal medicine.
“Fidelia.”
“What are you doing?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m looking through herb specimens.”
“Still?”
Somewhere during that week, Kiara and I had begun speaking casually to each other.
On the first night, while wishing her peaceful dreams, I had asked her one small favor.
“Could you call me Fidelia?”
She had kept calling me you, so I suggested using my name instead.
She had been too sleepy to answer.
Her proper response came the following morning.
“Then you should stop using polite speech with me too.”
We became close almost immediately.
If I remembered correctly, the novel said Kiara had desperately sought affection from Fidelia.
From what I had seen, though…
Kiara wasn’t an ordinary little girl.
“When are you going to finish?”
“I’m bored.”
“Go play with the maids.”
“If you tell them I said it’s okay, plenty of them will play with you.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“I want to play with you, Fidelia.”
She was surprisingly straightforward.
“Then… I guess I’ll just play with the maids.”
Anyone who had lived on the streets and suffered abuse could be expected to become timid.
Yet Kiara remained remarkably resilient.
She had only been awkward about being served the first day.
By the second, she had adapted completely.
Still…
That’s not the real problem.
The true issue was the person who had entered my study before Kiara.
The one who continued reading prepared reports whether I listened or not.
“…And that concludes Duke Hernan Cleor’s upcoming schedule.”
“Pippin.”
“Yes, Miss.”
I pressed a hand against my forehead as I looked at my loyal butler.
His proud smile made it difficult to even scold him.
“I told you that you don’t have to report those things anymore.”
“…Ah.”
Only then did old Butler Pippin seem to remember.
He awkwardly cleared his throat.
“Ahem.”
“My apologies.”
“Old age has ruined my memory.”
“I’ll keep silent from now on.”
“Not just silent.”
“Stop investigating him altogether.”
“Of course.”
“Absolutely.”
Apparently, Hernan was still in the capital.
Then again, he was almost always in the capital.
Most high-ranking nobles kept townhouses there unless they were particularly unusual.
My parents, the Marquis and Marchioness Jonas, happened to be among those unusual exceptions.
Hernan was related to the Imperial family, so living permanently in the capital was only natural.
Thinking back on the past three years—when I had practically followed him like an obsessed fan—his routine had never been very complicated.
His mansion.
The Imperial Palace.
Someone’s banquet.
Someone else’s party.
Then back to his mansion.
Over and over again.
Aside from that, he mostly buried himself in work at home.
Calling it a distant memory felt strange.
After all, I had stopped following him only two weeks ago.
Just then, a servant knocked on the study door.
Her expression was unusually solemn.
“Miss.”
“That person has arrived.”
