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Chapter 7
The warmth of Rosaline’s magic flowing through her body seemed to tell her that it wasn’t so, and her vision kept becoming blurred.
That was right.
It wasn’t her fault.
Now she knew it clearly. Her mother had told her that none of this had been her fault.
There was no way her mother would have left behind her magic jewel so that it could be used by the person responsible for her death.
A surge of emotion seemed to rise from deep within her.
Yurein stopped her hurried movements as she gathered the jewels and firmly suppressed the tears threatening to well up.
At the same time, she tried to keep her eyes open and steady.
‘I need to do what I have to do first.’
She had to leave quickly while the household was in such an uproar that no one was paying attention to her. She didn’t have much time, either.
Yurein quietly stared at the bracelet and narrowed her eyes. Then, with a small sigh, she fastened it around her wrist.
She could feel Rosaline’s magic even more strongly.
As she sensed that magic, Yurein took out a pouch and swept all the jewelry from the drawer into it.
Even though she had been treated with contempt by the Tarbargen ducal family, the jewels she possessed were all exceptionally high-quality, top-grade gems.
‘I’m escaping this miserable house.’
Yurein now understood perfectly well that this was no longer a place where she belonged.
‘I’ll separate the jewels at their settings and sell them individually. I’ll also remove all the gems from my dresses and sell those too. Then I can put on my riding clothes and buy some ordinary clothes in a nearby village.’
Yurein formed a plan in her head.
Once she had removed all the jewels from her clothes and divided them between a small pouch and her pockets, they had become surprisingly heavy.
After working for quite some time, she hurriedly packed what she could.
Now it was truly time to leave this house.
Yurein left the dressing room with her belongings, passed through the sitting room, and entered her bedroom. She then approached the bed.
Just then—
Knock, knock.
“Lady, it’s Rebecca. May I come in?”
There was a knock on the bedroom door.
Yurein hurriedly shoved the belongings she was carrying underneath the bed.
She quickly pulled the bedspread over them to conceal them, then sat down on a chair as though nothing had happened.
“Yes. Come in, Rebecca.”
At her response, Rebecca carefully opened the door and entered the bedroom.
Seeing her, Yurein felt puzzled for a moment.
Rebecca looked hesitant, as though there was something she wanted to say.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“……My lady.”
Rebecca flinched.
She clenched her fists, bit down firmly on her lip, and then, as though she had made up her mind, opened her mouth.
“There’s something I need to tell you. Last night, actually, about the keepsake—”
The keepsake?
The moment Yurein’s eyes widened—
Bang!
The bedroom door suddenly flew open.
Unlike Rebecca, the intruders didn’t ask for permission at all.
“Lady Yurein. I apologize for being so rude.”
Several knights boldly entered Yurein’s room.
Two of them stepped forward and grabbed Rebecca by both arms.
“Eek—!”
Rebecca cried out in surprise, but the knight holding her quickly struck the back of her neck.
Rebecca immediately lost consciousness and went limp.
“What is the meaning of this?!”
Yurein stood up and shouted.
Rebecca was her head maid.
And yet they were trying to drag her away without either permission or even the slightest explanation.
Furious, Yurein glared coldly at the knights.
But the knights merely glanced at her with mildly annoyed expressions.
They didn’t openly show it, but just as Yurein was about to explode at their insolent gazes—
“This is an order from His Grace the Duke.”
“What?”
“Then, we’ll be going.”
The knights took Rebecca and quickly left Yurein’s room.
Yurein watched them until they disappeared completely, then bit her lip tightly.
‘Rebecca.’
The only person in this mansion who had ever been on her side.
The maid who had helped her ever since she was young.
Yurein had grown up together with Rebecca. That was why she had such a deep affection for her.
But in her previous life, when Rebecca had been accused of stealing the Duchess’s keepsake, Yurein had been unable to save her.
She had been too afraid to make a fuss, keeping her head down so that she herself would not give the family any reason to criticize her.
She had tried in her own way to clear Rebecca’s name, but no one had been willing to listen to her.
And later, when she discovered that the keepsake Rebecca had supposedly stolen was actually a fake, how devastated had she been?
And then……
‘There’s something I need to tell you. Last night, actually, about the keepsake—’
What Rebecca had said moments ago bothered her.
‘The Duke of Tarbargen.’
Her father—the man who had never given her anything.
A man who was warm toward everyone else, yet had always treated her with nothing but cold disdain.
She couldn’t allow him to take Rebecca away from her as well.
Not like in her previous life, when she had been unable to do anything.
But things could be different now.
‘First, I need to find out what happened.’
Yurein clenched her fists, straightened her shoulders, and stood up.
She had to find out immediately why Rebecca had been taken away.
Yurein headed straight for the Duke’s office.
At last, she arrived at the Duke’s office and knocked on the door.
“Your Grace, it’s Yurein.”
In her entire previous life, she had never once gone to the Duke’s office of her own accord.
Her heart was pounding rapidly.
She no longer had any attachment to the people of the ducal family.
But Rebecca was different.
“Come in.”
When she heard the Duke’s voice, Yurein immediately opened the door.
Click. Click.
Yurein walked lightly across the room and stopped in front of the Duke’s desk.
The Duke raised an eyebrow at Yurein’s markedly different demeanor.
She had always been a quiet child who simply stayed in her place.
That had been her one and only virtue.
Simply staying where she belonged. Knowing her own uselessness and not bothering him.
Where had the quiet, dispirited girl who spent every day in silence gone?
Now she had such an arrogant look in her eyes.
“What is it?”
The Duke spoke rather curtly.
He disliked the fact that she had been causing such a commotion since earlier.
And now she had even come to his office and was behaving so insolently.
It was the height of rudeness.
“You seem busy, so I’ll get straight to the point. Your Grace, why did you have Rebecca taken away?”
Yurein spoke clearly and firmly.
As always, the Duke looked at her with a cold gaze.
It was the kind of look that seemed to say, How dare someone like you stand before me?
Yurein ignored it and continued.
“Rebecca’s innocence has been proven. So—”
“No. Nothing has been proven.”
The Duke interrupted her sharply.
Yurein hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth again.
“Why? It was discovered that the necklace Rebecca possessed was a fake—”
“Even if it was fake, it looked exactly like Rosaline’s keepsake. Even if she didn’t steal it herself, she could still be connected to those who stole the keepsake.”
Yurein frowned slightly at those words.
“She is merely a witness. Was there really a need to drag her away like that?”
Yurein was genuinely angry.
The knights had knocked Rebecca unconscious right in front of her and dragged her away.
And now she was supposedly nothing more than a witness?
Even as a witness, was that how Rebecca deserved to be treated?
The Duke answered with an expression that seemed to ask what exactly Yurein was trying to accomplish.
“Even without your interference, we could have investigated the matter thoroughly. You know that by revealing that the keepsake was fake in front of the servants, you only caused the commotion to grow worse, don’t you?”
The Duke looked at Yurein reproachfully.
Yurein stared coldly at him with an expression that clearly said his words made no sense.
Seeing that expression, the Duke suddenly felt irritated.
He narrowed his eyes further and lowered his voice.
“Is that why you came all the way here to argue with me?”
At those words, Yurein’s lips stiffened.
It wasn’t an expression that could be called openly disrespectful, but to the Duke, it was more unpleasant than anything else.
‘How can she make an expression like that?’
The Duke narrowed his eyes and stared intently at Yurein.
Even after looking at her again, there was no denying that Yurein resembled his wife, Rosaline, far too much.
His wife, Rosaline’s, beautiful silver hair had shone more brilliantly than anything beneath the sun.
On days when the sunlight was gentle, whenever they walked together through the garden, the sunlight would dance brilliantly across her silver hair.
Beneath that sunlight, she would look at him and often smile beautifully.
He could still vividly remember those green eyes filled with that radiant smile.
Yurein resembled that Rosaline.
Her face was almost identical to his wife’s.
Aside from the fact that her eyes were the same color as his, her shining silver hair and every one of her facial features were strikingly similar to his wife.
That was precisely why, despite finding Yurein unbearably repulsive, he had continued to treat her as a duke’s daughter until now.
Yes.
That was the reason that child was allowed to exist.
