Angela let Rubica handle her hair, half in doubt. The smallest smile appeared on Rubica’s face. Angela hadn’t seen her smile like that ever since her mother’s death. And Rubica did Angela’s hair with surprisingly good skills.
-You’re not that bad at it, Rubica.
Angela found a little courage to compliment Rubica. It wouldn’t have been a compliment to anyone else, but to her it was. Then Rubica smiled, just as she had done often in the days when she had been happy.
-No, Angela. It is because your hair is originally pretty.
-…Are you mocking me? Everyone days my hair is stiff and in a mess. They call me Angela the Curly Hair!
It was the first time Angela heard someone praise her hair. She couldn’t help feeling embarrassed and yelled. Rubica was surprised. She looked back and forth nervously, but she didn’t stay quiet.
-No. I just…found the beauty you always had.
-…..Always had?
-Yes, your hair is beautiful. It’s just that…..people have failed to find a way to use that beauty.
It was probably since then. Angela started to quietly care about her timid and sorrowful cousin….
‘Are you worrying that I might get called Angela the Curly Hair again?’
Angela could fill something hot coming up her throat. After Rubica started to do her hair, she hadn’t been called Angela the Curly Hair. People rather complimented her smooth hair.
“…..Rubica.”
Angela was about to say something to Rubica who was stroking her hair.
“I think that’s enough.”
But Edgar interrupted. He didn’t want to give Angela more chances to make Rubica change her mind with tears. Contrary to Carl’s report, they seemed to be quite close to each other.
He couldn’t let Rubica worry about that little girl and announce she wouldn’t leave.
He held Rubica’s arm tightly and looked down at Angela for a second. She could feel that she was getting goosebumps at those cold eyes looking down on her. She felt overwhelmed. Was it because of his excessive beauty? Angela felt like a mouse in front of cat.
Edgar looked at Angela and thought for some time. Then he sighed.
“You can come to visit to our mansion during the academy’s vacations, so there is no need to act like this is the end.”
That was unexpected. Rubica widened her eyes. However, there were people who were delighted even before her.
Mr. and Mrs. Berner.
Edgar looked at them with a smile and spoke.
“But, keep in mind that the doorkeeper will pour hot water on them if you bring them along.”
That didn’t match his warm smile. Mr. and Mrs. Berner could see that they would only get hot water poured on them and be beaten hard if they used Angela to go to the duke’s mansion and shuddered.
‘So he slightly frowns when smiling falsely.’
When everyone else was trembling with fear, Rubica studied Edgar and thought so. Maybe excessive beauty was toxic. If it had been other uglier man, Rubica would have just given him a glance and moved on, but she was enchanted by his beauty. She had memorized his every move and the delicate movements of his facial muscles in just a few hours.
She could already discern his ‘real’ expressions from ‘fake’ expressions, which even Carl failed to do sometimes. Anyway, she had thought she would not get to never see Angela again as she was going to trust money in her name, but she was still grateful to be able to see her from time to time in future.
“Angela, write me a letter when you get admitted to the academy.”
“Okay, I promise you, I will study hard.”
Unlike earlier, Angela smiled brightly. Rubica didn’t know she was silently promising herself to learn chemistry or engineering that would let her earn a lot of money so that she would be able to rescue Rubica from the duke as she smiled.
***
Edgar led her to a carriage behind his own carriage, one that was much bigger and luxuriously decorated. Rubica got on the carriage first and waited for him, but he didn’t join her.
“Your Grace.”
“I still have things left to do. Rest in this carriage.”
For a moment, Rubica imagined Edgar sitting on a chair and reading documents. He would drown, lift up a pen to make changes, and think again. Then sudden impulse took hold of her. Her lips moved first before she could realize it.
“….. Then I will help you by your side.”
Rubica was shocked. She realized she had even grabbed leaving Edgar’s hand.
Oh, gods….
She did love beauty, but this was….
However, despite her hatred about him, she did want to see him working. Edgar relaxed to feel Rubica’s warmth with his cold hand.
“No, it’s fine. You will get bored by complicated documents at my side.”
“…Okay.”
Rubica wanted to explain that her mouth had moved first before her brain gave orders, but she thought it would be only embarrassing herself even more, so she just pretended to agree with him.
“I am pleased to see you are trying to do your duties as my wife, but we are not married yet.”
Edgar’s teasing made Rubica’s face turn red. She hastily tried to let go of his hand, but she couldn’t as he held on to her hand tight.
“That, that’s….”
“Rude?”
Edgar let go of her hand before her red face turned blue. It made her fall on the floor.
It didn’t hurt because of the fluffy carpet, but her pride was hurt to think she had embarrassed herself in front of him yet again.
“Hahahahahha!”
But Edgar’s laughter made her forget all about it. He didn’t frown this time. That was innocent laughter like that of a child. Rubica was thrilled to know such cold man was capable of laughing like that.
“Then rest, Rubica. You will be busy starting tomorrow, enough to make you think working as a maid was better.”
Edgar could barely restrain his laughter and closed the carriage’s door. It immediately started to move. When Rubica opened the curtains to see Berner Mansion for the last time, everything looked like small dot far away.
***
The energy of mana stone cannot be compared to anything. One mana stone as big as an adult’s head is worth a kingdom’s budget for a year. According to Rubica’s knowledge, mana stone needed to make a carriage go for a year only had to be about the size of little finger.
Mana stone that small was enough to make a carriage go without shaking at speed 20 times faster than that of a horse. But what surprised Rubica even more was Claymore Family’s wealth that was capable of owning three high-speed carriages, which were the fastest among mana stone carriages, at the same time.
‘One carriage designed like study for the duke to work, and one carriage with bedroom and wardrobe I am in right now…..and one carriage for servants?’
Rubica was lying on the fluffy bed made with swans’ feathers. She stared at the beautiful patterns of the ceiling.
A maid had helped her change into good linen nightdress, but she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t know what to think about the sudden change of her fate.
She wanted to jump to her feet and yell, but as the maid was dozing at a corner of the carriage, she couldn’t. That maid had made a fuss when Rubica tossed and turned, about if her nightdress wasn’t comfortable enough, or if the bed wasn’t right, or if she should have prepared a glass of wine for her before finally falling asleep.
Rubica couldn’t even move on the bed because she didn’t want to wake up the maid. She just lay there and tried to make sense of everything one by one.
But she couldn’t understand even one of them. The duke who lacked nothing proposing her, not taking back that proposal even when she told him she loved someone else, not backing off when she even slapped his face and cursed him. But the thing she couldn’t understand the most was…..
‘I’ve traveled back in time…..’
She couldn’t dismiss it as mere illusion. The ring on her breast proved everything had happened to her had been real.
‘Why…..’
There was always reason why a god did something, and everything was in cause-and-effect relationship. She had had no reason to go back to the past. Even though her life had been hard and full of sufferings, she had been content and grateful enough.
Not everyone of the world could live happily and in abundance. She had found happy and beauty in poverty by working at the abbey and had learned how to be content with little things. She had never thought of her life as trivial or wanted another chance.
But, if she had one regret….
‘It is that I never told Arman I loved him.’
That regret was small, like a grain of sand of beach. Nevertheless, Rubica was willing to give up anything if gods would help her solve that one regret. However, if the gods really had meant to grant her wish, they shouldn’t have let Duke Claymore propose to her.
But Rubica couldn’t even run to Arman right now. She didn’t even know where he lived now. She had nothing.