It Was Me, Not You

“Ah.”

Diana frowned and took a step back.

It was not polite, but it was an instinctive move ahead of fear.

But as soon as it hit ne, I remembered something important. That means I haven’t yet addressed the duke.

I was so nervous the last time I saw him in the office that I forgot to say hello.

You can skip it once, but it won’t look good if you do it twice.

She hurriedly bowed to the duke in order to avoid the duke’s anger, which seemed colder than the ice-cold water of the river.

“Greetings, Grand Duke.”

“…What are you doing?”

“Yes?”

What are you doing?

Diana asked, straightening her waist, which had been bent at his words.  But when she lifted her head, she saw the duke’s face with his eyebrows raised as if he didn’t like something.

Diana flinched at his disturbing look.

‘What did I do wrong? Am I greeting you wrong?’

That was most likely. Because she never properly learned how to be polite to a noble.

[T/N: She means basic education]

The greeting I just gave is a copy of the greetings the servants give to the general butler or the maid.

Diana seemed to be sweating on her back as she watched the duke’s gaze staring down at her.

‘Should I say I was wrong?’

However, because she was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the Grand Duke, she couldn’t even utter those words easily.

When she was about to get down on her knees to show that if the words were not coming out, even by action, the duke let out a short sigh.

“Ha, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s okay, stop it.”

“Sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong, so don’t bow your head.”

“Yes.”

At the words of the duke, Diana lifted her head, which had been bowed down.

But contrary to his words that Diana did nothing wrong, his expression still looked very uncomfortable.

‘What is it that you don’t like so much? It would be better if you tell me.’

However, the duke’s lips were tightly closed and there was no movement.

He looked at Diana again without saying a word.

Fortunately, unlike before, I did not feel the suffocating pressure from before.

‘But why is the Grand Duke here?’

As the tension relaxed, I began to question.

This stream is where the maids of the Grand Duke do laundry.  Therefore, except for the maids, there no one comes here.

No matter how much she thinks about it, he has no reason to come to the laundry.

“What are you thinking about?” 

“Ah… Why are you here, Grand Duke… Hyup, no, it’s nothing.”

‘What did I just did!’

She immediately answered the question of the duke and came to her senses and closed her mouth just as she was about to finish speaking, but the duke seemed to have heard everything Diana had already said.

This castle is the castle of the Grand Duke. The castle’s owner has complete freedom wherever he goes.

She was in a disaster because she was occupied with things unrelated to him.

The duke’s low- voice rang out just as she was rebuking herself inside.

“I stopped by the forest above the river for business.”

Diana put her hand over her mouth and looked at him.

‘You answered my question without getting angry…?’

You don’t know Diana, who expected to see these cold words and sad blue eyes, widened her eyes at the duke’s casual answer.

Of course, it was a dry answer without a soft voice or a soft smile, but it was surprising that he, who was cold-blooded, answered her question.

Diana, confused for a moment, asked with a blank face.

“Yes?”

“I answered the question you just asked. Here, in the forest above the river, there is a gym where I trained as a child. I stopped by there for business.”

The duke pointed his finger at the forest above the stream and explained again.

“Ah yes…”

‘What the hell is going on?’

That day, she hoped that he would never see the duke again until she left the castle.

But the duke didn’t call her back to meet him, and she met and chatted by chance at a laundry place far from his mansion.

It’s really absurd.

The duke asked, as his mind was tangled in this situation.

“But why are you here?”

“Yes?”

“This must be the place where the maids do the laundry. I asked why you were here. What are they all about?”

The duke’s gaze went down. His gaze was bitter as he scanned Diana’s laundry, basket, and bat.

He looked at Diana again with an incomprehensible gaze.

“Ah… that’s…”

Diana muffled her speech.

Because if she told the duke the truth, ‘I’m here to do the laundry,’ she got the feeling that something good wasn’t going to happen to you.

Since she was young, she looked at Leah’s eyes and grew up, so Diana was quicker than other people.

She is especially sympathetic to people’s negative emotions.

She noticed that and she was talking now. The Grand Duke is not in a good mood right now.

Especially after he saw the laundry around her, the mood of the duke subsided even more.

In this case, you should never play with your mouth recklessly.

He said as he glanced at the pile of laundry that had not yet started with his cold eyes.

“Are you sure you do the laundry yourself?”

In response to the question, Diana moved her lips slowly, avoiding his gaze at an angle.

“…Sometimes sometimes… I do.”

“Sometimes?”

“Yes , when mom is busy… I’m here to help.”

It was something she had been doing since she was able to move her limbs properly and walk, but Diana lied to the duke pretending not to be.

Although he was her biological father, ironically, he was also the furthest from her in this dukedom.

He didn’t put Diana on her family tree, nor did he give her name.

Diana actually didn’t have a name until she was 4 years old.

The duke did not give her a name, so Leah did not give Diana a name either.

Leah called Diana an illegitimate child.

But someone give the nameless child a name

It was an old maid who no longer worked here.

She had pity on the child who was mistreated by Leah.

Maybe that’s why she gave Diana a name before she went to the castle, saying that this was the only thing she could do.

Diana.

In ancient language, it means a child who deserves to be loved.

If Leah knew the meaning of the ancient language, maybe my name would not have been Diana’s.

Fortunately, Leah wasn’t that smart and, for whatever reason, the old maid gave her a name, and she began to call her Diana, as if in her heart.

From then on, the child was given a name.

So the duke did nothing to Diana as his father.

No, in the first place he doesn’t recognize Diana as his daughter. It’s too stupid to expect him to protect me when he first abandoned me.

The duke frowned at Diana’s answer.  His golden eyes gleamed coldly as if he was somehow angry.

“Sometimes, why do you do this, maid, no, no.”

The duke stopped his words and let out a sigh.

The golden eyes that had been smeared with anger calmed down, and the distorted expression on the duke’s face hardened again.

Why was he going to ask why she did the laundry herself instead of having a maid do it?

But was the Grand Duke really asking because he didn’t know?

This is how an illegitimate child abandoned by her father and her mother are treated by the people below them.

Even the courtiers of the aristocracy were told that if she was not loved by her husband, her maids would ignore her.

However, Leah was a woman who was not guaranteed the status of the concubine, and Diana was an illegitimate child of such a woman.  Did these two people think that they could get help from the maids?

No, the duke would have known.

He might not have expected Leah’s abuse towards her, but he would have known that Leah and Diana would be rejected at least in the Grand castle.

The duke must be a cool and smart person.

The gazes of the duke and Diana were intertwined in the air.

The duke looked at Diana with a strange look, not knowing what she was thinking.

Diana lowered her gaze before facing the gaze of the duke who had lost the cold light.

“No matter how much I think about it, I don’t understand.”

The duke’s low voice was heard.  His voice was very low, as if he was talking to himself.

Diana looked at the pebbles on the floor without raising her gaze.

She said, ‘I need to go do the laundry and go home.’

Maybe Leah was home early, and she said it was time for her to bring her lunch soon.

She squatted down in front of him, she couldn’t start doing the laundry, and she wasn’t confident she would go back first. At that moment, when he could neither do this nor that, an unexpected voice broke the silence.

“Your Majesty, you were here too.” Diana looked up and looked behind him, not the duke. The first thing that caught her eye was the detection of a man who seemed to be burning under the sun.

‘That person…’

It was a man I had seen in the Grand Duke’s office the other day.  A dangerous man who smiled softly as he looked at Diana.

‘Then the name was… As a matter of fact, I guess he said it was luck.’

“Rowoon.”

As if Diana’s memory wasn’t wrong, the duke saw him and continued to call him Rowoon.

“Why did you bring Edwin?”

Edwin?

Because of the duke speaking a familiar name, Diana looked back to where Rowoon was. Then I saw the light blue hair walking behind Rowoon.

Diana’s eyes were stained with a sense of embarrassment.

It wasn’t that Edwin caught on to her laundry.

If Edwin pretended to know her in front of the duke, she was worried.

Edwin said that Diana was also a descendant of the duke, but what if he treats her like the duke like before?

If that happens, Diana and Edwin will also look hateful to the duke.

The duke did not recognize her as his child, but Edwin is treating Diana as a princess at will.

‘Edwin shouldn’t be insulted because of me.’

Diana and Edwin’s eyes met. Edwin, who found Diana, widened his eyes as if very surprised.

“I brought him here because I had nothing to do… Your Majesty the Grand Duke was not alone.”

Roowoon’s voice rang out.

Diana turned her gaze away from Edwin and looked at Rowoon.

He looked at Diana today and smiled like that time.

But his eyes were looking sharply at Diana.

He frowned for a moment after scanning Diana’s surroundings, but then smiled as if he had always done so at the voice of the Grand Duke.

“What’s going on?”

“Your Majesty did not come back even after the time had passed, so I came here to find you. I have something important to tell you.”

“Important?”

The duke’s eyebrows rose upward.

“Yes. It has to do with what you ordered separately.”

Glitch, Rowoon’s gaze turned to Diana and then back to the duke.

It was something of an unpleasant look. The kind of gaze that said that he couldn’t speak because Diana was there.