It Was Me, Not You

Leah slammed the door and left, and Diana straightened her shrunken chest.

But if you have somewhere to go, where are you going in the morning like this?

I was curious, but I didn’t have much time to think about it.

If you don’t prepare quickly, Leah’s bad news will fall.

Diana quickly washed her face in her bathroom and changed into the neatest gray dress of her clothes.

At that time, when I was hand-blotting the folds of the dress, I suddenly remembered Leah’s murmuring that I heard when Edwin took me home a few days ago.

-Just be a little more patient…

At that time, I watched Leah with a suspicious look for a few days, but couldn’t find anything particularly strange.

Leah kept going out early in the morning and coming back late in the evening, and she never touched Diana.

But today, something has changed.

Diana stopped her moving hand at the ominous foreboding that coolly brushed her back.

She said, ‘Where are you taking me?’ She couldn’t possibly have called Diana by nature, given it was so early.

Then where?

A feeling that something bad was going on kept stimulating Diana.

Diana stared at her reflection in the mirror and shook her head.

‘No, nothing will happen.’

After the duke returned, Leah suddenly stopped looking at people’s eyes and stopped holding hands.

She sees people and she wouldn’t do anything to me outside.

Wouldn’t it be better if she wasn’t at home? Diana suppressed her ominous premonition and brushed the dust off her dress with her hands.

‘Don’t even think about it, you should go down quickly. I don’t want to hear my mother’s voice other than that.’

But as if she had been waiting, Leah’s sharp cry was heard outside the door.

“come down quickly!”

“Yes! Coming, Mom.”

Diana flinched at the sound of the voice and hurriedly left her room.

The early mornings of winter were so cold that their breath became white steam and disappeared.

The only clothes Diana was wearing were an old coat and a thin dress that wasn’t enough to protect her from the cold.

Diana shrugged as she looked at Leah’s back with her thick coat and her shawl behind her.

Then, Leah looked back.

“Walk quickly. It’s gonna be late. “

Leah looked at Diana and clicked her tongue. It wasn’t that she was sluggish, it was the cold that made her stiff, but she couldn’t argue with her.

Diana bowed her head at Leah’s eyes full of irritation and walked faster.

‘Are you going to the castle?’ 

Leah was walking towards the castle.

‘Did the Grand Duke call me?’

Because if it weren’t for that reason, there wouldn’t have been any reason for Leah to take her back to the castle.

As I continued to think, I suddenly remembered the figure of the duke I had seen at the riverside that day.

For some reason, the duke looked at her with his eyes mixed with complex emotions, and his actions gave her incomprehensible kindness.

But Diana immediately shook her head.

Whatever the reason, she did not want Diana to meet the duke. She can’t forget his cold eyes, the way he looked with contempt the first time she saw him.

Because he was someone who could throw her out at any time, perhaps more dangerous to me than Leah.

Until the day when Diana can leave the Grand duchy on her own, it would be safe for her to stay away from the duke as much as possible.

The outer road to castle was visible.  As Diana sighed inside her, Leah turned her body in a direction other than hers.

‘Isn’t she going to the mansion?’

Diana panicked for a moment and could not follow Leah’s steps. Diana stood blankly, and Leah turned around again and shouted at her.

“What are you doing? We are running out of time!”

Not knowing what to do, Leah came over to Diana and grabbed her wrist roughly.

However, the direction Leah took Diana and headed towards was the door where the maids of the annex were leaving the castle.

“Mom, Mom, hold on a second!”

Diana shouted for the first time refusing Leah’s actions. She was obedient, but Leah stopped her steps as if she was momentarily startled by refusal of Diana.

Diana hurriedly asked Leah.

“Mom, are we leaving the castle now?”

Leah was speechless for a moment and wrinkled her lips.

“Yeah, I’m leaving the castle. I need to get on the first carriage, but it’s getting late because you’re acting slowly!  Do you want your mom to be mad?!”

Leah raised her eyes and looked menacingly, but Diana felt her embarrassment ahead of her fear.

Leaving the castle Diana had never been outside the castle since she was born.

But she suddenly wants to take herself out of the castle? 

Diana’s heart pounded with anxiety.

‘Are you trying to kick me out of the castle? What if you leave me?”

Was she not wrong with her ominous premonition? not yet, not yet  So, when she went out of the castle without knowing anything at a young age, there was nothing she could do on her own.

I didn’t want to starve to death outside on a cold winter day.

Just imagining it was scary and frightening, and it felt like the blood in my body was getting cold.  Diana looked Leah into her distant eyes and opened her mouth.

“Mom, I don’t want to go out. I was wrong.”

Diana couldn’t resist Leah’s pull on her wrist, so she floundered and sat down.

“What?”

Leah’s eyes fluttered as if in bewilderment for a moment, and she looked around. But it was early, so no one was around.

Leah, who made sure that no one was around her, frowned and said absurdly.

“What are you doing now? You don’t want to go out. Are there any monsters outside the castle? Don’t you fall on the floor, what ignorant behavior is this?! Wake up now! If you miss this one, the next one will be at noon.”

Leah gave Diana’s strength and pulled Diana’s wrist. The difference in strength between her and Diana was clear. When she gave her strength, Diana’s body went up.

“Oh, Mom, Mom, I was wrong. sorry.  Please forgive me.”

Leah exclaimed in annoyance as Diana spoke with tears in her eyes.

“If anyone sees it, they’ll think I’m going to throw you out of the castle. Really!”

“…”

Diana kept her mouth shut. Leah’s eyes fluttered for a moment as she knew my silence was affirmative.

For a moment, she said, ‘Ha!’  She had her astonished face with an elusive no-nonsense.

“To say that you don’t even know your parents’ grace would be just saying to you. How did I raise you up until now and treat me like an unscrupulous molester? It’s so ridiculous… Wake up! I’m going out to buy your clothes!”

“…Clothes?”

“Yeah! It’s because I hate seeing people wearing the same clothes every time.The general butler and the maid are all so crazy all of a sudden. I don’t have time to get up and do this right now!”

Leah said with a really bored face.

‘Can I trust you?’

Diana was not completely skeptical of her.  Flickering her body with her anxious eyes, Leah put her wrists away from Diana like that and grabbed Diana’s body in a flash. Her light body lifted up without resistance.

Leah looked at Diana with bitter eyes.

She said, “I don’t have time to be with you, so be quiet. If you don’t listen to me again this time, I’m really not going to let you go.”

Leah’s voice sounded harsh as if it were serious. Diana bit inside her mouth and she thinks she’ll be beaten to death before she’s thrown away if she no longer rebels with her.

I hope Leah’s words aren’t lies.

***

“I think this outfit suits you best.  Would you like to do this?”

A middle-aged woman with a warm expression looked at her and asked, Leah glanced Diana up and down her.

“Yeah…”

Diana looked down at the pale yellow dress she was wearing. The dress with pretty lace was just like the clothes Seia wore.

In addition, the lining is soft and brushed, which has an excellent thermal insulation effect.

Pretty and warm

I couldn’t help but be excited about the expensive clothes I was trying on for the first time in my life.

‘Mom wasn’t lying.’

The Grand Duke had been running for over an hour in the woods as it was quite a distance from the downtown area.

At first, Diana could not even see the scenery outside the window due to fear, but as soon as she entered the downtown area, she forgot her fear for a moment and was mesmerized by the scenery outside the carriage.

A square with a fountain, a street lined with shops, and a lively scene of people.

When I was staring blankly at the sight I had never seen before, the carriage stopped.

Leah got out of the carriage holding her again, wondering if Diana would get off the carriage.

As she set her foot on the square, Diana, who returned to her dazed spirit, tensed up and grabbed Leah’s hem.

I was afraid that Leah would abandon herself and run away.

Leah looked at Diana with troubled eyes, but she did not shake Diana’s hand.

And she came straight to the clothing store now.

She told Diana that she was choosing her clothes, repeating that she had put on several sets of clothes, stripping them.

Diana lifted her gaze and looked at Leah. For a moment, Leah and her eyes met. Leah furiously raised her eyebrows, and when the shopkeeper’s gaze turned to them, she smiled softly.

“Diana, do you like this outfit?”

“…”

Leah asked her in a friendly voice, as if to tell her, but Diana was not ready to answer.

First of all, Leah’s kindness was a fake that was conscious of the gaze of the owner at the clothing store, and these clothes looked too expensive.

I said I liked it, but I was afraid that I might lose my soul later.

Diana looked into Leah eyes, fiddling with the ruffles of her dress with her hands. Then her shopkeeper looked at Leah and said:

“Ugh, this is perfect. This color goes well with your daughter too. If you’re hesitating because it’s expensive, I’ll cut it down a bit.  I will do it with this.”

Leah said to the owner with a smile on her face as if she was troubled.

“From my point of view, this outfit seems to suit our Diana the best. Give me this one. Oh, give me those shoes and that hairpin as well.”

“Oh, my pretty girl would be nice, because your mom bought you so many good things.”

The owner looked at Diana and said.  Diana felt Leah’s eyes staring at her, and forcibly raised the corners of her lips.

“…Yes, it’s great.”

“Can you prepare something quickly?  We’re a little busy.”

Leah spoke to the owner, and the owner quickly brought the shoes and hairpins.

Diana wore yellow shoes similar to her pale yellow and pinned her hair pins with pretty jewels in light green.

Diana in the mirror dressed up like that, she seemed to shine just like any other person.

“Beautiful… ” 

Diana muttered a little and glanced behind her to see if Leah had heard it. But Leah was paying the owner for the goods.

Diana turned her head again and looked at herself in her mirror.

This won’t be a dream

She really couldn’t believe Leah was buying these clothes.

“Diana, stop looking and come here, I have a place to go.”

Leah glanced at her watch to see if she had paid the price, and then called Diana softly.

As Diana approached, Leah reached out her hand as if to hold her.

Excited Diana took Leah’s hand and left the clothing store.

Leah and Diana leaving the store were walking through the market and suddenly stopped because of a man standing in front of them.

“Two pretty mothers and a daughter. Let’s go eat one of our sweets. It’s just baked and it’s really delicious.”