It Was Me, Not You

[T/N: it’s always confusing to use both duke and archduke so im gonna go with just duke]

Among them, Yunes was pure-blooded, so he had more loyalty and strength.

It had never approached anyone other than Ariel and himself.

The Duke narrowed his brow slightly as he watched Yunes drooping his ears.

[T/N: just imagine a cat]

“What kind of pain is it to show affection to that woman’s daughter?”

Yunes became weary of people after Ariel died.

His alertness was so dangerous that he was isolated at the childhood training grounds, where he approached the girl’s daughter first and showed her affection.

I saw it with my own eyes, yet it was difficult to believe.

[T/N: oh now he noticed it]

In this weather, it’s like a 10-year-old child alone in frozen woods.

“What in the world is that kid doing here at this hour?”

Without a guardian.

Furthermore, the child’s appearance was considerably worse than what he had witnessed throughout the day.

She was wearing a worn-out dress that even commoners would not wear, not the nice pink dress he had seen during the day.

In addition, the dress was never the winter clothes that would be worn in the northern part of the Empire, which boasts the harshest cold.

Bare arms and legs, which he could not see during the day, looked like a war orphan who could not even eat porridge properly.

Although the child’s appearance was unbelievable as if the visit was not in vain, Yunes approached the child and showed affection, and the child gently stroked Yunes.

With a small hand that was damaged back in the harsh cold.

When the hand rose again, the Duke wrinkled his face wretchedly, feeling something unbearable.

“It’s annoying.”

Wasn’t she a child born with such evil?

She’s still a kid, why are you so rude?

With an underdeveloped body, dead eyes as if she had never received love, and her appearance worse than a war orphan.

It was completely different from the image of a mother and daughter he had imagined as he bit his lips after a while.

The Duke couldn’t take his eyes off the spot where the child was just now.

“Kyaak!”

Then, Yunes jumped out of her arms with a sharp sound.

The Duke, awakened by the sound of Yunes, sighed and wiped his face.

“…It doesn’t seem like you care about useless things.”

—What’s wrong with the you? I also resent Leah, but I don’t want to resent the child in her stomach. Children shouldn’t be sacrificed in adult fights.

It doesn’t matter. Ariel’s words came to his mind for a moment.

Ariel’s words are not to sacrifice children in the fights of adults.

He wanted to kill Leah. That decision has not changed to this day.

He will never forgive her.

Until he returned to the Grand Duchy and faced Diana, Leah, and Diana were on the same line in his head and could not avoid his condemnation.

Because she was a child of that woman’s blood.

In the Great Duchy without him, she would have grown up arrogantly, being loved by that woman as if it were his bloodline.

But what he saw of Diana…

“… Sigh. “

His deep sigh, filled with complex emotions for Diana, became a cold breath and disappeared into the air.

Diana…

The Duke, who had stood so blankly for a long time, quickly moved with his stiff face.

***

(Diana’s POV)

A week has passed since Diana went to the Grand Duchy.

“Not today.”

Diana went to the kitchen after seeing the empty living room today.

Leah did not come home that night when the bitter snow storm blew.

Leah, who came in only early in the morning, slept in her room until afternoon without looking at Diana.

But it wasn’t Leah’s overnight stay that mattered.

After visiting the Grand Duchy, Diana’s life has completely changed.

Diana, the most significant change is that the food on the table is now properly prepared.

Bread, ham, and fruit are on the table. Diana’s meals had been given to her by the maid for the last 6 days.

The doctor who came to meet Diana from the mansion was the reason for this.

The Duke’s promises that he would send a doctor were not fake, but the next day after meeting the Duke, a doctor arrived at the hut with the butler.

With a worried expression, Leah looked at the doctor who was examining Diana.

However, the doctor did not even look at Leah and diagnosed Diana as malnourished with a calm expression.

Leah screamed up and down, claiming that was nonsense, but the butler ignored her and called the maid in charge of the annex and ordered it.

Diana’s meal will be prepared by the maid from now on.

Leah made a fuss about not being able to hand over her child’s work to someone else, but after a little talk, the butler and maid came over and quietly ordered the maid Diana’s meal.

Diana didn’t miss a meal for a week after that. Her thin frame was gradually gaining weight for some reason.

Diana buttered the toasted bread before biting into it.

‘Delicious.’

Fruit with freshly baked rye bread was a poor diet in comparison to a noble’s dinner, but Diana saw it as nothing more than worship.

Because I couldn’t eat it previously.

And there was one more chance.

That is, Leah’s hand stopped.

Perhaps it was because Leah had seen Diana by a doctor, she stopped beating Diana from that day on.

When the day and the two of them came to talk, Leah seemed to be on the verge of arguing with Diana at any moment.

After the butler left, Diana was nervous that her hand was going to hurt, but Leah only stared at Diana as if to kill her, but did not hit her.

Then she left the house.

She may have been angry with the butler, but from that day on, Leah would leave the house early in the morning and return late in the evening.

So she hadn’t seen Leah’s face for a week already.

‘If you see me, do you get angry and leave the house altogether? But there must be nowhere to go.’

It was Leah, not having a job or having a maid close to the Grand Duke.

But where the hell are you, wandering around like that?

Diana shook her head as she cleared the finished plate.

“Let’s not think about it.”

The fact that she was doing what she was doing was more beneficial to Diana not to run into Leah.

Even if I can’t see her now, I don’t know when she will change her mind.

I just hope that the present piece will last for a long time.

Diana got out of the kitchen and went to her room. She hadn’t done the laundry for several days, so there were a lot of laundry.

Diana looked at her watch as she came down from her attic with her laundry in her basket.

She knew everything else, but she could read the time. It was because Leah had taught her to watch the time so that she could do her chores on time.

11:20.

‘It will take another 30 minutes for the maid to come.’

The maid brought her food on time and took her empty plate back.

“Hmm.”

Diana thought for a moment. Will she wait for the maid, and then she will go to the laundry, or will she bring the plates herself?

The concerns were quickly resolved.  

Diana carefully placed her plates on the laundry and left the house.

The annex where the maids stayed was not too far from the hut.

I entered the annex, but I couldn’t see anyone because they all went to the mansion to work.

“Um… Since I’m done eating the plate, can I bring it straight to the kitchen?”

The plan to deliver it to the housemaid turned out to be an unexpected problem, but it seemed like it would be okay to pass it on to Kunta.

Diana looked around the empty lobby and turned to the kitchen.

When she opened the door to her kitchen slightly, she saw people moving in a hurry, unlike the lobby.

Everyone was so busy that they didn’t even know Diana had come.

Diana found Kunta among the crowd and ran to it.

“Kunta.”

Kunta, who was just slicing vegetables, looked at Diana in surprise.

“Lady! What’s going on here? Maybe you’re hungry, no, no. I’m sure I prepared breakfast today.”

Kunta gibberish with a worried face as if she was embarrassed that Diana suddenly appeared here.

She said as she grabbed Diana as if she didn’t mind his apron like that.

“I didn’t come because I was hungry. I turned around to bring you an empty plate.”

“Ah. I’m glad. I think Leah touched the lady’s meal again… No, no. But why did you bring an empty plate yourself? Doesn’t the maid go?”

“Yeah, come on. But I had to go to the laundry today, so I brought it on the way.”

Diana handed her plates one by one to Kunta. Kunta took the plate and looked at the laundry basket Diana was holding with eyes full of regret.

“Is the lady still doing the laundry herself? If you tell the maid, maybe…”

“No. I’m used to this, so it’s comfortable.”

In the current atmosphere, the maids would do the laundry for Diana just as Kunta said, but I didn’t want to do anything that would only go unnoticed.

‘Because the maid is also obligated to take care of my meals at the butler’s direction.’

If you let the maids do this and that, even if a bad report gets to the Duke… On that day, you will be expelled from the Duchy.

‘At least another five years at Duchy.’

Diana smiled at Kunta, who stared at her with troubled eyes before leaving the kitchen.

“It’s less cold today, though.”

Diana walked out of her kitchen and gazed up at the sky. After a long time, the cold wind blew away and the sun shone brightly.

‘The water is going to be a little cold today.’

“Huh?”

“Ah.”

Diana went to the laundry room and ran into a man on her way to the room.

His hair is light blue, and he has green eyes.

The person she met was none other than Edwin, the knight who had simply helped Diana.

Edwin looked at Diana and opened his eyes wide as if surprised, then smiled.

He said, “She was also living in an annex.”

Diana tilted her head at Edwin’s suddenly shortened words, but he approached Diana with a warm smile.

I went to the annex a few times looking for you, but I didn’t see you, so I think I saw the fairy in the forest from the legend.

“How have you been?”

‘Did you find me? Why…?’

I was puzzled as to why he had found me, but given how at ease he was, it appeared that he didn’t know who she was yet.

‘What should I do?’

Diana was bewildered as she saw Edwin’s innocuous smile.