“This isn’t the time to smile.”
“Then, should I cry?”
“……”
“If I cry, what will change?”
Tatiana rose from the red velvet sofa. The carriage was waiting below. Instead of scolding Anne, who had forgotten her duties all day due to tears, she walked steadily into her dressing room, picked up her outer garment, and came out.
“My Lady! That outfit is too—”
“Why. It suits me perfectly.”
Only then did Anne seem to properly notice her lady’s attire and gasped in shock.
However, Tatiana draped a black cloak over her shoulders, dismissing it as needless worry. She then put on a hat adorned with black feathers, creating a stark contrast with her glamorous platinum blonde hair. She suited any color, but the deepest and most intense ones were the best.
It just didn’t suit the elegant royal banquet where her engagement would be announced.
The outfit she had chosen herself today, from the dress to the hat, cloak, and even the handbag, was all unified in black.
“My Lady, really…”
“The ring.”
As Tatiana stepped out the door and extended her hand, Anne, blinking her gray eyes as if she couldn’t understand her lady’s words, was about to say something again when Tatiana cut her off with a tired voice.
“Yes, that ring.”
“Ha. But…”
“Hurry.”
Anne made a tearful face and brought the ring box containing the diamond ring in a purple velvet case. A week ago, Madame had placed the large diamond ring in her lady’s hand and immediately put it here. Since then, the velvet box hadn’t been opened even once, so there was no way anything else could be inside without checking.
Wondering if she was going to wear it herself, she watched with bated breath, but Tatiana let out a long-held breath and put the entire box into her bag.
“I’ll be back.”
“Ah, my Lady! Let me go with you! I should accompany you.”
“No, you don’t have to anymore.”
Tatiana turned her back to Anne with an inexplicable smile. As she descended to the first floor step by step, the servants standing in two neat rows bowing their heads and the grand carriage, everything felt familiar, just like before. Thinking of Anne, whose eyes had welled up with tears the moment she refused the farewell, made her chest ache, but there was nothing she could do.
‘Yes.’
She didn’t even have the ability to take responsibility for Anne.
No, Anne wasn’t the only one she couldn’t take responsibility for. It was only yesterday that she clearly realized she had hurt someone else’s feelings years ago.
And that realization came only at the moment when she was driven to the end and saw nothing.
“Am I amusing?”
It was the first time she heard such icy words of contempt, but it was more surprising than frightening. The red eyes burning with anger and futility weren’t scary either. Though the color was different, she had seen exactly those eyes in the mirror in her room just a few days ago.
“…As expected, it’s similar, isn’t it.”
Muttering to herself, Tatiana placed her palm over her closed eyes. Even after applying ice all along, they still burned. Whether it was because of last night’s rain or the heat remaining inside her, she didn’t know, but it didn’t seem like it would cool down in a day or two.
“My Lady. We’ll arrive soon.”
“Yes.”
At the coachman’s shout, she removed her hand from her face. As her hazy vision cleared and the royal palace with its towering spires came into view surrounding her, her heart grew even heavier. Rather than the people gathered there now, one person she had once met there came to mind.
“I’m sorry. My mother was too…”
“That’s enough.”
Who would have known they would meet again like this.
Three years ago, at the farewell banquet in the royal palace, Kainel had pulled his robe even deeper over his head than by the Sarthe River. When he said ‘that’s enough’ in an emotionless voice, all the words she had prepared over the past few days, feeling sorry for him and not knowing what to do, turned blank white. Her vision went pitch black in bewilderment.
“…I see. I just thought maybe.”
She must have looked pathetic babbling like that. She only learned about what her mother had done when the rumors had circulated so much that they inevitably reached her ears.
It was shameful. No matter that it was her mother, how could she have gone that far? She should apologize.
But what should she say?
I’m sorry? What good would sorry do?
Even if she wanted to apologize, she didn’t know exactly what her mother had done. She had only vaguely anticipated that what she heard was just a fraction.
“If you’ve said all you have to say, I’ll be going.”
“Ah… I wish you good luck.”
She didn’t even know how to hold back the turning man. It was then that she first realized that if she really had something to say, she kept repeating nonsense.
“So, fight well and come back. What I mean is… it would be better if you didn’t go to such battles from the beginning.”
“Is this pity?”
“…Pardon?”
She thought she had glimpsed his eyes for a moment. Startled by Kainel’s cold voice, which revealed emotion for the first time, she lifted her head, but he had already taken a step back.
What was that.
Unknowingly, she approached him, but he firmly drew the line.
“I don’t need it anymore. That kind of thing.”
So, she really believed that was the case.
She felt embarrassed and thought she must have been a huge nuisance. Staring blankly at Kainel’s back as he turned away without mercy, she recalled the gaze from within the robe that had brushed past her.
A thick, boiling contempt that even he couldn’t control,
Perhaps this man really…
‘What on earth did I do?’
Ah.
Tatiana pressed harder on her forehead with her fingers. No matter how much she was driven to the end of the world, she shouldn’t have gone to him. Believing solely on that one gaze from back then that he still wanted her.
That if she reached out first, he might surely take her hand.
She might have really seen him as ridiculous. No, she did see him as ridiculous. A man with nothing to lose or protect. Moreover, if he had looked at her with such eyes, she was confident he wouldn’t reject her.
‘Do I even have the right to blame my mother?’
Looking at the eyes resembling his reflected in the glass window, Tatiana swallowed hard with difficulty. The belated shame and self-loathing tormented her.
“Please step down.”
The door of the Cartien Viscountess family’s carriage, engraved with the emblem of golden angel wings, opened. The maids who saw Tatiana descending were startled by the all-black attire, but Tatiana paid no mind. As she walked steadily toward the banquet hall, the head maid quickly followed and removed her robe.
“Viscountess Cartien and her family have arrived.”
“Yes.”
“And His Grace Duke Atlas as well.”
As if privy to their engagement, the head maid whispered secretively. Tatiana conveyed her thanks with a light cough and entered the courtyard with her head held straight.
Now, there was truly no turning back. She had done as much as she could and gone as far as she could. So, what remained was.
“Tatiana, you’ve come!”
“……”
Her mother, smiling as if painted in the old way, raised her hand toward her. Her beautiful sisters and brothers-in-law, the envious gazes directed at the, even more familiar than the carriage she had arrived in. Of course, the meaningful gaze of the Duke seated at the table beside them remained the same.
“Come here quickly.”
Viscountess Cartien, who had briefly stiffened at Tatiana’s black dress, smiled kindly as if it had never happened. Though the black dress didn’t sit well with her, her youngest daughter walking across the red carpet was elegant like a single black swan.
‘This is my daughter.’
Satisfied for once, she moved first. Along the path watched by the Empress and the Duke, the Viscountess opened her arms to welcome her daughter. The sight of the mother and daughter pressing their cheeks together and whispering intimately was endlessly tender.
“…I knew you would come. My dear.”
“Is that so?”
Tatiana whispered in a voice that seemed slightly hoarse. It made it all the more intimate. Wondering if she had caught a cold, the Marchioness slightly pulled back her face to look at Tatiana, but her youngest daughter was smiling deeply. Tatiana’s smile, beautiful to the point of chills, momentarily overwhelmed her.
“Why do you look like that?”
“No… Because you’re beautiful.”
“I’m glad. Today, of all days, I wanted to look exactly like this.”
As their faces parted once more, Tatiana’s lips lightly brushed her mother’s cheek. At the inexplicably chilling sensation, the Viscountess suddenly looked at Tatiana’s left hand.
‘No way.’
Her eyes narrowed at the ring missing from its place, but the very fact that Tatiana had come here on her own two feet meant there were no other options left.
Surely not. Unless her daughter intended to throw away everything she had enjoyed until now.
No need for needless worries.
Because her youngest daughter was just as quick in her calculations.
“Yes, the ring, it’s more fitting if the Duke puts it on.”
“……”
“Go to your seat quickly. The Duke is waiting so… dear?”
Viscountess Cartien smiled and lightly pushed her daughter’s back, but hesitated at her unmoving daughter. Unable to hide her instinctive unease any longer, the smile slowly faded from her lips.
“…Tatiana, perhaps.”
“Yes. Mother.”
It’s exactly as you think.
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