'Deborah is digging in the rose garden?'
"She is not doing it in a normal garden, but my wife's garden!"
Duke Seymour shouted.
"How dare she touch that garden."
He was so angry that he didn't even care about his image.
'Stupid,stupid child.
When is she ever going to act like a normal person?'
His blood pressure rose and his neck started to hurt.
He thought he had already seen the worst of his daughter behavior,and didn't believe that she was capable of worse deeds than those she had already done.
"Where she is exactly?"
"She is in the rose garden right now. But she only damaged a very small part of the garden.
Duke!Please calm down a little!"
"Get out of my way!"
Duke Seymour,immediately went towards the rose garden.
The rose garden, which was under a conservation spell, was next to his office.
He stopped before he could enter.
Duke Seymour was unable to move his feet because every time he entered that garden he remembered that his wife was no longer by his side.
But this time he was so overcome with anger,that he could not let this thoughts stop him.
He strode furiously towards Deborah, who stood in the middle of the garden.
"You!"
"You've arrived?"
Deborah asked as if she was waiting for him the whole time.
Deborah's hair was tied loosely stretched on one shoulder. His daughter looked very similar to his late wife.
It wasn't just that.
Of all things, Deborah just had to wear a white rose headdress.
His late wife often used white roses to make hair ornaments for Deborah when she was young.
He knew that the person standing before him was not his wife, however, at that moment the image of Deborah brought back forgotten memories of her.
"What the hell are you doing here?!"
Duke Seymour,said when he finally managed to pull himself together.
But his initial ferocity wa subdued a little.
"I was taking a walk to admire the roses.
It's a type of flower that is hard to see in winter."
Deborah met his gaze without fear in her red eyes that where so similar to his late wife.
'She expected me to get angry, so she deliberately copied her mother's image?
How evil can she be.'
"What the hell are you up to?
Because of that diamond you destroyed your mother's garden?
Is this your way of taking revenge?!"
"Is there a difference between these flowers and diamonds?"
Deborah's retort made him frown.
"What do you mean?"
"It's just that these roses, which have no scent and do not wither are not so different from diamonds that never change."
Duke Seymour looked at his daughter with surprise.
Just as Deborah said,there is no difference between diamonds and the roses.They are both odorless.
However, his pride did not allow him to accept Deborah's logic.
"Your mother flowers are different from a jewel.
Watch your words."
"These are not the same roses she used to love,mother roses where different."
Said Deborah while she was playing with the petals of a rose.
"What?"
"Roses wither when winter comes, isn't that the reason why they are so beautiful?
And when spring comes they bloom again."
"You don't want to admit that you were wrong and now you are trying to get away with sophisticated words"
Duke Seymour's expression hardened.
'She used her brain quite a bit this, time but still.....'
The fact that she dug up his wife's precious garden could not be overlooked.
"I'm not trying to get out of anything!"
I took something out of my pocket and gave it to Duke Seymour.
"Check this letter,she wrote it herself."
Duke Seymour's eyes widened when he saw the light purple stationery paper that I was holding.
Unless his vision was wrong,that was the stationery his wife used.
The butterfly patterns on the edges is the same as hers.
"It's a letter from Mother."
With trembling hands, the Duke accepted the letter.
"Marien Seymour to George Seymour"
On the neatly preserved paper, he saw a familiar handwriting.
"Where did you get this?"
For a moment, he felt like he was suffocating and couldn't speak properly.
"I found it there."
Duke Seymour looked at the dug up ground below the rose bushes,before he hurriedly started to read the letter.
While reading the letter he felt a feeling as if he went back to the past.
...............
When I saw that Duke's Seymour expression improved as he read the letter,I breathed a sigh of relief.
'I was so scared!!I almost cried.
Seriously,what a ferocious father.'
Deborah was indeed born with a strong heart. If it was me in my previous life,I would've already cried while begging him to forgive me.
I had to risk my life just to send a letter to my own father!
How insane is that!'
"I'll be on my way now."
I took advantage of Duke's Seymour lack of attention and hurriedly returnd to my room.
He was so absorbed in the Duchess's letter that he forgot about me.
I quickly slipped out of the garden and held my hand on my pounding
heart.
'I'm so glad I found the letter!'
The reason why I took such a great risk and dug up Duke Seymourâs precious garden,was,because of this precise letter.
Originally,the female protagonist, who was kidnapped by the twins, found this letter in the middle of the rose garden.
...............
"Mia, why are you trying to run away?
If you stay by my side, this beautiful garden will become yours."
Rozad forcibly pulled the heroine in the rose garden,the memento of the late Duchess.
"Please don't do this, Lord Rozad!!"
"Why do you want to throw yourself into a bush full of thorns, even though you can take roses that will never change?
Are you stupid?
Or..... are you provoking me intentionaly?!"
Rozad pushed Mia near a rose bush where she was scratched by a thorn.
"Aaaa..!"
As she glanced at the scratch, she saw the edge of a box right under the rose bushes.
That evening, Mia said she wanted to take a walk alone in the garden,and dug up the ground in secret.
Her instincts told her that there is something important buried in the rose garden.
The protagonist, eventually found a beautiful box that contained a letter
written by the duchess
"Duke Seymour, I will give you the Duchess's letter,if,you help me get out of here."
Mia was able to get out from the sadistic twins' clutches by trading with Duke Seymour, who loved his late wife immensely.
.....................
'Because I used this huge 'ace' for my own benefit,instead of the protagonist, I swear that I will help her so that the twins won't kidnap her.Of course I have to offer her something in return.'
I knew the specific coordinates of where the letter was buried,because, Rozad stopped Mia from escaping through the greenhouse window and pushed her near a rose bush.
And I thought that there must be some traces left of something being buried there.
So these past few days, I've been looking around the rose bushes planted around the greenhouse.
And finally I found the place,the ground under a bush was much too flat to be normal,I even got stung by thorns a few times while searching, but it was worth it.ð¤
So I started digging up the ground and found the box.
..............
'There is nothing wrong with it,but..... I still don't understand why is the only thing Mia traded with Duke Seymour in the novel one letter?
The box I found contained not only the duchess's letter but also her diary.
Why did Mia only trade one letter with the duke?
Why didn't she give him the diary to?ð¤
I really don't know why, but it's good for me.ð
Thanks to the duchess's diary, I learned that she often put a white rose corsage on young Deborah.
In addition to that,who knows what useful information it contains.'
Duke Seymour endured Deborah's behaviour because her face looked so similar to the late duchess.
'I should use it to my advantage.
Of course if I use this advantage to often it might backfire.
But I think it worked well this time.'
Coming out of the garden, I encountered the Duke's aide who was waiting nearby.
"My lady, did everything go as planned?"
"It did.More importantly, I need to ask you for another favor."
"Yes?!my lady."
The aide's forehead furrowed when he heard my words.
He's probably thinking about what my next request would be.
"It's not a big deal.Just,don't tell Father please."
...................
Duke Seymour stroked his chin while he read the letter.
'So Deborah recited this part.'
"I thought of this while looking at the snow covered garden.
Because flowers fall, they seem more beautiful and brilliant when they bloom."
The Duke,read his wife's letter again and again.He had read the letter, hundreds of times in the past two days.Because he felt like he met his wife once again.
The letter consisted of light,friendly vocabulary, which made him feel as if he could hear her voice.
"Ever since I met you,all memories have become meaningful,
even the unhappy ones ."
After reading that part, he looked at the rose garden.
"Isn't it beautiful to see them bloom and endure the cold?"
He decided to release the conservation spell,the blooming roses that once filled the entrance of the garden, wilted and returned to the soil.
From now on, he was going to look at the roses blooming and falling during the changing seasons.
'If I didn't cast a conservation spell on the garden, this letter would've been found much earlier,in the process of trimming the bushes and cleaning the ground.'
He sighed at his pathetic self and rubbed his eyes.And started to read again.
"Of course, you're stuck in difficult magic formulas that you don't understand!"
I want to drink hot chocolate, so I'll stop writing this letter now."
He thoughtfully blew his pipe every time he read that part.
'Marien usually wrote letters only for formalities.'
There were no letters that were written so comfortably except for their brief exchange of letters.
'I read it too fast.
I should've read it slower.'
Thinking it was a childish idea, he put the letter back in the drawer and went to work.
It was winter, so the sky quickly turned dark.
Even though it was already so late there was still a mountain of papers left for him to sign.
He pulled the bell to call a servant.
Knock!Knock!
The duke snapped his head up when he heard a knock.
"Come in."
To his surprize,Deborah appeared at the door with his aide.
"What brings you to my office all of a sudden?"
Hearing the Duke's cold voice,I started to sweat,and when I met those cold grey eyes, I felt like I was about to faint from fear,I barely gathered the courage to open my mouth.
'I'm not scared.He is my financier.'
I kept repeating in my mind to get my courage up.
I hypnotized myself several times before politely managed to greet him.
"Hello"
"Even though it's late at night,I saw light in the office, so I brought some tea and refreshments.
I heard that you have extra work to do."
"Since when did you care about such things?"
Duke Seymour, who was smoking, tapped on the pipe gracefully to shake off the ashes.
'He looks so cool while doing this.'
It's like a scene from a movie,for a second I almost got lost in thoughts.
"Why are you standing there?
Come and sit down."
He ordered as if I was guest.
Duke Seymour got up from his chair and sat on the sofa beside the tea table.
It seems the Duchess' letter I handed him the other day has played a role to some extent, given the fact that he didn't kick me out when I made a sudden appearance.
I quickly settled across from him.
As soon as I sat face to face with the Duke,the aide,had already brought the black tea and brewed it while putting refreshments on the table.
I felt the anxious gaze of the aide staring at the back of my head.
'People really don't trust me.'
The favor I asked the aide that evening was to call me when he notices that the Duke is exhausted.
After two days of no response, he suddenly came to see me this afternoon.
'Thursday is one of the most exhausting day of the week."
He said.
"Princess,from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock in the afternoon,master has his tea time.
It's the time when he is the most tired. You should never go against him......... I beg of you my lady."
"I understand."
"I trust you, Princess,that's why I'm telling you this."
"I already said that I understand several times."
Even though I repeatedly swore not to make any trouble for the Duke, the aide was still anxious that I would do something.
Meanwhile,Duke Seymour started to drink tea without a word.
It seemed like he was waiting for me speak
'Of course, he didn't believe that I came here with just the intention of drinking tea.
As expected from a Duke.'
I clicked my tongue inwardly and offered him a plate of dessert.
"You must be hungry, so have some refreshments.
It's a tart from the most popular dessert shop in Yones district these days."
The lemon tart that I brought him today was a dessert filled with memorie for Duke Seymour.
He didn't like sweets, so when he went on dates with the Duchess,he only eat lemon tart,that was more sour than sweet.
'Indeed the diary is very useful.'
"Sweets in the middle of the night.I don't like it because it makes me feel bloated later on."
Duke Seymour muttered in a childlike voice.
"This tart will suit your taste buds."
"How do you even know your father's preferences?"
Grumbled with disapproval Duke Seymour,but,eventually he split the tart into small pieces and took a bite.
After tasting it,Duke Seymour,remained silent with a expressionless face.
"There must be a specific reason for you to come here in the middle of the night.
Do you want to receive a reward for the letter you found in the flower garden?"
He smiled sarcastically raising the corners of his mouth.It was clearly an expression that showed his bad mood.
"Of course, the letter you found is priceless.
But if you are here because of the pink diamond,it's better to go back.
I will not change my mind.
I said NO and it remains a NO."
"I didn't come here to ask you for anything."
"Then?"
"I came here because I have something for you."
"For me?"
Duke Seymour looked at me suspiciously.
'I know that Deborah asked for things but never gave anything in return.'
I carefully put the teacup down and pulled a letter from my pocket.
As soon as he saw the purple stationery paper again,
an expression of astonishment appeared on the duke's face.
"Is this?.... your mother's?"
"Yes."
"From where did you get it?"
The Duke asked,but stopped and started to think about something.
"The letter you found wasn't the only one,right?"
"Exactly."
'There were several letters in the box.'
The duchess, who did not know how to express her feelings in words,so she wrote letters to Duke Seymour to be able to explain how she felt.
In her diary she wrote that Duke Seymour was very busy and that she didn't have the courage to tell him how she felt, so she wrote letters upon letters.
She also wrote that she wished that in the years to come,when they would be old with gray hair they could debug these memories together.
'Perhaps,the Duchess was thinking of burying the letter like a time capsule.'
"How many letters do you have?"
Asked Duke Seymour with a trembling voice.
"You will find out as time goes by."
He raised an eyebrow at my answer.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said."
"You don't want to give me the letters, until I buy you that pink diamond?"
What I meant was that I would hand over the letters one by one, but to Duke Seymour's ears it sounded like a threat.
"That is not what I meant."
He made eye contact with me and reached for his tea.
"Not what you meant?
It doesn't sound like you."
"Doesn't sound like me!!!"
I panicked for a moment when I heard his words,but I put several sugar cubes in my tea and changed the subject.
"This tea is bitter and has a strong scent,if you drink a lot you won't be able to sleep,next time prepare a light tea or cocoa."
'That can't be!Is he worried about me?'
In that moment, I felt a small feeling of hope arise,that my relationship with my main financier......NO,NO,NOO... with Duke Seymour might improve a just little bit.
"I will drink only half a cup.
Thank you for your concern."
Duke Seymour snorted at my words.
"Concern?!Non at all.
I'm afraid that you will blame me for staying up at night."
'He is not an easy man.'
But then again, Duke Seymour in the novel turned a blind eye even when Deborah was brought up to trial for blasphemy.
'The relationship between father and daughter cannot change so easily, I have to try my best to make as much progress as possible.'
I took a sip of tea,the taste alternated between sweet and sour,and started to speak only when there was half of teacup left.
"Father,It is late, so I'll get going now."
"Alright."
"Princess,I will escort you to your quarters."
The aide, who was anxious the whole time because he thought I would do something to upset Duke Seymour, said.
It was then,that Duke Seymour suddenly got up from the sofa and followed me out of the office.
"I have been sitting and working for too long,my body is stiff so I need to take a walk."
'I didn't ask you.'
Of course,I was scared and didn't say it out loud.
"It seems like the weather has gotten a bit warmer,don't you think?"
Duke Seymour suddenly started to talk to his aide.
"Yes of course,it's a good weather to take a walk."
All the time the aide was talking,white steam was coming out of his mouth.
'It's so cold that I am about to freeze, what are you talking about?'
I started to hurry up my steps while I arranged my scarf around my neck.
"Good night.I will see you every now and then."
Duke Seymour said,then,walked back to his office with his aide.
'.....Every now and then...such words.'
....................