188 2.2.13: Little Miss Clever

The next day arrived sooner than she expected. She was so scared and nervous because today was the day that they would be going to the castle to verify her engagement. On one hand, she would be able to see Adriel again. She looked forward to seeing him again because overall, he wasn't a bad guy. But on the other hand, she would be meeting the rest of his family and she was sure they wouldn't like her.

The Queen already must've had so many candidates to be crown princess and then she came out of nowhere and wrecked her plans. She was sure that the Queen was furious with her! Plus, she was an illegitimate child and to make matters even worse, she had the blood of a commoner in her veins. Just the mixture of all of all was a recipe for disaster and that was exactly her!

Fortunately, the invitation was for the night, so they had plenty of time to get ready. For her look today, the Duchess had decided that she would continue her looks of innocence like when she had her debutant party. She had managed to get a dress fitted to be the color of her eyes, which were sky blue. The dress was long made out of a velvety material with semi-puffy shoulder sleeves that were short, except for the long sleeve white laces that she wore underneath it to cover her arms. The dress also came with a golden sash around her thin waist, complimented with a pair of golden shoes. Her hair was curled into small curls that were pulled back and pinned with a sapphire pin. Her accessories were more sapphire jewelry—particularly her sapphire studs and the giant sapphire ring on her small hand. And as usual, her makeup was very light because she was still young.

Xiao Yunhua felt like her look for the day had a lack of variation of color. The only thing she could see was blue and yellow. She didn't understand why the Duchess had thought that this was going for the theme of innocence, but who was she to question her odd taste? Although she didn't look as beautiful as she did for her debutant party, Xiao Yunhua was still pretty for her visit to the castle.

In the time that she had arrived in the Warrington mansion, this was her first visit to the castle. She had seen the castle from afar when she first arrived in Verglas, but to actually be in it and to experience it? She was anticipating it and dreading it simultaneously. When the Duchess had seen her overall look for the night, Xiao Yunhua expected for her to be silent like always, but she actually began to compliment her.

"My darling looks so pretty, you're the prettiest daughter ever. I don't think any noble has a daughter as beautiful as mine, I'm—"

"Okay, I get it. Your Grace is generous with the compliments today."

First of all, what 'relationship' did they have? Maybe a relationship of student and mentor, but that relationship wasn't voluntary and fully obligatory. If anything, a mother-daughter relationship was the least type of relationship they had with each other. Just the idea of having one with the Duchess made her skin crawl.

Once, she tried to do her best so that maybe; she would be accepted as a daughter. Now, she wanted to get as far away as humanly possible from the madwoman who changed moods faster than she changed dresses for the day.

Just seeing the hurt on her face, it was so fake that it looked real. But this cold hearted woman didn't know how to feel hurt. The only time that Xiao Yunhua has seen her feel hurt was that night when she had accidentally stumbled upon a drunken Duchess. Seeing the genuine hurt in regards to her deceased daughter, that was believable and real. Not the nonsense that she was displaying at the moment.

This was all for her amusement, Xiao Yunhua was pretty sure. But to what extent was this woman trying to have fun? She was getting bored of her motherly behavior and it was only the second day.

"Alright, Mother," she would play along only because they were going to the castle and she needed some practice saying the word 'mother' and associating it with the monster.

"Excellent. Now then, the carriage is ready to take us all." The Duchess grabbed her hand and guided her towards the carriage, which was outside. When they were outside the Warrington mansion, she noticed that there were two figures waiting for them. The Duke and Augustine had been waiting for them so they could go altogether.

She was surprised to see them looking more dashing than usual. They had on their best clothes and looked more noble and extravagant. It appeared that even they had decided to dress up for the event that was going to happen soon. Augustine saw her appearance and didn't say anything, but like like the Duchess, the Duke saw her and began to compliment her.

"My daughter is looking very beautiful." Did the Duke and Duchess practice their compliments together? Why did they sound so robotic and silly? Daughter? Did he even remember that he had a daughter other than yesterday?

"Thank you, Father." The Duchess scowled at her for not arguing with him like she had argued with her, but Xiao Yunhua ignored her. Although the Duke was also a terrible father and neglected her, he didn't abuse her the way that the Duchess did. To Xiao Yunhua, the Duke was five times better than the Duchess but still terrible.

They got in the carriage and the carriage began to move under the guidance of the horsemen in the front. The carriage was very large and spacious, so they weren't crowded and could be seated away from each other.

Inside of the carriage, there was an awkward silence as either of the four wanted to speak. Each didn't know what to say, even when they had a lot of their mind. This was true for the Duchess, Duke, and even Augustine, but false for Xiao Yunhua. She was just too lazy to speak to them. And she didn't really like speaking with them in the first place. Maybe Augustine, but even that was a stretch. Their relationship had gotten better, but she couldn't say that they were best friends now. They respected each other, which she found fine. At least the boundary of respect was better than the boundary of inferiority.

Once, his eyes looked at her like she was the dirt on his shoe. Even when they had first met, he even he glance at her and didn't know that she existed, which stung at that time, but over time, she grew to not care. Eventually, that ignorance towards her had shifted to insults, but now, he respected her. She never wanted to replace his full blooded sister, but that didn't mean that she didn't want him to treat her like a nuisance forever. One thing that she was grateful to Dominic for was how their invitations for the tea—along with Augustine inviting himself to them—had brought the siblings closer. They still found each other annoying, just to a small extent.

In the end, the Duchess couldn't handle the silence and asked, "Tell me again, how did you two get to the talk of marriage?"

Oh, there goes the old woman being too noisy for her own good!

"Like I said, we hit it off and he said that he found me clever and didn't want anyone else to see the clever side of me. The marriage was a surprise to me too." The way her bullshit had naturally come out and she didn't even flinch from lying amazed her. She had adapted to the story because she knew that the Queen would probably ask her the same questions that the Duchess was asking her now.

"Hmm, who knew that my daughter had such a charming personality?" The Duke muttered for himself, but she heard it clearly thanks to her enhanced senses. Did he know anything about his daughter? He acted like her 'charming personality' was a new discovery to him, but in reality, anything about her was a new discovery for him. He was the last person who should have been surprised at the revelation of her personality.

"So what did you talk about that made you seem so clever?" As expected, the Duchess was still suspicious. Luckily, she could actually tell the truth in this sense. She began to list all the books they talked about, especially the ones that were uncommon for a young lady to read.

"You read those books!?" Even the Duchess was astonished, nonetheless the crown prince when he found out. The Duchess had allowed her to visit the library a few times to bring in books to read in her room over the years, but she had never expected for the child to bring in books that were well beyond her age limit and capacity.

Xiao Yunhua nodded. "I read a variety of things, it just so happened that we discussed those books."

"No wonder he said you were clever," Augustine spoke for the first time, turning all three pairs of eyeballs in his direction. "You were reading books other than silly romances and whatever else that's dumb that the socialites read."

Did he really see her as that type of girl? Just because her body was delicate—courtesy of Juliet— didn't mean that her mind and intelligent was delicate too. In the middle of her fury, she failed to realize that he didn't think of her that way, it was just the common misconception about young girls her age. It was a stereotype and he had just went along with it.

They didn't believe her fully, so the Duke, her father, began to ask her other questions about the rest of the books and were perplexed to see her answer each and every one of them correctly. Even the Duchess was beginning to ask her questions, beginning with the intent to humor herself but then developing into interest about this daughter of hers. She had a peculiar mind. The fact that she knew about all of these and easily answered each and every one of them, it surprised her. The Duchess already knew about her being smart, but she didn't know that she was that smart in regards to topics like this one.

The rest of the way to the castle was all three of them—yes, even Augustine had joined in to ask her questions—questioning her about different and random topics. They hoped that one of them could get her to get an answer wrong, but she was too smart for her own good. She had managed to get each and every question correct, then the ones that were completely random. The answers to the questions were well thought out and followed by an explanation.

Xiao Yunhua hated to show these people about her real intelligence—which came purely from her photographic memory—but since she wasn't as limited now, she didn't think it was that big of a deal. She had to concealed it before to protect herself, and the Duchess hadn't bothered to question her so deeply like she was questioning her today. This wasn't hiding her strength, it was more like exposing it fully for the first time. They had never bothered with her intelligence, so seeing them shocked was also kind of funny. They had come to recognize her as Little Miss Clever.

Finally, they had arrived at the castle so their interrogation was placed on hold...