Chapter 4

She wrapped her father’s hand on her cheeks with her trembling hands. His hands were a bit cold in the night cold, but obviously they were the living man’s hands as she felt warm.

She could sense his deep feelings of sorrow and concern about her even though she was only one step away from him.

‘This is real. He’s my real father who is alive. It’s so vivid. This can’t be a dream.”

She continued, “I think I just had a bad dream. After I woke up, I missed you so much. What should I do?”

And then she hugged him hard. She rubbed her face on his tight shoulders and laughed.

Though she didn’t stop shedding tears, she burst into laughter strangely.

‘I’m alive here! Your father is right here beside me!’

Surprised by her reaction, Duke Kling said, “Oh dear! I thought my daughter was a lady, but you know how to play the baby like this.”

In fact, they lived in the times when it was quite embarrassing for a lady over 20, and for a daughter from a noble family to play the baby.

Nevertheless, she was always honest with her feelings. She didn’t know how to lie. If she liked it, she nodded while she shook her head if she hated it. She didn’t have to curry favor with somebody.

And it was of course Duke Kling himself who raised her like that.

Fortunately, he did not doubt her reply.

As if he were less worried, he stroked her dark hair over and over again.

Saying that one’s dream always brought about the opposite outcome, he jokingly told her that he would not sit idle if she had such a dream again.

She cried loudly in her father’s arms.

She wondered whether all this was possible. She wondered if it was real that she was dead in the lake or if she was twenty-one years old and talking to her father here, how she travelled back to the past. But all this did not matter at all to her. The fact that her father, whom she could reach out and touch, was alive here and breathing only mattered.

She didn’t care even if all this was her last dream, whose body was decaying in the lake bottom because it was the dream of the dead who wouldn’t wake up anyway.

‘If I want to defend this fantasy world, I can do anything and I will.’

She made a vow to herself before she completely recovered her senses in reality. And it was a promise that would change her life.

* * *

The next morning, Marianne woke up in a fresh mood after she slept soundly.

Familiar colors and patterned ceilings in her room were reflected in her eyes.

She heard chirping birds outside the window. It was an unrealistic peaceful scene.

Instead of getting up immediately, she pulled a fluffy blanket over her eyes. She rolled her emerald pupils and looked around.

Although she woke up from sleep, nothing particular changed in the world. Four seasons outside the window, the scenery inside the room and her hesitation before going to bed last night were all the same. She felt a sense of an unbelievably stable reality in them.

‘No wonder… I feel like I’m back to the same place,’ she thought to herself.

That was a fantastic adaptation for a woman who died just yesterday and then was reborn back as herself two years ago.

She felt like her own boldness was ridiculous, but she soon concluded that she was all right.

After she met her living father last night, she decided that the world she was living in now was real. She thought that God who felt pity for her gave her a second life.

She doubled down on her resolve and gently pulled the string by the bedside.

She heard a small bell jingling outside the door.

A little later, Cordelli cheerfully came in with two maids.

“Lady, are you awake? Good morning!”

The maids opened the curtains of the room. The sun shining over the canopy was warm. She got up nicely. Her ordinary daily life began again.

The maids working in the annex were usually kind and clever because the chief maid Icell paid particular attention to them. Thanks to them, she didn’t experience much inconvenience in her daily life. She smelled a different flower scent from the basin water heated at a proper temperature every day. The tea that she enjoyed before breakfast was the highest quality tea available in the empire.

That was the same now. She was done washing her face with warm rose water and sipped a hibiscus tea, which was probably dried up last year and carried on a trade ship. She was once again relieved that the sequence of her daily doings was not very different from usual.

“Lady, Here is the dress for you.”

Mrs. Icell brought several dresses while she brushed her hair.

“Thank you. Let me put on this dress today.”

She pointed to the peach-colored dress among many dresses that several maids were holding. She liked the rich ruffles at the end of the sleeves that looked like cherry blossoms in full bloom.

Mrs. Icell returned the rest of the maids, except for the maid holding the peach dress, and then displayed the shoes and accessories they brought.

It was not common for the chief maid to pay special attention to apparel in a noble family. As she was accustomed to the chief maid’s especial care, Marianne naturally chose the items that she wanted.

In no time, she chose light pink shoes and a pair of pearl necklaces and earrings, which were clear and fresh as if they were just dug out of the sea. Cordelli braided her hair on both sides side skillfully.

“I brought the replies to the invitation cards of your birthday party tomorrow. For now, I have selected the replies from counts and above. Would you check them out for yourself?”

“Yes. Please show them to me.”

Mrs. Icell placed dozens of letters on the dressing table in front of her while she was busy prettying herself up. After looking at the necklace shining in the mirror, she picked up a bunch of letters.

Familiar names on the envelopes revived her old memories. She turned over the letters with the seals of important noble families including Evelyn, the Marquis of Balua, best known as her closest friend in the northern social circles and Angelica of Count Essenbach. Those noblemen residing in distant territories probably left for her house.

While she pushed the front letter backwards mechanically, she made a mistake. The letters that she was holding fell on the floor.

As it turned out, there was only one letter left in her hand.

The elegant handwriting carved over the red wax seal caught her eye.

Ober von Chester

It was his name.

“Lady, are you okay?” Mrs. Icell asked.

The chief maid had the maids pick up the letters scattered on the floor.

She could not take her eyes off the letter for a while.

“Yes, I’m okay. I think I was too greedy a moment ago.”

Smiling at her barely, she put down the letter with trembling fingers.

Though she hardly had anything, she felt like throwing up.

She felt stuffy as if a stone had been placed on her chest.

That feeling was similar to the sense of her endless sinking into the deep water.

She even felt as if somebody was pressing her crown down to the floor.

‘It’s dangerous.’

She jumped out of her seat, wrapping her cold neck with her hands.

As she struggled while springing to her feet, Mrs. Icell quickly helped her.

“My lady, you don’t look good. Should I call for the family doctor?”

“Well, no thanks. In fact, I haven’t eaten anything since last night. Can you finish up the preparation for me? My father might have to wait if I delay further.”

Mrs. Icell was a bit puzzled, but she followed her order.

Helped by the maids, she repeated numerous times that she would be okay, while she took off a gown and pajamas, and put on the dress ironed out stiffly.

‘Okay. Calm down. This is not underwater, I have not yet married him, and my father has not died. Marianne, please. Let’s calm down, Okay?”

This was what she wanted to say, but she kept it to herself deep inside.

She felt okay momentarily because she repeated it as if she were reciting a spell.

But she did not remove his name from her mind until she left the room after adorning herself.

While she had breakfast with his father, while she called Hugo and Mrs. Icell to check out the preparation for her birthday party the next day, Marianne repeated that name all the time.

It brought about a vivid image of that person.

Ober, Ober von Chester.

A young and promising marquis of the Chester family. A man with gray eyes and dark red hair. Her lover who wrapped her shoulders skillfully and kissed her fingers carefully. The owner of the voice who whispered to her that nothing beautiful in the world could be compared to her.

And the betrayer who killed her father and killed her as well.