Chapter 9
“Who might you be….”
The Greenwood Earl’s residence was one where guests never ceased to visit. And the purpose of those who came here was solely to meet with the earl. In other words, with the head of the household currently away, there should have been no reason for any visitors to arrive.
The guest before her was someone the maid had never seen before.
Who on earth could this be?
Bright golden hair and eyes so blue they were almost piercing. Broad shoulders and a tall stature.
The extraordinarily handsome guest was clearly a stranger, yet strangely familiar.
The maid scrutinized Cedric’s face carefully, then unwittingly raised her voice.
“Could you possibly be Duke Angel?”
Cedric, who had been about to respond to her question about his identity, closed his mouth. Not only was the reception far from ordinary, but he was a bit surprised that a maid he’d never met before had recognized him. He nodded.
“I am indeed Duke Angel. How did you know?”
“Our young lady speaks of you so often…. Ah. No, never mind. It’s nothing. So you really are Duke Angel! Please, come right in.”
The maid clamped her mouth shut and swung the door wide open to let him enter.
For Ines, who had no friends her own age, her only conversation partners were the maids of the household. On days when she returned from social events, they would always hear about Cedric Angel’s beautiful appearance, so it was no wonder the Greenwood maids could identify him at a single glance.
‘Wow. He really is incredibly handsome.’
The maid could finally understand Ines’s long-standing crush.
She had assumed there was some exaggeration in the young lady’s descriptions, but seeing Duke Angel in person, it felt more like the truth had been understated. It even made the old legend about the Angel family—that their founder was a hybrid of angel and human—seem believable.
“Please wait just a moment, Your Grace.”
The maid, lost in admiration as she stole glances at Cedric’s face, suddenly realized her rudeness and startled, addressing him hastily. Then she scurried off in quick steps to fetch the butler.
A short while later, the butler rushed to the entrance, flustered as he greeted Cedric and apologized for not properly receiving the guest.
“I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting, Your Grace.”
“No, it’s my fault for arriving unannounced.”
At his words, the butler rolled his eyes with a troubled expression.
“That’s precisely why I must inform you, but the earl is currently out attending a meeting at the Noble Council.”
Even after noticing the bouquet of tulips cradled in Cedric’s arms, the butler didn’t once consider that he might be here for the young lady. After all, not a single visitor had ever come to see her before.
Naturally assuming the visit was to meet the earl, the butler watched as Cedric let out an awkward laugh, his face tinged with embarrassment.
Indeed, his sudden action seemed odd to others as well. Cedric tried his best to speak as if nothing were amiss.
“I know the earl is out. I’m coming from a meeting with him at the Noble Council. Today’s visit isn’t to see the earl.”
“Pardon? Then….”
As the butler blinked in confusion, the maid quickly whispered in a low voice.
“Oh, butler! His Grace brought a bouquet of flowers.”
“Hm?”
“The young lady, I mean the young lady!”
“Ah!”
Only after the maid’s words did the bouquet in Cedric’s hands catch his eye. It certainly wasn’t a gift suited for the earl.
“I’m sorry. With everything that happened this morning, I completely forgot that the engagement between you two has been decided.”
So much had occurred that morning—the young lady injuring her foot, followed by an argument with the earl—that the engagement had slipped far from the butler’s mind. To the apologetic butler, Cedric spoke in a gentle tone.
“Actually, I’m here to pay a sick visit. Where is Lady Ines right now?”
“She is in her room…. But.”
The butler trailed off.
She had woken up only to have an accident, so she’d barely managed to wash with water brought to her bed. She hadn’t even changed clothes and was still in her nightgown.
Even if a guest had arrived, she wasn’t in a state to change into a dress right away.
As a butler who had served the Greenwood family for generations, the old man took great pride in Lady Ines’s beauty.
Though the young lady thought her appearance unremarkable, her face—so strikingly similar to the late madam who had even captivated ‘that earl’ with love—was more than charming enough.
The butler was well aware of Ines’s long-held crush. That was why he didn’t want to put her in an awkward position with this sudden meeting with her fiancé.
So he pondered for a moment.
Would Lady Ines be delighted to learn that her betrothed, Duke Angel, had come to visit her in her illness?
Or would she feel ashamed and disheartened at showing such an unkempt appearance?
“Your Grace, I’m terribly sorry, but could you wait here for just a moment?”
Having made up his mind, the butler asked Cedric in a polite tone.
“I heard that Lady Ines took her medicine after her meal, and it was prescribed with a sedative to help heal the wound quickly. She might be asleep, so I’ll go check and return.”
“A sedative? Is the injury that severe?”
He’d heard she’d stepped on glass shards barefoot, but he hadn’t expected it to require drug-induced sleep. Seeing Cedric’s expression grow serious, the butler quickly continued.
“The wound isn’t extremely severe, but rest is crucial for the foot injury to heal properly, you see. I’ll go check on the young lady’s condition right away, so please wait just a little longer.”
Cedric nodded.
Getting here had involved quite a bit of hesitation and deliberation. He’d turned back on his way to the mansion, bought flowers for the first time in his life, and visited a woman’s home.
‘I didn’t expect to come all this way and not even see her.’
But if she was sleeping, he had no desire to wake her unnecessarily.
* * *
“What?”
Ines blinked slowly. She had heard the butler’s words as he entered her room, but the meaning hadn’t fully registered in her mind.
“Duke Angel has come to see you, my lady.”
The butler checked Ines’s face.
Though bare of makeup, fortunately, her complexion wasn’t so pallid that she couldn’t face a guest.
“Shall I invite him up?”
“No!”
Ines replied hastily to the butler’s suggestion. She looked utterly shocked.
“Absolutely not. I don’t want to. Just tell him to go back.”
“My lady. But how can we turn away a guest like that….”
The butler spoke to Ines with a troubled expression. He’d already seen with his own eyes the duke’s sincerity in bringing flowers to meet her.
“Why not at least have a brief conversation, my lady? He’s come all this way to see you. If it’s about your attire or hair, you look perfectly fine as you are.”
“Absolutely, absolutely not. I’d rather die.”
The young lady rarely showed such stubbornness, but today she was senior firm.
‘Well, she’s had a crush on Duke Angel for so long.’
It wasn’t hard to understand her desire to show only her most beautiful self to the man she liked.
It wasn’t that she looked unacceptable—just that compared to her usual self, she was rather plain. The butler nodded.
“Understood, my lady. Then I’ll go down and tell him you’re asleep.”
Ines, who had been shaking her head so vigorously it made her dizzy in refusal, lifted her face.
The butler shrugged with a resigned expression.
“If you don’t wish it, my lady, I can’t force a meeting. I’ll go and handle it properly.”
“Butler…. Thank you.”
“Not at all. I’ll be going now.”
The butler gave a courteous bow and closed the door. At the same moment, a sigh of relief escaped Ines’s lips.
It was a tremendous stroke of luck for Ines that her father was out. If he had been home, she would have had to meet him no matter what.
Listening to the butler’s footsteps fading away, Ines thought to herself.
‘Cedric came to see me.’
It had been barely a day since she’d witnessed the guillotine blade falling over Cedric’s head. The fact that a living Cedric was here right now made her heart pound painfully fast.
She hadn’t expected to face him so suddenly like this.
Clutching her chest, Ines recalled the memories in her mind.
In her previous life, before their engagement the following year, they’d only met a few times at public events, but Cedric had never come directly to the mansion to see her.
‘Why so suddenly….’
Her face clouded at the situation unfolding differently from what she knew. And soon, she realized.
There was a reason things weren’t flowing as they had in the past.
‘Because I injured my foot…. My actions have changed.’
A sick visit.
It was a meeting that wouldn’t have existed if she hadn’t been hurt.
In her previous life, she had no memory of stepping on glass and injuring her foot in the continental year 560.
This small crack in her altered life had undoubtedly created a massive change.
In her memories from before, she had only met Cedric on special days filled with public activities.
The New Year’s ball, the hunting festival, and the engagement rehearsal.
After the engagement, he had been kind, suggesting they meet more often, but before that, as far as Ines remembered, that was all.
Yet here, right after regressing in time, such an abrupt meeting.
‘This can’t happen.’
Recalling the vow she’d made to herself while dying in the northern tower, Ines clenched her fist tightly. Her left hand felt empty without the ring she’d worn faithfully for three years of marriage.
That sense of loss only strengthened her resolve.
In this life, she would live as someone entirely unrelated to Cedric. As complete strangers, forever unknown to each other.
Thud.
Through the slightly open window, she faintly heard the front door closing. As soon as Cedric left, Ines rang the bell loudly.
She didn’t know how many more such sudden situations might repeat until she convinced her father.
She needed to ask Marie to refuse any future visits from Cedric, no matter what excuse she used—she absolutely could not meet him.
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