Chapter 18
Karpel’s hand was much larger than I thought it would be. I looked up at Karpel.
In my previous life, I didn’t have a growth spurt until I was 15.
Maybe I’m a little taller now, but I probably won’t grow much more.
I’ll become a woman instead and develop in other ways.
But Karpel was likely to get bigger and taller. Perhaps because he trains frequently, his shoulders are quite wide and he’d even developed some muscles already.
‘Wait! Wait! I’d be crazy if I viewed Karpel as masculine.’
She shook her head to fix her confused mind.
‘Karpel is sixteen. A child. A young one at that.’
He is 16 years old, but he suffered so much that the atmosphere around him made him seem as old as 26.
It’s not that his face looks old, but his atmosphere is mature.
26 is not that much of an age difference from me in my previous life.
‘Ah, so what? What would I do?’
The title Positions from that red book in the library was floating in my mind. Come to think of it, I was very curious about the contents of that book.
Even when we got on the carriage, I was still in my own thoughts, so Karpel looked at me and spoke.
“What did you forget in the garden?”
“What?”
“I heard you go to the garden every morning.”
“I’ve been taking walks because I’m too weak.”
“Ah… a walk.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
And Karpel, who turned his head to the carriage window, seemed disappointed.
* * *
The name of the event is Rose Garden, but there were not many rose bushes at the venue.
It is not the season when roses bloom a lot, but it was heavily decorated with flower baskets. Despite the name being slightly unsuitable, the elegant baskets of flowers were all colorful and gorgeous.
My followers found me and approached me while I was admiring the flowers instead of interacting with people.
“Miss Inaila, I missed you!”
“Miss Inaila.”
I greeted the crowd of children. It was cute to listen to them chat while they called my name.
“Miss Inaila, why are you here alone? Please invite us to the estate again.”
“That’s right. I’d have gone if you invited me.”
‘What do you mean I came alone?’
I was looking for Karpel, who escorted me to this place just before, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t even know when he left, so I laughed it out.
“Oh, hehe.”
I scanned the whole area, only intending to find Karpel, but the ladies seemed to believe that I came alone for another reason.
“Miss Inaila, won’t you invite me Krenberia now?”
“Miss Inaila, you were acting very strange that day, weren’t you?”
“That day?”
“Lady Float joined Miss Inaila’s tea time without an invitation.”
“Miss Inaila, you’re afraid Lady Float is here, aren’t you?”
‘Who’s that?’
“If Lady Float had a conscience, she wouldn’t be able to show her face here. She’s done such disrespect to Miss Inaila.”
“The duke forbade her from entering the mansion because of the rudeness of Lady Float.”
Something terrible must have happened because the ladies were making a huge fuss about tea time, but I was thinking about the incident the day before so I can’t recall what happened.
Listening to the story, it seemed that father did not forbid everyone who came that day from entering the estate, but only Lady Float, a person of interest, was prohibited.
“I told my father not to do that.”
“Miss Inaila is very merciful!”
Lady Float praised me with beautiful words that sounded like poetry recitals.
Compliments saying that I am pretty, kind, beautiful, wise, and so many more began to fuel Inaila’s compliment battle, and they didn’t really sound like genuine compliments.
It sounded like a cliché conversation about how nice the weather was.
‘What the hell happened that day?’
It certainly seemed like something very upsetting happened.
I also can’t clearly remember the person that came to tea time without an invitation.
To be exact, I didn’t invite her, but she came by someone else’s invitation.
‘Didn’t you say you got an invitation from Karpel?’
I wondered if Karpel invited a girl to his fiancee’s tea time, but my eyes met with a girl who was coming toward us.
I realized at that moment.
Shabelle.
Her cloudy blonde hair, which was close to an ivory color, was neat rather than flashy, and her green eyes looked as bright as newly sprouted seedlings.
It was Shabelle. The original heroine, Shabelle.
It was Shabelle who came to my tea time without an invitation.
To be exact, she went to see Karpel, not to attend my gathering, but Shabelle, who visited the estate under the excuse of attending my tea party, was guided by the servants to the garden where I held it.
I wondered why Lady Float, who had never heard of my family name, came to my tea time.
In the underground waterway, Karpel said he had helped a lost girl.
That girl was Shabelle.
In the novel, Shabelle, who was helped by Karpel, wants to repay the favor, so she asked where he lives.
That was the day when the crown prince called Karpel out on a rare official outing.
He said he lived in the Krenberian mansion because he didn’t have to hide his identity.
Normally, she would not be able to set foot in the duke’s mansion, but in the novel, Shabelle’s visit was on the day I held tea time in Krenberia, so she attended my tea party along with some other young ladies.
And so I recalled Shabelle who came to my tea time.
As in the novel, she confidently told me that she thought that Karpel and I had a brother-and-sister relationship and that she came to see Karpel.
At that time, I can clearly remember the cold silence that had fallen in the garden.
My followers did not like Shabelle, who proudly declared that she was interested in my man.
After being personally attacked, the ladies asked for her to prove whether there was evidence of an invitation from Karpel, or whether Karpel had truly gotten an invitation from the royal family or he was just avoiding her, the ladies managed to impede Shabelle who turned away timidly with a flushed face.
Shabelle somehow fell down in a seemingly unnatural way.
I reached out my hand to her and Shabelle grasped my hand tightly.
It was that moment. During that interaction, the memories of my past life appeared in my mind.
My hand was hot, and the memories from my other life came to my mind in a short moment, like a lightning bolt.
The shock made me push away Shabelle who was holding my hand.
I clearly remembered everything that day.
‘Oh, my God! Am I a wicked woman?’
I’m certain, there was a wicked woman in the novel who harassed the heroine, Shabelle. She was bullied by the wicked woman and got help from the crown prince.
The wicked woman was a duchess. However, I was the only lady in the duke’s family.
So I’m a villain. But now I’ve realized it.
I’m the one who torments the crown prince behind his back!
In the novel, I only appeared as a vaguely described princess, so I never imagined it would be me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appear in the novel!
The setting of a wicked woman being a duchess without a name was so common in those novels, so I didn’t think much of it.
The memories of my previous life did not come to me suddenly for no reason. It was because I was in contact with the female heroine that they did.
‘No!’
I was surprised that the ruined novel hit me with another surprise like this again.
I was going to apologize to Shabelle for that day, but my followers shuddered when they saw her standing before me.
“Oh, that’s Lady Float!”
“Why did she appear in Miss Inalia’s sight?”
I let my cute followers gossip, who pretend that they were trying to whisper. Soon, I beckoned softly to shush them.
But while the ladies were distracted and looking at me, Shabelle turned around, took a small dropper from her pocket, and dropped a drop of liquid into her eyes.
‘What?’
While I was confused, Shabelle put the eye drops back into her pocket and knelt down in front of me.
“Princess! Forgive me! I truly didn’t know that he was your man!”
A drop of water trickled down from Shabelle’s big eyes.
As if proving that it wasn’t real tears, there were no other tears that flowed down except for that one drop.
‘…What is this? Didn’t she just put water in her eyes?’