(8) Northern Duke Cyrus Carha (3)
Ariana realized after returning to her room that she hadn't brought any food. The food she had planned to bring was probably lying around under the shelf.
The thought that she hadn't even been able to eat properly because of Cyrus's sudden appearance made her feel suffocated.
'I didn't know I would meet the Northern Duke so soon...'
She had expected that if she lived differently from before, she would eventually meet the Northern Duke or the Southern Duke. However, she never dreamed that she would meet the Northern Duke who had sneaked into the Bronte dukedom.
'Why did the Northern Duke come into this mansion?'
The Northern Duke and the Duke of Bronte had no relationship whatsoever.
Thinking back, she couldn't remember the Duke of Bronte or Rachel ever talking about the Northern Duke.
'Oh, Helena...'
She remembered that around this time, Helena had been talking about wanting to marry the Northern Duke.
Helena fell in love at first sight after seeing a portrait of the Northern Duke being sold by a merchant during his stay in Western Territory. She constantly talked about wanting to marry him, even though she'd never met him, and even begged the Northern Duke to send her a marriage proposal, embarrassing Rachel and the Duke of Bronte.
"The Northern Duke is a man of decent rank and perfection. Why wouldn't he?"
Around this time, she remembered overhearing Helena whining while cleaning the hallway.
It was rare for a daughter of a Count or higher family to initiate a marriage proposal, and if it were known, it would be a laughingstock, yet Helena acted so foolishly.
'Did Helena really insist on sending the Northern Duke a marriage proposal? Did the Northern Duke learn the truth about Helena, discover her birth, and sneak in to learn more?'
It was a possibility, but recalling the look in Cyrus's eyes from earlier, she couldn't believe it.
He might have tried to hide it, but Ariana could clearly sense the hatred in his eyes. Even as they pressed against each other between the shelves, his gaze turned towards Ariana with nothing but cold disgust.
There was no way a man like that would sneak into the Bronte mansion just to find out who had received a marriage proposal.
There had to be another reason, something Ariana couldn't fathom.
'This is difficult.'
The Northern Duke was a difficult opponent.
If she were to stray from him when she was not yet prepared, it would greatly hinder her future plans.
With the Northern Duke's intentions unknown, she had to avoid entanglement with him as much as possible.
As expected from a Western family, Helena had slightly dark skin, thick double eyelids, black hair, and brown eyes. She wasn't ugly, but compared to Ariana, who resembled the Eastern Duke, or Victoria, who resembled Rachel, she resembled her father, Jacob, more than anyone else, making her average.
She stood in the hallway, wearing a fresh lime green dress, glaring at Ariana's room.
Employees who saw Helena bowed deeply and passed by. Her attitude was completely different from how she treated Ariana.
"Ariana."
Yesterday, for the first time, she'd been scolded by her mother, Rachel, because of Ariana. Yesterday was the first time Rachel had sternly faced Helena.
"Ariana, Ariana."
Helena's feelings toward Ariana were complex.
Before Helena learned the secret of her birth, she'd felt inferior to Victoria.
Helena, whose mother was a Baroness.
Though she is the daughter of the Duke of the same name, Ariana came with her mother and has a different father.
Ariana realized after returning to her room that she hadn't brought any food. The food she had planned to bring was probably lying around under the shelf.
The thought that she hadn't even been able to eat properly because of Cyrus's sudden appearance made her feel suffocated.
'I didn't know I would meet the Northern Duke so soon...'
She had expected that if she lived differently from before, she would eventually meet the Northern Duke or the Southern Duke. However, she never dreamed that she would meet the Northern Duke who had sneaked into the Bronte dukedom.
'Why did the Northern Duke come into this mansion?'
The Northern Duke and the Duke of Bronte had no relationship whatsoever.
Thinking back, she couldn't remember the Duke of Bronte or Rachel ever talking about the Northern Duke.
'Oh, Helena...'
She remembered that around this time, Helena had been talking about wanting to marry the Northern Duke.
Helena fell in love at first sight after seeing a portrait of the Northern Duke being sold by a merchant during his stay in Western Territory. She constantly talked about wanting to marry him, even though she'd never met him, and even begged the Northern Duke to send her a marriage proposal, embarrassing Rachel and the Duke of Bronte.
"The Northern Duke is a man of decent rank and perfection. Why wouldn't he?"
Around this time, she remembered overhearing Helena whining while cleaning the hallway.
It was rare for a daughter of a Count or higher family to initiate a marriage proposal, and if it were known, it would be a laughingstock, yet Helena acted so foolishly.
'Did Helena really insist on sending the Northern Duke a marriage proposal? Did the Northern Duke learn the truth about Helena, discover her birth, and sneak in to learn more?'
It was a possibility, but recalling the look in Cyrus's eyes from earlier, she couldn't believe it.
He might have tried to hide it, but Ariana could clearly sense the hatred in his eyes. Even as they pressed against each other between the shelves, his gaze turned towards Ariana with nothing but cold disgust.
There was no way a man like that would sneak into the Bronte mansion just to find out who had received a marriage proposal.
There had to be another reason, something Ariana couldn't fathom.
'This is difficult.'
The Northern Duke was a difficult opponent.
If she were to stray from him when she was not yet prepared, it would greatly hinder her future plans.
With the Northern Duke's intentions unknown, she had to avoid entanglement with him as much as possible.
***
As expected from a Western family, Helena had slightly dark skin, thick double eyelids, black hair, and brown eyes. She wasn't ugly, but compared to Ariana, who resembled the Eastern Duke, or Victoria, who resembled Rachel, she resembled her father, Jacob, more than anyone else, making her average.
She stood in the hallway, wearing a fresh lime green dress, glaring at Ariana's room.
Employees who saw Helena bowed deeply and passed by. Her attitude was completely different from how she treated Ariana.
"Ariana."
Yesterday, for the first time, she'd been scolded by her mother, Rachel, because of Ariana. Yesterday was the first time Rachel had sternly faced Helena.
"Ariana, Ariana."
Helena's feelings toward Ariana were complex.
Before Helena learned the secret of her birth, she'd felt inferior to Victoria.
Helena, whose mother was a Baroness.
Though she is the daughter of the Duke of the same name, Ariana came with her mother and has a different father.
And Victoria, born to her mother and father, had a normal family. Victoria even resembled Rachel so much that she was beautiful. Even as a child, she sensed her parents' discrimination against Ariana, but she hated Victoria even more.
In fact, she felt a sense of kinship with Ariana, feeling that her situation was similar to her own.
So, Helena took what Victoria had and bullied her out of sight of her parents. When Rachel noticed this, instead of scolding her, she hugged Helena and said,
“Victoria is your only sister, Helena. You should help and care for each other. If you’re upset, take it out on Ariana. Ariana will accept all your anger.”
At the time, Helena didn’t understand why Rachel was kinder to her than to her own daughters. However, she did sense that Rachel didn’t like Ariana very much.
Ariana would get scolded several times more for the same mistake, and sometimes she would be locked in her room, eating only once every two days, and writing a reflection paper.
At first, she felt sorry for Ariana, but her parents’ cold attitude spread to their children.
In this way, Ariana became Helena’s object of anger when she was upset.
But on the other hand, she also felt sorry for Ariana, so when the mood struck, she secretly took care of her.
That was until Rachel revealed the secret of her birth.
Her mother had been forced to leave her homeland immediately after giving birth to her daughter to marry a lord. Helena had to be raised as if she were the daughter of an unknown Baroness.
“Poor thing,”
Rachel repeated several times as she told her the secret.
Helena felt so pitiful for herself, and all her resentment was directed at Ariana.
Strictly speaking, Ariana had done nothing wrong.
But Helena had been brainwashed from a young age to hear things like, “You can do whatever you want with Ariana,” and “Victoria is your only sister.”
The wall that had been built between them, without Helena even realizing it, had turned Ariana into a complete stranger, and Helena couldn’t help but see Ariana, not her family, as the source of all her problems.
Victoria, who thought she had normal parents despite being ignorant, was equally disgusting, but she hated Ariana even more.
“I didn’t want to have that child. I really didn’t want to have that child.”
Rachel hugged Helena tightly, repeating the same words over and over again as tears flowed down her face.
Her heart ached as she thought of her mother, who had to marry a man she didn’t love and have a child for the Western.
She hated Ariana, who was born that way and lived as the second daughter of the Bronte family.
Yesterday, Ariana had confessed everything to the old Duchess, resulting in Luigi being beaten and locked in a cell, and Helena being scolded by her mother.
Furthermore, Ariana had moved from her bare cell to a nice room with a bed.
“Do you think that’s even a room for someone like you?”
Helena didn’t want to see Ariana enjoy even one of the Bronte family’s things.
If she had my way, she would've gone into that room, grabbed Ariana by the hair, and made her pay for yesterday's actions. But Rachel insisted she'd have to hold back until the old woman left.
Helena clenched her fists, but Victoria approached and gently linked arms with her.
"Sister, why do you look so unhappy?"
Helena glared at Victoria, who seemed unusually mature for her age.
Victoria, who resembled her mother more than her father, had slightly dark blonde hair and green eyes, giving her a lovely, innocent look.
“I got scolded by Mom because of you.”
Helena, three years older than Victoria, often acted childishly. It was Rachel's fault for raising Helena so unruly.
Victoria, unaware of Helena's secret, couldn't understand Rachel's attitude.
‘Why does he cherish Helena, the daughter of the concubine, more than Ariana and me, her own daughters?’
Anxiety that if she made a mistake, she might fall out of favor with her parents and end up being treated like Ariana. An anxiety that she had to somehow be more recognized by her parents than Helena.
These things made Victoria precocious for her age.
Always aware of her parents' moods, Victoria was quick-witted and quick-witted.
"Huh? Because of me? Oh, are you talking about Luigi yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Sister, why is that my fault?"
"It's your fault. You were the one who said it'd be fine to feed that kid rotten food. He ate it and collapsed, and I got a huge scolding from Mom."
Victoria was dumbfounded by the word 'scolded', but instead of showing it, she wore a worried expression.
"Did Mom scold you a lot? That must have hurt, sis. What can I do? But sis, I was just saying that Ariana seems suited to living off spoiled food, and that Mom brought her here so she could live in luxury. Still, if my words made you get scolded by Mom, I feel so sorry."
When Victoria apologized meekly, Helena pursed her lips, seeming to feel a little better.
Victoria smiled inwardly at her sister, who was so easy to handle, like a child.
Victoria walked slowly while linking arms with Helena and said,
“Sister, you must be really upset. It’s all because of Ariana. Ariana told Grandma everything... Even though you were so kind to her, Ariana didn’t even know how grateful she was and told Grandma everything.”
“That’s why!”
“Because of Ariana, Luigi was locked in the small room, and you’re uncomfortable because one of your maids is gone, but she’s probably sleeping comfortably in a nice room, right?”
“Oh, I hate that! She should be going to the dormitory. Why is she staying here and causing trouble?”
Victoria knew why Rachel insisted on bringing Ariana with her.
A daughter born into a noble family was supposed to form a good family connection, solidifying the family's power.
However, there are families in this world who possess the necessary power, but whose reputations are so poor that it's a shame to marry off their precious daughters.
Ariana would eventually marry into such a family.
As soon as Helena entered her room, her eyes were drawn to the portrait hanging on the drawing room wall.
A beautiful man with silver hair, pale skin, and fierce, red eyes. It was the portrait of Cyrus Carha, the Northern Duke. It was shameful for a noble lady to publicly display the portrait of a man she'd married, yet Helena showed no sign of embarrassment.
Even with Victoria by her side, Helena clasped her hands to her chest, gazing up at the portrait in rapture.
"Isn't he truly beautiful?"
"Yes, indeed. He is truly magnificent. But does he really look like that portrait? These days, nobles ask for their portraits to be painted more flatteringly than they actually are."
"The Northern Prince is different. They say he's much more handsome than in the portrait."
"We'll be able to confirm that once the Northern Prince arrives in the West, right?"
Helena turned around, her eyes sparkling at Victoria's cryptic remark.
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