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Rieta put down the empty teacup and stood up.
“Thank you for coming. I had a good time listening to your story. I’ll see you off to the door.”
“I really enjoyed it. In particular, I got a lot of stories to taunt Noel.”
He followed her and answered playfully.
“We didn’t talk much about Noel, did we?”
“Surprisingly, if I include that fact, it can still annoy Noel.”
How? Rieta was curious, but she couldn’t stop Everett any longer, so she put her curiosity to rest.
Everett wanted to say goodbye to the Duke as well and leave. But the Duke was preparing to receive guests, so he had no choice but to turn right around.
When he arrived at the front door, a carriage was waiting for him ready to leave.
“Come play again. Everett.”
Rieta said that, waving her hand, and Everett smiled saying he would.
As soon as he climbed into the carriage, the large wheels began to move.
As she stared at the carriage slowly moving away, the words he had told her came to mind again.
“Will the Duke warmly hug the Princess anytime?”
Yes . . . It seemed so.
Still, wouldn’t it be something different from the relationship with a real family, like Everett and his grandmother?
“Princess.”
At that time, the Duke came out to the porch. He looked a little more formal than usual.
“Duke.”
“Looks like he went back. I thought maybe I could run into him.”
“Yes, he apologized for not being able to greet the Duke.”
“I see.”
“The Duke is expecting a guest right?”
Rieta took a step closer to him and asked.
“Yes that’s right.”
“It must be an important guest.”
“Why do you think so?”
A slight smile hung on the corner of the Duke’s mouth when he asked.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve seen too many cases where the Duke personally greets the guest.”
“You are brilliant.”
It seems that Rieta’s prediction was correct.
However, his praise was a bit excessive, so Rieta blushed slightly.
“It’s nothing. More than that, the Duke is always so busy without a vacation?”
“It’s okay. Even the Princess knows . . . I am a man of duty.”
He seemed to be speaking about the mindset that a person belonging to the governing side should have.
It was great, and it was what Liz desperately needed right now.
So Rieta answered without realizing it.
“It would have been great if the Duke . . . had been my father.”
So this. Was just something she spoke out of a wish that her father was a respectable person like the Duke.
Because King Liz is a hopeless person devoid of merit
“Ah.”
But soon Rieta realized that what she was saying might sound a little odd.
“It didn’t mean anything else.”
The Duke was forever the father of Noel and Darrel.
“It’s just that I respect the Duke . . .”
Rieta slightly slurred her words, making an excuse.
Why did I make such a mistake?
Perhaps she was too absorbed in Everett’s story.
Even so, she didn’t particularly blame Everett.
Just then, the sound of a carriage came from far away in the garden.
The Duke’s guest had arrived.
Rieta was overjoyed to have a suitable excuse to escape.
After she goes back to her room and makes up her mind alone, she’d feel much better.
“The guest is coming, so I’ll . . .”
Rieta took a sneaky step backward, in a somewhat hasty manner.
“Princess.”
But the Duke called out to her.
“Princess.”
Rieta did not stop her steps. No, that was exactly what she was supposed to do.
But she stopped in her path when a soft hand touched her shoulder.
As if telling her to wait.
The carriage with the guest was seen approaching. She could hear the coachman instructing the horses to slow down.
“. . . The, the guest.”
Rieta spoke to the Duke in a trembling voice.
She meant ‘Shouldn’t you be more concerned about the guest now?’.
“It’s okay.”
By the time he spoke, the carriage had come to a complete stop in front of the porch.
“But!”
Rieta, becoming nervous, shouted at him.
She didn’t want to ruin the Duke’s important schedule.
“Really.”
Still, he repeated the same words in a calm voice.
“It’s okay.”
The unchanging word and gaze made Rieta feel a little strange.
. . . What’s wrong?
Right now, Rieta was interfering with the Duke’s official schedule. Still, she felt happy somehow.
There was a click and the sound of the carriage door opening.
She turned around and saw that it was a carriage with a pattern on the top.
The Duke moved in front of her for a moment.
“Forgive me.”
Rieta looked at his back in surprise.