IBDF 07

Chapter 7

The Grand Duchess of Hayworth, Freya, slowly lifted her heavy eyelids.

The first thing she saw was the familiar ceiling.

‘Again… did I lose consciousness?’

Filled with despair, Freya squeezed her eyes shut.

It felt as though a slab of lead had been placed on top of her heart once more, a suffocating heaviness pressing against her chest.

As long as Freya remained awake, this familiar sensation never left her for even a moment.

Sometimes, however, the dull ache would change form, stabbing sharply into her heart and tightening around it. And when it grew severe enough, it would cause her to collapse like this.

‘It’s getting worse by the day.’

How much time had passed?

Freya unconsciously searched for the clock with her eyes.

‘The child was supposed to come today… and of all times, I had to collapse now.’

She thought of the small girl with wheat-colored hair.

Rowena Whitfield. The orphanage child whom Freya had unusually invited to the estate today.

The reason Freya, who no longer enjoyed meeting people, had called this bold child again was simple.

“W-when we say goodbye in front of the carriage… c-could I maybe kiss your cheek?”

The moment she heard those words, she had felt a sudden pang of realization.

‘The moment she said it was a request, I reacted far too harshly.’

Thinking about it now, the girl was only ten years old—far too young to understand the world properly. Even if she made a request, how serious could it possibly have been?

She could have simply brushed off the child’s rudeness lightly, but only afterward did Freya realize how overly sensitive she had been.

More than anything, when she saw the child kiss her cheek before leaving, memories from over a decade ago resurfaced once more.

‘Mama, kiss! Hehe.’

Her daughter Rose—the child who felt as though she would come running toward her crying “Mama!” the moment the door opened.

The instant she remembered that name, a throbbing pain once again crushed her heart.

In truth, Freya knew.

This was an illness of the mind.

But how was she supposed to heal it? A sickness born from losing the daughter more precious than all the gold in the world.

Even now, whenever she closed her eyes, her daughter’s face appeared vividly before her.

It felt as though if she opened the door, Rose would be there searching for a hat, saying the weather was too nice not to go outside. It felt as though her voice still echoed in her ears—the voice that complained she hated how stiffly her mother spoke.

Because Rose had been a daughter she gained only after much hardship, Freya’s love for her had been extraordinary.

That was why she could not show it.

She was the only adult left in the Hayworth family, their pillar of support.

So the moment the funeral ended, Freya took off her mourning clothes. She did not cry easily.

If the person who should grieve the most cast aside the shadow of death, then the others could do the same.

Only then could House Hayworth regain its vitality as though nothing had happened.

‘I cannot fall apart.’

Especially because her son-in-law, Seymour, was so unstable, she absolutely could not collapse.

There was no meaning left in life anymore.

Only Hayworth remained—the reason she must continue living, the value she still had to protect.

‘Henry is going to scold me again. What excuse should I make this time…?’

Tap.

At that moment, as Freya tried to sit up in bed, her fingertips brushed against something.

Too light and rough to be part of the blanket.

Slowly, Freya raised herself and looked at what she had touched.

“…Flowers?”

Roses folded from napkins were scattered all over the blanket.

And not just one or two.

There were enough that they would tumble down in heaps if she lifted the blanket even slightly. The napkin flowers had practically transformed the bed into a flower garden.

The situation was so absurd that even Freya, who rarely lost composure, spoke with a trembling voice.

“W-what in the world is this…?”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

At that moment, the sound of small footsteps pattered from the doorway.

Turning her head, Freya saw a tiny girl standing there with her arms full of folded napkin flowers, grinning brightly.

It was Rowena—the very girl Freya had invited today.

Still, that did not immediately make the situation any easier to understand.

“Rowena. Did you do all this?”

“Yes!”

As Rowena answered boldly, bewilderment spread across Freya’s face.

“Who gave you permission to do such a thing?! Who said you could do this?!”

“But the doctor grandpa said when people are sick, it helps to look at pretty things. That’s why people bring flowers when they visit patients.”

“…What?”

The answer she received was unexpectedly innocent.

Though Freya had raised her voice sharply, Rowena showed no sign of shrinking back. Instead, she scampered over with a smile and dropped another armful of napkin flowers onto the bed before resting her chin atop her hands gripping the mattress.

“I thought about picking real flowers from outside, but then the flowers would get hurt. And I didn’t think you’d want that either, Grand Duchess.”

At the bright, earnest words, Freya’s anger softened slightly.

But she had no intention of letting it pass so easily.

After clearing her throat once, she spoke sternly again.

“Ahem. Even so, who told you that you could use napkins however you pleased?”

“The head chef did!”

“…The head chef?”

“Yes! He taught me how to fold roses and butterflies with napkins, and he gave me permission. I’m the best at origami in the orphanage.”

Napkins were merely disposable items piled up in the kitchen anyway. The head chef had probably decided it was harmless to let a child play with some of them.

Rowena neatly arranged the flowers she had scattered around, lining them up carefully. Then she crouched beside them, propping her chin on both hands like a flower blooming itself.

The little girl’s round cheeks squished beneath her hands as she smiled brightly.

“It’s a flower garden just for you, Grand Duchess!”

The tips of her fingers were slightly red.

She must have worked hard folding each and every one of these flowers.

Faced with such pure goodwill, Freya felt an aching warmth spread deep inside her chest.

‘Mama, look! It’s a bouquet!’
‘Rose. Why didn’t you ask the gardener for flowers? Why go through the trouble of folding them…?’
‘Because then the flowers would get hurt. I know, because I’m a flower too! I’m Mama’s prettiest rose!’

Her young daughter, smiling with her chin resting on both hands.

Even after growing into adulthood and until the day she died, Rose had always seemed like that little child in Freya’s eyes.

And so Freya had tried never to uncover her grief again.

Even if it festered inside her like poison eating away at her flesh.

‘But…’

Watching this child now, it felt as though fresh skin were slowly growing over an old wound.

That was probably why she had called the girl back.

Freya reached out toward the child.

Though Rowena could not possibly know the meaning behind the gesture, she took Freya’s hand with a puzzled expression.

And somehow, that tiny warmth comforted her.

‘To think I’d feel something like this at my age.’

It was not an unpleasant feeling.

With a much gentler heart, Freya finally spoke.

“Your name was Rowena, correct?”

“Yes, Grand Duchess!”

At the spirited reply, a smile unconsciously formed on Freya’s lips.

“Could you grant me one request?”

Freya’s request was simple.

She merely asked Rowena to accompany her to a certain room.

Holding Freya’s hand, Rowena entered the room when the door opened—and there was nothing particularly extraordinary about it.

It was simply the bedroom of a noble young lady, the sort one could find in any aristocratic household.

But the fact that the door had been opened carried enormous meaning within House Hayworth.

“The Grand Duchess really opened Lady Rose’s room?”

“I’m telling you, she did! She even asked the orphanage child to open the door for her.”

“My goodness… she hasn’t opened it once since Lady Rose passed away! Even when the butler begged her, she refused so firmly…”

Though no one had used the room for over a year, it was spotless, as though its owner might return at any moment.

That was thanks to Butler Henry’s standing order to keep it perfectly maintained no matter what.

Leaving the murmuring servants behind her, Freya stood silently inside the empty room for a long while.

“…That is enough. Stop organizing the belongings.”

With those words, she finally left Rose’s room.

But she did not look entirely lonely.

Because beside the elderly lady walked a little girl holding her hand.

It was a sign that spring had begun to arrive at the once-desolate Hayworth estate.

Completely unaware that some people were watching the scene with tears in their eyes—

Rowena hurried down the stairs in quick little steps, only to be met with an unexpected situation.

‘G-good heavens!’

‘What in the world is going on?!’