Chapter 77: Chapter 77 Memories are beautifed and faded (4)
“Wendy…” He called her name. Wendy looked up at him with a sad expression, like a withered flower. Soon, her face turned pale and gloomy.
“It’s nothing… ” She said with a trembling voice.
The wind blew hard, disheveling her hair. Lard gently swept her yellow hair behind her ear.
Surprised by his touch, she raised her eyes and looked at him. He noticed a sadness in her eyes that he had never seen before. He again felt the urge to hold her in his arms. She looked down at the blades of grass trampled.
“Please don’t ask me anything…” She said with a trembling voice. She seemed to be on the verge of bursting into tears, but her dark green eyes were bitter with sorrow and held no sign of tears. Nevertheless, Lard thought she would start crying. The mysterious sadness in her eyes disturbed him.
“I won’t ask you anything.” He could say nothing else.
Lots of questions came to his mind, but he decided to forget them.
The young knight with the 2nd Knights called her by that name with a desperate voice as if he called his old flame. Obviously, there was hostility in that young knight’s eyes and the determination that he would not lose her to Lard.
Lard couldn’t forget that she was breathlessly watching him calling her desperately.
Lard’s heart pounded harder than when he had witnessed her mystical power. He thought she must have another secret that he didn’t know. He wanted to know what it was, but he did not want to know. It made him anxious.
Lard held her hand. It was small and thin. It seemed especially so today. She flinched but did not pull her hand. His grip on her hand was comforting.
For a moment, the two sat in silence. After a few passes of the spring breeze around the palace , she stopped trembling. Slightly calmer, Wendy adjusted the hem of her dress.
Soon, she stood up. She wanted to leave the palace right away, but she couldn’t leave before the prince. She hesitated for a moment, conscious of Lard who stood up with her, and returned to the place of the event.
Melissa saw them, approached them and shook her hand, “Wendy! Are you going to go back inside looking like that? Please come to me for a second.”
Looking at Lard sharply, Melissa forced her to sit back down.
“Your hair is ruffled. I’ll fix it. Anyway, men never pay attention to this kind of thing.”
Scolding Lard, Melissa spoke and tidied her disheveled hair. It was not easy.
After Melissa strugged several times, she managed to get Wendy’s hair into a pretty style again.
“Well, it’s done!”
Melissa was happy to see Wendy’s new hairstyle but didn’t say much else to her. Melissa also wanted to ask a lot, but she didn’t. Wendy appreciated that.
Wendy had stopped trembling, but her heart was still agitated. She couldn’t figure out what to do now. She felt dizzy. She was anxious and fearful as if her body was tied up alone on the mud flat when a tide was coming in.
When Wendy went back to the rose garden, the atmosphere of the celebration party was well underway. Nobody was worried about the disturbance a little while ago. It seemed they thought Badge and Dylan had something like a quarrel that was common on an occasion like this. Of course, if Lard and his companion were there, they would think differently.
Wendy carefully looked around just in case Dylan was still hanging around, but she didn’t see him. Wendy relaxed a bit until she made eye contact with Prince Isaac.
Prince Isaac had been listening to the man who seemed to be his aide and smiled as his eyes met hers. The man raised his hand, covering his mouth and continued talking about something, so that only the prince could hear him. Wendy felt it in her bones that the prince was being briefed about the disturbance a little while ago. His smile, as always, gave her a foreboding feeling.
Then there was a loud noise on one side of the garden. Everyone turned their attention to it.
“I don’t think even the rotten waters of the Pelasis slum is as bad as this.”
The source of the disturbance was Jack Zaildus, the notorious lover boy. The man said something to the ladies, while frowning. All of them were glancing at a woman. She was the woman who took Wendy’s seat at the women’s lounge.
“Are you talking about me?” The woman shouted, shaking herself.
“…You’re mistaken. Don’t worry because we are just talking about ourselves. ”
But he covered his nose with a handkerchief as if he could not stand it anymore, showing contempt for the woman.
“I have never been so insulted!” The woman shouted, blushing, but she also noticed those around her were trying to avoid her.
“Excuse me,” the man said, putting up with nausea as best he could. His reaction was not fake but genuine.
He soon left her, practically running away from her. The two women who were with her in the lounge also seemed to be stepping back from her as if they didn’t want to raise others’ attention or they knew something about her. That strange phenomenon happened one after another. Another two men immediately fled from her as soon as they approached her. All of them covered their noses with their hands and frowned as if they smelled something nasty around her.
Wendy recalled for a moment the fart mushrooms spreading spores.
Although she didn’t feel any better at all, she could briefly forget about Dylan because of the disturbance.
The three noblewomen women who made Wendy uncomfortable were so embarrassed that they left the garden urgently. The prince shook his head from side to side, feeling sorry for the women who left the place before him.
The time at the imperial palace passed slowly. Wendy dryly looked at the people who laughed and enjoyed happy hours. She felt as if she came to a different world, and she was floating in the air. Her time at the palace passed like that.
Inside the carriage on their way back, Lard said nothing. Wendy and Lard both knew that the silence was not the same as it used to be.
Though Lard said goodbye to her, his tone was different. It was kind and warm, which she had never felt before. So, she looked back at him before opening the door of her house. She felt heartbroken for unknown reasons.
As soon as she came into the room, she took off the dress roughly.
‘Damn it! It all started with me playing the noble! It all happened because I forgot my place!’
She sat down on the floor, rebuking herself bitterly.
She couldn’t understand why she acted so dumb in front of Dylan Lennox. She could not forgive herself for having shown her weakness in front of him. She never forgot why she trembled so much before him. She was helpless in the flood of emotions.
What was the feeling that complicated her mind? Was it fear of her identity being revealed? Or was it because of her lingering affection for Dylan? Wendy was more confused.
It was only a matter of time that her real identity would be revealed. If her purchase of status was revealed, it was obvious that she would be punished severely on charges of disturbing the strict order of status. If she was lucky enough to avoid the punishment of the law, she could end up being sent back to Earl Hazelet’s mansion. The life she had built over the past two years would collapse. She knew she had only a few options available.
She began to pack her stuff like crazy. She took out a big bag and crammed her immediate necessities in it. Money, jewelry and clothes were crammed in the bag at random.
She didn’t forget to include the extensive pictorial book of the list of plants that she had compiled. She stopped for a moment when she grabbed the identity card with Wendy Waltz engraved on it, but she didn’t hesitate at all.
She took out the house deed and the purchase document on her flower shop from their places deep inside the drawers. If she disposed of the documents at the Centrus auction market at a bargain, she could make some money right away. If she added it to her big savings until now, she could start a new life anywhere without difficulty.
She recalled a list of those who bought flowers on credit, but she decided to give up the idea of collection. She had no time to delay. She meticulously closed the bag.
Thump, thump, thump.
She heard a dull thump downstairs. Obviously somebody knocked on the door on the first floor. She stiffened and stopped all her movements. She listened to the noise, thinking she heard wrong. After some time, there was silence.
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