TPOTLPIM Chapter 35

As the tea party came to an end and the young ladies were departing for home one by one, a carriage bearing the Jeminick family crest rolled into Count DeNeuve's estate.

The moment Cecilia saw the Jeminick family crest, her heart fluttered as thoughts of Teros came to mind. But the person who stepped down from the carriage was, regrettably and yet naturally, Dmitri.

"I heard there was a tea party, so I thought I'd stop by to say a quick hello."

Even at a tea party attended only by women, Dmitri cheerfully greeted each of the young ladies with his usual charm.

After all the other ladies had left, Cecilia finally made eye contact with Dmitri and offered her greeting.

"Hello, Lord Dmitri!"

"Have you been well, Cecilia?"

Cecilia's body stiffened in surprise at the somewhat familiar address that dropped formalities.

"Ah, I thought of you as family now, so I addressed you casually, but I suppose it might feel sudden. I'll be more careful."

Dmitri rubbed the back of his neck out of habit and smiled sheepishly.

Cecilia also laughed, feeling embarrassed that she had been overly startled. Come to think of it, Dmitri had once told Rosein to call Teros by his name, so it wasn't strange that he had just called her by her name.

"Haha, it's fine. Well then, go have a chat with Rosein."

The moment Cecilia turned toward the Serin family carriage, Dmitri stopped her.

"I'll take you home, Lady Cecilia."

"Pardon? I can just take the Serin family carriage."

"Let's go together in the Serin carriage—I'd like to pay my respects as well. Just a moment."

Dmitri ran over to Rosein, seemingly asking permission to escort Cecilia home, then soon came running back toward Cecilia.

"Won't Rosein feel left out? You came to see Rose, after all."

"I told her I'd be back shortly. Rosein always worries about Miss Cecilia, so she readily gave her permission."

Cecilia laughed inwardly. Imagining how much jealous Rosein must have been inwardly boiling while outwardly readily giving permission was rather gratifying.

Sitting in the carriage face-to-face with Dmitri felt peculiar. If such a moment had come in the past, Cecilia would have been unable to calm her pounding heart and would have reddened her face. As old thoughts came to mind, a small laugh nearly escaped her.

"How was today's tea party?"

"Well, it was just so-so. Not amusing, but everyone was excitedly laughing and chattering away. Myself included."

Perhaps because she'd been tormented all day at the tea party, Cecilia inadvertently blurted out her true feelings. Only when she heard Dmitri's quiet laughter did she realize she had spoken carelessly.

"Oh dear, that's unfortunate. Actually, inviting Miss Cecilia to this tea party was my idea. Since it was a party inviting only unmarried young ladies, Rosein was hesitant to invite Miss Cecilia."

"You, Lord Dmitri? I thought Rosein was trying to tease me..."

Cecilia, who had been speaking without thinking, covered her mouth. Having put on airs all day, it seemed her restraint had completely loosened.

She thought she heard Dmitri laugh with a 'pfft' sound.

"It's fine to be honest. Close friends naturally compete with and provoke each other."

Dmitri's words, as if he knew all about their relationship, felt uncomfortable, but since he seemed to be packaging it as a reasonably close friendship and moving on, Cecilia quietly acquiesced.

Dmitri clasped his hands together as if confessing and continued speaking.

"I'm the same way with Teros. I love that guy as family, but I feel competitive and sometimes want to challenge him."

"I thought only Teros had a competitive streak, but apparently not."

"Of course, I can't match him in physical competitions. So I try not to lose in other kinds of contests."

"What kinds of things do you compete in?"

"Various things. But that guy probably doesn't even know it's a competition."

Dmitri laughed heartily, evading the answer.

Even though it was still early evening, the sun had already begun to set and the inside of the carriage had grown dim. Dmitri gazed out the window with a somewhat lonely expression.

"Seeing the days getting shorter, winter must be coming. Do you like poetry, Miss Cecilia? There's a poet who writes only about winter, and his poems come to mind."

"Jules Deron, isn't it? I like the poem 'Winter Tree' best. Just reading it, you can feel the bleak yet moist scent of winter."

Dmitri's face brightened at Cecilia's words.

"Have you read Jules Deron's third collection that came out this year? If you haven't, I'll lend it to you next time."

"If it's Lord Dmitri's recommendation, I absolutely must read it. I really enjoyed the books you lent me last time too."

The two became so absorbed in sharing their thoughts about the books Dmitri had lent her that they lost track of time. Dmitri even seemed somewhat excited.

Bitterness crept back into his previously bright, smiling face.

"It would be nice if I could have conversations like this with Rosein too. Sometimes I feel wistful about it."

At his suddenly blurted true feelings, Cecilia could only dart her eyes about, not knowing what to say. While Rosein did participate in reading club activities with Cecilia, she was the type who came to the reading club because she liked the gatherings more than the actual reading.

Having decided to change the topic, Cecilia deliberately brightened her voice. Though it was for the purpose of changing the subject, it was also a topic that her former self had been extremely curious about.

"Tell me about when you first met Rosein, Lord Dmitri."

Dmitri seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled.

"We first met at the ducal ball last year."

Ah. Cecilia remembered that ball too. That day, following Rosein's advice that Dmitri liked azalea flowers, Cecilia had ridiculously worn a pink dress and wandered around the ballroom.

"I accidentally bumped into Rosein, and the handkerchief she was carrying fell to the ground. When I picked it up and looked, there was embroidery of words by Floverin, a poet I respect. And it was my most favorite passage at that. The needlework was a mess, but I thought I absolutely must catch hold of any woman who carries around such words, so I called out to her, and what do you know—the face that turned around was beautiful like an angel."

"Haha, Rose is pretty indeed."

Cecilia searched her memory. The Floverin passage was her own favorite verse that she had embroidered and given to Rosein as a gift. So that's how the two of them came to be connected. Then shouldn't Rosein bow in gratitude to me? There had been bad blood between the families, but even knowing that, Rosein's reasons for being so nasty were something Cecilia understood yet didn't understand.

"I found out pretty quickly that those words were just meaningless letters to Rosein. She didn't even properly understand the meaning of that passage, which anyone who had read the poetry should have known. Yet she told me it was her favorite line from a poem, which she had personally embroidered on the handkerchief."

Listening to Dmitri's calm words, Cecilia felt she should cover for Rosein's petty lie. Not for Rosein's sake, but because Dmitri's expression seemed somehow lonely as he said it. Should she tell him it really was a poem Rosein had originally liked?

But Dmitri didn't give her a chance to cover for Rosein.

"It was obviously a lie. But even that lying looked pretty to me."

Cecilia sighed with relief. There was no need to add lies to Rosein's lie. If Dmitri had liked that about her, that was enough.

"I'm only now beginning to guess whose handiwork that handkerchief was."

Even as she felt Dmitri's piercing gaze on her, Cecilia pretended not to know.

"Whose was it?"

"You know, Cecilia."

As Dmitri looked at Cecilia with a faint smile, silence fell in the carriage for a moment.

The strangely tense atmosphere made Cecilia feel too embarrassed to keep pretending ignorance, so she burst into quiet laughter.

"You caught me. But you said the stitching was messy? That was something I practiced for days and nights to complete."

"I heard from Teros that Miss Cecilia has many other talents. So you don't need to be good at embroidery too."

At the sudden mention of Teros's name, the longing for him that Cecilia had been carefully keeping in her heart also burst out. When Cecilia showed a momentarily wistful smile, Dmitri rubbed the back of his neck and said,

"Actually, before Teros left for the campaign, he asked me to be Miss Cecilia's companion."

"I get along just fine by myself, so it was an unnecessary request. By any chance, are you taking me home now also because of Teros's request? Please don't do that in the future. I would have just been stealing Lord Dmitri's time."

"It's not just because of the request. I enjoy talking with Cecilia too. Next time, I'll come to lend you Jules Deron's third collection."

The carriage arrived at the Serin estate, and Cecilia instructed the coachman to take Dmitri to where the hired carriages were.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Count DeNeuve was berating Rosein. He found his daughter, who didn't have the same skills as Cecilia, thoroughly pathetic. Cecilia helped Count Serin with his work and seemed knowledgeable about weapons with quite decent ideas too, while his own daughter Rosein was completely flower-brained when it came to weapons.

Count DeNeuve, with the "Serin family's secret method" that Cecilia had mentioned during the day weighing on his mind, relieved his unease by taking it out on the innocent Rosein.

When Rosein finally shed tears after listening to the endless barrage of harsh words, Count DeNeuve stopped pressing his daughter.

"Dmitri will be here soon. Hurry and wipe your tears, Rosein."

"Dmitri is the one you care about, isn't it?"

Rosein glared at her father with resentful eyes.

"You haven't had enough of a scolding yet."

Veins bulged on Count DeNeuve's hand gripping his cane. But Rosein decided to muster more courage and talk back. Dmitri would be coming soon. If she was going to defy her father, now was the golden opportunity. Her father wouldn't be able to properly lose his temper for fear that Dmitri might come bursting in.

"I'm marrying the heir of the empire's greatest family of power. Among the weapons merchants who've made deals with Father, there must be many who decided on the deals using the Jeminick family's influence as backing. At this level, haven't I also greatly contributed to Father's business? You shouldn't treat me with such contempt."

"What? Cecilia also married a Jeminick child!"

Count DeNeuve's brow furrowed menacingly. Just then, the butler came to announce Dmitri's visit, and Count DeNeuve exhaled and barely suppressed his anger.

Rosein also struggled to cool down her bubbling insides. This was all because of Cecilia. She had grown sick to death of being endlessly compared to Cecilia by her father since childhood.

It was also irritating that her time to spend with Dmitri had been reduced because he had taken Cecilia home. She could have shortened the time spent getting scolded by her father. Rosein felt as if Cecilia had calculated all these outcomes to torment her.

If only her feelings toward Cecilia were just this much, how good would that be. The truth was, Rosein was afraid of her. It was because of the handkerchief Dmitri had picked up on the day they first met. Since the trigger for Dmitri's first interest in her had been the words embroidered on that handkerchief, Rosein had constantly harbored the fear that Dmitri's true soulmate might perhaps be Cecilia.

But she couldn't show such fears. Rosein believed that a confident and leisurely attitude was the way to captivate men. She hurriedly wiped away the tears pooled in her eyes to welcome Dmitri.