Secret Wardrobe Of The Duchess

Edgar narrowed his eyes at seeing Rubica’s eyes shine like that. It was similar to the expression she had made when she saw him for the first time. At the time, Edgar had been unimpressed to see her. He just thought, ‘It’s happening again’. Someone falling with his beauty wasn’t even something to be surprised about. He had been just slightly interested in her for not being able to hide her excitement.

But very much annoyingly, it turned out Rubica didn’t look only at him that way. She sometimes, no, often made that expression. She had even looked at the cake at dinner that way. It made him feel just a little bad.

“Edgar?”

Edgar kept looking down at Rubica, so she hesitated for a second and called his name. Edgar smiled at his own childishness for getting annoyed at such a trivial thing and took her hand.

“Let me show you.”

Deep darkness filled their way to where the mana quartz statues were. On their way, Edgar started to feel better and better. He thought he had made the right decision when making the guards go away.

“Ugh!”

His good mood reached its height when Rubica held him tightly because of something that leaped out of the darkness. He didn’t have a habit of feeling happy when seeing others suffer. But the tighter Rubica held him while shaking in fear, the higher his lips curled up.

“Shh, it’s just a squirrel.”

“A squirrel?”

Because of the war she had suffered, Rubica reacted sensitively to the darkness and to things that abruptly leaped out. She had never seen something good leap out of the darkness. She thought that round thing jumping out of bushes was a bomb. So, she then let out a sigh of relief. The place was peaceful, at least for now.

“You are more faint-hearted than I thought.”

Edgar said with laughter which angered Rubica. She wanted to get away from him, but she couldn’t calm down just yet. Instead, she pinched his arm with all her might.

“How much do we have to go? You’re not doing this to me on purpose, right?”

“Of course.”

Edgar had to fight the urge to take a detour to see Rubica get surprised again as he showed her the way. Rubica’s eyes soon widened when seeing the spectacle in front of her.

“Wow.”

Mana quartz statues were decorated around the glowing fountain. Rubica could put her fear away thanks to the statues’ light. She let go of Edgar’s hand and started to look around.

Each mana quartz statues let out a different color of light according to its mineral component and content of mana. Most let out a moon-like blue light, but a few glowed in red and yellow. Rubica was impressed to see the craftsmen’s skills of carving them in accordance with each mana quartz’s color.

“… but this one is barely glowing.”

She said so when seeing a baby angel statue. Its light was so faint that she had almost passed by it thinking it was just an ordinary statue.

“Mana quartz exposed to the air loses its light after about a decade.”

“It loses its light?”

Rubica hadn’t known that. It was a rare stone only those with both wealth and power could get. It was so rare that only huge trading companies sold it, and only the nobles of high ranks put it in their gardens, so most people knew almost nothing about it.

“That is why it is even rarer. No matter how much they mine it, its light eventually fades away, so the supply cannot fulfill the demand… the mana quartz of the Seritos Mountains has all already been consumed. In a way, it is even more precious than mana stones.”

Listening to Edgar’s explanation, Rubica looked at the bright smile of the angel again. This mana quartz will eventually lose light and look like ordinary marble. Thinking so made her feel somewhat sad.

The transience of beauty that disappeared in time was making it even more beautiful. If it wasn’t going to become an ordinary stone eventually, it wouldn’t have been that rare. To such a stone, rarity and value were inseparable.

“How is that fountain glowing?”

“It has mana quartz in it.”

Before Edgar could say more, Rubica ran to the fountain and tried to look in it. She couldn’t see well because of the spraying water, but Edgar was right. There was a shining stone in the shape of a person inside.

“That is…”

“That was made in the form of my mother.”

Edgar spat it out instantly. He could barely stop himself from clenching his teeth and, instead, he smiled.

“My father commissioned it.”

“Oh, it’s amazing. Your father must have been a great man.”

“Yes. He was great, yes…”

Rubica could read bitterness in his reply. She just thought that bitterness came from the pain of losing his entire family in one day. She thought she had touched a wound without meaning to, so she took a step to look somewhere else.

“Rubica.”

Edgar grabbed her wrist. In spite of the dim and beautiful lights of mana quartz, his face looked dreary and ominous.

“That statue actually had a pair.”

“A pair?”

“Yes, a statue of my father.”

Rubica’s heart beat fast. She had a bad feeling about it. However, she had no choice but to ask the next question. It looked like Edgar would never let her go if she didn’t ask that.

“… where is it now?”

“I smashed it.”

“You smashed it?”

“Yes, I smashed it with a hammer.”

Normally, Rubica would have scolded him for smashing such an expensive statue, but now she wouldn’t dare. Edgar’s expression looked scary as if he could easily kill a person now, but at the same time, it looked so sad.

“I burned all of my mother’s belongings and my father’s.”

Rubica realized why there had been his grandmother’s dresses among the dresses Ann had prepared for her but not his mother’s dresses.

“I warned you in advance. You may talk about my mother in front of me. But as for my father… don’t even say a word about him.”

Rubica silently nodded at that warning. At the same time, she got questions. She could understand him burning his parents’ things and smashing one of their statues and drowning the other in the fountain. Even thinking about them must be painful. It had been such a sudden death of a couple who loved and cared about each other so much.

But then, only grief and longing should be on Edgar’s face. That was how he looked like as he looked at his mother’s statue, but he had an anger and will to kill as he spoke of his father. She had been unable to feel his grief and longing.

It looked like… he hated his dead father.

***

Rubica got dressed in her nightdress and lay on the bed. Then, she realized she hadn’t talked to Edgar about what happened in the morning. Edgar came out of the bathroom. Good timing. White steam was around him. He still had the hotness of the bathroom. His wet hair fell a little below their usual place. Normally he was beautiful but hard to approach, but now he looked so soft and relaxed.

Rubica found her heart beating fast again at this new aspect of him. Even the most beautiful person tends to get boring when seen every day, but Edgar was different. He looked like the incarnation of beauty. How can a human be like that?

“Your Grace, we have brought what you wanted.”

Edgar sat down on an ottoman next to the bed and waved his hand. It made the maids leave the room. Being alone with him was not comfortable, but now Rubica had a chance to talk more freely. What had happened in the morning wasn’t something she couldn’t talk about in front of others.

“Edgar, I want to ask you something…”

“Hmm.”

Edgar wasn’t listening to her. He poured water from a kettle in a pot. Was he making coffee? At this hour of the night? Rubica narrowed her eyes but continued.

“When I woke up this morning, all of my maids including Ann said I smelled of your perfume.”

Edgar almost dropped the pot. He looked away and turned the sandglass on the table.

“What did you do to me last night?”

“What did I do? You’re asking a strange question. You seem to think of me as a shameless man.”

Rubica’s eyes got even narrower. He was getting mad too easily. It was suspicious. The guilty man’s voice is always the loudest.

“Then why on earth did I smell of your perfume? I slept at that end of the bed and you slept at this end.”

“I don’t know.”

Edgar tapped the sandglass with his finger and desperately tried to find a way to change the subject. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything good.

“It’s suspicious.”

“No… I didn’t break the promise we made.”

Edgar felt a little guilty and quickly added. The sandglass’ sand was now in the bottom half of it. He poured out the water in the cups. Rubica muttered to herself when seeing that.

“Strange.”

“What?”

“I didn’t say much, but you said you didn’t break our promise first. It’s very strange and suspicious.”

Edgar ended up spilling the water from the cup. He then quickly offered Rubica a fine cup of the drink to change the subject.