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After Lady Diana left, out table continued making small talk. We ignored what just happened and chatting about what most little girls talked about. Beautiful dolls. I didn’t have one, so my main role was listening to them gush about their prized possessions.

Although we ignored what just happened, Anna Simone seemed a little tense but she soon relaxed after a while. By the time the party reached an end, we were all on first name basis. Well, except for Anna who insisted on calling me by title and Irene who later followed suit.

I was still watching the pond and Leonora very closely, but I was less on guard. Mainly because Diana had come and go so the chances of Leonora still being pushed into the pond was very low.

I hugged Anna and Leonora goodbye, waved to Irene and climbed into the carriage. As the carriage moved, I clenched my fist to stop myself from trembling with excitement.

It was only natural that I was excited.

After the setback at the royal palace, I was starting to really dread this day. I was dreading that perhaps fate existed, and everything was destined to be a certain way. That perhaps my future was set in stone. But if something as big as someone’s death was changed….then anything could be changed.

I wanted to know that something would change. I wanted to know that things could change. This proved that they could. And that excited me.

Death is permanent. Death is irreversible. Or so they say.

But death was reversed. Right before my very eyes, death itself was reversed. What is a mere engagement compared to death? It might be a shackle now, but shackles could be removed.

My engagement to Prince Edmund was not permanent. A part of me kept feeling like it was but I knew for sure now that it wasn’t. My downfall was not permanent. My imprisonment was not permanent. My stay in the Blackburn house was not permanent.

And most of all, my downfall had nothing to do with the engagement.

Perhaps I was willing letting myself think that way for a while. That I had to break the engagement to prevent the future from repeating. That all I had to do was not be engaged to Prince Edmund.

But the truth lied with me. My downfall, my imprisonment, my execution all happened because of steps I personally took. Sure, sometimes I was guided down that path, but I made the choices myself.

It was the age-old adage all over again: There are consequences for the choices you make.

Everything began when I chose to fall for Edmund. They say you can’t chose who you love but I find that hard to believe. Even more so, when I realize that I probably didn’t love Edmund in the true sense.

I chose to go after him. I chose to persist after him despite his failure to reciprocate. I chose to go after someone who didn’t see my worth. And I never chose to go to the King, end the engagement and find myself someone better.

Unlike now, where all I stand on is that ‘I don’t like Prince Edmund’, in my first life, there was proof of his infidelity everywhere. I might have only caught them kissing one time but judging by how familiar they were with the action, that was not the first time. And I was most likely not the only witness. I could have taken that to the King, and he wouldn’t even talk about defying a royal order before canceling our engagement.

Sure, a woman with a broken engagement wasn’t looked too favorably upon but that was relatively easy to deal with for someone of my status.

I had other choices and I had other paths I could take. But I didn’t take them. However things would be different this time.

Once my initial excitement cooled, my mind began to wander to the events of the party. Especially Leonora.

That little girl has a budding mean streak. I wasn’t too bothered at first but with what happened at the party…

I was already fond of her and somewhat considered her a friend. She seemed to have some sort of rivalry going with Diana which I honestly couldn’t care less about but her attitude with Irene raised some flags. Oddly enough, she seemed okay with Anna despite both Anna and Irene being children of Viscounts.

Perhaps I’ll just watch and see how bad it is. It was too early to take any sort of action and I truly didn’t know her too well. I knew the parts of her she showed to me but although it didn’t seem that way, she was aware of our differences and behaved accordingly.

Just like how she apologized every time I asked her to. And how she never spoke to me the way she spoke to Irene and Anna. It wasn’t scathing nor was her tone bad. It was just…as if she was on a higher pedestal.

With me, she seemed more like a child having fun. And quite frankly, I could tell some of it wasn’t on purpose. Her mannerisms were ingrained into her and it was something unavoidable once you were born into a high noble house.

I know I said I couldn’t care less about her rivalry with Diana but her smile when Diana left bothered me a little.

It was positively filled with glee.

It made me a slightly more concerned about Diana pushing Leonora into the pond in my first life.

After meeting Diana and talking to her, albeit not for too long, she didn’t seem like the type of person to do that. Oh yes, she was very arrogant, but she was also quite easy to tame. She seemed like the type that was very easy to anger but rarely resorted to physical retaliation. Throughout the exchange of words, she kept her arms firmly to herself and they never budged. In other words, she was very unlikely to resort to getting physical.

However, she was still a child.

And children ran on emotion. Noble children were no different. If she was goaded enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if she retaliated physically. Even adults had a hard time holding back when provoked.

And from what I saw today, Leonora was more than capable of goading Diana beyond her limit.

The carriage stopped with a jolt and I was helped down from the carriage. As soon as we entered the mansion, I nodded to my maid and began to head to my quarters then I heard a deep voice.

“Lydia.”

I reflexively froze. It was a voice that I simply couldn’t forget despite how rarely I heard it. My father’s voice.

“Come with me,” he continued and began to head in the other direction. To his study most likely.

I clutched my dress for a second before letting go, “Yes, Your Grace,” and I began to follow.

We got to his office, and I stood while he sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. He gestured for me to sit down too and I obliged.

“I heard you spoke with His Majesty,” he began.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m sure you already know.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“I refuse.”

At that, he raised a brow, “You have an attitude.”

“I’m surprised you just noticed.”

Oddly enough, he smiled, “You seemed annoyed, Lydia.”

“You are mistaken, Your Grace,” I tried not to speak bitingly. Whatever good mood I was in, was gone. I really wanted to go meet my lovely bed.

“‘Your Grace’…huh,” he gave a small laugh and leaned back in his seat. “You don’t want to be engaged to Prince Edmund?”

I looked at him for a moment then I smiled, “I believe I let you know first, Your Grace.”

“You...” he started but trailed off. Surprise flashed through his eyes. “You did. Right. Because of Prince Julius?”

‘Oh, I forgot I said that.’ I immediately shook my head, “Absolutely not.”

“Right…and what is your reason now?”

“He is not my type,” I used the same reason I used for the King and the Duke looked just as baffled at the King.

“Type? You have a ty—” he cut himself off and raised a hand, “Don’t answer that.”

I blinked. I never noticed, but he and the king have quite some similarities. Especially behavior wise.

When he didn’t speak for a while, I offered to leave, “Is that all, Your Grace?”

“No,” he immediately replied but said nothing else.

My lips twitched but I didn’t say anything. I looked around the study filled with books all over the place. I’d once read all the books in this room, but it has been years and I could barely remember half of them.

I looked at the study, filled with papers and fresh ink. Then I turned back to the Duke to find him staring at me.

“You are an odd child.”

I nodded, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is a compliment. Your brother is odd too.”

I didn’t reply to that.

I could feel the Duke eyeing me before he finally said, “You don’t seem pleased with me, Lydia.”

I raised a brow, “You must be mistaken.” I wasn’t displeased with him. I was just tired and facing a neglectful father was making me even more tired. He talks to me today, he ignores me tomorrow. I really didn’t have time for it.

Come to think of it, I don’t really remember us really talking in my first life. We exchanged greetings and I think that was the extent of my interactions with my father. If I ever needed something, he’d get it for me, so I used to ask for a lot of stuff. It was also the way I got an opportunity to talk to him but after a while, he asked me to talk to his butler instead.

In this life, it was a bit weird. After I ‘barged’ into his office that one time, he began to pull me into awkward 5 second conversations. And it was always when we met coincidentally.

And example is the last one we had like 5-6 months ago:

“Lydia.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“What did you eat?”

“Rat meat.”

“What?”

“I’m joking.”

“Oh.”

And every time he would have this weird expression on. I couldn’t really rank this as a change because frankly, I’d talked to him more in my first life. But it wasn’t small talk like this. And on a second thought, maybe we could have talked more in my first life if I wasn’t so scared of making him unhappy.

“I don’t think I’m mistaken,” the Duke’s voice broke me out of my reverie.

I sighed, “On the contrary, I’m quite pleased to be here. I don’t have many opportunities to talk to you, Your Grace.”

“I am busy.”

“I know.”

He paused for a moment then nodded, “Well, I can’t seem to remember what other thing I wanted to talk to you about. You may leave.”

I smiled, “Thank you.” And immediately left the room.

A part of me was curious what that was about but a huge part of me wanted to just go and sleep.