Like a meerkat, she perked up her ears and focused on the following sound.

“It’s me……”

“Your Majesty?”

Adelia jumped up in surprise. The spoon fell to the floor.

Adelia opened and closed her mouth with a bewildered expression.

“Come in?”

At her words, which were a mix of permission and question, the door slowly opened. There stood the Emperor, looking more haggard than earlier.

Unlike usual, the Emperor’s clothes and hair were disheveled. If there had been a smell of alcohol, someone might have easily mistaken him for being drunk.

Behind the Emperor, Adelia noticed the maids trembling. To save them if nothing else, she quickly invited the Emperor into the room.

“Shall we go to the reception room?”

“No. Let’s do it here.”

“Then please come this way.”

Where Adelia was located was her office. The Emperor stepped into the neat space that resembled her.

Adelia ordered the maids to clear away the food and bring light refreshments. The maids’ movements quickened at the Emperor’s unexpected visit.

“Though it’s not as good as the imperial palace food, it should suit your taste.”

Adelia pushed a bitter dessert made with coffee in front of the Emperor. The Emperor quietly watched this.

Silence hung in the room. And it was the Emperor, not Adelia, who broke that silence.

He carefully opened his mouth with both hands placed on his knees.

“I’m sorry.”

“Pardon?”

Adelia made a strange sound as she whipped her head around at the unexpected words. Though she belatedly covered her mouth, she couldn’t hide her widely rounded eyes.

‘I didn’t expect to hear an apology.’

Adelia looked at the Emperor with a bewildered expression.

The Emperor, with his head deeply bowed, didn’t seem to be lying. He sincerely apologized with his haggard face.

‘He cares about family more than I thought.’

Enough to willingly bow his head and apologize despite bearing the weight of being the Empire’s Emperor.

In the original story, the Emperor sincerely apologized while embracing the princess who returned from her second escape.

— I’m sorry. I only now realized my selfishness was hurting you…. Though it’s too late, I’m sorry. Really… I’m sorry.

It was clearly described that Lucian, the prince, and the princess all saw the Emperor apologize for the first time then.

And now that Emperor was apologizing to her.

Adelia, at a loss for what to do, covered her mouth with both hands while rolling her eyes around.

How should she receive the Emperor’s apology? Many words flashed through her mind but none seemed appropriate.

“Haha…… Would you like some tea first? It’s lavender tea. They say it’s good for calming the mind and body.”

In the end, Adelia chose avoidance.

Purple lavender floated on the yellow tea that filled the transparent teacup. The Emperor slowly moved his eyes at the fragrant aroma wafting up.

“Lavender……”

The Emperor whispered softly. He stared blankly at the teacup. The lavender floating on top gracefully swam across the surface, gently tapping against the edges.

Though the Emperor’s face looked blank and emotionless, the clouded color in his eyes gradually returned.

He slowly lifted the teacup. As he took a sip, the warm heat warming his body and the lavender fragrance brushing past his nose brought back achingly nostalgic memories.

“You…… sometimes seem to know many things.”

“Pardon?”

“Whether you know or if it’s a coincidence…”

The Emperor smiled faintly and drank all the tea in the cup. He set down the teacup with only lavender remaining.

Though the Emperor still looked haggard, his eyes at least seemed more at ease than before.

‘They said it’s good for calming the mind and body…. Is it true?’

Adelia looked at the still-full teapot with a bewildered expression.

Who knew the tea the saintess had given her, saying to reduce work and live more comfortably, would be so useful.

Determined to solve the problem, even if it meant using up all the gifts she had received as long as they were effective, she poured fragrant tea into the Emperor’s cup.

The Emperor picked up the teacup again. This time instead of drinking, he swirled the cup around to savor the fragrance.

“Once, the imperial palace was full of lavender fragrance.”

“Was there lavender in the rear garden?”

“No, lavender tea was Ariel’s favorite.”

“Ah…. Her Majesty the Empress liked it.”

“She would ask for this tea at all hours. So I often drank it too.”

The Emperor set down the teacup he had been holding.

After the Empress departed, lavender couldn’t be found in the palace. At her funeral, where she wanted even the artificial flowers to be lavender, fragrant lavender filled the space as per her wish.

Though it was all cleared from the palace now, the lavender scent had deeply permeated the spaces they had shared over the long years. Whenever he smelled the lavender scent remaining throughout the palace, the Emperor swallowed his sorrow while missing the Empress.

“It’s…… better than expected.”

After years passed, the lavender scent disappeared. Instead, the citrus scent that Ariana liked filled the palace.

Though he had never forgotten the Empress for a single moment, it had been a very long time since he last smelled lavender.

Encountering the lavender scent again wasn’t all that sad. Instead, its fragrance brought back the Empress’s voice and the joy of their shared memories.

— You’re too stubborn. I need to be here to advise you. What will you do when I’m gone later?

— You can scold me by my side for life. I listen well to you, don’t I?

— But what if I’m not here or my judgment becomes clouded? Our first son takes too much after you so that won’t work, and our second is too flighty so that won’t work either…. Our sons need to find wise wives.

— I’ll listen to our daughters-in-law instead?

— When I’m gone. Our daughters-in-law will have such a hard time. Our sons take after you so they’re just handsome but their personalities are no good at all, and they’ll have to take care of their father-in-law too.

— No one could be better than you, so you’ll have to scold me for life.

It was sweet when talking face to face with his beloved sitting on his knee, but looking back now, it felt bitter like grapefruit.

‘If Ariel saw this, she would be angry asking if I didn’t listen. You’re really smart. Not a single word was wrong.’

The fragrant lavender scent seemed to scold him in place of Ariel who was no longer by his side.

His desperate feelings and sad heart melted away softly. The Emperor’s face became much gentler as he slowly opened his mouth.

“Before Ariel died, she left words asking me to raise Ariana well. Though Lucian and Lawrence are all my beloved children, I can’t help but keep my eye especially on Ariana, who is the youngest and Ariel’s last child.”

“That’s natural. The princess is the youngest and didn’t get her mother’s care, so of course you would pay more attention and worry more.”

“So I wanted to raise her more preciously. Give her everything good, leave her wanting for nothing, with nothing to envy. Safely and happily. I thought everyone would be happy if I raised her only in the best imperial palace, but that was my misunderstanding.”

Before coming here, the Emperor had tried everything to improve Ariana’s mood.

He went to the princess’s palace, but Ariana didn’t show even a strand of hair. It was the same whether he knocked on the door, called her name, or brought delicious food and expensive jewelry.

No matter how angry and how much he wanted to see her, he couldn’t force the door open. If he did that, his precious daughter might really leave his embrace.

So he finally came to find Adelia. Because she was the only one who had stood up against him.

“Outside the palace is dangerous. Within these walls, no one would dare defy me, but beyond them, there are still a few anti-imperial dissidents. Even without their presence, countless dangers could threaten a young child. I cannot bring myself to send Ariana to such a place.”

Though the noble faction wouldn’t dare touch Ariana, there were brave humans who had nothing to lose.

The power of the anti-imperial rebels wasn’t large but they were extreme and destructive. Moreover, there were occasional child kidnapping incidents during festival periods.

Hearing those words, Adelia lightly pulled up the corners of her mouth.

“The fact that you’re telling me this means you’ve come to accept that though you don’t want to let the princess out, you need to.”

“Yes…. The book you gave helped. Though the title was like a third-rate novel, the content was proper.”

“As if I would have given you a strange book. Wasn’t it better than stiff parenting books?”

The reasons Adelia chose that book included its unique title and content that perfectly fit the situation, but she also liked how the writing style felt like a friendly grandmother scolding rather than the stiff explanations of parenting books.

“It wasn’t bad. Children aren’t dolls. They can’t live under control either. It’s pathetic that I only now realized something so obvious and simple.”

“It’s fortunate you realized it now. As you said, the princess is still young. If you had only realized after she grew up and left her parents’ hands, it would have been irreversible.”

“True, she’s still young so she’s just closing her door. I worry she might leave home when she’s older.”