Chapter 75: The Hidden Truth

“ …Doesn’t Rosemary limp? She might have just grabbed you out of fright. It’s not as if she pushed you. That’s impossible.”

Duke Stern shook his head. His denial, as always, was firm. Edelweiss offered no rebuttal.

She no longer expected him to believe her.

Just like before, she knew he would call it a misunderstanding.

To him, she had always been a selfish girl blinded by jealousy.

She was tired of it. She wanted him to know his belief that Rosemary was kind and pure was an illusion.

“I knew you would say that.”

“That’s not what I meant, Edelweiss!”

His protest rang hollow; Edelweiss answered with a calm smile instead.

The moment on the balcony when Rosemary shoved her over—Rosemary’s cheerful voice still echoed vividly in her mind.

Edelweiss repeated every word slowly.

“ ‘You’re pathetic, wanting to be loved,’ she said while pushing me. ‘You’re like a swan flailing desperately just to stay afloat.’ ”

“…..”

Silence choked the room; Duke Stern’s eyes wavered at what followed.

“Ah, maybe she called me a duckling rather than a swan.”

It wasn’t wrong. Edelweiss had struggled desperately for the duke’s love.

To earn praise, to gain attention, she acted like a good child—never whining, always yielding, watching carefully.

To Rosemary, who received the duke’s love without any effort, her desperate struggle must have seemed ridiculous.

Edelweiss’s lips curved in a bitter smile as she pressed her fingertips beneath her eyes.

Old memories surfaced, emotions flickering past and fading.

“I thought my sister was my family.”

“Do you know why I believed Rosemary, whom the duke brought in from outside, was my real sister?”

“……”

“She was the only one who was kind to me.”

That kindness from Rosemary had been entirely false.

She had fallen for it, never realizing she was being deceived until Rosemary herself said so.

The day she died so miserably came back to her in vivid detail.

Raindrops soaking her cheeks—that choking sensation returned.

Edelweiss let out a breath and continued.

“So I didn’t know. I never realized she was laughing at me. That the promise to be my sister was nothing but a lie.”

Duke Stern froze, unable to move.

“It was bad enough she tipped off the Boniel Times with slander and framed me for stealing the ruby necklace. Perhaps she was jealous, or simply covering her mistake when the necklace went missing—people can slip up.”

“……”

“Do you know why I left the duchy? Did you ever wonder? I’d spent my life trying to be your pride as the Lady of Stern—so why?”

“……”

“I was scared. I found out she was trying to make me infertile.”

At her words, the duke’s eyes widened.

“What—w-what do you mean—”

His breath came fast; his face grew pale.

“She even used Jane, whom I brought in myself and kept by my side for ten years, and made me drink lily tea.”

She wanted to expose how the “concerned” father truly acted the moment she became infertile.

“If I hadn’t noticed and really became barren, I would’ve been cast off. Everyone would whisper that the Lady of Stern was infertile. You’d have thought I’d disgraced the duchy.”

“I—”

The duke’s face twisted more with every word.

“Oh, maybe you’d have married me off to some man in his seventies, just to get me out of sight.”

His lips trembled.

“Rosemary tried to make you infertile?”

His voice cracked, as if he were choking on a truth he couldn’t swallow.

His eyes opened wide, then clouded in confusion; his breathing turned ragged.

Reeling with shock, he staggered, groping the air before grabbing the table for support.

“If you can’t believe it, ask Jane. You know Rosemary kept bringing me lily tea.”

The tea in his cup quivered violently under his weight.

“That was the first time I ever felt relieved—when I learned she wasn’t really my blood sister.”

“What are you saying?”

He knew what “not blood sisters” implied.

Edelweiss gave a small smile.

“You didn’t know? I assumed you did. Rosemary isn’t your own daughter.”

“Rosemary… not my daughter?!”

The duke clutched his chest and shouted, eyes screwed shut, then forced himself to speak again.

“Is it because she never saw butterflies? Because she didn’t awaken the Blossomweaver gift? Not every bloodline inherits it. Even you awakened late…”

“Oh, you think I’m making wild claims just because of that? Fine. Look at her light-brown hair—think who else has that color.”

A treasured child, raised with nothing but affection, yet now told she wasn’t his real daughter.

It was hard to accept at once.

With no proof, it could easily sound like Edelweiss—known to clash with Rosemary—was slandering her.

Rosemary’s birth father.

Count Sandor also had light-brown hair like Rosemary’s. Duke Stern, apparently thinking of Count Sandor at once, exhaled sharply.

“Go to the Blossomweaver marquessate. There you’ll find the double-entry ledgers my sister kept separately while managing the household. She added an extra orphanage to the patronage list and siphoned all the slush fund to her birth father.”

“…Impossible. It can’t be. It can’t—”

“Oh, and if you want to know why my sister is named ‘Rosemary,’ ask His Lordship for Serena Widen’s letter.”

***

Impossible. It couldn’t be. No— it mustn’t be.

Duke Stern prayed Edelweiss had misunderstood something. Yet her eyes, her voice, burst forth with a truth long suppressed.

He headed straight for the Blossomweaver estate. Arriving, he sought the marquess without even catching his breath.

“Show me the letter from Serena Widen—”

At first the marquess’s husband did not welcome him, but soon returned with an old letter.

Duke Stern read it slowly.

His murmured voice began to tremble. Head-splitting emotions clawed at his mind.

“Saying she is my brother’s daughter…”

Words failed him in empty despair. How could this be? How had he never known?

Rosemary’s laughter, her clear eyes in childhood, the small warm body he once cradled dearly—Duke Stern recalled holding young Rosemary.

Yet behind that gentle scene

stood Edelweiss, always silent, a little apart, feet together, watching with eyes full of wistful envy.

‘Father, I have something to tell you.’

‘If it’s not urgent, I’m busy; tell me later.’

‘Ah… yes, I’m sorry.”

That child never once cried. She swallowed tears on the verge of spilling and forced a smile.

Only now did he see it. He had not understood then—

No, he had looked away. Though she was closest to him, he had never once held her.

Is it… too late now?