“Furthermore, Your Grace is not only the head of the prestigious Valdevern family, but now a war hero as well. So the collateral nobles will no longer crane their necks gazing up at a tree they cannot climb, nor will they act with such insolence as before.”

Eddie poured out his words without pausing for breath. Ahin raised one eyebrow and asked,

“Eddie, what exactly are you trying to say?”

“What I mean is that you no longer need to concern yourself with the Kepla Duke’s opinion.”

“I thought you were going to say something else entirely.”

In truth, Ahin had never given so much as a fingernail’s worth of consideration to the Kepla ducal house.

He had simply kept Sierra close because he wanted her near.

But Eddie seemed to think otherwise.

“So? If you’re just going to keep talking nonsense, go ahead and leave.”

“Since you have told me to leave, I shall take my leave.”

Eddie gathered the dessert and tea and walked toward the door.

“Your Grace, even so……”

Just as it seemed Eddie would walk out of the study as he was, he suddenly turned his body slightly toward Ahin.

“What I meant was that it might be worth at least acknowledging the young lady’s birthday.”

“I intend to.”

At the ready answer, Eddie turned fully toward Ahin.

“Do you truly mean that?”

At the slightly excited tone in Eddie’s voice, Ahin’s brow furrowed.

“Why are you so concerned about someone else’s wife’s birthday?”

“In truth, I had suggested that since it is her twentieth birthday, it might be fitting to hold a grand and splendid party……”

“And?”

“The young lady firmly declined.”

Eddie said this with a deflated expression.

“Sierra did?”

Ahin furrowed his brow.

“Yes. She said she would prefer to simply have a quiet dinner.”

Sierra had been mature beyond her years since childhood.

Even when children her age were running outside like young colts or playing with dolls, Sierra would quietly read books or sit in quiet contemplation in her room.

While Ahin thought she looked grown-up for it, he also often felt as though she lived in a world entirely different from his own.

Ahin disliked that.

And her declining the twentieth birthday party was an extension of the same thing.

Nobles, as a rule, were accustomed to all things grand and glittering. Especially a young lady born into the Kepla ducal house, a family as prestigious and wealthy as Sierra’s.

Ahin had been the same, before he came face to face with the brutal realities of the battlefield.

But he wanted Sierra, and Sierra alone, to never know such dark realities for as long as she lived.

So there was no reason for her to spend her twentieth birthday quietly and modestly.

“Prepare the grandest, most splendid birthday party you can manage.”

At Ahin’s words, Eddie nodded enthusiastically with delight.

“A clear and decisive answer!”

Eddie, who had been dawdling like a puppy that needed to relieve itself, quickly left the study.

Ahin stared for a moment at the study door Eddie had closed behind him.

“Could it be?”

At a thought that suddenly crossed his mind, Ahin’s eyes narrowed.

He wondered whether the whole business of bringing dessert and shedding tears had been a buildup to bring up Sierra’s birthday all along.

But why on earth?

Sierra was twenty this year, and Eddie was thirty-two.

There was quite an age gap, but Eddie was handsome and looked young enough to pass for someone in his twenties.

“And he’s unmarried, at that.”

Eddie had always been the one to step in and comfort Sierra whenever Ahin made her cry.

“……”

The thought that had suddenly surfaced put him in a thoroughly foul mood.

Ahin quickly shook his head from side to side to rid himself of the unpleasant thought.

Then he picked up his quill pen and resumed the work he had briefly set aside.

—

Having confirmed that Ahin had entered the parlor, Sierra lifted the corners of her lips in satisfaction.

‘Don’t fail this time. Do it right.’

Sierra cheered Ahin on only in her heart and turned her steps back toward the study.

Yet while she felt a sense of lightness, something nagged at her at the same time.

Doing her best to ignore that nagging feeling, Sierra returned to the study and carefully looked over the list of items written on the parchment.

But the letters simply would not come into focus.

“Let me take a short break.”

Sierra walked to the window and looked up at the sky.

The sky was clear and blue.

Having savored a brief moment of rest, Sierra leaned against the windowsill and swept her gaze around the study.

Past the familiar furniture, Sierra’s gaze came to rest on the mural hanging above the fireplace.

“It really hasn’t changed a single thing from when I first saw it.”

The study in the mural from thirteen years ago and the study as it stood now were unchanged, exactly the same.

There was a reason Sierra had not changed a single piece of furniture or furnishing in the study.

In the original work, it is only around the time the villainess Sierra is expelled from the Valdevern ducal house that the truth comes to light, that she was not actually the daughter of the Kepla Duke and Duchess.

Afterward, the Kepla Duke and Duchess rejoice upon reclaiming Claudia, their true daughter, whom they had lived without even knowing they had lost.

Naturally, the way the Kepla Duke and Duchess looked at Sierra was not kind.

She was the daughter of the nursemaid who had switched their child.

If asked whether the bond of birth or the bond of upbringing ran deeper, for the Kepla Duke and Duchess it was the bond of birth.

More precisely, the bloodline of the storied Kepla family.

Sierra had left the Kepla ducal house at seven and made her home in the Valdevern ducal house.

Her ties to the Kepla ducal house had already been severed, as good as cut off, thirteen years ago.

So whether it was a daughter who had lived apart for over thirteen years, or a daughter found again after seventeen years, perhaps there was not much difference to them.

‘Though it was through your mother’s wrongdoing that we came to take you in, I believe we have done our duty by you well enough.’

That was what the Kepla Duke had said to Sierra. And he had urged her to leave the Kepla ducal house of her own accord.

Of course, the Sierra of the original work did not step down easily.

‘That was not my doing. Think about it, Father. I was nothing but a newborn infant at the time!’

Sierra had wept and screamed and made a terrible scene.

Without even realizing that it was driving the Kepla Duke and Duchess further away.

“Haah……”

Having experienced it firsthand, it was hard to condemn the original Sierra as foolish.

It was also something that would soon befall her as well.

That was why Sierra tried not to cling to a place she would be leaving regardless. She felt that doing so would allow her to leave with a somewhat easier heart.

And it turned out to be less difficult than she had expected.

The place Sierra was driven from would be taken by Claudia.

Ahin’s wife and the mistress of the Valdevern ducal house, and the true daughter of the Kepla Duke and Duchess.

Unlike the original Sierra, who had entirely neglected her duties as mistress, Claudia had actively and diligently learned everything a mistress was expected to do.

In that process, this study would be used as a workspace.

Watching Ahin tell her she was free to change the interior of the estate however she liked, Claudia had said this.

‘This is one of the spaces where Ahin can remember his late parents. So I would like to leave it as it is. Besides, the late Duchess had truly excellent taste.’

Claudia had always put Ahin first, and moved by her thoughtfulness, Ahin had reached out and gripped Claudia’s shoulders with conviction and……

Having recalled the original story up to that point, Sierra promptly cut off her train of thought.

And rather than continuing with something that refused to come together, she chose to do what she actually wanted to do right now.

Namely, handing over the duties of the mistress to Claudia.

Due to the absence of the previous duchess, Sierra had been forced to experience everything firsthand and build it all up with her own hands, but there was no need for Claudia to go through the same.

Even with the considerable help of her memories from her past life, it had been far from easy.

“All right!”

Sierra rolled up her dress sleeves and let out a faint sigh.

She took out a fresh sheet of parchment, loaded the quill pen with plenty of ink, and began writing out each word one by one.

Starting with the list and quantities of essential supplies to be brought into the estate by season, then the merchant guilds from which they primarily sourced goods, and the points to keep in mind when conducting transactions with them.

She intended to write down everything she had learned through her own experience. And by the time the parchment was filled densely with words.

[When he was young he was quite fond of sweets, but whether his tastes changed as he grew, lately he does not eat sweet things at all.]

Sierra, who had been writing steadily, came to an abrupt stop.

“This is completely…… like a letter from a former wife to her husband’s new wife.”

The moment she realized that, a hollow laugh escaped Sierra’s lips.

At first she had thought of it as something she was doing for Claudia’s sake. But thinking about it more carefully, it did not seem to be quite that.

How many new wives would actually welcome the indelible traces of a former wife?

“Perhaps my enthusiasm was…… a little excessive?”

The Claudia of the original work was someone who knew how to be grateful for others’ kindness, and was portrayed as good-natured, yet at times resolute and spirited.

But what about when it came to matters of the heart? Would she truly welcome this lengthy letter that seemed to be drenched in a former wife’s lingering attachment?

Sierra looked for a moment at the words she had written with such care.

“No.”

She reached a decision.

She would remove the parts that contained personal opinions. It would be better to put it together in the form of a document based on facts.

Sierra took out a fresh sheet of parchment and spread it out on the desk.

It was just then.

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor.