Don’t Remember Me

DON’T REMEMBER ME~ 4 ~ A cute little kid with bright green eyes and dazzling golden hair that resembles Haven. But there was still the trace of a child on her face. She still is still a kid after all. Flitta looked at her father with frightened expression on her eyes, blinking them innocently. She ran to her father and stopped when she saw him, not hugging her, and didn’t even dare to act cute or whine. And it was the same with Haven. He just stared at his little daughter with an indifferent expression on his face. He didn’t even think to ask if Flitta was feeling alright now that she was feeling unwell. They were so awkward with each other. Seeing the distance between the father and daughter, Isabelle interfered. “Is Flitta sick? Oh my, if I had known earlier, I would have brought even the royal maids. Flitta, are you in a lot of pain? Now seeing you, you look indeed unwell.” Her voice was gentle. However, her eyes carried coldness. When the child noticed Isabella’s eyes, she hid behind her nanny, feeling petrified. Isabella looked even colder at the child’s behavior, but she immediately smiled at her and looked back at Haven this time. “Flitta is very awkward with me. I should frequent here to get to know her, Haven.” “You don’t have to.” Haven immediately rejected her words with a dry expression on his face. He then added with a frosty face. “I would also like you to refrain from coming in without beforehand warning like today. It is impolite to get in without contacting the Head of the mansion in advance, moreover while I am away.” “Ha-Haven! How could you say such a thing?!” Isabella hardened her expression at Haven’s words, but she soon moved to tears. “Of course, I’m not unaware that my actions were somewhat disrespectful. But why don’t you know that I had to do it because I wanted to get closer to you?” “…” “Right now, I can’t count on different person but you, Haven. If you only know how lonely and afraid I am when Livius, no, His Majesty’s sudden death came, you can never say such harsh thing to me.” Isabella wept and continued speaking, then pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her wet cheeks with tears. Her appearance was pitiful and pathetic. However, her Heyburn gaze, looking at her, was still cold and indifferent. Rather, the corners of his lips twisted slightly. “…. I did not know that Your Majesty relied on my older brother that much.” “Isn’t that natural? I believe in him right after stepping in the royal palace.” “But before you could mention my older brother’s death, you talked about marriage with me.” “Th, that!” Isabella was speechless. She licked her lips, showing her bewilderment inside. Haven, who was ridiculed at the sight, turned around. At that moment, his eyes met with Flitta, who had been looking at him and Isabella alternately until then. She certainly got a cold, thus she looked exhausted than usual. Even her red, squishy cheeks turned pale. Haven took a closer look at his daughter’s condition. Since he had never shown his feeling outwardly, he was often criticized for being indifferent towards his own daughter. But he had never, even once been indifferent towards Flitta. Because she is his own ‘child’. He doesn’t remember anything on how he got a daughter, but that doesn’t mean that he should be irresponsible enough to neglect his daughter from his bloodline. Haven opened his mouth to Flitta, ignoring Isabella that was supposed to speak again. “I heard you’re feeling better. Your fever went down too.” “….” Flitta nodded her head instead of answering him, clutching her nanny’s skirt tightly. Then she noticed that the nanny looked down at Flitta with a bewildered look at her, and she called the child with a rather harsh tone. “Princess, when His grace’s asks a question, you must answer it politely and out loud.” “… Hhng.” Flitta became more frightened by her nanny’s light scolding, and shut her mouth, tightening her hand holding the hem of her skirt. “Princess.” The nanny, as if afraid to get angry at such a child’s behavior, tried to tear off the child’s little hand, which had grabbed the hem of her skirt. But before that, Haven this time opened his mouth. “That’s a relief.” He did not criticize Flitta’s attitude. He honestly had no idea what the child had done wrong. Isn’t the nanny still expecting too much from a young child? She is still a child. But Haven didn’t speak his mind. He simply replied in a dry tone. But maybe that was a little bit of a boost for Flitta, the child looked at him with as her light green eyes sparkled, and her lips twitched. “… Yes.” Flitta answered in a very low voice. Then, in a hurry, she buried her face in the nanny’s skirt. The little body of the child trembled as if something big had happened. “I’m leaving today.” Isabella said but she clenched her fists when Haven didn’t give her any last glance, who was only looking at Flitta. Haven didn’t even try to stop her or catch her from leaving. Instead, he bowed his head to bid goodbye and said a low voice to the nanny. “Take the child up.” “Yes, Grand Duke.” The nanny, who had been restraining herself from saying anything, spoke up and breathed out as if she had been allowed to do them. She then took Flitta, heading upstairs to the child’s room. She stared at the back of his daughter, while hearing the sound of nervous footsteps. There was no need for him to turn around to confirm that the owner of the footsteps because it was only the Queen. He sneered and walked towards his office but stopped at the sight of someone who had suddenly come to his mind. “Your grace?” Despite the butler’s bewildered question, Haven narrowed his brow and thought of someone before turning his head to look at the stairs. He caught a glimpse of his daughter’s eye color that mismatched his eyes. Flitta’s eye color didn’t match his. She resembled him by having the same blonde color of hair, but her eyes seem to be from her birth mother. Light green eyes. But just as he have no memory of his own daughter, he also had no memory of the woman who gave birth to Flitta. All he remembered this time was that he was in a carriage when he woke up, and that the road the carriage was running was on a remote road in the border area, far from the castle. Also, at that time, he encountered the existence of a newborn baby for the first time. “… ” He is not suspicious of the child’s birth. Most of the people who accompanied him in the carriage were from the Duke of Durklen, the family of the Queen, but there were certainly others who are doubting Flitta’s birth. And those are who belong to the Queen but have strong loyalty to the royal family. Although they clearly shuddered at the existence of the baby, they wanted to protect the young life. It was not an attitude they would have ever shown unless he was of royal blood. Besides, other than the color of the eyes, the child’s face, which grew more and more like him, was nothing less than proof of that. But why…. ‘Why did that woman’s eyes pop up?’ Haven remembered the woman he had met on the street earlier. She was a woman who was nothing like a beggar. A lowly woman whose illness was so obvious that she was likely to collapse at any moment. Nevertheless, she alone raised her head and stared at him, thinking that the woman’s green eyes were so similar to his daughter, Flitta. “I’m going insane.” Haven mumbled aloud involuntarily, then shook his head. It was ridiculous. * * * “How daring! He dares behave in front of me like that?!” Isabella nervously took off her gloves and threw them away as soon as she entered her own bedroom inside the castle. “Queen Seon…. Ouch!” The maid was hit, unable to escape from Isabella’s gloves, which had blown the maid away, who was about to serve her. Blood was dripping down quickly as if her cheek had been torn by the jewel on her glove, but the maid was too busy to deal with Isabella’s anger and didn’t bother to wipe the blood from her face. “Please relieve your anger, Queen Seon.” “At the end of every word, Queen Seon! Queen Seon! Who are you talking to? Do you mean that I, Isabella Guinters should be treated like that and should step down?!” “You’re mistaken, Your Majesty! I never meant it that way, Your Majesty!” The maid fell flat in front of Isabella, who trembled and raised her voice. The wind made the dust on her carpet stain her dress, but she couldn’t afford to worry about it. “I’m sorry. I was ignorant, no, I disturbed Her Majesty.” The maid bit the tip of her tongue at the title of ‘Queen Seon’ who was about to pop out without her knowing. She then apologized again and again, bowing her head until her forehead touched the floor. Considering the status of a maid born as a daughter of a baron, there was no reason for her to bow her head down like this. The title ‘maid’ is a completely different being if taken from the house of nobles. That is why, even though she was a queen, she should not treat her handmaiden with such disrespect. Nevertheless, Isabella’s attitude toward her maid was not so different from that of the maid in Haven’s mansion. It also meant that towards Duchess Durklen, Isabella was so powerful, and it also revealed that her personality was inconsiderate, impulsive, and arrogant. “… Hooh.” After a riot, Isabella sat down on the sofa, calming her anger a little. Then she cast her gaze on her handmaiden and immediately frowned at her. “Did you bleed? Gross.” “… Sorry, sorry.” The maid wiped her blood-stained cheeks; she was simply helpless to do something other than bowing. Isabella, who looked at her handmaiden as if being pathetic, opened her mouth again. “Send someone to the house of Durklen right now.”