136. A Hidden Family History: The Heroine’s Story
When Seraphine silently nodded, the man cautiously opened his mouth.
“It’s such an old story that I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Take your time.”
Seraphine lifted her teacup to her lips as she spoke.
Her composure seemed almost cold, yet her fingertips trembling around the porcelain betrayed her inner turmoil.
After pausing to gather his words, the man began.
“There was a woman I loved. She was beautiful and noble. I had nothing, but she was warm enough to embrace even my hardships.”
It was a story Seraphine already knew well.
And yet, hearing it from his lips made it sound strangely foreign—like an old fairy tale.
“Her family opposed me, a man of no worth. So, we eloped in secret and held a modest wedding in a small village.”
The emerald shimmer of his eyes seemed to reflect the southern coast.
Days long gone, never to return.
Memories that broke apart like waves.
“At that time, the Empire was ravaged by war, little more than ruins. We took in abandoned children and opened a small orphanage.”
“……”
“At first, we cared for them simply out of pity, but those angelic children became our support. Even after we married, my wife and I could not have children of our own for a long time.”
“……”
“And then, one day, as if by miracle, a child was born between us. A precious little one who looked half like me and half like my wife.”
A faint smile spread across his wrinkled face, the joy and wonder of that first meeting with his child lighting his expression.
“We cherished her. She was more precious than life itself. She grew up healthy, and our days were filled with happiness. With my beloved wife and my precious daughter, I wanted nothing more.”
Seraphine bit down hard on her lower lip.
The resolve she had steeled kept threatening to crumble.
She forced herself to speak as though the story were someone else’s.
“You must have been happy.”
“Yes, I was. More than happy. But now… I am parted from the family I loved.”
A dark shadow fell across his face.
“In a single day, an accident took everything from me. Our fate was overturned in an instant.”
“……”
“The situation was hopeless. So hopeless that I thought the only answer was death.”
He didn’t explain the details, but Seraphine already knew. No explanation was necessary.
“So I ran away. I abandoned my wife and daughter. I was a coward…”
His eyes rested on Seraphine.
The child who had once been in his arms but was now forever out of reach.
“I lived my whole life in regret and guilt until, by chance, I came across a newspaper article. And so I came here. I knew I had no right… but still.”
The innocent child he remembered had grown into a dignified young lady.
Not being there for her through all those years weighed heavily on his heart.
“I’m relieved to see you’re doing well.”
“……”
Seraphine said nothing.
The man looked at her for a long while, but she never once met his eyes.
After a long silence, weary-faced, he rose from his seat.
“Seeing your face is enough. It was good to meet you.”
He bowed deeply and turned to leave. But Seraphine’s voice rang out at his back.
“You shouldn’t have run away!”
“……!”
She trembled with fury.
Her voice, choked with grief, pinned him in place.
“If you loved your family that much, you should never have abandoned them! No matter how bad things were, you should have faced it together!”
Large, glassy tears streamed down her cheeks.
Her voice, desperate and raw, carried not only old resentment and hatred, but also a yearning she could not hide.
“You were my father! A father shouldn’t abandon his family!”
The moment she saw him, her heart had pounded wildly.
No matter how aged or shabby he looked, she could never fail to recognize him.
She had waited her entire life for this man.
Tried to forget him, yet could not—and so she had lived by resenting him instead.
“My mother and I waited our entire lives. We waited for you to come back… How could you be so cowardly?”
The man’s eyes widened.
Hot tears welled up and spilled down his face.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
His hoarse voice could say nothing else. Again and again, he repeated his apology as tears of regret streamed down his cheeks.
“Goodness… So that’s what happened.”
Several days had passed since then.
After disappearing for a while, Seraphine had shown up at the ducal estate at dawn, pouring out everything that had happened.
She had met her father.
Her eyes were not only swollen but raw and inflamed from weeping.
To suddenly have the father you thought long dead reappear—no wonder she’s so shaken.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the turmoil she had gone through.
Her father had vanished again, but the anguish he left behind was now entirely Seraphine’s burden.
“My lady, what am I supposed to do?”
She clung to me in tears.
I patted her back, though I too was at a loss.
In the original story, Seraphine’s father never appeared.
I hadn’t even known he was alive.
Why show up now? Because Seraphine became famous?
No… that alone doesn’t explain it.
In the original work, she had been chosen as the Crown Princess, making her name known across the Empire, but even then her father never returned.
So why now…?
Ugh.
No matter how I thought it over, I couldn’t find an answer.
For now, what mattered was Seraphine’s will.
“My lady, what do you want to do? Can you forgive him?”
“I don’t know.”
Seraphine shook her head.
“I hate him. I hate him so much. I can’t even stand the sight of a father who abandoned his family.”
“My lady…”
Just recalling him brought tears to her eyes, heavy with bitterness.
“And yet… even though he abandoned me and my mother, I can’t bring myself to abandon him. That makes me so angry, so frustrated.”
I quietly patted her back.
No words of comfort could soothe the deep-seated resentment in her heart.
After a while, when her tears slowed, I asked carefully:
“Could you tell me more about your mother and father’s story?”
Seraphine nodded.
The tale she recounted was one I already knew.
Her father had been a commoner, and her mother the only daughter of Baron Blaine.
The baron had refused to accept such a lowborn son-in-law.
But as the saying goes, parents cannot win against their children.
At first, he had raged when he learned his daughter had eloped with a commoner, cutting ties with her. But in time, he relented, recognized the son-in-law, and even passed on his title to him—along with the final wish that he make his daughter happy.
It sounded like a fairy tale, but from the baron’s perspective, there was little choice.
If he didn’t pass the title to his son-in-law, however unworthy, the estate would have gone to some distant relative.
Up to here, this matches what I knew.
The Blaine family’s history wasn’t different from what I had learned in my previous life.
So then…
“You said your father ran away. Could you tell me what happened then?”
“There was a fire at the orphanage. No one knows how it started, but the building burned down completely. The staff and children inside… all of them…”
Seraphine trailed off, but I didn’t need her to finish.
“Among the children who died, there must have been one of noble birth. Perhaps a child separated from their family during the war.”
I nodded.
If a noble’s child had perished in the fire, her father would never have escaped blame.
“The family pressed hard, and the matter escalated. His Majesty himself reprimanded our house harshly. From then on, our family fell out of favor.”
I held up a hand to stop her.
“Wait a moment, Lady Seraphine.”
“Yes? Why?”
Something didn’t add up.
Let’s say, at a stretch, that a noble child ended up in an orphanage during wartime. That much was possible—perhaps separated in the chaos, or even kidnapped.
But for the family to immediately raise protest after the child’s death, and for the Emperor himself to punish the Blaine house…?
How did they even know the child in the orphanage was theirs?
It felt like a great deal of the story had been left out.
After a moment’s thought, I spoke.
“The Blaine family is based in the South, right? Then the orphanage must have been there too?”
“Yes, why? Does it matter?”
“……”
A child abandoned in the South. A child of such high birth that even the Emperor cared.
“I need to check something.”
“M-my lady?”
I left immediately, ignoring Seraphine’s startled voice behind me.
