Chapter 48
“Ah.”
Lillietta gave a small shake of her head as if waking from a dream, then looked up at her brother.
“No, it’s nothing. I danced well, right?”
“You danced very well. So well that Father cried.”
“Dad cried?”
Leonhardt subtly gestured with his chin. The Duke, sitting at the head table, had his face buried under a handkerchief, his head bowed. His shoulders trembled slightly. The impeccably composed Duchess was gently comforting him, possibly because he had already shed tears before entering the banquet hall.
It might have been considered undignified behavior for a high-ranking noble, but as a father, it was a warm and touching display. The overwhelming thoughts that had threatened to burst in her head finally calmed.
‘Yeah, there’s no point worrying about things that have no answers. I should just focus on the debutante ball for now. I need to show Mom and Dad how well I’ve grown.’
Lita smiled softly. Leonhardt also smiled and offered her his arm.
“Since Father’s in that state, I guess you’ll have to make the rounds with me, Lita.”
“Okay.”
She placed her hand on his arm.
Nobles craned their necks to get a better look at them. As the debutante of the day, there was no room for distractions. Lillietta began greeting the nobles with Leonhardt at her side.
Meanwhile
The Crown Prince, who had spilled wine on the sleeve of his jacket, happened to run into Ethan, a footman waiting outside the hall.
Ethan led the Crown Prince to a secluded lounge and called a maid to clean the jacket. As luck would have it, Hannah, who had caught Ethan’s eye, was assigned the task.
“T-the Crown Prince’s jacket? Me, of all people?!”
“You have to clean it quickly before it stains. I’ll go find His Highness’s attendant, so in the meantime, do what you can.”
“Ugh—ahhh…”
After Ethan left, Hannah gathered salt, soda water, and other cleaning supplies and made her way to the lounge where the Crown Prince was waiting.
Gasp.
As soon as she opened the door, Hannah barely suppressed a scream. She had immediately met the golden eyes of the Crown Prince.
Flustered, she lowered her gaze and didn’t catch his expression.
“I-I’m here… to clean your jacket.”
A black jacket embroidered with golden thread lay on the table in the lounge. Hannah, trembling, approached and placed her items down before checking the sleeve.
‘It hasn’t been long since it stained. I can still get it out cleanly!’
Focusing on the task helped her keep her composure. Hannah quickly sprinkled salt on the wine stain.
The Crown Prince, dressed in just a silk shirt, was seated casually on the sofa beside the table. Hannah had the strange feeling that he was staring holes into her, but she dismissed it as her imagination and focused on her work.
Had she turned her head just a little, she would have realized it wasn’t her imagination at all.
Gideon was holding his breath, unable to even blink, his eyes fixed on Hannah since the moment she entered the room.
Though his body remained frozen, the hand resting loosely on the armrest trembled, unable to hide his agitation.
Upon closer inspection, she looked quite different. Her features were different too.
But she resembled someone. Out of the countless candidates he had examined until now, she resembled her the most.
Rita Pascal.
Slightly tousled reddish-brown hair. Under a lamp, it glowed red; in shadows, it deepened like wet tree bark.
A delicate, slender neck. A refined jawline. Slightly upturned lips. A high, sharp nose and a small, cute tip.
Faint freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose. He remembered how those freckles danced adorably across her nose whenever she smiled.
As he examined Hannah’s face, comparing every detail to Rita, his gaze narrowed.
She looked very much like her… but the eyes were different.
Rita Pascal had slightly upturned eyes and elegant, curved eyebrows.
Her irises, framed by long lashes, were a beautiful reddish-brown—like an acorn hidden beneath fallen leaves. When she lowered her lashes in thought, those eyes deepened like a well.
Hannah, the maid, had gently drooping eyes and rounded brows. Her eyes, visible through her short, thick lashes, were a light brown like a walnut shell. She looked warm and sincere but lacked Rita’s sharp edge.
Thanks to that, he barely kept his sanity.
‘I still can’t be sure. I need to verify…’
Gideon slowly rubbed his face, collecting his thoughts. He thought more deeply about Rita’s eyes.
They were sharp. Her gaze was penetrating. Rita had always been observant.
Not just good vision or quick wit, but the ability to analyze situations objectively and interpret them accurately. Her uncanny marksmanship probably stemmed from the same skill.
That sharp gaze—he’d felt it just recently from the debutante he had danced with.
He recalled the noblewoman’s gaze that had lingered near his right eye and felt a strange irritation again.
He instinctively rubbed the spot where a scar used to be. He could feel his smooth skin—there was no scar there now. He gently closed both eyes, first the left, then the recently recovered right.
It was a sensation of a world once halved finally becoming whole. And now, he understood the source of his discomfort.
That noblewoman had looked at him as if she knew he had lived with only one eye for a long time—as if she were observing something unfamiliar when she saw his right eye.
He’d lived without that eye for eight years, since the age of fourteen. Even after returning four years ago, he had trouble adjusting.
He would turn his head to see things already in plain sight or misjudge distances and knock things over.
It felt strange having two eyes again.
‘Do I still have some lingering awkward habits? Did she notice?’
That was what irritated him.
Just as he had been annoyed when people took interest in his scar or the eye patch during his days as Gide Pascal.
Gideon didn’t like others noticing his weaknesses. Rita had been the only exception. He had always wanted her to pay attention to his scar.
Whenever he saw even a flicker of guilt or quiet responsibility in her small face as she looked at his empty eye, he had felt an inexplicable satisfaction.
Back then—young and foolish—he hadn’t understood why he felt that way. He hadn’t even realized he was feeling it.
But after Rita Pascal died…
As he frantically dug through his emotions, memories, and sense of self to fill the empty void she left behind, he came to understand what he had never grasped before.
It had been a sense of fulfillment born from the belief that Rita would never leave his side. A happiness he felt whenever he realized she held him dear and special.
But after she died—
After he carefully gathered every shattered piece of Rita Pascal’s body from the explosion—
He went insane.
Or rather, he went insane for the second time.
He had already lost his sanity when he picked up her scattered remains.
“Y-Your Highness…”
The trembling voice calling out to him pulled his mind back from the distant past. Gideon blinked and looked at the speaker.
Hannah was nervously bowing, flustered.
“I-I’ve finished the immediate cleaning, so I’ll take my leave now.”
“Wait.”
As she hurried to leave, the Crown Prince stopped her with a word, then hesitated.
If her return was complete—if all her memories were restored—then confirming if Hannah was Rita would be simple.
In fact, if that were the case, there’d be no need to confirm. She would recognize him too.
But if, as Ethan had speculated, Rita was still “in the process” of returning, things became more complicated.
‘I took 3 days. Ethan took 2 weeks. Senior Sera took 20 days. Olli took over a month. Senior Is took 3 months. And Luka, the slowest, took half a year.’
These were the times it took for returnees to fully recover their memories from the ash-covered world.
Luka Pascal, the slowest, regained his memories bit by bit over six months. Gideon, the fastest, woke up as Gide Pascal after being bedridden for three days.
‘We don’t know which memories return when. There are too few cases to draw a pattern—we’re the only ones we’ve found.’
‘If Rita is taking four years to gradually return…’
Then even if she doesn’t remember anything, Hannah could still be Rita Pascal.
Given the resemblance, it was nearly certain. All of them had returned in bodies that closely resembled their forms from the ash-covered world.
Nooooo.