P. 157
Breathing in the fine aroma of bergamot along with the arising steam, Nico was making himself at home as he combed his whiskers.
He softly set down the teacup that was so finely made that is was like the thin shell of an egg back onto its saucer. He reached his arm out towards his slice of almond cake.
Even he thought that this was quite dry and wasn’t his taste, but it didn’t take him any time to gobble it up and then he took a look around the room that was filled with dolls.
Being surrounded with dolls that had their colored-glass eyes open, there was an unfamiliar man who was completely enchanted and puffing on his pipe.
All the humans that visited this doll mansion were all not normal.
But, however, it wasn’t like it caused any harm to other humans and even if Nico was openly sitting and drinking tea, no one seemed to be bothered by that, so he had been paying frequent visits after their tea here.
“You’re all mentally ill,” murmured Nico as he took a glance towards the man out of the side of his eye as he just sat there and spent his time just gazing at the dolls.
“Are you referring to me?”
P. 158
It was rare, he actually replied.
“I’m perfectly fine. The man next door is much more ailing. Because he was talking to a woman in a portrait.”
“Hmmm, so you don’t talk to them like him.”
“Even if you talk to dolls, it isn’t like they’ll talk back.”
Well, yes, of course.
“They don’t notice even if you stare at them, they don’t see me at all. That’s why I’m able to watch them secretly get dressed and hear them whisper amongst each other so quiet like the edges of glass touching each other.”
This man is much worse.
“And yet, that man is under the complete belief that the woman in the portrait is in love with him. He keeps saying that when the two diamonds are together, then she’ll come back, or that everything will come into his hands and dream-like things like that.”
“Diamond?”
“It’s apparently the diamond of prosperity. And there’s a white and black one.”
“Uh-huh.”
I wonder if he means the one that Edgar has stored in this doll house.
It seems like that earl is trying to start another fishy plan again, and Lydiais worried about the diamond, and Nico hoped that nothing troublesome would happen.
P. 159
That’s why the coming for tea here wasn’t the only reason Nico was spending all his time here.
Just in case, he had been wandering around the grounds so that he could keep his eye on Edgar and the diamond, but for the moment, there hadn’t been any signs of anyone paying a visit to the room with the doll and diamond.
But a man from another room knew of the diamond’s existence and wishes to get it?
“Does the man next door come everyday?”
“I haven’t seen him lately. OH bloody hell, it’s so noisy. Are they doing construction somewhere?”
Nico twitched his ear. So this man is also able to hear the sound of the goblins digging their hole.
As he thought it probably was because this man was taking suspicious drugs, but even Nico was being bothered by the constant sound of the loud hole-digging.
But today the sound was getting closer.
Just when he thought that, a hold suddenly appeared on the floor.
A goblin stuck his head out of the side of the hole. After it moved its head around to inspect the room, it murmured this isn’t the one.
“Hey, what are you all doing?”
When Nico called out to it, the goblin what turned to face him twisted his ugly face even more and let out a snort with its nose.
(Why, it’s just a cat. It has nothing to do with the likes of you.)
Oh, it just ridiculed me, thought Nico, becoming irritated.
P. 160
He wasn’t a cat and not the kind of fairy that was a bonehead like a goblin. Or he didn’t intend to be.
After he calculated when the goblin stuck its head back into the hole, Nico quickly made himself invisible and jumped into the hole.
*
She felt her head pounding from a headache and a cold shiver run through her, probably because she was wet from the rain.
For that night, Lydiaunusually went to bed early and as she was nearly drifting off, she was dreaming of being at her house in Scotland.
The old house that was at the corner of the town was surrounded by a large garden. The garden was filled with grasses and trees that the fairies adored, so it had become the gathering ground and passageway for fairies and constantly the source of a busy commotion.
From the second floor window, you could see the fairy rath that stood circularly mounded up on the earth in one part of the vast field of heaths.
Fairies tend to come from there and spend some time enjoying themselves in one of their favorite locations, and then eventually go back there.
Lydia sat by her window was looked out into the hill, and murmured to herself I’ve home now.
As she dazed about she won’t be returning to that London anymore and was reminiscing oddly about how those few months were like a dream in her dream.
P. 161
She, who didn’t have hardly any experience in being with the opposite sex was flirted with and proposed to.
She wondered what would have happened if she were to remain in London.
I wonder…..if I would have gotten married.
With that Edgar? How ridiculous. Sooner or later it was going to end up like this.
It’s all right, Lydia cheered herself again. It wasn’t like I went through heart broke or anything. It was good that this happened before I fell in love with him.
There wasn’t even any chance that I would fall for him. He’s a man that doesn’t choose in who to flirt with.
For no reason, Lydia traced her lips with her fingers and thought it was the greatest mistake of my life.
He asked her why she couldn’t understand him. Even to go as far as to say that he would let Kelpie have the diamond.
That was surely a lie. Just his specialty of not doing what he says.
And yet, why do I have to be the one to feel bad and guilty?
“Young miss, are you crying?”
It was the coblynau’s voice. She couldn’t see him.
“What? I would never be crying.”
“Bow is telling me so. That the young miss’ heart is wounded and she is in sorrow.”
Lydia quickly lifted up her hand and realized that she still had on the moonstone ring.
She wondered if she forgot to ask him to take it off and came home wearing it.
P. 162
She didn’t have anything to do with Edgar now.
“Coblynau. Would you take this off. He's already agreed to annulling our engagement.”
“Oh, no, he still hasn’t, young miss. You are only running away into a dream of yours.”
“But I don’t want something like this. I don’t have any intention of getting married.”
“Yes, yes, I can understand your feelings. The earl is being quite the unfaithful one. However, young miss, you must not lose to the other women. Because you are the rightful fiancée of his.”
Oh, who cares. Don’t bother me.
She might have hurt Edgar. But even Lydia was hurt.
If it was just a marriage to keep his fairy doctor by his side and yet he was treating Lydia as someone’s replacement and wanted her to comfort him, then that was just horrible.
She had enough of the lies like he actually had serious feelings for Lydia.
It wasn’t like he was hurt at all, so don’t pretend like you’re hurt.
“Please don’t cry, young miss. This old me will do something about it. Yes, indeed, so that the earl would treasure just you young miss. Please leave everything to me.”
Her head was pounding.
Her dream ended, and Lydia was half-awake when she heard the voice of the coblynau.
But, she felt into a deep slumber once more.
P. 163
And when she awakened, she noticed everything around her bright and sparkling.
Ahh, it’s because of the chandelier.
A chandelier was covered with clear crystals reflecting the gas-lit flames and radiated luminously.
Chandelier? By no means could there be such a light hanging in my room….
Lydia’s trail of thought ended there, as she sprung up from her resting position.
She had been lying down on a long, slender sofa.
A transparently-thin curtain was blocking the view around her, but from the other side which she could see faintly through the cloth, she could tell she was in a spacious room that was filled with marvelous pieces of furniture.
Lydia had a feeling she’d seen this place before and was about to stand up, but the piece of cloth that was wrapped around her got in the way and she wasn’t able to move freely.
“Wh-what is this…..”
When she lifted up her arm, she heard a clinking sound, like metal hitting each other. The golden pieces of decorations that were woven into her sleeve and veil, were hitting against each other.
It was an outfit like the princess of an Arabian knight. And on top of that: this room.
It was Edgar’s harem.
And for some strange reason, Lydia was in place of the blond-haired doll that should have been sitting here and she even was wearing the doll’s exotic costume.
P. 164
It was a silk dress decorated with beads and embroidery. There was gold and jewels heavily sown into the cloth on the arm, legs and her hair, but her outfit was surprisingly thin and light.
Lydia lifted up the curtain and gazed at herself in the near-by, big mirror like she was a strange, foreign animal but then realized she was wearing the black diamond necklace.
“What, what is the meaning of this!”
“So you have awakened, young miss.”
The bearded fairy hopped down onto the decorative stand and puffed his pipe in a care-free manner.
“Coblynau! What have you done?!”
“I have taken the liberty and kicked out the concubine doll. The one who suits this room is my lady who is my lord’s fiancée, and didn’t you say that you wanted the diamond as well?”
That was something she had said just for the heck of things.
However, just saying something by mouth to a fairy does not work at all. That’s why Kelpie was also trying to present the diamond to Lydia as well.
She was irritated at her mistake and tried to take off the veil, but it was fixed on her head with hair pins and a tiara.
“Now the earl is sure to fall in love with my lady. Well in order for that to happen, I have to say my lady will need to understand the earl’s taste. Because it seems he fancies situations such as this.”
P. 165
She was dumb-struck.
“Oh and yes, the ones who assisted in dressing you were the females of my clan, so please rest easy. Since it will take me some time to return to Wales, I have gathered all of my relatives who are in London. Since there are so many rare gemstones here, quite a number of my relatives happen to be working here away from home.”
“Uh-huh…..is that so….”
“So in regards to that black diamond, my clan and I patched it up for the time being so that the power of its curse cannot be released. It needs some time to return to its original state, so it’s just in a temporary fix for now. So my lady, please do not treat it roughly. Because Bow’s magical protection has its limits.”
Well then, I’ll be going, said the Coblynau and stood up, but Lydia hurried to stop him.
“Wait, are you planning to leave me here?”
“The earl will arrive soon. Nuisances should quickly disappear so that I will not interupt your conversation.”
“Whaaat.”
But he vanished without a trace.
Edgar’s coming? Wh-what should I do.
The first thing she thought was she needed to get out of here, but she couldn’t go outside in her current attire.
She couldn’t appreciate this draughty foreign costume that was designed so that she could directly feel any breeze or winds against her raw skin but she especially disliked the region around her bellybutton where a thin layer of near-transparent cloth was used to cover her.
P. 166
But then it wasn’t like there was another change of clothes lying around, so she struggled to think of how she could go home.
Just then, the main entrance door slowly opened.
What, he’s here already?
Lydia didn’t know what to do but quickly let the thin curtain flow back down and rushed back over to sit on the sofa and held her breath.
It wasn’t like she wanted to be a doll, but in the end she had no choice but to take up the role.
However the one who entered the room wasn’t Edgar. Although she was looking through a thin curtain, the man’s figure and facial features obviously didn’t match Edgars.
But then it wasn’t like Lydia knew the man, so she decided it was best not to be discovered.
He was not going to believe her claim of being brought here by a fairy and she didn’t want the label of a lunatic who snuck in to pretend to be a harem princess.
Most of all, it would be troublesome if he went and tattled to Edgar that there was a woman jealous of a doll.
She wished he would hurry up and leave, but the man quietly entered the room like he didn’t want to be found-out, and took silent steps towards Lydia’s direction.
“Jean-mary……”
The man murmured the name of the doll.
“I finally met you. …..Please don’t say that I was late. I haven’t forgotten about you - not one day.”
P. 167
She couldn’t see his face clearly. She could only guess that he was a middle-aged gentleman with a mustache.
However it seemed like this man was acquainted with the female model of this doll.
“I fell in love with you in the first moment I laid eyes on you. Although we were engaged to be married by our parent’s decision, I was eagerly waiting for the day when you would arrive as my bride. And yet that man, that man who said he fell in love with you ruined everything.”
Lydia was right to think that Jean-mary was someone who actually existed as she listened while holding her breath.
But, who is the man he is talking about? Edgar? And when did all of this happen?
“It was all that man’s fault for using the political power of his position to steal you away from me. I just wanted you to realize my feelings. That we are the destined better-halves of each other, torn apart by God. ….Our marriage was already decided before we were even born. You may have not been aware of this, but that was the most important part. If you had married me, that tragedy wouldn’t have ever happened.”
What did he mean by tragedy?
“Are you angry? Jean-mary. That I had brought disgrace to your husband, the Duke of Silvanford.”
What, that’s Edgar’s family name…..
“Oh, I know. You must have realized already. About the case of the duke being charged for the robbery of the royal family’s white diamond….. The one who hid it was indeed myself, as I was the duke’s accompanying subordinate.”
P. 168
What? Whaaat?
“That diamond does not belong to the House of Hanover. Prince is the only one worthy of claiming it as his own…. Ohh, but let’s stop this talk. I honestly am starting to query whether I should continue serving Prince even when he made you a victim.”
Hold on a second. Lydiafrantically tried to organize the information in her brain.
So the Jean-mary who married the Duke Sylvainford was - in other words - Edgar’s mother?
And the true culprit behind the robbery of the white diamond that the duke family was thought guilty of was because of this person; which means this man is Duke Barkston Edgar was talking about?
So Edgar was trying to set this person into a trap by putting the black diamond ‘Nightmare’ with the doll resembling his mother.
“If Duke Sylvainford died, then you would return to my side. That’s what I honestly believed. I didn’t imagine you were also going to die as well when I became an accomplice in trapping the duke family.”
How stupid of me. The woman who was special to him wasn’t his lover.
Lydia was filled with a sense of exhaustion and irritation.
What in the world was I so bothered about?
“Please forgive me, Jean-mary. I thought that if it was your wish, I would gladly give you the white diamond as a present. ….It doesn’t have to be Prince, you should have the same right to claim the diamond. You and I. If the two of us were able to obtain the legendary power of the diamond…..”
P. 169
Then he suddenly lifted up the curtain and walked over towards Lydia. Lydia was unprepared and went completely frozen on the sofa because there was no where to run.
“Wh-who are you………..?”
Even the man realized that she wasn’t a doll.
This man was the one who was with Ulysses at the Hyde Park.
“You, why are you here, where’s Jean-mary,” as the man spoke, his eyes stopped onto the black diamond necklace.
“That diamond belongs to us.”
The duke reached his hand over to Lydia. As soon as she tried to escape, he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her down onto the sofa.
His hand wrapped around her neck.
“Jean-mary called me here after she obtained that. In order for the both of us to become the owner of the diamond.”
That was Edgar’s plot.
He took advantage of the weakness in Duke Barkston’s heart and showed the man a sweet dream of his beloved woman.
P. 170
Even if he knew it was just a doll, the duke was sensing the will and voice of Jean-mary in this doll-filled harem, in this strange place that he could abandon himself in his dream and continually tried to deliver the ‘Daydream’ to her that he had been hiding for the sake of Prince.
As Lydiakept on resisting, she felt his grip on her neck tighten further and it was causing her mind to go numb.
Edgar was able to manipulate people in the way how he talks. He would take advantage of their weakness and invite them into self-destruction.
He was a person who could do such a thing. That’s why Lydiafelt like she was also being easily made to do as he wanted.
All of what he says and does looks to her like it is all calculated and planned.
And yet, Lydia would feel a moment which was not calculative at all and that fault of Edgar would capture her.
Was it a lie when he said that if he was going to have her taken, then he would let him have the diamond?
It was a diamond that he needed to get his hands on no matter what in order to protect his family’s honor. He had been steadily carrying out the plan to set Duke Barkston into a trap. It was much more important than the likes of Lydia.
You must be out of your mind, Edgar, to come up with a lie that could be find out so easily.
“Help m….”
But, Lydiawas always wondering like an idiot about if that was his uncalculated upheaved behavior.
P. 171
“Help me, Edgar…..”
Yes, I’m so stupid. I’m being killed because of the trap he set up….
All of a sudden, her body was let free. Lydia desperately tried to breath in air.
When she finally opened her eyes, it was just when Edgar had his arm tightly around the duke’s neck and was pulling him away.
Right before the man became unconscious he tossed the man to the side roughly. The duke went tumbling down onto the floor as his body ripped down the curtain.
Edgar went on further and slammed his foot down on him and spoke in a chillingly cold voice.
“Jean-mary had told you to bring the ‘Daydream’ to her. She says that she has no use for a failure like you.”
“…..You are Earl Ashenbert…. Why are you here,”
“This is my room. That wax doll and that black diamond is also mine.”
The duke’s opened up wide in surprise.
“Duke, I also happened to need that ‘Daydream.’ Just like I anticipated, you betrayed Prince. However, I can’t use you if you failed.”
Edgar grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and peered down at him.
“Because of that, weren’t you sought after by Ulysses? Would it be a matter of time until he finds and erases you.”
"Prince has his eye at for you as well. Blue Knight Earl…..Ulysses was laughing about how you’re going against Prince when you have no powers even though you inherited that name.”
P. 172
“It is a pity that I won’t be able to show you my victory to someone like you who will be momentarily dead.”
A cold and heartless smile was made by Edgar as he threw Duke Barkston to the floor and then he turned around to Lydia.
Lydia was finally able to caught her breath and sat trembling on the floor.
Her eyes met with Edgar’s and she became so embarrassed and reacted in a mess. More than the relief of being saved, she was more disturbed about the unbelievable outfit she was in.
“Th-this isn’t what you think. The coblynau put me in this without my permission. He said that I needed to adjust to yo-your tastes, and not lose to the mistress and….. Anyways, I don’t know how this happened, it’s just when I woke up, I was here!”
“The other time you were a maid, and this time you’re an Arabian princess. It’s nice to be so pleasantly surprised.”
There isn’t anything nice about this.
“If you were Scheherazade, then I wonder if you would tell me fairy tales to me every night. If it were me, then it wouldn’t take me a thousand nights but just one to become mad about you.”
He knelt down and looked into Lydia’s eyes. She was appalled at how he would use any opportunity and say flirting things to her.
“Ohh, but I’m glad you’re safe. I was worried that I might have completely lost your trust because of what happened during the day, but you yelled out my name for help. That means I can think that you still haven’t come to hate me.”
P. 173
“What, di-……did I call you?”
“Yes, just now. Just when I was about to charge into here.”
He’s got to be lying. Well, she could have been thinking about Edgar.
He smiled as he watched Lydia turn even redder in the face.
Lydia turned her eyes away from him and noticed that the duke who should have been collapsed was trying to get up.
She saw he reached inside his coat to take out a pistol.
“Edgar!”
At the same time Lydia yelled out, gunfire ringed out.
However, the duke’s pistol fell down to roll on the floor. At that same time, he himself was slammed back with a powerful force and tumbled back in a roll as he knocked back a one-legged table.
The one who picked up the pistol on the floor was a brown-skinned young man.
“Raven, you mustn’t kill him yet.”
Yes, he replied as he grabbed the duke’s necktie and pulled him up.
“Duke, there is something I still want to ask you.”
Edgar stroked Lydia’s hair as if to soothe down her nerves as he turned to face the duke.
“Getting his hands on the ‘Daydream’ wasn’t the only reason Prince put his target on the Sylvainford duke family was it?
P. 174
Duke Barkston laughed with a snort as his face twisted in pain.
“You don’t even know something like that, and yet you’re intending to go against Prince?”
“If you know, then I’ll have you talk.”
Edgar took out a pistol and pressed it up against the Duke’s throat.
“I’m bound to be killed by Ulysses anyway. It’s pointless to threaten me.”
“Do you think so? Even if man knows he is going to eventually die, they wouldn’t want to die immediately.”
Edgar, who calmly put his strength in the trigger, met the eyes of the duke who had eyes like he was seeing his tragic death.
The cock of the pistol rose up. The duke’s eyes flied around from panic. But he remained still as he bit his lips.
He might have thought that Edgar was really going to pull the trigger. Lydia thought the same, and so as she held her breath as she watched the two of them looking at each other and witnessed Edgar pulling the trigger without changing the look of his expression at all.
Lydia made a silent gasp, but no bullet came out.
Edgar tutted in front of the frozen duke.
“Damn, I forgot to put in the bullets.”
After he said that, he picked out a iron bullet from his pocket and loaded it, and carelessly pulled the trigger two times to test it.
P. 175
Those were still empty rounds, but the man let out a silent scream and cradled back shrinking. Raven mercilessly pushed him back.
“Now, Duke, let’s see if it would come out this time?”
“Wa-wait a moment. ….The reason the duke family turned out like that wasn’t my fault. Everything happened because of the son that was born into that family.”
She was able to tell that Edgar took in a small breath.
“What did the son do?” asked Edgar.
“Prince realized that the son of the duke and Jean-mary was the most closest to his ideal heir. Much more ideal than the son that would have been born if she were to have married me…..”
“What do you mean?”
“Jean-mary carries the blood of Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
“Bonnie….., the old prince of the Stuart family?”
“I also have the blood of the Stuart family flowing in my veins. The two of our marriage was decided so that the continuously fading royal blood would once again be thickened. That’s why it was a scheme. A scheme carried out meticulously for the sake of Prince.”
Lydia had no idea what he meant. Edgar went silent as if he was thinking about something deeply, but he appeared as if he was suffering more than ever before.
P. 176
“It was the son’s fault for the Duke Sylvainford to lose everything. It was his fault for stealing away Jean-mary from me. If that man had gotten another woman for his wife, then something like that would have never happened. It was better for Jean-mary not to have gave birth to a son. It was better if that son didn’t grow up.”
The duke kept on speaking unaware that that son he was talking about was right in front of his eyes.
“Earl Ashenbert, if you want to annihilate Prince, then you must kill that son. That just may be the quickest path to your goal.”
“Stop saying such stupid things, the one who is to blame is Prince! You were just rejected by your fiancée! A child wouldn’t be guilty of anything!”
Lydia couldn’t stand it any longer and interrupted him. As if to say it’s all right, Edgar gave Lydia a glance.
“Marquis, Jean-mary had completely forgotten about you who was her fiancé. At the same time that she didn’t doubt anything about the marriage to you that her parents had decided for you and went she was told to marry into the duke family, she would have agreed to it without hesitation. In fact, she was more thrilled about the idea of being called Her Grace. She was innocent and naïve and satisfied just as long as she was treated like a princess. She was the typical noble’s daughter.”
The marquis made a frown like he was offended.
“Don’t open your mouth like you would know.”
P. 177
“The time that she remembered about you was from the time that the Sylvainford duke family was suspected of because of the diamond. At the time when you sent her a comforting letter. But, it could have been a woman’s intuition, it seemed like she sensed your underlying motive and intentions.”
“Wh-….., why do you know that…”
“I just happened to hear when she was asking for advice from a friend.”
The marquis snapped up to look up at Edgar like he realized something.
“No, you’re not….”
“Marquis, I will not forgive those who offer their help to Prince. If it’s to annihilate him, I will kill Ulysses and you and the son of the duke family.”
She thought he was going to shoot and kill the marquis.
“Stop!”
Lydia didn’t think about the danger and ran up to him.
The pistol was aimed his foe who destroyed his family, but if he were to shoot his enemy, she was afraid that Edgar would then aim the pistol at himself next.
It was just when she jumped onto his arm to try and stop him.
The building shook from the thundering sound of a boom.
“Huh, what….?"
P. 178
She was scooped up into Edgar’s arms and in the second the two of them threw themselves to the floor, a silver statue came crashing down to the floor just right next to them.
The marquis used that opportunity to escape. Raven went after him.
From the large hole that opened up in the wall, an ugly-faced small fairy poked its dirt-covered face out.
“It’s a goblin,” remarked Lydia.
(He escaped.)
(It’s him.)
(Go after him.)
They came shuffling out of the hole and started to dig another wall to go after Marquis Barkston and they all disappeared into the next room.
“Goblin? The fairies that Ulysses is using?” asked Edgar as he helped Lydiaup and was looking at the hole in the wall.
“Was that shock just now also the work of the goblins?”
“Edgar, you mustn’t get near them. Beyond the entrance of the hole is the territory of the goblins. It’s isn’t the human realm.”
“You’re right, the space beyond this wall should open up to the hallway, and yet it goes on like it’s a cave.”
“I’m guessing that they are going after the marquis by Ulysses’ orders. He must have found out that the marquis was hiding in this store.”
“Which means there is a possibility that Ulysses might come here.”
P. 179
He turned his back to Lydia and went into a silent thinking, and the sight of him looked tired from the confrontation that happened just now.
He said that he would kill himself if it was to destroy Prince.
Ulysses had said that he was ordered to kill Edgar who was decided to be useless now, but there could be a chance that he was thinking that he could capture Edgar alive if it was possible.
If Jean-mary’s son was the key and since she was no longer alive, Edgar was the only one who carried her blood.
There was no mistake that Edgar was considering his own death as a means for his revenge.
“Edgar, please. Don’t blame yourself. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Thank you, Lydia. I was worried that you wouldn’t be worried about me ever again, so I’m happy.”
Even as he said that, he didn’t turn around to her.
“It’s not like I was shocked at what the marquis said. I had a faint feeling that I was the cause of everything from before.”
“You were just targeted. You are not the cause.”
“I was told by my father who was driven into a rage that I shouldn’t have been born. He was going to take out his hunting gun. My mother tried to protect me. I don’t remember what happened after that. When I came to, my father and mother were both on the floor with blood coming out of them. And there was a fire spread throughout the house…..”
P. 180
“You don’t have to remember.”
Lydia placed her hand on his back like she was leaning up to him.
“You were just dragged into this.”
“……Can I hold you?”
She wanted to say yes, but she was a little frightened. If she allowed it, she felt like she wasn’t going to be able to stop herself.
While she was undecided, Edgar spoke up again.
“Then, hold me.”
Slowly and carefully, Lydia stretched her arms out around him. While she was embracing him from behind, she was just barely able to hold onto his coat, so he could have been a little unsatisfied.
He placed his hand over hers and said “Thank you” which madeLydiarelieved and she pressed her head against his back lightly.
“Lydia, do you have a fever?”
“What, really?”
Not that she thought about it, she did feel like she had a high temperature.
She had gone to her bed chamber to take an early rest and when she awoke, she was here so she had completely forgotten about her condition because she was so overwhelmed, but when she realized that, she started to feel dizzy.
Edgar turned around and pressed the palm of his hand against her forehead and made a small frown.
P. 181
P. 182
“Let’s go home. I’ll take you.”
He took off his coat and used it to cover Lydia’s shoulders.
“I think that will be difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned his head to the side curiously as he opened the main entrance door but the path was blocked with open, exposed rocks.
“Didn’t I say that the goblins had dug holes and made a path? This is their pathway and the fairy realm and human realm have become jumbled up with each other.”
He seemed confused as he set his hand on the wall and combed his hair with his fingers.
“What can we do to get out?”
“We will have to wait until the goblins appear again. Only fairies can see the path of fairies. They are sure to know their paths, so I will make a bargain somehow.”
“It’s just the two of us here until then.”
Lydia heard the two of them and she stepped back a few steps in caution.
“I won’t do anything. But even if I was the one who said that you couldn’t believe me, but I’ll say it just for sake. You can rest easy, so go ahead and lay down on the sofa.”
As Edgar said that, he took a look around the room and searched inside the cabinets.
“I never imagined that I would be left stranded in the middle of London. And it looks like there isn’t any decent thing to eat in this room.”
P. 183
It was a doll house so it couldn’t be helped.
Lydiadid as he suggested, then felt a cold shiver and pulled the front of the coat she borrowed tightly around her.
“Are you cold? That coat is quite thin. Looking wise it’s quite thankful though.”
She hurried to hide her stomach area with the coat.
“If I knew you were going to wear that, I should I put more requests in its design.”
“……..Even so, why would you make a doll that looks exactly like your mother wear something like this?”
If she thought about it, it was something that appeared quite strange.
“If I didn’t make it an outrageous outfit, the doll looked even more like my mother and it was disturbing.”
I guess that would be the normal reaction.
He took a number of alcoholic drinks in a bottle that were placed in the room as interior accessories and some fruits that were again another interior decoration, he walked over to Lydia who was on the sofa.
He sat himself down onto the carpet and opened the bottle of brandy and poured it into a glass.
“You’ll warm up a little.”
“Thank you…..”
Even as she took the glass, she had made sure to avoid from touching his fingers, so Edgar made a small sour smile.
“You would hug me, but you don’t allow touching from my side do you.”
P. 184
“That’s because…..”
“Because I kissed you without asking?”
Lydia felt that her body temperature rose up dramatically and so she rounded herself.
“If Marquis Barkston is captured by the goblins, then he might be killed by Ulysses. And you haven’t even pulled out all the information out of him that we wanted yet.”
She purposefully changed the subject because she wanted to avoid the topic about the kiss with just the two of them.
“I was able to grasp the gist of it all. And the reason why that man was called Prince.”
Just listening to that story, Lydia wasn’t able to understand everything. But when she imagined that Edgar didn’t have any intentions of revealing the information about what he had figured out about the heart of the matter regarding Prince, then she wasn’t able to bring herself to ask him.
“You don’t want to hear anything that has to do with me?”
“Is it all right for someone like me to find out?”
“I learned that nothing good comes out from when I keep things secret from my fiancée.”
Because it might have turned out like this. Thought Lydia as she looked down at what she was wearing.
“I said I’m not your fiancée.”
She objected just for sake. Edgar didn’t let that bother him and went on.
“In 1688, James II was exiled from England and escaped to France. Do you know that afterwards his descendants had seriously tried on two accountants to claim their succession to the throne and tried to invade into England?”
P. 185
“Yes.”
As she replied, Lydia was remembering about how she had heard that King’s name just the other day.
Her father had been talking about the two diamonds that were the issue of this. They were the Royal family’s diamonds, but she was told how they were lost during the commotion of the revolution and James II’s exile.
“Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandchild of James II and led an invasion into England to retrieve the throne but lost.”
She remembered hearing that Jean-mary carried the blood of that man.
“Most likely Prince and oh, his descendants too…..anyways, I think that he might be closely related to Jean-mary by blood. He was after the Royal family’s diamond, not because it was the legendary jewel, but I thing it was more like as its owner, and as the heir to Bonnie Prince, he was trying to claim as the Prince of Wales.”
“Prince of Wales….”
“The male heirs of the Stuart family should have all died out, but if you go down the bloodline of the female, you would find out that it would be connected to a number of royal families and nobles in Europe. I’ve heard that there are groups that claim that those are the rightful King of Englandand Scotland. But
Prince, claims that he himself is the Prince, so he must be in a different organization from that.”
P. 186
“Do you think that he’s planning to return to England?”
“Even if he is, I don’t think it would be the same way as the old Bonnie Prince.”
If Marquis Barkston and Jean-mary had married, then the two royal families would be mixed once again. That man said that that was plotted for the sake of Prince.
Going against their plan, Jean-mary married Duke Sylvainford, but the plot didn’t end there.
“So your family had the blood of the royal family in it.”
“That’s right. And several of them.”
Most likely, that was the most ideal part for Prince. Because the child of Jean-mary and the duke was surely going to be born with a much more thicker blood of the royal family.
“That was the reason you were targeted? But, what was their intention for kidnapping you?”
“I guess it was to make the next Prince.”
Make, she thought that was a strange way to say it.
“He didn’t make his own son his heir? Even if he didn’t have a boy, didn’t he think there was more difficulty in making you his heir after he abducted you and made you came to hate Prince?”
“I’m thinking that he wasn’t planning to make me his heir under the normal meaning. They were under the strong belief that they were able to control the will of others how they liked. If I were to be in that organization for long, I think they were anticipating that I would lose my mind and they would be able to mold a new person that had the same way of thinking and feeling as Prince.”
P. 187
Lydia was taken-aback. What on earth did Edgar witness at that place.
He must have gone through a hundred times more torturing experiences at Prince’s organization than the tragedy that happened at the duke house.
But, even if she thought that, she wasn’t able to imagine what it was.
Even if someone like me were to hold him, in reality, wouldn’t that really not be of any comfort to Edgar.
“That organization was originally, how would you put it, it had the characteristic of devoting themselves to magical practices and spells. Even if some heir of the exiled King came out claiming their right to the throne right now, it would be impossible to get succession to the throne. And yet, Prince is gathering the blood of the royal family once again and is attempting to make them his puppets. His methods are so odd like he is forcing to make one.”
It was out of her boundaries of imagination. Lydia was gradually becoming confused. It was too bizarre of a story is try to be understood with her head that had a fever.
She gulped down one mouth-full of spirits and gazed dazzlingly over at Edgar.
He held a pear in his hand and masterfully peeled it with a knife.
"There’s one thing that I’m bothered with, and that’s about Ulysses. I have never met him directly while I was in the hands of Prince, but guessing from the conversation of those around me, I had the impression he was a senior. Like he had been in the organization for tens of years…. If he’s actually forty, then it’s a different story.”
P. 188
It was indeed strange for Ulysses, who appeared to be in his teens, just in a small percentage he was a terrible baby face, he could maybe be in his twenties, to be in a high-ranking power position in that organization from before eight years ago when Edgar was kidnapped.
“If the current Ulysses was the second successor, then it would make sense.”
“What, the second? The son of the first Ulysses?”
“He could be, or they could have reshaped the personality of a boy who had the power of a fairy doctor. If that were so, then it would turn out that he was a victim just like me.”
A boy whose personality was destroyed and become the second Ulysses? Because of the fact that he had the ability to contact fairies, he might have become a victim?
This didn’t make any sense. But, Edgar might have been thinking that he could have become Prince himself just like that.
And he was battling against an enemy who did unimaginable things like that.
He held out a slice of a pear that he pocked with his knife to Lydia.
She pulled it out and took a bite out of it and its mild sweetness made the unpleasant feelings of the alcohol that she forced down her throat to disappear.
“Lydia, you said in the past that you didn’t want to have a loveless marriage.”
At his sudden subject, Lydia was made a little nervous again. But, it seemed like he didn’t have any intention of making it into a sexual subject.
P. 189
“I think you are right about that. For nobles, marriage is normally thought of as tying two families together, and as long as they produce children, then normally the husband and wife are free to do as they please with their lovers. Even if my father had fallen for my mother and stole her away from the marquis, he just wanted to possess something that he desired, and most likely the two of them were the typical noble husband and wife. But, if my father and mother had strong emotional bonds between each another, and if their marriage were to have invited an unexpected tragedy, and even if their child was shouldering a ominous destiny, I wonder if they wouldn’t have fallen into despair.”
Still remaining sitting on the floor, Edgar was leaning his back against the sofa that Lydia was sitting on and kept his head faced down.
“The man that’s going to marry you will be a happy man.”
“………………”
“He would be loved dearly and the whole family will all live happily. Can’t that happiness become mine?”
I don’t know. Actually, Lydia was puzzled to know if Edgar would want something so plain and normal like that.
She wondered if he had any hope towards in his future beyond the path of his revenge to Prince. She had a feeling that he had a dangerous part about him where he would consider the measure of ending his own life in order to end everything, and so she had a feeling that the reason he meddled with Lydia so much was because he wanted to have a short dream about a future that was out of his reach.
P. 190
But, even if he were watching just a momentary dream, if that was his dream, then he was wishing for something anyone would from the bottom of his heart.
“Ohh I really do want to marry you.”
Just in the short moment she had her guard down, a strand of her hair was wrapped around his fingers.
From the dullness of her body temperature and the spirits spreading out through her body, Lydia remained still as she watched her hair flow through the cracks of his long fingers.
“There was a young girl who died protecting this black diamond in America. I was told by Slade that there is something in me that controls the hearts of others just like how Jimmy went off on his own. Just like he says, me in America was a ruler and the rule. I was feeling that everyone wanted me to be that. But,
you know the good-for-nothing and only talk part about me. From the beginning, you saw through that I was a boy who was made up of contradictions. And yet, you sympathized with me and lend me your hand. Just like this, I want you to stand as my equal. You don’t have to emphasize with me. If you stay by my side and scold me, then I feel like I won’t end up like Prince.”
Is it just that you’re not able to hold back from flirting whenever you open your mouth? Or is it something else.
“But to you, if I’m a man full of flaws, then I felt you would hate me so I would want to be pretentious. …That’s why I was hiding about how I was stepping Marquis Barkston in a trap.”
Or if I really do accept marrying you, then would I be able to save you?
P. 191
*
The sound of the goblins digging their hole was making a tremendous rumbling vibration throughout the ground. Kelpie’s sensitive mane was able to sense any small vibration that came to the water through the ground.
“What on earth are they doing, those little pests?”
He wondered if they weren’t planning on making the London underground full of tunnels and pathways.
The hole they dug was cut off from the human realm and more closer to the fairy realm, but if they went on digging without being careful, it was going to affect the humans on the ground above them.
Kelpie wondered if that was their actual goal, as he gazed at the white diamond that fainted sparkled even in the bottom of water.
“What shall I do with this?”
The diamond that the master of the goblins was looking for was also something that the Blue Knight Earl was searching.
However, that earl kicked away the bargain that Kelpie offered him.
“That man, is Lydia more important to him that this?”
That was unexpected. Because, he was an earl that carried unending rumors of women with him. He was imaging that the earl just wanted to keep Lydia by his side as one to put in his group of female followers.
P. 192
It should have been a temporary engagement where it benefited him and Lydia, who wished to stay in the human world.
The clear glass-like diamond that was cut in a tear-drop shape was so transparent that it seemed like it could dissolve into the water as it kept its faint light of a silhouette.
Even the devilish fairy Kelpie felt like there was a magic that seeped out of the jewel and almost sensed a fainting-like dizziness.
While he stared at the jewel, he felt like someone had called him and so he lifted his head up.
He had a feeling like it was Lydia’s voice.
He rose up to the surface of the water and transformed into his human form to walk up to the bank and listened carefully.
It was Lydia’s voice just like he thought and when he walked over to the group of trees, he spotted someone standing behind in a shadow of a tree.
The person’s reddish-brown hair flowed in the wind.
“Lydia, what is the matter?”
“Kelpie.”
When he found her, Lydia came dashing over to him and suddenly threw her arms around him.
“What is it? Were you bullied by that earl?”
Kelpie felt that she was trembling and carefully embraced her shoulders. He wasn’t used to handling humans as other than his meals, so he take particularly caution with Lydia.
P. 193
"I can’t take it anymore. I want to go home to Scotland.”
However, a feeling of tender loving care came rising up in the core of Kelpie’s body that he never experienced before.
The satisfaction that he felt when he ate humans only lasted for a short while, but the pleasing comfort that he felt when he was with Lydia wouldn’t disappear no matter how much time passed by.
“All right then let’s go home.”
“But, Edgar won’t annual our engagement. He’s trying to force me to become his bride.”
“He’s horrible,” said Kelpie, completely forgetting about the fact that he also had tried to force Lydia to become his bride.
“I really am not able to trust Edgar. I realized that fairies understand me much more than humans.”
Her chamomile smelling hair came closer to his face. He felt the blood of the fae in her golden-green eyes. A human that was shared the magic of a fairy; that’s why she is a fairy doctor.
In Lydia’s eyes, there might be some magic. He unexpectedly felt a thrilling shiver run up his body.
“Lydia, if your saying that, then I’ll go have a talk with the earl. If he doesn’t agree to calling off the engagement, then I’ll bite off his head…., no, I mean,
I’ll protect you so he can’t come close, so you can relax.”
“Really?”
P. 194
It didn’t feel bad to be depended on. When he recalled how adorable she was than usual, he didn’t pay attention to the fact that she was leaning up so close to him which was unusual for Lydia’s character.
“Hey, do you still have that diamond with you?”
“Eh, ah, yes. Do you want it?”
She made a small nod.
“I was just thinking of throwing it away.”
He put the necklace around her head. He thought it really didn’t suit her, but when he saw how Lydia smiled so happily like never before, then he felt completely satisfied.
However, just then the scenery around him shifted.
Lydia’s body melted away.
“Wh-……”
For an instant, everything around him went completely white, like his eyes were being burned from a light that was so unbearably bright.
When his view gradually returned, he saw in his view of the park, there was a young boy of a man standing next to a tree that was a little ways away.
It was him. The master of the goblins.
“Boy, what did you do?”
He made a grin and held up the diamond necklace.
P. 195
“I’ll let you know what the name of this diamond is. It’s called Daydream. Gemstones and fairies all have their names reveal their character. I just brought out the power that this stone holds.”
“So you showed me an illusion.”
“It’s a vision you saw on your own. Your dream? Or your desire? I was wondering why a water horse kelpie was in London, but now I understand, you’re after that fairy doctor girl.”
Kelpie gave a menacing glare at the lad that was much more slender than that earl and seemed like he was able to snap in two with his bare hands.
If he was just a regular human, Kelpie would be jumping in and taking a bite out of him, but he was a man that knew how to use fairy magic. Kelpie couldn’t act recklessly.
“Boy, I heard that your going against that Blue Knight Earl.”
As soon as the lad heard that name, his face twisted into a cruel, cold-blooded one.
“Ah, yes, since it’s my duty to kill the earl.”
“Hmm, so you’re going to kill him. How?”
“I’m going to slowly torture him and finish him off.”
He had no reason to oppose. However, Kelpie was worried about Lydiawho was in close proximity to the earl.
And besides, this boy was much more despicable than that stuck-up earl. And Kelpie felt that because he could see that this human had the power to communicate with fairies and considered them only to use as he pleased.
P. 157
Breathing in the fine aroma of bergamot along with the arising steam, Nico was making himself at home as he combed his whiskers.
He softly set down the teacup that was so finely made that is was like the thin shell of an egg back onto its saucer. He reached his arm out towards his slice of almond cake.
Even he thought that this was quite dry and wasn’t his taste, but it didn’t take him any time to gobble it up and then he took a look around the room that was filled with dolls.
Being surrounded with dolls that had their colored-glass eyes open, there was an unfamiliar man who was completely enchanted and puffing on his pipe.
All the humans that visited this doll mansion were all not normal.
But, however, it wasn’t like it caused any harm to other humans and even if Nico was openly sitting and drinking tea, no one seemed to be bothered by that, so he had been paying frequent visits after their tea here.
“You’re all mentally ill,” murmured Nico as he took a glance towards the man out of the side of his eye as he just sat there and spent his time just gazing at the dolls.
“Are you referring to me?”
P. 158
It was rare, he actually replied.
“I’m perfectly fine. The man next door is much more ailing. Because he was talking to a woman in a portrait.”
“Hmmm, so you don’t talk to them like him.”
“Even if you talk to dolls, it isn’t like they’ll talk back.”
Well, yes, of course.
“They don’t notice even if you stare at them, they don’t see me at all. That’s why I’m able to watch them secretly get dressed and hear them whisper amongst each other so quiet like the edges of glass touching each other.”
This man is much worse.
“And yet, that man is under the complete belief that the woman in the portrait is in love with him. He keeps saying that when the two diamonds are together, then she’ll come back, or that everything will come into his hands and dream-like things like that.”
“Diamond?”
“It’s apparently the diamond of prosperity. And there’s a white and black one.”
“Uh-huh.”
I wonder if he means the one that Edgar has stored in this doll house.
It seems like that earl is trying to start another fishy plan again, and Lydiais worried about the diamond, and Nico hoped that nothing troublesome would happen.
P. 159
That’s why the coming for tea here wasn’t the only reason Nico was spending all his time here.
Just in case, he had been wandering around the grounds so that he could keep his eye on Edgar and the diamond, but for the moment, there hadn’t been any signs of anyone paying a visit to the room with the doll and diamond.
But a man from another room knew of the diamond’s existence and wishes to get it?
“Does the man next door come everyday?”
“I haven’t seen him lately. OH bloody hell, it’s so noisy. Are they doing construction somewhere?”
Nico twitched his ear. So this man is also able to hear the sound of the goblins digging their hole.
As he thought it probably was because this man was taking suspicious drugs, but even Nico was being bothered by the constant sound of the loud hole-digging.
But today the sound was getting closer.
Just when he thought that, a hold suddenly appeared on the floor.
A goblin stuck his head out of the side of the hole. After it moved its head around to inspect the room, it murmured this isn’t the one.
“Hey, what are you all doing?”
When Nico called out to it, the goblin what turned to face him twisted his ugly face even more and let out a snort with its nose.
(Why, it’s just a cat. It has nothing to do with the likes of you.)
Oh, it just ridiculed me, thought Nico, becoming irritated.
P. 160
He wasn’t a cat and not the kind of fairy that was a bonehead like a goblin. Or he didn’t intend to be.
After he calculated when the goblin stuck its head back into the hole, Nico quickly made himself invisible and jumped into the hole.
*
She felt her head pounding from a headache and a cold shiver run through her, probably because she was wet from the rain.
For that night, Lydiaunusually went to bed early and as she was nearly drifting off, she was dreaming of being at her house in Scotland.
The old house that was at the corner of the town was surrounded by a large garden. The garden was filled with grasses and trees that the fairies adored, so it had become the gathering ground and passageway for fairies and constantly the source of a busy commotion.
From the second floor window, you could see the fairy rath that stood circularly mounded up on the earth in one part of the vast field of heaths.
Fairies tend to come from there and spend some time enjoying themselves in one of their favorite locations, and then eventually go back there.
Lydia sat by her window was looked out into the hill, and murmured to herself I’ve home now.
As she dazed about she won’t be returning to that London anymore and was reminiscing oddly about how those few months were like a dream in her dream.
P. 161
She, who didn’t have hardly any experience in being with the opposite sex was flirted with and proposed to.
She wondered what would have happened if she were to remain in London.
I wonder…..if I would have gotten married.
With that Edgar? How ridiculous. Sooner or later it was going to end up like this.
It’s all right, Lydia cheered herself again. It wasn’t like I went through heart broke or anything. It was good that this happened before I fell in love with him.
There wasn’t even any chance that I would fall for him. He’s a man that doesn’t choose in who to flirt with.
For no reason, Lydia traced her lips with her fingers and thought it was the greatest mistake of my life.
He asked her why she couldn’t understand him. Even to go as far as to say that he would let Kelpie have the diamond.
That was surely a lie. Just his specialty of not doing what he says.
And yet, why do I have to be the one to feel bad and guilty?
“Young miss, are you crying?”
It was the coblynau’s voice. She couldn’t see him.
“What? I would never be crying.”
“Bow is telling me so. That the young miss’ heart is wounded and she is in sorrow.”
Lydia quickly lifted up her hand and realized that she still had on the moonstone ring.
She wondered if she forgot to ask him to take it off and came home wearing it.
P. 162
She didn’t have anything to do with Edgar now.
“Coblynau. Would you take this off. He's already agreed to annulling our engagement.”
“Oh, no, he still hasn’t, young miss. You are only running away into a dream of yours.”
“But I don’t want something like this. I don’t have any intention of getting married.”
“Yes, yes, I can understand your feelings. The earl is being quite the unfaithful one. However, young miss, you must not lose to the other women. Because you are the rightful fiancée of his.”
Oh, who cares. Don’t bother me.
She might have hurt Edgar. But even Lydia was hurt.
If it was just a marriage to keep his fairy doctor by his side and yet he was treating Lydia as someone’s replacement and wanted her to comfort him, then that was just horrible.
She had enough of the lies like he actually had serious feelings for Lydia.
It wasn’t like he was hurt at all, so don’t pretend like you’re hurt.
“Please don’t cry, young miss. This old me will do something about it. Yes, indeed, so that the earl would treasure just you young miss. Please leave everything to me.”
Her head was pounding.
Her dream ended, and Lydia was half-awake when she heard the voice of the coblynau.
But, she felt into a deep slumber once more.
P. 163
And when she awakened, she noticed everything around her bright and sparkling.
Ahh, it’s because of the chandelier.
A chandelier was covered with clear crystals reflecting the gas-lit flames and radiated luminously.
Chandelier? By no means could there be such a light hanging in my room….
Lydia’s trail of thought ended there, as she sprung up from her resting position.
She had been lying down on a long, slender sofa.
A transparently-thin curtain was blocking the view around her, but from the other side which she could see faintly through the cloth, she could tell she was in a spacious room that was filled with marvelous pieces of furniture.
Lydia had a feeling she’d seen this place before and was about to stand up, but the piece of cloth that was wrapped around her got in the way and she wasn’t able to move freely.
“Wh-what is this…..”
When she lifted up her arm, she heard a clinking sound, like metal hitting each other. The golden pieces of decorations that were woven into her sleeve and veil, were hitting against each other.
It was an outfit like the princess of an Arabian knight. And on top of that: this room.
It was Edgar’s harem.
And for some strange reason, Lydia was in place of the blond-haired doll that should have been sitting here and she even was wearing the doll’s exotic costume.
P. 164
It was a silk dress decorated with beads and embroidery. There was gold and jewels heavily sown into the cloth on the arm, legs and her hair, but her outfit was surprisingly thin and light.
Lydia lifted up the curtain and gazed at herself in the near-by, big mirror like she was a strange, foreign animal but then realized she was wearing the black diamond necklace.
“What, what is the meaning of this!”
“So you have awakened, young miss.”
The bearded fairy hopped down onto the decorative stand and puffed his pipe in a care-free manner.
“Coblynau! What have you done?!”
“I have taken the liberty and kicked out the concubine doll. The one who suits this room is my lady who is my lord’s fiancée, and didn’t you say that you wanted the diamond as well?”
That was something she had said just for the heck of things.
However, just saying something by mouth to a fairy does not work at all. That’s why Kelpie was also trying to present the diamond to Lydia as well.
She was irritated at her mistake and tried to take off the veil, but it was fixed on her head with hair pins and a tiara.
“Now the earl is sure to fall in love with my lady. Well in order for that to happen, I have to say my lady will need to understand the earl’s taste. Because it seems he fancies situations such as this.”
P. 165
She was dumb-struck.
“Oh and yes, the ones who assisted in dressing you were the females of my clan, so please rest easy. Since it will take me some time to return to Wales, I have gathered all of my relatives who are in London. Since there are so many rare gemstones here, quite a number of my relatives happen to be working here away from home.”
“Uh-huh…..is that so….”
“So in regards to that black diamond, my clan and I patched it up for the time being so that the power of its curse cannot be released. It needs some time to return to its original state, so it’s just in a temporary fix for now. So my lady, please do not treat it roughly. Because Bow’s magical protection has its limits.”
Well then, I’ll be going, said the Coblynau and stood up, but Lydia hurried to stop him.
“Wait, are you planning to leave me here?”
“The earl will arrive soon. Nuisances should quickly disappear so that I will not interupt your conversation.”
“Whaaat.”
But he vanished without a trace.
Edgar’s coming? Wh-what should I do.
The first thing she thought was she needed to get out of here, but she couldn’t go outside in her current attire.
She couldn’t appreciate this draughty foreign costume that was designed so that she could directly feel any breeze or winds against her raw skin but she especially disliked the region around her bellybutton where a thin layer of near-transparent cloth was used to cover her.
P. 166
But then it wasn’t like there was another change of clothes lying around, so she struggled to think of how she could go home.
Just then, the main entrance door slowly opened.
What, he’s here already?
Lydia didn’t know what to do but quickly let the thin curtain flow back down and rushed back over to sit on the sofa and held her breath.
It wasn’t like she wanted to be a doll, but in the end she had no choice but to take up the role.
However the one who entered the room wasn’t Edgar. Although she was looking through a thin curtain, the man’s figure and facial features obviously didn’t match Edgars.
But then it wasn’t like Lydia knew the man, so she decided it was best not to be discovered.
He was not going to believe her claim of being brought here by a fairy and she didn’t want the label of a lunatic who snuck in to pretend to be a harem princess.
Most of all, it would be troublesome if he went and tattled to Edgar that there was a woman jealous of a doll.
She wished he would hurry up and leave, but the man quietly entered the room like he didn’t want to be found-out, and took silent steps towards Lydia’s direction.
“Jean-mary……”
The man murmured the name of the doll.
“I finally met you. …..Please don’t say that I was late. I haven’t forgotten about you - not one day.”
P. 167
She couldn’t see his face clearly. She could only guess that he was a middle-aged gentleman with a mustache.
However it seemed like this man was acquainted with the female model of this doll.
“I fell in love with you in the first moment I laid eyes on you. Although we were engaged to be married by our parent’s decision, I was eagerly waiting for the day when you would arrive as my bride. And yet that man, that man who said he fell in love with you ruined everything.”
Lydia was right to think that Jean-mary was someone who actually existed as she listened while holding her breath.
But, who is the man he is talking about? Edgar? And when did all of this happen?
“It was all that man’s fault for using the political power of his position to steal you away from me. I just wanted you to realize my feelings. That we are the destined better-halves of each other, torn apart by God. ….Our marriage was already decided before we were even born. You may have not been aware of this, but that was the most important part. If you had married me, that tragedy wouldn’t have ever happened.”
What did he mean by tragedy?
“Are you angry? Jean-mary. That I had brought disgrace to your husband, the Duke of Silvanford.”
What, that’s Edgar’s family name…..
“Oh, I know. You must have realized already. About the case of the duke being charged for the robbery of the royal family’s white diamond….. The one who hid it was indeed myself, as I was the duke’s accompanying subordinate.”
P. 168
What? Whaaat?
“That diamond does not belong to the House of Hanover. Prince is the only one worthy of claiming it as his own…. Ohh, but let’s stop this talk. I honestly am starting to query whether I should continue serving Prince even when he made you a victim.”
Hold on a second. Lydiafrantically tried to organize the information in her brain.
So the Jean-mary who married the Duke Sylvainford was - in other words - Edgar’s mother?
And the true culprit behind the robbery of the white diamond that the duke family was thought guilty of was because of this person; which means this man is Duke Barkston Edgar was talking about?
So Edgar was trying to set this person into a trap by putting the black diamond ‘Nightmare’ with the doll resembling his mother.
“If Duke Sylvainford died, then you would return to my side. That’s what I honestly believed. I didn’t imagine you were also going to die as well when I became an accomplice in trapping the duke family.”
How stupid of me. The woman who was special to him wasn’t his lover.
Lydia was filled with a sense of exhaustion and irritation.
What in the world was I so bothered about?
“Please forgive me, Jean-mary. I thought that if it was your wish, I would gladly give you the white diamond as a present. ….It doesn’t have to be Prince, you should have the same right to claim the diamond. You and I. If the two of us were able to obtain the legendary power of the diamond…..”
P. 169
Then he suddenly lifted up the curtain and walked over towards Lydia. Lydia was unprepared and went completely frozen on the sofa because there was no where to run.
“Wh-who are you………..?”
Even the man realized that she wasn’t a doll.
This man was the one who was with Ulysses at the Hyde Park.
“You, why are you here, where’s Jean-mary,” as the man spoke, his eyes stopped onto the black diamond necklace.
“That diamond belongs to us.”
The duke reached his hand over to Lydia. As soon as she tried to escape, he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her down onto the sofa.
His hand wrapped around her neck.
“Jean-mary called me here after she obtained that. In order for the both of us to become the owner of the diamond.”
That was Edgar’s plot.
He took advantage of the weakness in Duke Barkston’s heart and showed the man a sweet dream of his beloved woman.
P. 170
Even if he knew it was just a doll, the duke was sensing the will and voice of Jean-mary in this doll-filled harem, in this strange place that he could abandon himself in his dream and continually tried to deliver the ‘Daydream’ to her that he had been hiding for the sake of Prince.
As Lydiakept on resisting, she felt his grip on her neck tighten further and it was causing her mind to go numb.
Edgar was able to manipulate people in the way how he talks. He would take advantage of their weakness and invite them into self-destruction.
He was a person who could do such a thing. That’s why Lydiafelt like she was also being easily made to do as he wanted.
All of what he says and does looks to her like it is all calculated and planned.
And yet, Lydia would feel a moment which was not calculative at all and that fault of Edgar would capture her.
Was it a lie when he said that if he was going to have her taken, then he would let him have the diamond?
It was a diamond that he needed to get his hands on no matter what in order to protect his family’s honor. He had been steadily carrying out the plan to set Duke Barkston into a trap. It was much more important than the likes of Lydia.
You must be out of your mind, Edgar, to come up with a lie that could be find out so easily.
“Help m….”
But, Lydiawas always wondering like an idiot about if that was his uncalculated upheaved behavior.
P. 171
“Help me, Edgar…..”
Yes, I’m so stupid. I’m being killed because of the trap he set up….
All of a sudden, her body was let free. Lydia desperately tried to breath in air.
When she finally opened her eyes, it was just when Edgar had his arm tightly around the duke’s neck and was pulling him away.
Right before the man became unconscious he tossed the man to the side roughly. The duke went tumbling down onto the floor as his body ripped down the curtain.
Edgar went on further and slammed his foot down on him and spoke in a chillingly cold voice.
“Jean-mary had told you to bring the ‘Daydream’ to her. She says that she has no use for a failure like you.”
“…..You are Earl Ashenbert…. Why are you here,”
“This is my room. That wax doll and that black diamond is also mine.”
The duke’s opened up wide in surprise.
“Duke, I also happened to need that ‘Daydream.’ Just like I anticipated, you betrayed Prince. However, I can’t use you if you failed.”
Edgar grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and peered down at him.
“Because of that, weren’t you sought after by Ulysses? Would it be a matter of time until he finds and erases you.”
"Prince has his eye at for you as well. Blue Knight Earl…..Ulysses was laughing about how you’re going against Prince when you have no powers even though you inherited that name.”
P. 172
“It is a pity that I won’t be able to show you my victory to someone like you who will be momentarily dead.”
A cold and heartless smile was made by Edgar as he threw Duke Barkston to the floor and then he turned around to Lydia.
Lydia was finally able to caught her breath and sat trembling on the floor.
Her eyes met with Edgar’s and she became so embarrassed and reacted in a mess. More than the relief of being saved, she was more disturbed about the unbelievable outfit she was in.
“Th-this isn’t what you think. The coblynau put me in this without my permission. He said that I needed to adjust to yo-your tastes, and not lose to the mistress and….. Anyways, I don’t know how this happened, it’s just when I woke up, I was here!”
“The other time you were a maid, and this time you’re an Arabian princess. It’s nice to be so pleasantly surprised.”
There isn’t anything nice about this.
“If you were Scheherazade, then I wonder if you would tell me fairy tales to me every night. If it were me, then it wouldn’t take me a thousand nights but just one to become mad about you.”
He knelt down and looked into Lydia’s eyes. She was appalled at how he would use any opportunity and say flirting things to her.
“Ohh, but I’m glad you’re safe. I was worried that I might have completely lost your trust because of what happened during the day, but you yelled out my name for help. That means I can think that you still haven’t come to hate me.”
P. 173
“What, di-……did I call you?”
“Yes, just now. Just when I was about to charge into here.”
He’s got to be lying. Well, she could have been thinking about Edgar.
He smiled as he watched Lydia turn even redder in the face.
Lydia turned her eyes away from him and noticed that the duke who should have been collapsed was trying to get up.
She saw he reached inside his coat to take out a pistol.
“Edgar!”
At the same time Lydia yelled out, gunfire ringed out.
However, the duke’s pistol fell down to roll on the floor. At that same time, he himself was slammed back with a powerful force and tumbled back in a roll as he knocked back a one-legged table.
The one who picked up the pistol on the floor was a brown-skinned young man.
“Raven, you mustn’t kill him yet.”
Yes, he replied as he grabbed the duke’s necktie and pulled him up.
“Duke, there is something I still want to ask you.”
Edgar stroked Lydia’s hair as if to soothe down her nerves as he turned to face the duke.
“Getting his hands on the ‘Daydream’ wasn’t the only reason Prince put his target on the Sylvainford duke family was it?
P. 174
Duke Barkston laughed with a snort as his face twisted in pain.
“You don’t even know something like that, and yet you’re intending to go against Prince?”
“If you know, then I’ll have you talk.”
Edgar took out a pistol and pressed it up against the Duke’s throat.
“I’m bound to be killed by Ulysses anyway. It’s pointless to threaten me.”
“Do you think so? Even if man knows he is going to eventually die, they wouldn’t want to die immediately.”
Edgar, who calmly put his strength in the trigger, met the eyes of the duke who had eyes like he was seeing his tragic death.
The cock of the pistol rose up. The duke’s eyes flied around from panic. But he remained still as he bit his lips.
He might have thought that Edgar was really going to pull the trigger. Lydia thought the same, and so as she held her breath as she watched the two of them looking at each other and witnessed Edgar pulling the trigger without changing the look of his expression at all.
Lydia made a silent gasp, but no bullet came out.
Edgar tutted in front of the frozen duke.
“Damn, I forgot to put in the bullets.”
After he said that, he picked out a iron bullet from his pocket and loaded it, and carelessly pulled the trigger two times to test it.
P. 175
Those were still empty rounds, but the man let out a silent scream and cradled back shrinking. Raven mercilessly pushed him back.
“Now, Duke, let’s see if it would come out this time?”
“Wa-wait a moment. ….The reason the duke family turned out like that wasn’t my fault. Everything happened because of the son that was born into that family.”
She was able to tell that Edgar took in a small breath.
“What did the son do?” asked Edgar.
“Prince realized that the son of the duke and Jean-mary was the most closest to his ideal heir. Much more ideal than the son that would have been born if she were to have married me…..”
“What do you mean?”
“Jean-mary carries the blood of Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
“Bonnie….., the old prince of the Stuart family?”
“I also have the blood of the Stuart family flowing in my veins. The two of our marriage was decided so that the continuously fading royal blood would once again be thickened. That’s why it was a scheme. A scheme carried out meticulously for the sake of Prince.”
Lydia had no idea what he meant. Edgar went silent as if he was thinking about something deeply, but he appeared as if he was suffering more than ever before.
P. 176
“It was the son’s fault for the Duke Sylvainford to lose everything. It was his fault for stealing away Jean-mary from me. If that man had gotten another woman for his wife, then something like that would have never happened. It was better for Jean-mary not to have gave birth to a son. It was better if that son didn’t grow up.”
The duke kept on speaking unaware that that son he was talking about was right in front of his eyes.
“Earl Ashenbert, if you want to annihilate Prince, then you must kill that son. That just may be the quickest path to your goal.”
“Stop saying such stupid things, the one who is to blame is Prince! You were just rejected by your fiancée! A child wouldn’t be guilty of anything!”
Lydia couldn’t stand it any longer and interrupted him. As if to say it’s all right, Edgar gave Lydia a glance.
“Marquis, Jean-mary had completely forgotten about you who was her fiancé. At the same time that she didn’t doubt anything about the marriage to you that her parents had decided for you and went she was told to marry into the duke family, she would have agreed to it without hesitation. In fact, she was more thrilled about the idea of being called Her Grace. She was innocent and naïve and satisfied just as long as she was treated like a princess. She was the typical noble’s daughter.”
The marquis made a frown like he was offended.
“Don’t open your mouth like you would know.”
P. 177
“The time that she remembered about you was from the time that the Sylvainford duke family was suspected of because of the diamond. At the time when you sent her a comforting letter. But, it could have been a woman’s intuition, it seemed like she sensed your underlying motive and intentions.”
“Wh-….., why do you know that…”
“I just happened to hear when she was asking for advice from a friend.”
The marquis snapped up to look up at Edgar like he realized something.
“No, you’re not….”
“Marquis, I will not forgive those who offer their help to Prince. If it’s to annihilate him, I will kill Ulysses and you and the son of the duke family.”
She thought he was going to shoot and kill the marquis.
“Stop!”
Lydia didn’t think about the danger and ran up to him.
The pistol was aimed his foe who destroyed his family, but if he were to shoot his enemy, she was afraid that Edgar would then aim the pistol at himself next.
It was just when she jumped onto his arm to try and stop him.
The building shook from the thundering sound of a boom.
“Huh, what….?"
P. 178
She was scooped up into Edgar’s arms and in the second the two of them threw themselves to the floor, a silver statue came crashing down to the floor just right next to them.
The marquis used that opportunity to escape. Raven went after him.
From the large hole that opened up in the wall, an ugly-faced small fairy poked its dirt-covered face out.
“It’s a goblin,” remarked Lydia.
(He escaped.)
(It’s him.)
(Go after him.)
They came shuffling out of the hole and started to dig another wall to go after Marquis Barkston and they all disappeared into the next room.
“Goblin? The fairies that Ulysses is using?” asked Edgar as he helped Lydiaup and was looking at the hole in the wall.
“Was that shock just now also the work of the goblins?”
“Edgar, you mustn’t get near them. Beyond the entrance of the hole is the territory of the goblins. It’s isn’t the human realm.”
“You’re right, the space beyond this wall should open up to the hallway, and yet it goes on like it’s a cave.”
“I’m guessing that they are going after the marquis by Ulysses’ orders. He must have found out that the marquis was hiding in this store.”
“Which means there is a possibility that Ulysses might come here.”
P. 179
He turned his back to Lydia and went into a silent thinking, and the sight of him looked tired from the confrontation that happened just now.
He said that he would kill himself if it was to destroy Prince.
Ulysses had said that he was ordered to kill Edgar who was decided to be useless now, but there could be a chance that he was thinking that he could capture Edgar alive if it was possible.
If Jean-mary’s son was the key and since she was no longer alive, Edgar was the only one who carried her blood.
There was no mistake that Edgar was considering his own death as a means for his revenge.
“Edgar, please. Don’t blame yourself. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Thank you, Lydia. I was worried that you wouldn’t be worried about me ever again, so I’m happy.”
Even as he said that, he didn’t turn around to her.
“It’s not like I was shocked at what the marquis said. I had a faint feeling that I was the cause of everything from before.”
“You were just targeted. You are not the cause.”
“I was told by my father who was driven into a rage that I shouldn’t have been born. He was going to take out his hunting gun. My mother tried to protect me. I don’t remember what happened after that. When I came to, my father and mother were both on the floor with blood coming out of them. And there was a fire spread throughout the house…..”
P. 180
“You don’t have to remember.”
Lydia placed her hand on his back like she was leaning up to him.
“You were just dragged into this.”
“……Can I hold you?”
She wanted to say yes, but she was a little frightened. If she allowed it, she felt like she wasn’t going to be able to stop herself.
While she was undecided, Edgar spoke up again.
“Then, hold me.”
Slowly and carefully, Lydia stretched her arms out around him. While she was embracing him from behind, she was just barely able to hold onto his coat, so he could have been a little unsatisfied.
He placed his hand over hers and said “Thank you” which madeLydiarelieved and she pressed her head against his back lightly.
“Lydia, do you have a fever?”
“What, really?”
Not that she thought about it, she did feel like she had a high temperature.
She had gone to her bed chamber to take an early rest and when she awoke, she was here so she had completely forgotten about her condition because she was so overwhelmed, but when she realized that, she started to feel dizzy.
Edgar turned around and pressed the palm of his hand against her forehead and made a small frown.
P. 181
P. 182
“Let’s go home. I’ll take you.”
He took off his coat and used it to cover Lydia’s shoulders.
“I think that will be difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned his head to the side curiously as he opened the main entrance door but the path was blocked with open, exposed rocks.
“Didn’t I say that the goblins had dug holes and made a path? This is their pathway and the fairy realm and human realm have become jumbled up with each other.”
He seemed confused as he set his hand on the wall and combed his hair with his fingers.
“What can we do to get out?”
“We will have to wait until the goblins appear again. Only fairies can see the path of fairies. They are sure to know their paths, so I will make a bargain somehow.”
“It’s just the two of us here until then.”
Lydia heard the two of them and she stepped back a few steps in caution.
“I won’t do anything. But even if I was the one who said that you couldn’t believe me, but I’ll say it just for sake. You can rest easy, so go ahead and lay down on the sofa.”
As Edgar said that, he took a look around the room and searched inside the cabinets.
“I never imagined that I would be left stranded in the middle of London. And it looks like there isn’t any decent thing to eat in this room.”
P. 183
It was a doll house so it couldn’t be helped.
Lydiadid as he suggested, then felt a cold shiver and pulled the front of the coat she borrowed tightly around her.
“Are you cold? That coat is quite thin. Looking wise it’s quite thankful though.”
She hurried to hide her stomach area with the coat.
“If I knew you were going to wear that, I should I put more requests in its design.”
“……..Even so, why would you make a doll that looks exactly like your mother wear something like this?”
If she thought about it, it was something that appeared quite strange.
“If I didn’t make it an outrageous outfit, the doll looked even more like my mother and it was disturbing.”
I guess that would be the normal reaction.
He took a number of alcoholic drinks in a bottle that were placed in the room as interior accessories and some fruits that were again another interior decoration, he walked over to Lydia who was on the sofa.
He sat himself down onto the carpet and opened the bottle of brandy and poured it into a glass.
“You’ll warm up a little.”
“Thank you…..”
Even as she took the glass, she had made sure to avoid from touching his fingers, so Edgar made a small sour smile.
“You would hug me, but you don’t allow touching from my side do you.”
P. 184
“That’s because…..”
“Because I kissed you without asking?”
Lydia felt that her body temperature rose up dramatically and so she rounded herself.
“If Marquis Barkston is captured by the goblins, then he might be killed by Ulysses. And you haven’t even pulled out all the information out of him that we wanted yet.”
She purposefully changed the subject because she wanted to avoid the topic about the kiss with just the two of them.
“I was able to grasp the gist of it all. And the reason why that man was called Prince.”
Just listening to that story, Lydia wasn’t able to understand everything. But when she imagined that Edgar didn’t have any intentions of revealing the information about what he had figured out about the heart of the matter regarding Prince, then she wasn’t able to bring herself to ask him.
“You don’t want to hear anything that has to do with me?”
“Is it all right for someone like me to find out?”
“I learned that nothing good comes out from when I keep things secret from my fiancée.”
Because it might have turned out like this. Thought Lydia as she looked down at what she was wearing.
“I said I’m not your fiancée.”
She objected just for sake. Edgar didn’t let that bother him and went on.
“In 1688, James II was exiled from England and escaped to France. Do you know that afterwards his descendants had seriously tried on two accountants to claim their succession to the throne and tried to invade into England?”
P. 185
“Yes.”
As she replied, Lydia was remembering about how she had heard that King’s name just the other day.
Her father had been talking about the two diamonds that were the issue of this. They were the Royal family’s diamonds, but she was told how they were lost during the commotion of the revolution and James II’s exile.
“Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandchild of James II and led an invasion into England to retrieve the throne but lost.”
She remembered hearing that Jean-mary carried the blood of that man.
“Most likely Prince and oh, his descendants too…..anyways, I think that he might be closely related to Jean-mary by blood. He was after the Royal family’s diamond, not because it was the legendary jewel, but I thing it was more like as its owner, and as the heir to Bonnie Prince, he was trying to claim as the Prince of Wales.”
“Prince of Wales….”
“The male heirs of the Stuart family should have all died out, but if you go down the bloodline of the female, you would find out that it would be connected to a number of royal families and nobles in Europe. I’ve heard that there are groups that claim that those are the rightful King of Englandand Scotland. But
Prince, claims that he himself is the Prince, so he must be in a different organization from that.”
P. 186
“Do you think that he’s planning to return to England?”
“Even if he is, I don’t think it would be the same way as the old Bonnie Prince.”
If Marquis Barkston and Jean-mary had married, then the two royal families would be mixed once again. That man said that that was plotted for the sake of Prince.
Going against their plan, Jean-mary married Duke Sylvainford, but the plot didn’t end there.
“So your family had the blood of the royal family in it.”
“That’s right. And several of them.”
Most likely, that was the most ideal part for Prince. Because the child of Jean-mary and the duke was surely going to be born with a much more thicker blood of the royal family.
“That was the reason you were targeted? But, what was their intention for kidnapping you?”
“I guess it was to make the next Prince.”
Make, she thought that was a strange way to say it.
“He didn’t make his own son his heir? Even if he didn’t have a boy, didn’t he think there was more difficulty in making you his heir after he abducted you and made you came to hate Prince?”
“I’m thinking that he wasn’t planning to make me his heir under the normal meaning. They were under the strong belief that they were able to control the will of others how they liked. If I were to be in that organization for long, I think they were anticipating that I would lose my mind and they would be able to mold a new person that had the same way of thinking and feeling as Prince.”
P. 187
Lydia was taken-aback. What on earth did Edgar witness at that place.
He must have gone through a hundred times more torturing experiences at Prince’s organization than the tragedy that happened at the duke house.
But, even if she thought that, she wasn’t able to imagine what it was.
Even if someone like me were to hold him, in reality, wouldn’t that really not be of any comfort to Edgar.
“That organization was originally, how would you put it, it had the characteristic of devoting themselves to magical practices and spells. Even if some heir of the exiled King came out claiming their right to the throne right now, it would be impossible to get succession to the throne. And yet, Prince is gathering the blood of the royal family once again and is attempting to make them his puppets. His methods are so odd like he is forcing to make one.”
It was out of her boundaries of imagination. Lydia was gradually becoming confused. It was too bizarre of a story is try to be understood with her head that had a fever.
She gulped down one mouth-full of spirits and gazed dazzlingly over at Edgar.
He held a pear in his hand and masterfully peeled it with a knife.
"There’s one thing that I’m bothered with, and that’s about Ulysses. I have never met him directly while I was in the hands of Prince, but guessing from the conversation of those around me, I had the impression he was a senior. Like he had been in the organization for tens of years…. If he’s actually forty, then it’s a different story.”
P. 188
It was indeed strange for Ulysses, who appeared to be in his teens, just in a small percentage he was a terrible baby face, he could maybe be in his twenties, to be in a high-ranking power position in that organization from before eight years ago when Edgar was kidnapped.
“If the current Ulysses was the second successor, then it would make sense.”
“What, the second? The son of the first Ulysses?”
“He could be, or they could have reshaped the personality of a boy who had the power of a fairy doctor. If that were so, then it would turn out that he was a victim just like me.”
A boy whose personality was destroyed and become the second Ulysses? Because of the fact that he had the ability to contact fairies, he might have become a victim?
This didn’t make any sense. But, Edgar might have been thinking that he could have become Prince himself just like that.
And he was battling against an enemy who did unimaginable things like that.
He held out a slice of a pear that he pocked with his knife to Lydia.
She pulled it out and took a bite out of it and its mild sweetness made the unpleasant feelings of the alcohol that she forced down her throat to disappear.
“Lydia, you said in the past that you didn’t want to have a loveless marriage.”
At his sudden subject, Lydia was made a little nervous again. But, it seemed like he didn’t have any intention of making it into a sexual subject.
P. 189
“I think you are right about that. For nobles, marriage is normally thought of as tying two families together, and as long as they produce children, then normally the husband and wife are free to do as they please with their lovers. Even if my father had fallen for my mother and stole her away from the marquis, he just wanted to possess something that he desired, and most likely the two of them were the typical noble husband and wife. But, if my father and mother had strong emotional bonds between each another, and if their marriage were to have invited an unexpected tragedy, and even if their child was shouldering a ominous destiny, I wonder if they wouldn’t have fallen into despair.”
Still remaining sitting on the floor, Edgar was leaning his back against the sofa that Lydia was sitting on and kept his head faced down.
“The man that’s going to marry you will be a happy man.”
“………………”
“He would be loved dearly and the whole family will all live happily. Can’t that happiness become mine?”
I don’t know. Actually, Lydia was puzzled to know if Edgar would want something so plain and normal like that.
She wondered if he had any hope towards in his future beyond the path of his revenge to Prince. She had a feeling that he had a dangerous part about him where he would consider the measure of ending his own life in order to end everything, and so she had a feeling that the reason he meddled with Lydia so much was because he wanted to have a short dream about a future that was out of his reach.
P. 190
But, even if he were watching just a momentary dream, if that was his dream, then he was wishing for something anyone would from the bottom of his heart.
“Ohh I really do want to marry you.”
Just in the short moment she had her guard down, a strand of her hair was wrapped around his fingers.
From the dullness of her body temperature and the spirits spreading out through her body, Lydia remained still as she watched her hair flow through the cracks of his long fingers.
“There was a young girl who died protecting this black diamond in America. I was told by Slade that there is something in me that controls the hearts of others just like how Jimmy went off on his own. Just like he says, me in America was a ruler and the rule. I was feeling that everyone wanted me to be that. But,
you know the good-for-nothing and only talk part about me. From the beginning, you saw through that I was a boy who was made up of contradictions. And yet, you sympathized with me and lend me your hand. Just like this, I want you to stand as my equal. You don’t have to emphasize with me. If you stay by my side and scold me, then I feel like I won’t end up like Prince.”
Is it just that you’re not able to hold back from flirting whenever you open your mouth? Or is it something else.
“But to you, if I’m a man full of flaws, then I felt you would hate me so I would want to be pretentious. …That’s why I was hiding about how I was stepping Marquis Barkston in a trap.”
Or if I really do accept marrying you, then would I be able to save you?
P. 191
*
The sound of the goblins digging their hole was making a tremendous rumbling vibration throughout the ground. Kelpie’s sensitive mane was able to sense any small vibration that came to the water through the ground.
“What on earth are they doing, those little pests?”
He wondered if they weren’t planning on making the London underground full of tunnels and pathways.
The hole they dug was cut off from the human realm and more closer to the fairy realm, but if they went on digging without being careful, it was going to affect the humans on the ground above them.
Kelpie wondered if that was their actual goal, as he gazed at the white diamond that fainted sparkled even in the bottom of water.
“What shall I do with this?”
The diamond that the master of the goblins was looking for was also something that the Blue Knight Earl was searching.
However, that earl kicked away the bargain that Kelpie offered him.
“That man, is Lydia more important to him that this?”
That was unexpected. Because, he was an earl that carried unending rumors of women with him. He was imaging that the earl just wanted to keep Lydia by his side as one to put in his group of female followers.
P. 192
It should have been a temporary engagement where it benefited him and Lydia, who wished to stay in the human world.
The clear glass-like diamond that was cut in a tear-drop shape was so transparent that it seemed like it could dissolve into the water as it kept its faint light of a silhouette.
Even the devilish fairy Kelpie felt like there was a magic that seeped out of the jewel and almost sensed a fainting-like dizziness.
While he stared at the jewel, he felt like someone had called him and so he lifted his head up.
He had a feeling like it was Lydia’s voice.
He rose up to the surface of the water and transformed into his human form to walk up to the bank and listened carefully.
It was Lydia’s voice just like he thought and when he walked over to the group of trees, he spotted someone standing behind in a shadow of a tree.
The person’s reddish-brown hair flowed in the wind.
“Lydia, what is the matter?”
“Kelpie.”
When he found her, Lydia came dashing over to him and suddenly threw her arms around him.
“What is it? Were you bullied by that earl?”
Kelpie felt that she was trembling and carefully embraced her shoulders. He wasn’t used to handling humans as other than his meals, so he take particularly caution with Lydia.
P. 193
"I can’t take it anymore. I want to go home to Scotland.”
However, a feeling of tender loving care came rising up in the core of Kelpie’s body that he never experienced before.
The satisfaction that he felt when he ate humans only lasted for a short while, but the pleasing comfort that he felt when he was with Lydia wouldn’t disappear no matter how much time passed by.
“All right then let’s go home.”
“But, Edgar won’t annual our engagement. He’s trying to force me to become his bride.”
“He’s horrible,” said Kelpie, completely forgetting about the fact that he also had tried to force Lydia to become his bride.
“I really am not able to trust Edgar. I realized that fairies understand me much more than humans.”
Her chamomile smelling hair came closer to his face. He felt the blood of the fae in her golden-green eyes. A human that was shared the magic of a fairy; that’s why she is a fairy doctor.
In Lydia’s eyes, there might be some magic. He unexpectedly felt a thrilling shiver run up his body.
“Lydia, if your saying that, then I’ll go have a talk with the earl. If he doesn’t agree to calling off the engagement, then I’ll bite off his head…., no, I mean,
I’ll protect you so he can’t come close, so you can relax.”
“Really?”
P. 194
It didn’t feel bad to be depended on. When he recalled how adorable she was than usual, he didn’t pay attention to the fact that she was leaning up so close to him which was unusual for Lydia’s character.
“Hey, do you still have that diamond with you?”
“Eh, ah, yes. Do you want it?”
She made a small nod.
“I was just thinking of throwing it away.”
He put the necklace around her head. He thought it really didn’t suit her, but when he saw how Lydia smiled so happily like never before, then he felt completely satisfied.
However, just then the scenery around him shifted.
Lydia’s body melted away.
“Wh-……”
For an instant, everything around him went completely white, like his eyes were being burned from a light that was so unbearably bright.
When his view gradually returned, he saw in his view of the park, there was a young boy of a man standing next to a tree that was a little ways away.
It was him. The master of the goblins.
“Boy, what did you do?”
He made a grin and held up the diamond necklace.
P. 195
“I’ll let you know what the name of this diamond is. It’s called Daydream. Gemstones and fairies all have their names reveal their character. I just brought out the power that this stone holds.”
“So you showed me an illusion.”
“It’s a vision you saw on your own. Your dream? Or your desire? I was wondering why a water horse kelpie was in London, but now I understand, you’re after that fairy doctor girl.”
Kelpie gave a menacing glare at the lad that was much more slender than that earl and seemed like he was able to snap in two with his bare hands.
If he was just a regular human, Kelpie would be jumping in and taking a bite out of him, but he was a man that knew how to use fairy magic. Kelpie couldn’t act recklessly.
“Boy, I heard that your going against that Blue Knight Earl.”
As soon as the lad heard that name, his face twisted into a cruel, cold-blooded one.
“Ah, yes, since it’s my duty to kill the earl.”
“Hmm, so you’re going to kill him. How?”
“I’m going to slowly torture him and finish him off.”
He had no reason to oppose. However, Kelpie was worried about Lydiawho was in close proximity to the earl.
And besides, this boy was much more despicable than that stuck-up earl. And Kelpie felt that because he could see that this human had the power to communicate with fairies and considered them only to use as he pleased.
