Chapter 68 – Belated Reunion

“My Lord Duke.” The butler bowed in greeting.

“Where is Tiana?” Lucius, who stopped by the duke’s mansion to see Tiana after work, asked the butler who came to receive him.

“Madame is in the garden. Shall I call her up?”

“There is no need. I’ll go see her.”

It was right when he nodded at the butler’s words and urgently turned around to make his way to the garden that Edwin, who was descending the staircase, discovered Lucius and stopped him in his tracks. They greeted each other and Edwin hesitated to ask.

“Your Highness, would it be alright if…”

“What’s wrong, sir?” His eyes darted around, fearing something bad had happened.

“You’re here to see Tiana, right?”

“Correct.”

“Then I am sorry Your Highness, but could you delay meeting her for just a little bit?”

“Is there something wrong, sir?” He repeated.

Lucius asked worriedly at Edwin’s troubled attitude. It was strange somehow seeing him so exhausted like this. Edwin looked at Lucius, then turned his eyes to the door leading to the garden.

“Lennox left to go see her just now. I was just on my way out after having explained to him about Tiana’s situation as his probation was lifted today. Since it’s their first meeting in two months, I wanted to give them some time to reacquaint themselves.”

“I see.”

Lennox could be seen leaving through the door in the direction of Edwin’s eyes. Seeing him rush towards the garden, Lucius nodded with acceptance.

“Their meeting shouldn’t have happened this late. He, too, has been through a tough time.”

The look in Edwin’s eyes staring at Lennox was full of sadness and desperation. Lucius stared at him for a long time, trying to decipher his emotions, then looked in the direction where Lennox had disappeared.

“It will be alright. Even God will understand the way he feels. And her state now is definitely…”

“I know. The state she is in…”

After making eye contact with Lucius, Edwin seemed to be able to see what he had hidden in his words. These were the two people who had seen the current Tiana the closest. There was, surprisingly, no anxiety. The two thought that they would definitely hear good news from the current Tiana.

***

Lennox, who had bolted out of the office, rushed out of the mansion and headed toward the garden. Since he had already seen her through the annex window, sitting under the shade of a corner tree in the garden, he moved without hesitation.

After passing through the entrance of the garden, his feet swiftly moved with anticipation and anxiety, overlooking the servants gathered in the center. His footsteps only slowed down to the voice he hadn’t heard in such a long time.

“…calling his name like this…”

The voice he heard was just like he used to hear as a child; the warm voice of his sister.

The instant he stopped walking, he started to worry. If he approached her like this, would she welcome him? Even if she were to get her memory back, what if she can’t remember him? What if all of the memories of him are gone? Or worse, what if all the memories she has are the bad ones?

He closed his eyes and forced his legs to move while anxiety burrowed deep into his chest. He wanted to plop down to the ground right there and then, but how could he go back after being so close to seeing her?

A warm breeze flew by and wrapped around him. He started walking again with his eyes open, not as if he was trying to push forward without worrying, but as if he had decided on it even after hesitating.

And now he could hear it, the name he had waited so long to hear.

“Lenno…”

“Sister…” The word left his mouth before he could even think of stopping it.

Tiana was very happy to see him with her bright silver-gray eyes after such a long time. Her eyes had none of the hazy, murky energy from before that he remembered.

Oh, she really is back! Lennox thought.

His heart melted like snow the moment he laid eyes on her.

***

The long silence continued even after Alfred brought out the tea he had prepared. Looking at Lennox sitting across from her, Tiana, not knowing what to do or say first, tried to conceal her bewildered mind by taking a sip of the black tea placed in front of her.

With its sweet, chocolaty aroma, the tea was indeed delicious, but now wasn’t the time to get absorbed in the taste. It was her first time meeting her brother. Well, technically it wasn’t the first time, but to her it was.

Since she had never taken care of her brother, she didn’t know how to face him.

When Alfred was ordering the maidens to prepare the table, he heard from Inabel that for the past two years, their relationship had been so rocky that they ignored one another. Although in the memories that came to his mind, the siblings seemed really close. Perhaps that was before Tiana had been possessed. How surprised Tiana was to have called Lennox’s nickname. So, Inabel had given the word that they were not to be disturbed.

It wasn’t a bad thing that Inabel had hidden the facts about her accident for two years, but the perception that both Tiana’s resembled each other in many ways seemed to spread.

Looking at Inabel and Alfred waiting in the corner, Tiana could tell how much they were expecting from her. They’d be expecting the two siblings to go back to how they used to be. But the only memory she had with Lennox was a very small piece of a flashback, the only memory where she had called him by a nickname, ‘Lenno’. She didn’t know how to deal with this.

Please don’t stare at me like that, with anticipation and so much hope, Tiana thought.

While she was thinking earnestly about how to solve this situation, Lennox, who had kept his mouth shut till then, was the first to speak.