My Dear Grand Duke on a Leash - Chapter 105

Chapter 53.1 — Night Getaway (3)

As a clear tear slid down Bea’s cheek, Riette’s shoulders tensed in surprise.

“Why are you apologizing, Sister? Don’t cry. We’ll be together again soon, okay?”

“I haven’t done enough for you. I didn’t even realize it until now…”

Bea struggled to swallow her sobs and wiped the tears away with her long fingers.

“Riette, did you know that I’ve always envied you?”

“Yeah, when I was young, I was really immature. I’d leave my sick sister in her room and go off to play with Prince Narkissis every time…”

“No. Don’t blame yourself for that. The reason I envied you was because it was all my fault.”

Even a throbbing molar could make someone irritable all day, and living became incredibly hard. Such was the nature of the human heart. Bea had lived for twenty-five years, enduring sudden coughing fits and seizures morning and night.

A child born sick was, in many ways, a burden on their parents. Bea tried to be the perfect daughter so she wouldn’t add any more weight to her family’s shoulders than she already had. Because of that, she envied Riette—healthy, free from expectations, and always cheerful.

When they were children, Bea spent summers in thick fur coats, sweating in the heat, taking bitter medicine all day long, and throwing up. Meanwhile, Riette was often out playing by the lake or fountain, tagging along with the nanny or the captain of the guards.

Bea had always envied those carefree moments. But as she grew older, she realized that for Riette, those moments were simply the absence of their mother. Bea had known this all along, but she had justified it to herself.

She started to cherish Riette as a sister after realizing that fact one day.

Of course, by the time she understood, it was too late. The absence of their mother had become something Riette simply accepted.

It was something Bea couldn’t reverse, no matter how hard she tried.

But Riette understood.

‘It wasn’t sister’s fault, nor mother’s.’

“I’m always grateful that you’ve cherished me as your younger sister. There’s no one in the world who has a beautiful and kind older sister like me, right? I’m so happy to have been born as your little sister. That’s enough for me!”

“Don’t say that. You should have been loved more. If you weren’t my sister, you wouldn’t have to suffer like this…”

“Sister…”

“Riette…”

Bea finally broke down in tears.

When Riette opened the back door and rushed to hug her sister, Ian, who had been kneeling nearby, joined in and embraced both of the princesses. The sound of their sobbing gently filled the garage.

“….”

Cain, leaning casually against the side of the car, watched the scene with an indifferent expression as though observing something strange unfold. Although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the tears started, he decided it wasn’t his place to intervene. Instead, he quietly waited for the sisters to finish their goodbyes.

“Princesses… They are quite different from brothers, aren’t they?”

Saint-Cyr, who had approached Cain without him realizing, casually struck up a conversation. Cain, still focused on the Chalonné sisters, responded disinterestedly.

“…Not all sisters are the same.”

To him, the Chalonné mother and daughters were all sensitive in their own way, with none standing out more than the others. People often remarked that Princess Beatrice resembled the late King Chalonné with her calm demeanor, but in Cain’s eyes, she was no different.

Neither extraordinary nor notably lacking. Just a delicate, ordinary human. That was how he saw Bea.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke, though it’s a bit late, I’ve prepared a small gift as a token of my gratitude. It may not look like much, but it’s more valuable than it seems, so please accept it with my sincere thanks.”

Cain raised an eyebrow and took the item Saint-Cyr offered.

It was two notebooks.

“The smaller one contains a list of our media informants planted within the Helios Palace. The larger one is a medical history that Tris has been compiling since she was ten years old.”

“…”

“Just so you know, Your Highness, there are no informants at your Katak country house. Other media outlets try every time, but somehow, they always fail.”

Cain didn’t seem interested in responding to the pointless remark. Instead, he picked up the thick, leather-bound notebook.

“If this is a medical log, it must include a record of the drugs used in Princess Beatrice’s treatment.”

“That’s correct. I’ve meticulously organized the records of extreme prescriptions, including the use of poison as medicine. I only hope that Princess Lariette doesn’t fall ill when Tris leaves…”

Queen Chalonné was known to spare no expense in gathering delicacies and remedies from across the world for the health of her first daughter, whom she cherished dearly, from ancient medicinal herbs brought across the seas from the far eastern lands to the latest medicines obtained by funneling enormous amounts of sponsorship money into the International Medical Association every year.

The fact that such information had been compiled into a single book made it an incredibly useful and valuable resource.

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