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Chapter 277
“……What?”
The Archduke blinked blankly, his face dazed.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t understood Iona’s words; it was that he understood them too well and couldn’t quite believe his ears.
It seemed he, too, had long given up on finding any new trace of Teresa.
Fixing his gaze firmly on Iona, the Archduke accepted the letter she handed him.
His hands, at first steady, grew progressively more hurried as he unfolded the contents.
“Where… where did you get all of this?”
“It seems Mother left someone behind with instructions to deliver it once her daughter entered the palace. I only came into possession of it not long ago.”
As he traced a few lines across the paper with his finger, a deep sigh escaped the Archduke’s lips.
It was clear he had recognized the handwriting, it was indeed Teresa’s.
Seeing his reaction, Iona felt a quiet wave of relief.
She had believed the letter to be genuine, but having it confirmed by someone who had truly known Teresa put her heart at ease.
The Archduke began reading, holding the paper gingerly as though afraid the slightest touch might crumple it.
Walter, unable to contain his curiosity, tried to sneak a look at the last page first, only to be stopped short when the Archduke shot him a withering glare.
Thus, the father and son stood nearly cheek to cheek, reading together in silence for a long while.
By the time they reached the final page, tears had gathered at the corners of the Archduke’s fierce eyes.
“This foolish woman… again…”
Iona had a strong feeling she knew why he reacted that way.
Teresa hadn’t asked anyone to avenge her, nor whispered about exploiting her enemy’s weaknesses.
Instead, she had written of only one wish, that her daughter might never sink into the same mire she had, but live a life filled with beauty and joy.
That wish stirred in Iona an emotion she could barely name, something warm and unfamiliar.
It reminded her of the boundless, selfless love she had only ever dreamed of, a mother’s strength that gives everything and regrets nothing.
The Archduke swallowed hard, his voice low and strained.
“…Whose hands was this letter in?”
“It was with a laundry maid. She said she owed my mother a great debt and wanted to repay her somehow.”
“Ha… and what sort of story involves a laundry maid this time?”
The Archduke gave a dry laugh and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger.
Before either he or Walter could make the awkward request to “show her soles” again, Iona took the initiative and removed her shoes.
The old scar on her foot, from infancy, was not something that could be faked or newly created.
After a simple confirmation, Iona looked up at him with a soft smile.
“I’m glad I could finally repay the Archduke’s faith in me.”
“I told you to call me Uncle!”
Pushing the letter into Walter’s hands, the Archduke pulled Iona into his arms.
His sudden, fierce embrace no longer startled her the way it once had.
Her reflexes had improved; she was even quick enough to return the gesture with a pat on his back.
His embrace felt different from Leroy’s.
If Leroy’s arms made her heart flutter, being held by the Archduke filled her from the toes up with quiet warmth, like a comforting hand reaching back through her lonely childhood.
With her face buried against his chest, Iona murmured softly.
“You have good intuition, Uncle.”
“I knew it from the start! I could feel it in my blood that you were my niece!”
Iona frowned slightly at his confident declaration.
She admitted that the Archduke had opened his heart to her fairly quickly, but he hadn’t exactly been kind to her at first.
She still remembered vividly the icy atmosphere at their first dinner together.
Tentatively, she began, “At first, you were rather—”
“Didn’t I ask you about your mother back then? Hm? I did, didn’t I!”
He cut her off, pressing his point eagerly.
Iona wanted to say that if he hadn’t been wary of her, she might have trusted him even less, but she let it go.
He looked too embarrassed by how cold he had once been to his own niece.
She didn’t want to bring up those memories and make him feel worse.
Iona gave a small nod of agreement, and the Archduke’s arms tightened around her in response.
Even in his later years, his strength hadn’t diminished; his grip could still crush air from one’s lungs.
As her breath began to constrict, Iona turned pleading eyes toward Walter, silently begging for rescue.
“At last, my wish has come true,” she managed to wheeze. “Not everyone in my family turned out to be an enemy after all.”
Walter met her gaze and smiled with quiet satisfaction.
Just as the only ally among her blood relatives was on the verge of suffocating to death in his embrace, the Archduke finally let her go.
Iona coughed several times, thinking to herself, So this is the power of familial love—truly overwhelming.
Rubbing her neck and steadying her breath, she spoke again.
“Anyway… I’d like to ask that you keep this for me. It’s important evidence, and it would be safer stored outside the palace.”
Walter nodded easily, refolding the letter and slipping it back into its envelope.
But instead of taking it, the Archduke simply looked at it in silence.
After a moment, he spoke.
“You said your mother entrusted parts of her letters to different people, didn’t you?”
“…Pardon?”
The sudden comment made Iona blink in confusion.
Then, as if he had reached a conclusion of his own, the Archduke deftly took the letter from Walter’s hands.
He opened it once more, carefully removed the last page, and then handed the remaining pages to Iona.
“Let’s do it this way,” he said. “I’ll keep the final page. It’s the key to proving your identity, so it should be hidden where no one can touch it. But—”
“…”
“The rest—the part Teresa wrote to you—should stay with you. My sister would have wanted that.”
Still a little dazed, Iona accepted the pages he offered.
The Archduke gave her a faint, wistful smile.
“If something were ever to happen, if one set were lost… at least part of it would remain. That alone would be a comfort, wouldn’t it?”
The Archduke, too, had once been meant to receive a letter from Teresa, yet had never actually held the real thing in his hands.
For someone who had long believed his sister’s final words were lost forever, this miraculous recovery must have felt like a blessing from the heavens.
Given that, Iona could understand why he handled the letter with such careful reverence—
And why Teresa’s foresight in creating multiple copies now seemed so wise.
“…Very well. I think that’s a sound decision.”
“Good. Read it often—and take care of yourself.”
“Safety, in what we do?” Iona replied with a faint grin. “That word doesn’t quite fit, does it?”
The Archduke sighed, swallowing whatever lecture he was about to deliver.
In truth, there was no way for Iona to avoid danger; the blood in her veins itself was the source of it.
The only real solution was to eliminate the root of that bloodline—before the enemy struck first.
“And besides,” she added, her tone wry, “I think you should be more worried about your own neck today, Uncle.”
It was an uncomfortable truth, and Walter nodded in agreement.
The Archduke groaned, reluctant but resigned.
“Yes, yes… today it’s my turn to face that witch of a woman.”
****
What had been her first impression again?
The Archduke searched his memory.
He had met the Empress for the first time at his elder brother’s engagement ceremony.
Just like now, even back then, she had been a quiet woman.
Unlike other young ladies of her age, she rarely smiled—but rather than arrogance, that stillness gave her an air of dignity.
His brother, too, was not one for many words. Standing together, the pair hadn’t looked so much like a well-matched couple as they did a pair of perfectly carved dolls.
Another dull person entering the palace, the young Archduke had thought, stifling a yawn.
And yet, what lingered most vividly in his memory from that dull gathering was Teresa.
The only daughter in a household of two sons, she had greeted her new sister-in-law with warmth and excitement.
When Teresa approached and began tossing out a few harmless jokes, even the waxen face of the future Empress had softened into something almost human.
At that moment, the Archduke had dared to hope—perhaps their family could live together in harmony after all.
A meaningless wish, as it turned out.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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