secret wardrobe of the duchess
-Everyone… get out!
She didn’t think. She just ran to the nearest underground grocery storage. And then, that strange Stella started to rain fire on the ground. It was the first day that she learned bombs could fall from the sky.
Stella only left debris. The Berner Mansion, the place that Rubica’s grandfather had erected and where she had grown up and which had been taken by her uncle and his wife after her parent’s death, met that fate as well. Her uncle always traveled abroad as he was a merchant, but he was at home that day. Rubica wailed in front of his black body.
And oh, how was Angela’s dead body, who had grown up enough by then and would tell her mother not to be too harsh on Rubica? Her heart ached just thinking about that horrible moment.
‘What should I do, what should I do to save everyone? Should I ask Angela to go on a stroll with me and take her to the storage? Oh, but her mother won’t approve it… what should I tell my uncle?’
No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t think of a way to save the others. She didn’t know how the war had broken out and how that day’s air raid had proceeded. How did Seritos’ invention end up destroying Seritos? She bit her lips anxiously.
‘No, I should think about it later.’
The taste of blood made her realize she was going too much ahead. She took a deep breath and decided to focus on the present instead of the distant future and past to calm herself down.
‘Has anyone visited so early in the morning some time this year?’
Rubica frowned. Such a thing hadn’t happened, no matter how hard she thought. However, she couldn’t be sure. To her, the things that had happened when she was 22 were memories more than 40 years old. It is hard to remember even things that took place a decade ago, so she wasn’t confident about 40 years ago.
“Rubica! Rubica!”
Then, she heard a voice calling her urgently. She got up in a hurry and went outside. She looked down from the stairs. Her uncle, Mr. Martin Berner, was calling her from the stairs on the first floor.
“Uncle?” Rubica called him, quite confused.
He looked up at her. Then he smiled broadly while saying, “My child, don’t be surprised. No, I will understand if you pass out in shock. Duke Claymore has proposed to you!”
Rubica felt dizzy on the stairs, and she staggered for a moment. In her previous life, she had lived as a single woman until she died. Fate was changing. What hadn’t happened in her former life was now happening.
***
Duke Claymore? That Duke Claymore?
Compared to Rubica, he was too great. She had never gone past him, much less talked to him. However, Mr. Martin Berner, Rubica’s uncle, wasn’t smart enough to see her anxiety. He thought Rubica was hesitating just because she was very happy. He smiled widely and opened his arms.
Normally, Rubica would have played along, but she didn’t feel like it now.
“Why would he propose to me?”
The voice was small and weak like a lark’s cry. Rubica was blinking with her small eyes and was not coming down the stairs. Mr. Berner looked at her. Why wasn’t she delighted about such a great offer?
“How do I know that? If anyone knows that, it should be you.”
He spoke as if the duke had seen her before and had fallen in love with her. It was the only explanation he could think of. However, Rubica had never run into Duke Claymore. Her youth had all been about the huge debt her father had left her and her mother’s illness.
She had no memory of going to the neighboring baron’s ball, much less going to a ball held at the capital in a decent dress. She really didn’t know why.
“Why are you frowning like that?”
Then, she heard Mrs. Berner’s voice. She was wearing a dress too splendid for a woman from Seritos, just as usual. However, she didn’t have the time to have her hair done by Rubica this morning, so she just tied her pretty blonde hair with a ribbon. It made her look less splendid than usual, but she continued to mercilessly move her red and smooth lips.
“Rubica, it is a great marriage that you can’t even dream of. The duke even offered to pay your marriage expenses instead.”
She had finished calculating already. Although it was Rubica’s wedding, everything had been decided without her. She looked into Mrs. Berner’s cold eyes and realized she would never let her say no to the duke.
“But I’ve never seen him ever before. There’s no way he would just suddenly propose to me like this. What if he mistook me for another lady?”
Rubica gathered her courage, even under that cold gaze, and mentioned her doubts. She smiled faintly to Mr. Berner, praying that her question would sound reasonable. It had to be a mistake. Although the name Rubica wasn’t common, it wasn’t that rare either.
The duke would have never asked a lady who had a baronet’s title and nothing else. However, her doubt was shattered by Mr. Berner’s reply.
“Oh, it isn’t a mistake at all. The duke knew what I, your patron, did, and he exactly knew our address and your late father’s name! Haha, he checked everything and returned.”
“Our address?”
Ominous feelings started to take over Rubica. Had the duke really proposed to Rubica Berner instead of any other Rubica? However, she was the only person there who was in fear. Mr. Berner smiled brightly and gestured to Rubica, urging her to come down. She had no choice but to fight the dizziness and go down the stairs.
As soon as she arrived at the first floor, her aunt smiled warmly and took her hands to congratulate her.
“I envy you. This marriage has been possible only because your name is on the aristocrats’ list as a baronet thanks to your father.”
Rubica had never seen her smile like that, and it made her shiver.
‘Baronet…’
Yes, baronet. That stupid title.
In her previous life, she had been busy just trying to survive. So, she didn’t even think about her dark and sad past. But today, she wondered.
‘Maybe uncle and aunt didn’t have me get married on purpose.’
Rubica’s father had gone through great danger to bring ships full of grain during the great famine. He was given the title of baronet for that. He had been that kind, but after he died at sea, Rubica and her mother found themselves in great debt.
Because of it, Rubica’s mother had to die without even receiving proper medicine. After that, Rubica had no one. Then, her late father’s brother showed up.
-We will be your patrons.
At the time, she had just been happy. She thought her uncle was just like her kind father and was doing what was best for her. He even bought the Berner Mansion to take care of her debts. She was happy to go to the city hall and report.
[Martin Berner, Rubica Berner’s patron, heiress of the baronet title]
That certificate meant Martin Berner could use the baronet’s privileges instead of Rubica who was still a minor. As he also worked in the trading business just like Rubica’s father had, it was something extremely precious that he couldn’t buy with money.
He and his wife changed their attitude toward Rubica the day that certificate arrived.
‘That certificate loses its power the moment I get married.’
At the time, she couldn’t understand what was going on. She was too young to know how things worked. She couldn’t get married so that her uncle could enjoy the privileges of a baronet as her patron, and she had to die without leaving an heir so that her title would go to Martin Berner, her closest kin, or his son Isaac Berner.
Even if she had known that, she wouldn’t have demanded a dowry to her uncle as he had paid her father’s debt. She was just not like that. However, this was wrong. He had decided on her marriage on his own and was acting as if he was doing her a great favor!
They must have considered the tradition of leaving the title to one’s family when getting married to a man of a much higher rank when they took the duke’s proposal. The Rubica of the past wouldn’t have opposed her uncle and her aunt, but now, she had changed.
“Uncle, what do you mean by Duke Claymore’s messenger had returned? Are you saying you have accepted his proposal?”
“Of course!”
“How could you!”
Rubica was so angry that she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t understand how her uncle could make such a huge mistake. However, Mr. Berner was the person who couldn’t understand her the most at that moment. He really didn’t know why she was acting so angrily. He just blinked his eyes.
Rubica wanted to yell at him for a long time, but her aunt, who was still smiling, would slap her. She took a deep breath and started speaking slowly.