After a long three-month stay in the Kingdom of Claughton, Avril was preparing to return home.

“We’ll be aboard the Victoria by this time tomorrow. It was a long stay, but now that it’s over, it feels like it was just a moment.”

“It truly does. Once we return to the townhouse in the royal capital, let’s spend some time together, slowly, just the two of us.”

Just the two of us… slowly?

Dylan’s gaze as he looked at her was sweet to a mysterious degree. Then there was the vaguely meaningful resonance of his words. She felt her heart leap. That was when someone knocked on the door to the room.

Avril, who’d been left in a daze, quickly reclaimed her composure.

“Yes?”

“Lady Avril!”

Leaping in the moment the door opened was Emilia. With tears welling in her eyes, she firmly grasped Avril’s arm.

“You’re… returning to your kingdom today… I’ll miss you…!”

“With the redevelopment of the mines established, I believe I shall be coming to visit again before long. I would be delighted if you please wouldn’t forget me.”

“For one like Lady Avril… forgetting you… how could that be…!?”

“My.”

Just as Listeard declared at the recent commissioning ceremony, the mine resting beneath the Greenie Mountains would be successfully redeveloped.

Dylan had promptly reported this to Lawrence. A series of plans was then entrusted to the Duke of Lancester, deemed the most suitable for this role.

Although Avril was concerned that Dylan seemed like he would become even busier, her having passed the Kingdom of Claughton’s national exam worked in their favor. She too was now able to participate in undertakings with the nation as an official diplomat.

In the end, I apologized to His Majesty Listeard and declined my appointment, but I am glad.  It seems that I will be able to be of use to both countries.

Incidentally, the requests she made regarding her reward for placing first in the examination had all ended up being granted. She was astonished.

Truthfully, all she really wanted was to support the children.

Emilia was the one who reached out to her when she had been agonizing to her wit’s end over how to decline.  With a knowing expression, she said, “A villainess only allows gentlemen to give her offerings, after all.” Then, using her abundant private fortune, she bought all the artwork and jewels Avril had received as her reward and quietly returned them to their original places in the royal palace. Avril was wholly grateful.

While recalling such as she soothed Emilia who had at last broken info full-fledged tears, a single woman could be seen standing on the other side of the door

…That’s…

Though her bearing was fleeting, her back was straight and taut. She had long hair as beautiful as though it had been spun from the light of the moon, and gentle eyes. Perhaps wishing to comfort Emilia, who was weeping uncontrollably, she entered the room in a reserved manner.

Surprise immediately colored her soft violet eyes.  She did not move, her gaze fixed on Dylan who stood beside Avril.

“Lady Avril, this gentleman here is…?”

Emilia, completely unaware of the circumstance, responded to the trembling voice.

“Sniff, Madam Anastasia! This is Lord Dylan Sherard. He’s a special envoy from the Kingdom of Branwill, just like you, and he’ll be returning to his kingdom today.”

“Dylan Sherard…”

Anastasia, as though ruminating upon it, slowly murmured the name Dylan had borne in his boyhood.  Not once did her gaze leave Dylan during all that.

“…I am called Dylan Sherard.”

Dylan greeted Anastasia with a formal, outward-facing smile. Toward his mother he showed no sign of affection; it was, sorrowfully and utterly indifferent.

It was a gesture of someone long since accustomed to being told, “I don’t know you.”

That alone conveyed the loneliness Dylan had carried all this time.

Lord Dylan…

Although he had wished for a reunion with his mother, surely he would have wanted to prepare his heart. Being rejected by someone so dear must be unbearably painful.

However, an occurrence came about that day that seemed to differ from all the times before.

“Dylan…?”

It was a voice clearly filled with confusion, unlike the detached tone of someone merely tracing the name of a stranger as before.

Tears could be seen spilling one after another from Anastasia’s eyes. As the breaths of Dylan and Avril both caught, from her lips came aimless, unformed words.

“I… heard that a student whom I had… taught, if only for a little while, had passed the national examination at the top of the class, and so I came to offer my congratulations. I thought, how truly joyous a thing that must be. And yet—and yet, even so…”

“Lady Anastasia?”

Anastasia continued, interrupting the puzzled Amelia.

“But, never did I imagine that there could be something so joyous as this.”

At this state of hers, so clearly different from usual, Dylan spoke to her in a voice that trembled slightly upward.

“…Do you recognize me?”

“Dylan.”

Tears once more overflowed from Anastasia’s eyes.

“You… before I even knew it, you’ve grown so very much.”

“…Honorable Mother.”

Dylan’s voice, filled with astonishment, resounded through the room. With unsteady steps, Anastasia walked toward Dylan and embraced her son firmly.

Avril could feel that Chris, standing behind her, was also holding his breath. From his deeply moved expression, Chris, who is always smiling cheerfully, she once more realized just how significant a moment this was.

It was the scene that everyone who had long watched over the Duke of Lancester family had waited for with such yearning.

Through her blurring vision, Avril came to understand the other purpose that had been entrusted to their visit to the Kingdom of Claughton.

His Highness Lawrence sent us to the Kingdom of Claughton for the sake of this reunion…

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