Baroness Frieda — Adela's lady-in-waiting — seemed awfully subdued that night.
It did not require much intelligence to know that the lady who brought Adela up had her share of the blame for what happened earlier in the day, and for that, Adela was truly sorry.
Her social status far exceeded that of her lady-in-waiting's, depriving her of the relief that the due apology for dragging Arkin into that forest would have given her. However, she did try to compensate.
Not once did she complain about the long bath, nor did she object to the tiring process of dressing up so extravagantly at this late hour. Her hands rested impatiently on her lap while her caregiver placed the final pin in Adela's long hair to finish the complicated hairdo.
The Baroness had no words of any kind to say while fixated on curling the straight hair into perfection. The usual activity was too dry without compliments about the rare shade of platinum that ran in the blood of royalty, or even amicable discussions about the pitfalls of compassion her goddaughter entertained for commoners.
Lacking her cheerfulness or not, Arkin's mother was in many ways closer to Adela than the Archduchess herself. She was about to make things right with the Baroness when the sound of three knocks on her door overshadowed everything else.
She knew that he would eventually come and seek her, if he did not, she would have requested an audience in the morning. There was no escaping the Archduke's wrath, yet knowing something and experiencing it fairhandedly was different.
"Come in…"
The Archduke of Lanark entered the room looking straight ahead of him, his charismatic presence had always been a sharp two-edged blade. So long as she remained on his good side, his overwhelming aura lifted her up, it had the exact opposite effect on her when they did not see eye to eye about something.
Overwhelming pressure weighed on Adela's chest when the Archduke's unforgiving eyes refused to dignify her with a glance.
"Father, if I may explain myself properly this time…"
"Baroness, you are excused,"
Adela's heart sank, what did he plan for their conversation that was too private to be discussed in front of her Lady in waiting?
"Yes, Your Excellency," The Baroness bent her knees while bowing her head in a curtsy before leaving the room, and the Archduke's blank blue eyes followed her footsteps until the door clicked shut.
While Adela stood as motionless as a tree with deep roots in the ground, he walked in the opposite direction then stopped close to the window and gazed out into the dead night with his hands tightly clasped behind his back, his eyes seeing absolutely nothing.
"Where did I go wrong, Adelaide?"
Her hand balled into a small fist that she placed over her heart. It was worse than what she had in mind, the sorrow in her father's voice was unbearable, and she was the sole reason behind it.
"Not only do you go as far as that God-forsaken forest all alone and disobey a direct order, but you exceed the limits and convince Arkin to accompany you… Do you realize how knights who fail to protect their liege are treated by their comrades?... Can you imagine the preposterous punishment Gustav had to request for his son in an attempt to mitigate that? … Do you begin to fathom what you have done, daughter!"
Adela shook alongside the glass of the closed window her father faced as he shouted his last words. Drenched in her own helplessness, her head hung low, "…I should not have taken Arkin with me," Her voice was almost unrecognizably small, she dragged in a breath to continue when her father spun around.
"Wake up!" Bawled the Archduke of Lanark. "Yes! My ways were not flawless — Must my own daughter be the one to rub salt in that wound?"
Petrified with the course their argument was taking, she moved two steps toward him, but that was all the distance the Archduke's invisible walls allowed her to take.
She gulped her heart down.
"Father, were you not the one who taught me that looking away from the sun won't call for the night before its time?"
She paused when he scoffed, but she was nowhere near done now that he was finally listening, "...A maid was dismissed today because she could not afford a doctor to help her nephew and had to attend to him herself…How could I have possibly ignored them when my knowledge was substantial enough to save his life?"
She regarded him with so much innocence before burying her face in her hands and sobbing. The sounds she made were loud enough to cover his footsteps, and all of a sudden, she was engulfed in her father's arms.
"Crying while in the wrong, did they not teach my daughters any better?"
His emotionless tone contradicted the way he rubbed her back with fatherly affection. And she dared not utter a single word, too afraid of saying the wrong thing that would push him away from her once again.
"Adelaide…It is not you I am angry with, it is myself, for you are my reflection…Do not drag others with you on your quests for justice if you do not wish to see them suffer the consequences of your actions. You are not a child anymore so act your age… If not, act according to your status,"
It was instantaneously cold when the hands that surrounded her let go, she raised her head to see her father wearing a patient expression with an outstretched hand.
"Kiss your father's ring,"
The command itself was not completely alien, for she had heard it countless times at knights' coronation ceremonies. Each one of them had to kiss the Archduke's signet ring before conferring their knighthood with a tap of Extremizer, the Archduke's sword, on each of their shoulders.
Never in her life did she receive a request like this one, but she did as she was told without questioning it then raised her head once more to hold his eyes. They lingered on his ring for a second too long before he dropped his hand down and glared at her.
"…You shall never, and I mean never even think about approaching that forest again…You will not have reason to anymore, for I will issue an order to destroy those three cottages with the first ray of morrow's light…It is way overdue,"
She clutched the edge of his coat with a slightly trembling hand.
"I beg you, father! Inside the middle one…It is where that maid and young man I told you about live…"
His evident dismay that erased all traces of patience stopped her from finishing that thought.
"Adelaide de Lanark, no daughter of mine was born to beg, nor think so low of her own father..."
She let go of his coat, her mind fogging as it added another one to the series of her endless mistakes that day. "…You have already relocated them to another place... Of course, you have,"
The Archduke raised his chin.
"I might have failed the bigger portion of my subjects, but I shall strive not to fail you or your sister…The boy you looked after in the morning has been transferred to the knights' infirmary,"
Not only was her father telling her that her patient was provided with medical attention, but he was also telling her that she could see him once she pays a visit to Arkin.
Kaiser interrupted her reverie when he offered his arm out for her.
"I came to take you on a night stroll that shall end in my study, but I will quite understand if you are not well enough to go out just yet,"
Without any hesitation, Adela placed her hand on her father's arm. The study was a place where her father conducted his most private meetings.
All of this dressing up must have had a purpose after all…
"Come then, explain to me, one by one, the events that took place in that forest, do not neglect a single detail,"
She nodded once, determined to make things right once more with her father who was unlike the way he viewed himself, the most righteous nobleman Adela had ever known.
But the Archduke of Lanark had other plans for the night.