A TALE OF FIRE AND ICE

Unknown Origin

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KNOWING that their conversation was going to be very confidential, Irene invited her father to the study instead.

She remembered Lisa told her that the study had a strong spell inside. No one or nothing could hear anything inside the room even if someone was to use an eavesdropping spell. After the servants brought tea and snacks for them, she told them not to disturb them unless she called for them.

"Father, is it true that my mother was a commoner?" Irene asked while gripping the handle of her teacup tight. "But as far as I know, Mother was a daughter of a fallen marquis from a neighboring kingdom."

She knew that House Prescott was a fallen noble house.

Also, according to the memory of her past life, her father was already a duke when he met her mother. So even if her mother's family had already fallen, the fact that she was still a noble made it possible for her parents to get married.

"I paid House McMillan from the Alec Kingdom to adopt Marianne before we get married," Duke Prescott confessed. "As the Duke of Oakes, our vassal families wouldn't have let me marry Marianne if she remained a commoner. But House McMillan wasted the fortune I paid them to gamble and that caused their downfall."

Okay, she was shocked by that revelation.

Her father practically bought a noble title for her mother. Well, being a "lady" was technically a title because only women with high social rank could be called that way.

"If Mother was only adopted by House Prescott before you got married, then what kind of family Mother had before?" she asked curiously. "And did you meet here in the Royal Capital?"

"No, we didn't meet here," her father answered. Then, he sipped tea before he continued. "I met Marianne when I was at Aranka."

"Isn't that the small village at the border of our territory?"

"Yes, Aranka is a village at the border of Oakes," her father confirmed. "It used to be a poor village. I went there to personally check on our people." Much to her surprise, the duke smiled as if he just remembered a fond memory. "Your mother was working at the village as a Healer."

'Healers' were what the empire considered as "unlicensed doctors." They used herbal medicines and some simple spells to cure diseases.

[I didn't know that my mother used to be Healer.]

"But her passion was dancing," the duke added. "Whenever she had free time, she would teach the children of Aranka to dance."

Okay, she was surprised again.

Well, she didn't really have many memories of her mother because she died when she was still small. And in the past, her father rarely talked about her.

"When I met Marianne, she was already an orphan," Duke Prescott said. "Actually, she grew up in an orphanage so she didn't know who her parents were. But I didn't care about that. The moment I fell in love with your mother, I knew that she was the one for me."

She got teary-eyed at that.

God, she wanted that kind of love with Lisa.

"I was willing to give up my nobility to marry Marianne," her father continued. "But your mother didn't want me to lose the life I was used to. So even if it hurt her pride, she let House McMillan adopt her just so she could marry me."