Lady Lantana

Chapter 30: Was She A Fairy?

Chapter 30: Was She A Fairy?

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"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." –Proverbs 3:5

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LANTANA and her father were back at their mansion. Finally! The obstacles to her leisure luxurious new life were gone! Being stripped off of their power, being treated and humiliated like that, she had doubts they could still retaliate against her and her golden fortress named Duke Philippe Ritcher Montgomery—which was her father!

Currently, they were at the area near the waterfall that Lantana discovered and where she met the twin spirit whom she first assumed to be ghosts because of her picnic request with her father.

What her father, the duke, knew at that time was she wanted to have a picnic to relax from all the stressful events that suddenly happened to her life. However, what the duke didn't know was that she didn't really feel as stressed as he assumed her to be. Rather, the real purpose of her request was to secretly celebrate her glorious and unanimous victory against the thorn of her new lazy life. Apparently, their downfall was her key to a sweet new life. Who was she not to celebrate when all things already happened in her favor? Who told them to mess up with the body of the person who she would end up possessing?

If only her father wouldn't overreact, she would also want to have a whole bottle of wine to chug down her throat until she was a mess. However, the duke might have a heart attack if he ever saw her from being someone who could not even kill a mosquito to being someone rowdy that she did not used to be.

"Say... Tell me honestly, my dearest daughter. How are you now?"

After the peaceful warm silence between them, he finally decided to break the ice. Worry was evident in his eyes.

"I'm alright, dad," Lantana replied as she took a sip of tea from her cup.

Then, she glanced at the two kids, busy playing at the waterfall, who were delighted to see her again after such a long time yet couldn't even come rushing at her because they saw her bring her father who couldn't see spirits.

"Really? Are you sure? You're not smiling just to make me feel at ease?" doubtful, the duke said.

Lantana sighed as she directed her eyes to the duke. Her blue eyes reflected a clarity that she seemed so clear that it felt foreign.

"You see, dad, after almost dying, I just woke up and found out that I don't love him anymore. Perhaps there is still a little part in me that do but after all the things that happened and all the things I started to see that I wasn't able to realize when I was blinded by my obsession I think my love became so little that it didn't matter anymore," Lantana said with a bright, genuine, sweet smile that came from the bottom of her heart.

Truly, even when she was not his real daughter, she was happy. She was so happy with the foreign, strange feeling of the word called "family." Perhaps she was just enjoying the warmth that the word brings to her heart, or it could also be that she just simply wanted it. Perhaps, she was actually longing for it for a long time already, even before she was able to realize that the world was a cruel place for someone like her.

The woman looked up in order to hide the materializing tears at the corners of her eyes. With a quick pair of hands, she wiped her tears away while acting like she just put her stray frontal hairs behind her ears. With a large smile, she spoke directly to his eyes.

"So, yeah! Don't worry, dad! I'm good and better than ever!" she said as she made two thumbs up with her hands.

Unexpectedly, after seeing her like that, her father suddenly started laughing. Every sound that came out from his mouth was so genuine and free, as if a kid free from the cruel world's worry.

Lantana was astonished. She felt like all throughout her stay in her new world, she never saw her father laugh out loud. He was always calm and composed whenever he was with her as if he was a perfect human being. Who knew he could actually laugh like a sailor?

"Why are you laughing?" she asked with a pout and puffed cheeks.

She was happy inside but as she wanted to act like the coquettish daughters she had read in books before, she acted childishly.

"Somehow, I think you're starting to resemble your mother," her father replied as soon as he composed himself.

"Why do you think so? Because I look like her?" Lantana took a sandwich and stuffed her mouth until it was full of food and she could barely speak.

"Yeah, you definitely look like her. By the way you talk and even with how you eat without care in private—you're resembling her so clearly that I thought I saw a glimpse of her earlier," the duke said with reminiscing eyes.

"The way I talk and eat..." she spoke slowly as she chunked another piece inside her mouth, making her cheeks resemble a guinea pig's cheeks.

"Yes. She used to speak words that I couldn't really understand that much back then. Her tongue had no filter. She speaks whatever was on her mind using words and phrases unfamiliar to my ears. She eats without minding proper etiquette when she was with me but she looked more regal than the empress dowager whenever we were in public. Perhaps it's the effect of her strange origin and bloodline? I am not certain either," her father said in a reminiscent voice as he shrugged his shoulders in wonder.

"How strange was her origin, dad? Why? Was she a vampire? A wolf? A fairy?" Lantana said in a teasing tone, trying to ride her father's words in thought that it was just a passing remark.

"A fairy... Perhaps that could be considered as one of the factors..." the duke said as he smiled dreamily.

Lantana's eyes widened in surprise as her jaw almost dropped on the ground.

"What?! She's really a fairy!?" she exclaimed as she almost choked on her bread.

"No. She wasn't... Actually, I'm not exactly sure either. But I am certain that when she was at your age, she dreamed of being one," the duke replied as he wiped the excess crumbs on Lantana's face.

'Something's fishy,' she thought as her forehead unconsciously creased.

The duke felt that her mannerisms from her previous world were similar to Penelope's mother who was already dead. Didn't that technically signify that her supposed mother also came from Earth?

Well, looking at the other possibilities, they could have those mannerisms in her current world, too, and the duke just didn't know them.

Perhaps the duke's wife just came from a very special race.

Or perhaps their world's commoners act the way that she always did and the duke was just not aware because he came from a noble family.

But if the latter was the case, how would the late duchess know how to be more regal than the empress of the empire back then?

How was she able to learn noble etiquette?

How was she able to play the piano and teach Penelope how to paint?

How was she able to look so elegant and poised in every painting in the mansion where she was the subject if she had no education?

A person could fake their names or their faces, but not their aura. Even when the portraits hanging on the walls of their house were just painted and not as digital as the photos from her previous world, the duchess's aura was not a joke.

Despite all those allegations she made inside her head, she had no evidence to support her ideas. But still, her gut feeling was telling her that something was definitely amiss and her curiosity was dying to find out what it was.

As a result, Lantana had no choice but to brush off all the ideas away for a while so that she could enjoy her time with her father wholly and not absentmindedly.

Unfortunately, before she could even try to take all the art materials that she brought with her inside her small basket with the plan in mind to have a productive and enjoyable memory with her father, the whole world just suddenly seemed to stop as a light veil covered their whole place. And that veil seemed to have an effect that ended up making her father and the two spirits playing obliviously pass out.