厨房从后面挺进李婷

— What was taking him so long? — She snorted irritably. «Dead or something?

— Don\'t joke like that,» I countered, «Maybe Dad\'s busy with something.

— «Busy?» And what\'s that, since he can\'t even hear you? You\'re yelling at the whole street.

Rachel\'s remark was justified. But that made it all the weirder: even if Duke Cassius hadn\'t noticed our arrival, what about the servants? Why didn\'t at least one maid greet us?

I frowned, feeling a bad feeling.

— Break down the door,» I declared.

— What?

Rachel stared at me in astonishment.

— I don\'t like it,» I said slowly, «I want to make sure it\'s okay.

— Um…

Rachel didn\'t take long to argue with me. A few seconds later, the front door swung open so-so that it almost flew off its hinges. And the moment the cold air entered the house, I smelled another strange odor. The smell of blood.

Apparently, Rachel had the same smell.

At first we didn\'t know what it was at first, until at the same time we stumbled upon a body lying in the living room. I recognized its owner immediately by the clothes and the black hair.

It\'s… It\'s…!

The next second I heard a thud next to me.

A clunk!

Rachel dropped the box of cake I\'d made her buy on the way over. We were going to have a birthday party together tonight.

— NO!

I cried out with my hands over my mouth in horror.

Duke Cassius was lying on his back unconscious, and his entire body was covered in some horrible dark blight. There was also blood everywhere.

I was so dumbfounded I couldn\'t even move. Rachel rushed ahead of me.

— The old man…!

She ran to him and lifted him up. He barely opened his eyes.

— What the hell? — The girl screamed. «What the hell happened…?!

For the first time I heard so much despair in her voice.

The man smiled weakly as he saw his daughter\'s face above him.

— It\'s all my fault,» he said hoarsely.

— What are you talking about?

— I told you to be careful and trust no one… But you turned out to be such an idiot.

The duke was talking heavily and was clearly exhausted. When he coughed again, his mouth was full of blood.

I didn\'t dare approach them: I stood behind them, sobbing silently. In spite of what had happened, I knew I couldn\'t interrupt what might have been Rachel\'s last conversation with her father.

It was too personal a moment.

Rachel was far more terrified than I was. Her pupils dilated and her face paled even more when she couldn\'t believe what was happening.

Her father hadn\'t changed a bit since she\'d been a child. It had always seemed to her that he would live forever. At the very least, he would live as long a life as she did.

But she never expected to find him like this when she returned home.

— Rachel, I\'m sorry.

— Wh-what…?

— I\'m sorry… For never being a good father to you.

Watching Duke Cassius die was painful. But it wasn\'t the end of his life that he was more worried about, it was the regrets he had left behind. After all, he had never been able to redeem himself.

Rachel trembled.

— I–I… I forgive…

Raymond Cassius smiled as if in a dream.

— I\'m so glad to hear that… I guess I can leave in peace now.

Duke Cassius closed his eyes. Rachel couldn\'t believe it and began to shake him as if he were not dead but simply asleep. For the first time in twelve years, a mute cry escaped her lips:

— DAD…!

***

At the end of August, the Duchy of Cassius held one of the most important holidays of the year.

The birthday of the young mistress — for which preparations had begun a couple of weeks before the event. All the servants had been on their feet since the morning, turning the place into a veritable children\'s paradise.

The whole hall was decorated with balloons, confetti, and other things. The table was filled with all kinds of dishes and delicacies, and in the very center was a mountain of presents. The servants whispered among themselves:

— Have you heard? They say that this year His Grace gave His Lady a huge manor house on the northern border!

— Really? — The other was astonished, «But isn\'t it too early to give such a gift to a child? The young lady is only eight years old.

— Who cares? It\'s lucky she\'s not an empire…

While the people of the manor were discussing among themselves the luxury of Duke Cassius\' gifts, the little girl in the same room was not reacting to them. She was sitting all alone at the long festive table.

Of course, a crowd of servants were nearby, ready to fulfill her every wish. But that was not what the girl wanted at all.

— Isn\'t Daddy coming again? — Rachel asked her governess.

The old lady cleared her throat.

— Madam, you know His Grace is very busy… You had better not wait too long for him.

— But today is my birthday! — She protested, «Why doesn\'t he congratulate me?

— W-Well…» the woman was picking her words, «My lord has already sent you many presents.

— I don\'t need them!

Rachel defiantly pushed the birthday cake away from her, and apparently was going to wait until her father was free of business.

The governess sighed heavily.

This happened every year. Duke Cassius always organized his daughter\'s birthday party on a grand scale, but he never showed up for it himself. Even if he was in the Duchy at the time, he still didn\'t come down.

Rachel was very upset by this.

Even though the governess had tried to explain that her father had a very busy schedule, she had only found it to be an excuse.

— Just tell me honestly that he doesn\'t care about me.

— Young mistress, that\'s not true at all…!

— Stop defending him. It seems like he really hates me.

Even though they lived in the same house, they rarely saw each other. Unless the Duke was on a war expedition by order of the King, he locked himself in his study and did his business there. And if they did meet, it was by chance, and most of the time Rachel had to wait a long time for his free time.

All in all, it didn\'t sound much like a typical father-daughter relationship.

And this time Rachel flatly refused to celebrate her birthday — until the duke came. The governess tried in vain to dissuade her, but the girl was stubborn.

Never touching the food or the presents on the table, Rachel waited for her father until the evening. Until she herself fell asleep.

Raymond Cassius did not come down to the living room until midnight. And he was very surprised to find his little daughter asleep right there.

— What is it? — he asked the governess.

The governess was confused.

— The young mistress was waiting for you.

— Me?» the man wondered.

— Ahem… She said she would not celebrate until you arrived.

Duke Cassius took this answer with a bewildered expression. He really couldn\'t understand what was the matter.

Is his presence so necessary? Rachel could have gotten and eaten anything she wanted that day, but instead she took nothing. Spent the whole day waiting for a man — who wasn\'t even going to come. It was incomprehensible to the Duke.

— But why?

— Perhaps because the young mistress misses you.

— «Misses…?»

— You are her father,» the older woman reminded him of the obvious, «For a child her age, that is quite normal.

— Hmm…

Even though the governess was saying the usual things in front of him, the man was still unable to comprehend them. Or rather, it was foreign to him.

Raymond\'s parents had also paid little attention to him as a child. And used to think that this is how it should be in families. But this does not mean that the Duke did not love his daughter.

With the arrival of his wife in his life — Raymond became more emotionally open. He even learned how to be a good husband, but he still didn\'t know what it was like to be a father.

It was extremely difficult to raise a child alone and without example. It also affected his attitude about parenting.

— I give her everything she wants. Isn\'t that enough? — the Duke was genuinely puzzled.

— Your Grace, I\'m afraid you\'re not giving her exactly what she wants.

— And what is it, then…?

— That you, as her father, celebrate her birthday with her at least once.

— …

Duke Cassius thought.

— Hmm… All right,» he decided to take the word of a wise woman, «Then I\'ll do it.

The Duke lifted the sleeping Rachel in his arms and carried her into the room on his own. For the next year, he was determined to fulfill her greatest wish.

And so he did. The following year, for the first time ever, the man refused a military expedition to a foreign empire on his own — choosing instead to stay home.

He took care of the preparations for the event and had been waiting for her himself since the morning.

But then Rachel didn\'t come. She never came again. And soon she stopped calling him «father».