Adam quickly approached to support her, but Ariella quietly shook her head.
“Your Highness. It’s the words of a madwoman. There’s no reason for you to listen…”
Ariella was not the only one who realized that the situation was unfolding strangely.
The subtle atmosphere flowing between Lizzy and Aaron was noticed first by the Duke of Abercorn, which only fueled his anger.
Yet Lizzy, seemingly undeterred, continued to provoke him.
“There is evidence!”
Lizzy shouted, lifting the hem of her dress with a swift motion. Soon, her white ankles and calves were revealed.
The Duke frowned, doubting whether the maid before him had lost her mind or was making a mad attempt to seduce the Crown Prince. Either way, he thought there was no value in watching any longer.
He thought so until he heard the next words.
“This is the evidence. This scar.”
On her thigh, revealed beneath the Schmitz dress, was a rose-shaped scar. It bore a striking resemblance to the one on Ariella’s leg.
Upon discovering this, Ariella bit her lower lip hard.
Just when had she prepared for this moment?
For such a scar to be properly formed would have taken at least a few years.
Lizzy had been planning to betray her for years.
“It’s a scar I’ve had since I was little. I don’t quite remember how it happened, as my memories before the age of five are hazy… But judging by its shape, it seems to be a burn scar.”
“You’ve been a close maid to Arrie for a long time. You must have seen the scar on the princess while helping her bathe. Did you not create this scar to match it?”
“Me? How could I possibly do something so terrible…!”
“If I could gain the name of Abercorn, would it be difficult to have a scar etched into my skin?”
The Duke coldly pointed out the flaw.
Having navigated numerous schemes as the head of Abercorn for a long time, he would not be easily deceived by just a scar.
“At first, I thought it was just a coincidence. The scars in the same place, the same age, the color of hair and eyes. Even losing our memories and wandering at the same time. I thought it was all just coincidence. But then, at some point, memories began to return.”
Lizzy clenched her small fist tightly. Then, as if bursting forth the grievances she had long held, she spoke.
“The image of my father personally bringing tea from abroad for my mother, the beautiful piano melodies my mother played while I sat on her lap… They began to come back to me. Am I not Ariella?”
The Duke’s eyes, which had remained unmoving, finally wavered for the first time.
This was because it was a memory from before the age of five that Ariella could not recall.
Ariella was also quite surprised. While she had shared her memories of her mother playing the piano with Lizzy, she had never heard that her father had personally brought tea for her mother.
“…You must be pretending to have memories that you heard from the servants!”
“I heard that after the robbery incident, all the servants of the Duke’s household were replaced. The servants currently here have never seen the Duchess, so who could I have heard such stories from?”
“That’s…”
The Duke hesitated at her tearful plea.
Seizing the moment, Aaron quickly interjected.
“Not only that. Lizzy also remembers the first time we met when we were children.”
“…What?”
“She knows exactly what we talked about back then… Arrie has no recollection of it at all.”
He gently patted Lizzy’s back as if to comfort her. And Lizzy accepted that touch naturally, as if it were very familiar.
“Just in case, let me ask again. Arrie, do you remember what we talked about the first time we met in the palace garden when you were five years old?”
Aaron’s gaze shifted from Lizzy to Ariella for the first time.
Unlike the gentle touch on Lizzy, his eyes were chillingly cold.
Ariella gazed at him intently, her lips trembling.
“…No. I don’t remember. But—”
“Just as I thought.”
Aaron cut off Ariella’s words as if he had been waiting for that response.
“I think this is worth reconsidering. What do you think, Duke of Abercorn?”
We cannot simply cast out someone who might be a true relative. Aaron added in a low voice.
The Duke stood silently for a long time, deep wrinkles forming on his forehead.
Aaron, uncharacteristically patient, endured the silence, while Lizzy leaned against him, waiting for a response.
“…This is such a sudden matter that I will need time to think.”
“That means…”
The Duke of Abercorn reluctantly nodded.
“Bring this child a room in the guest wing.”
The fact that he was offering a room in the guest wing, rather than the main quarters, indicated that he still did not fully trust Lizzy’s words.
However, at the same time, it was an acknowledgment.
The first acknowledgment that Lizzy might be the ‘real’ Ariella Abercorn.
