6 Chapter 6

"They will live here with them." Louise points to a group of warm looking woman and men who stand at the front door.

"They will take care of them and make sure they live well. These kids are under Duke's Ashdown's now and no one will dare to touch them." Louise explains.

"Those men are knights of Duke Ashdown and those woman are maids who have been trained. Would you like to come inside?" Asks Louise to Celestina. Celestina nods and while still holding Ambrose's hand, she steps inside the beautiful house.

The inside of the house amazes her, there are 5 rooms on the first floor and on the right corner there's stairs.

"These rooms are for the adults and the rooms for children are upstairs. There are 8 rooms upstairs. So some of the younger children share their room together."

The children excitedly bring both Ambrose and Celestina upstairs showing them their rooms and their toys which were bought by the maids for them.

"Look! This is Bianca! She's my friend forever!" Says Felisha while holding up a fluffy brown rabbit doll.

"It's so cute!" Celestina's reply makes the child giggle happily.

They played until the sun started to set. Louise who watched them played felt warm, he thought of his 2 younger sisters who're home always telling him stories whenever he comes home.

"Young miss, we should go now. It's started to get dark." Louise doesn't want to get in trouble with his master and not to mention, these kids need to have their dinner soon.

"Louise can we stay here tonight? I want to be with my friends." Ambrose asks.

"I'm not sure about that." Louise hesitates.

"How about I join you there and Ambrose stay here? I'm sure he would agree." Celestina says. The 'he' she's saying is Duke Francisco. She knows Ambrose must want to be with his friends in this abrupt change in situation.

"Fine. Let's go then" Louise finally gives in when Celestina gives him her puppy look.

"Okay! I will come back here tomorrow." Celestina hugs everyone there and follows Louise to the carriage.

Arriving in duke's mansion, the air is tense and quiet. The servants are all on their high toes and none of them dare to make a sound. Their duke came home with dark face and he slammed the door to his office after summon from His Majesty.

"Can I go see him? I want to thank him and I will explain about Ambrose to him." Celestina says not understanding the situation. Louise has no reason to reject her request and brings her up to his master's office.

"Master, Celestina would like to enter." Louise says after knocking.

"Come in"

The door opens and Celestina enters with her pink dress.

"Hi mister!" Celestina shows her brightest smile to the expressionless duke.

"Why are you here?" Francisco puts down his fountain pen and looks at the girl in her pink outfit.

"Right! I would like to thank you for all your help. If it wasn't for you, we will still be eating bland potatoes." Celestina bows slightly to express her gratitude more.

"... It's what should be done. Anything else?" Francisco blushes slightly at the girl's show of gratitude and composes himself after a while.

"And Ambrose decides to stay there with the other kids. I'm sure he will feel better with his friends there. Is it okay?"

Francisco feels relief when he hears the boy decided to stay there. The further the stay away from her, the better.

"It's definitely fine."

"Okay thank you mister" Celestina spins around and walks toward the door but she is stopped by his question.

"About that... until when are you going to call me mister?"

"Then what should I call you? Should I call you uncle?" Celestina feels like uncle is fine considering they just met and he might hate her if she calls him too familiar.

"... u-uncle?" He is expecting her to say something but not uncle!

"Uncle!" Celestina repeats brightly.

"Fine, let's take it step by step." Francisco doesn't know why but he feels deeply disappointed with just uncle.

"Then I am going to meet Ginny, see you later uncle."

Ginny brings her dinner to her room today. She says that the dining room will be too lonely as the duke won't be eating there. "He's super busy." She says.

After having her dinner, Ginny quietly places a small plate of chocolate pudding on her table.

"Pudding! My favorite! How do you know?" Celestina likes to eat pudding even in her old life, it adds some sweetness into her bitter life.

"All children likes pudding." Ginny chuckles at the little girl's words.

Celestina feels unfair, she's not a child and her soul has lives for more than 20 years. 'Adults can like puddings too.'

Thankfully the pudding tastes better than any pudding she ever eaten, it lifts her mood immediately.

"We are going back to Ashdown Mansion tomorrow. Duke's matters here are finally done so he decides to go back home as soon as possible. We'll have to wake up early tomorrow so let's quickly get ready and go to sleep." Ginny places her pajamas into a hanger and accompanies her into the bathroom. Celestina pushes her out by saying she isn't used to bathing with others and she will do it herself.

Ginny smiles understanding the girl's shyness and doesn't push her further. She places her pajamas inside the bathroom and left Celestina to do her business.

'We'll go to Ashdown tomorrow! The Ashdown I read from the novel is filled with exotic plants and is a very wealthy territory. I can't wait to go there.'

"Ah right, I forgot to mention this. The duke says we're going to buy some ready-made clothes for you before we start our journey home since our tailor is in Ashdown right now. The journey home will probably take 3 to 5 days as Ashdown is quite far from capital." Ginny says as she tucks Celestina into her bed.

"Good night now then miss, I hope you have a nice dream."

"Good night too, Ginny."

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