Suggestion

Only the children of the Duke Albinius and some of the servants remained inside the field. As for the rest, they have left to do their own work.

Odette Albinius swept her eyes across the crowd and noticed how all of her siblings mingled along well. Not bothering with that, she turned her back on them and was ready to leave the field.

Mireille followed after her, and as for Nicholas, he had to leave for her father had called for him earlier— not that it mattered to Odette.

Before Odette was able to leave, she felt a palm on shoulder, causing her to halt in her steps. Wearing a smile on her face, she turned back.

Richard Albinius stood behind her, and on his face was that usual gentle demeanour. His gaze was very much reminiscent of a caring older brother, and that irked Odette yet amused her in the same time. The emotions felt quite contradictory to her.

This was the first time she had noticed it. Maybe he had given her such a gaze before as well, but she was way too absorbed in beating him to realize that.

Either way, she did not care whether or not he held a fondness towards her. Such trivial matters were considered to be a waste of time. She felt cold towards this matter.

He had retracted her hand from her shoulder and questioned, "Are you free now, Odette?"

Odette nodded. Her schedule had nothing more than training in it, and that could always be flexible.

"Then, do you mind having some tea with me? I will make sure to add in your favourite snacks. Of course, after you clean yourself up."

°°°

Two of them were inside the gazebo. The garden in front of her was beautiful. Gorgeous flowers adorned the greenery, and there was a sense of variety. The Duchess was the one who took responsibility for the garden, so in a way, the ownership belonged to her to an extent.

In front of her was a table filled with various assortments of snacks along with a cup of tea. Although the snacks appeased her taste buds, the same could not be said for the tea before her. She found it being too bland.

Picking up a biscuit, Odette took a bite out of it while she observed her brother, Richard. He seemed to be enjoying the tea, which made her somewhat question his taste.

At times, she had wondered on how all of them would have been if they were born in a normal family. Odette had seen how siblings from those family were protective over each other and fought over trivial matters only to make up later on.

She wondered how it would have been for her to live in such a family in the past. But after a period of time, she had driven away these thoughts from her mind, which she regarded to be foolish and problematic.

Although Odette had the tendency to obtain whatever she wanted, there were some certain limitations to it, and this was one thing that fell into that limitation.

She understood how impossible it was for her to dream about that warmth. Someone as cold as her would not be able to adjust to the warmth. Therefore, she soon drove those thoughts away from her mind.

Once a strange man mentioned to her on how lonely she seemed, but Odette merely laughed it off. If she was enjoying her life and living it as she wished, how was she even lonely?

Loneliness was not something she understood. Maybe because she was alone from the very beginning that she did not feel loneliness as deeply as others did neither did it affect her.

"Does the tea and the snacks suit your taste?" Richard questioned.

His purpose on calling her at here was crystal clear to her, and she decided to play along with him for it was too boring for her back at her place.

Nothing like that happened in her previous life, but she knew that the skills she had shown in this life had influenced him to call her out.

Odette Albinius could not recall how skilled her seven year old self was and made her moves through the guesses. However, it seemed that she was not meticulous enough and attracted more attention than her previous life.

Although things had taken a different road, it did not matter to Odette much. She found thrill in unpredictable things, and such changes made things appealing to Odette. She would have been bored if things went similar to her previous life.

"The snacks are delicious," she replied.

"I am glad. However, it appears that you did not like the tea. I will prepare what you prefer the next time around," he voiced out.

Next time— his words caught her attention. Both of them did not hate each other neither did they hold an amiable relationship in her last life. She wondered what turn would things take with this change.

She nodded as she took a last bite out of her biscuit.

"You have tremendously improved, Odette," he commented.

"Thank you for the compliment, Brother," she spoke out, "I have put in more effort into practicing compared to before. When I have a brother like you, I can not afford to slack off."

"You will turn out to be more impressive than me. In such a short time, you managed to get so much skilled. I didn't even know about some of your techniques," he said.

By a short time, Odette understood what he meant. For someone who had trained for merely one and half year, she had managed to make immense progress, and Richard— who had trained for about three years— took Odette's skills to be fascinating.

"I have seen the Knights practice their skills the other day and picked up couple of their moves. That's all, Brother," she stated.

"You must be really talented in order to pick up some skills just by watching. Why don't we both train together? I am pretty sure both of us can teach other a lot," he suggested.